Fireworks and Camel Burgers..

Fireworks over the Creek

On Saturday, we decided to check out the Dubai Shopping Festival. The Shopping Festival is a month long event to promote shopping in Dubai (big shocker). All the stores have big sales and promotions and they have little carnival/fair like activities with flea market-esque stands and rides and bouncies for the kids down by the Creek. They also have a parade every single day for 30 days and fireworks every single night over the Creek (Allegedly Dubai's economy is shot, but imagine how much it must cost to put on a 15 minute fireworks display, and a good one at that, for 30 straight nights??). We weren't so interested in the fun fair aspects, but wanted to check out the fireworks and also thought it might be fun and relaxing to go for a walk down by the Creek on what was actually a pretty chilly night (extremely unusual here).

Yum. Camel Burger and Camel Milk Shake.

We had also read about a restaurant down by the Creek in Bastakia (the old town section of Dubai, with the old houses and architecture) that has recently started selling Camel Burgers. Obv. we had to try it asap. So we parked down by the DSF (Dubai Shopping Festival) festivities and walked around for a bit to check it out. Pretty much just stand after stand of cheap watches interspersed with ghetto looking (definitely not OSHA approved, that's for sure) kiddie rides and carnival games. Not too many western people. So we got bored of that fairly quickly and walked to Bastakia further down the Creek and found the Local House Restaurant for dinner. Jared had to order both the Camel Burger and Camel Milk Shake. I ordered the Camel Burger but wasn't brave enough for the Shake yet (my previous experiences with Camel Milk were not so pleasant), so ordered the Cow Milk Shake. Camel meat is notoriously tough and not tender at all, but somehow they tenderized it and the burgers were actually delicious (notwithstanding deplorable service). They also came with surprisingly good fries (we could see the kitchen from our seat and expectations were not high after we saw them pull the fries out of the freezer and put them into the fryer), and a small salad for equivalent $10 USD a piece. So, since we weren't home to cook our New Years Resolution "new recipe" of the week, I am letting the camel burgers slide through as our new food item of the week. Delicious. Can't wait to eat some more camel!

Walking through Bastakia at night is so beautiful I couldn't resist taking pictures of the traditional Windtower Houses all lit up. So pretty. Probably one of the least superficial areas of Dubai, which is why we love it so much.

Another View of the Windtowers...

Panoramic View of Bastakia with the Bastakia Mosque in the background (the notorious Mosque that when I visited Jared for the first time in Dubai in November 2007, we were taking pictures of when the call to prayer came on, and Jared in his typical overreacting manner started yelling, "Jen, get out of there, hurry, get away from the Mosque, quick, Let's go!!")....