Last Friday

Had quite an enjoyable day with a few mis-timings. I took the hotel shuttle bus to Jumierah Beach Park again and had a very relaxing morning/early afternoon. Instead of rushing off into town when I got back to the hotel I decided to go to the gym and had a very good workout. I also decided to go into town later as the last time I was there on a Friday the Souks didn't open until late afternoon/early evening. After gym/shower etc I took a taxi to Lime Street Cafe on beach road as it sounded really nice in my liitle guide book. Unfortunately the traffic was awful and it took me over an hour to get there. When I arrived they told me that it was take away only as they were closing in 5 minutes! How dissapointing! The fresh fruit smoothies and big slabs of quiche and carrot cake looked amazing. But I had to forgo these and bought a bottle of water and 2 chickens kebabs as they were the easiest to transport. So, with the water tucked into my handbag and the box with kebabs under my arm I sdtarted walking along he beach road in the direction of downtown looking for a taxi. None passed ever. I also realised that even if they did there was no place to pull over and the traffic was quite intense and going really quite fast. It is a main road with with I think 3 lanes of traffic. I then reached the end of the pavement or rather I got as far as the pavement had been built and reached the paving building works. Using my little map I walked into the back streets to find the other main street that crosses through beach road. All the while I am gettimg hungrier and hungrier but with no place to sit and eat. When I finally reached this other main road (via surburbia) I almost considered sitting on the roundbout as at least that bhad some grass. Finally I found a bench on shopping street in another residential area and sat and ate my cold kebabs and drank my warm water while feeling quite hot and bothered. 10 minutes later I found a taxi but that had been after an hour of walking!! and it had got dark. He took me to Dubai Museum as this what I had planned to do after the cafe. I'm sooo glad I got the taxi as there was no way I could have walked so far. Dubai Museum was really interesting - showing the life of Emirates over the last few hundred days up to the modern day. No photos I'm afraid but maybe I'll take some when I go with Sat. As I was so behind on my scheduke though it meant I had missed the opening times of the Heritage House, Almidya Schhol and Majlis (meeting room). I took an abra over the creek, which looked great at night, and wondered round the gold souk and got annoyed with the traders at Deira old souk who were practically throwing pashminas at me. Bargaining in a souk is something I usually enjoy but today I was just not in the mood. Instead of eating at a cafe my the creek I decided to call it a day and head back to the hotel where I had a mezze at the rooftop bar with 2 cosmopolitans (the 2nd one being very strong).