First of all A Belated HAPPY NEW YEAR TO ALL OF YOU. Thanks a lot to all my beautiful readers who have been with me and encouraged me to keep on blogging. And also tolerate my long absences with patience.I promise to try to blog more this year give equal justice to my space and give you more of the treasured family recipes. So here’s a little happening of events which took place in household of Gheza-e-shiriin.
On December 20th, I received the news my cousin & my eldest Sis plans to visit Dubai . After my parents canceled their visit to Dubai due to health issues this news brought lots of happiness. I was super duper excited and my mind started running fast to calculate the sights that can be covered within their short trip of 10 days. I was meeting my cousin bro after 11 years and was excited to see what that little boy has turned to.& Finally the day came , for their arrival. After a long time , I realized that when you wait for someone, the days seem to pass very slowly. We arrived to the airport to receive them.
Source: Gulfnews
Day 1: was all about catching up the happening in the family. And I was amazed, happy to see the grownup man my cousin had become. Mature , responsible and well mannered. During dinner we made our plans to cover the sights in 10 days of their entire stay. As K had some office work for morning, we asked them to cover the Ibne Battuta Mall via metro for the first half day. While the evening was decided for Global Village.
These are the few glances of the Ibne Battuta Mall located on Sheikh Zayed road.As the name suggest, the mall is named after an Arab traveler and adventurer Ibne Battuta who set off to journey the world at the age of 20. The mall is divided into six courts Andalusia, Tunisia, Egypt, Persia, India & China reflecting the architecture of these six countries.If you want to really look around the mall, then spare nearly 3 hours for it.
As discussed for the second half of the day we proceeded to Global Village – Dubai.
Well Global Village started in 1996 by Dubai Government is the largest shopping, leisure & entertainment project. Consisting of different pavilions from different countries it is a considered a biggest shopping festival in the world. It starts in the colder months of the region starting from October till March. In between , there is Dubai Shopping Festival (DSF) for a month where all the shops in Dubai participate giving discounts on purchases. And there are many other prices with Raffle tickets to be won along with discounts like the cars and daily 1 kg gold Isn’t that great.
After entering , we saw the ladies selling a local delicacy called Lgeimat. A yeast based dumpling fried and served hot with date syrup. Have you eaten Indian Gulgulas. The texture is somewhat like it but with a different taste.
Stay tuned for the next post as Lgeimat recipe will be up.
The Emirati’s performing the local dance outside UAE pavilion
‘Entrance of UAE Pavilion
Saffron waiting to be sold. I purchase my yearly stock from here.
Moving on to Yemen Pavilion.
House of all things spices.
And Honey
Jewelries & local antiques of Yemeni
Next Pavilion is Pakistan.
A destination to shop for Lawn materials, Leather jackets.
Kuwait Pavilion. Local emiratis performing to the tunes of Kuwaiti singer. It was beautiful watching it. Who said there was no music in Arab culture.
We now moved forward to the Iran pavilion. A glimpse of there best architecture, the spice souqs & the iranian saffron.
Irani Faloodeh a sweet delicacy worth trying. Recipe lined up on the blog.
In between visiting the pavilions , we saw the Music & laser show at the water canal that passes between the pavilions.
and a Shadow sculpture in one of the Turkey Or Iranian pavilion. Not sure.
Going towards Turkey pavilion
Highlights of the Turkish pavilion were the belongings of Prophet Muhammed (Peace be upon him), his daughter Hazrat Syeda Fatimah bin Zahra (RA) & his Sahabahs.
Due to shortage of time, we were not able to cover Africa, Qatar, Tunisia, Spain , Palestine, Morocco, UK,Germany & many more.
I know this post is very long. But wanted all to give you a visual treat for what this beautiful country has to offer. Sometime , I feel the locals have welcomed us with open hands and given us the feeling of home far away from home.
There is more to come in the later parts. Its just the beginning.
NOTE: All the photographs are taken by me & cousin Zuber. & thus property of Gheza-e-Shiriin.
