Old Dubai Charm - Getting lost in Al Bastakiya

Attributing Dubai with the description "charming" seems like a misconception. Dubai is vibrant and over-the-top... and flashy. Like a glittering disco ball. Charming would be the simple, inexpensive baubles my grandmother use to decorate the Christmas tree, and hold some form of nostalgia or sentiment. All of which Dubai know nothing of.*

*This is just my personal assessment and opinion of a city  I visited for 48 hours, and objectivity is not one of my selling points. Also, I'm not for sale.

But I'm here to tell you that that's all "New Dubai"! Old Dubai is charming, and resonate with the simplicity of years before skyscrapers, water theme parks and hordes of tourists happened to Dubai.

Marvelling at a magical Year of Travel, and having the Pictures to Prove It

I think it's fair to say - nay, proclaim to all!, that twenty twelve was my bitch! In fact, it might have been the best year of my life, albeit a difficult one. Despite it's challenges I can truly say it was overall a MAGICAL year, the main reason being the absurd amount of travel I got to do with my hubby. That and the fact that only a small margin of it was wasted on fighting with him. (Yes we have our rows, but this year, I can only recall one that ended in screaming with tears and snot gushing from my face, while blindly marching into the seedy night-life of Amsterdam.)*

*To put it into perspective, 2011 started out great with a two week trip to Thailand, but the rest was a never ending flow of shattered dreams and disillusionment; which of course spilled over into waves of constant arguments with my husband. To put it mildly: F#CK YOU 2011!

We go to the desert, and it floods.

I think many would agree that Dubai is quite an impressive city. Artificial, but impressively so. On our recent trip to Sri Lanka we decided to stop over for two days to explore another new corner of the globe and add a new Customs stamp to our growing collection. (I'm very proud of my bad-ass, inked passport!) And it did not disappoint. It was exactly what we expected, just  more exaggerated and overpriced. We saw many incredible things in Dubai, all of which made my mouth gape like a monkey spotting a lion...

There were foreigners, foreigners galore! Not tourists mind you, but ex-pats who live and work and play there like they own the place. It's also clear that they don't.

Airplanes - The modern day torture device

There's a reason why this blog is called "like.love.travel"...and it has nothing to do with the speech formations of a Californian "valley girl".
For all the wonderful horizon broadening, frame of reference stretching (and bank account shrinking) effects that travel has in my life; there's one part about it that I don't quite love so much... Travelling.

The actual "getting there" part is just sucky! People say "it's not the destination, it's about the journey" (and I want to agree with them), but these people obviously don't suffer from motion sickness! As a baby I threw up on my mother EVERY TIME we got in the car; being young and uneducated in the ways of babies she thought this was normal. Poor young fool. (This was in the days when adults felt it was okay for children to be transported in moving vehicles without being strapped into a car seat.)  It hasn't gotten any better with age... the motion sickness, my mother has gotten wise and not much older-looking. (I hope you're reading this Mom.)

Hong Kong Highlights

I've already tried to describe my infectious attraction to Hong Kong, like nerds to Cosplay. It's unnatural and cannot be rationalized. It's also clearly not conducive to writing a sane blog piece (which is already a challenge since my sanity is debatable and can only be stretched so thin). My attempt turned into a mushy love declaration to my sweet husband. Yuk! (Not the husband, the goowy-ness of my public affection.) After all that writing I'm still a little confused as to the origin of my love for Hong Kong, which made me realize that other people (those who read this blog for instance) must be A LOT confused! (So basically, one person then.)

So without all the touchy-feely nonsense here's some concrete "To Do's" if you ever get to Hong Kong. And when you get there, Hong Kong will work it's magic on you and you'll return a smitten, stammering, poop flinging buffoon like me.

10 Compelling reasons why I could never be a Vegetarian

Before anyone gets all self-righteous about animals being cute and fluffy and how wrong it is to eat them, I would like to start by stating: I love animals...I think they're delicious! Some may even be more delicious than others...

Exhibit A: Our fluffy fat-hobbit kitty! We rescued her from a flooding drain pipe when she was 5 weeks old and now she thinks she owns me. She spends her days following me around the house, insisting on every drop of my attention. And watching me pee. Due to her cuteness and soft jelly-belly, I'm pretty sure she would be delicious baked into a cupcake!

She thinks she's people!

My Love Affair with Hong Kong

Have you ever been somewhere that you didn't have a very high expectation of enjoyability beforehand, but for reasons you can't quite fathom you love it so much you can't properly articulate? When you try to string some nonsensical words together people look at you funny and quietly ponder the possibilities for your behaviour, such as falling on your head as a child or exposure to the Ebola virus.

Kowloon

 I want to tell you about how awesome Hong Kong is, but that's the problem I have right now. If I could I'd jump up and down like an overly excited chimpanzee and fling my own poop, but humans don't have the luxury of this being acceptable behaviour and quite frankly I'm concerned that it will reflect badly on Hong Kong. (And my upbringing - you're welcome Mom!) So I'll try to use only words, and no profanity which is a challenge all on it's own!