DUBAI BYE BYE!

Alright. I finally get to sit down behind my computer to do this. Was way too tired to do so for the past few days.

Anyway, it was a great experience to be able to go on a business trip to Dubai. It was a last minute arrangement and I only got to know about it 1-2 days before.

I flew on Sunday morning, around 1am, Singapore time and it was my first time flying Emirates. I must say the food and service were not bad. The only bad thing about the flight was that I had to do a transit at Colombo. A pity that I didnt get to fly on SQ as all the flights were fully booked. =(

Dubai Airport

Emirati in their national costume

Touched down at Dubai around 6am, the local time is 4 hours behind Singapore's. We were lucky to be accompanied by another colleague who used to work in Dubai so he was pretty much the guy who took care of us. Anyway, we checked into the hotel and we had a quick wash up and off we left for the client's office for the meeting at 9am. 

Hotel Room

The bed which I hardly slept on...

Place where we had our breakfast everyday. Same menu day in and out.



Client office in Dubai

One thing I learnt in Dubai was that Emiraties adore gold colour. Perhaps it is due to the Sun but almost all their buildings look shiny and bright in the hot desert sun.

FYI, my typical schedule in Dubai is like that (Dubai time):

7am : Meet at the hotel cafe area for a quick breakfast

8am: Reach client's office

2pm: Lunch at one of those fastfood restaurants near the office

5-6pm: Leave for the hotel

6-8pm: Dinner

8pm-4am: Slides and report

I only got the chance to have nice dinners on 2-3 days; authentic arabian dinner at Deira City Centre and the other was at some famous Thai restaurant (Blue Elephant) with the F-21 boss. Will talk a bit more about the dinner I had.

BTW, here are some pictures that I took on the first day while we travelled long the busiest street(Shiekh Zayed Road) in Dubai. It is where all the financial institutions are located at.



My only day shot of Burj Khalifa (highest building in the World). The photographer only took 3/4 of the building. Anyway, the golden building that you see behind is theit metro station. Looks really opulent!




Met up with the big boss in F-21 who is managing the whole of retail in Sharaf DG and one of their retail lines is Forever 21. Apparently the company is a really huge and established one with global presence. The boss was really nice, went to pick us up from the hotel lobby and took us a nice dinner in one of the posh hotels. He brought us to Blue Elephant which is pretty famous as I heard of it in Thailand too. In fact, my friend attended a cooking class with the branch in Thai which cost about $200 for a half day course.

Anyway, had an engaging chat with the boss. He came across as a really hands-on guy and really understands what the consumers want. Quite an experience to attend a business dinner and I thought we had a fruitful one as we managed to iron out some details and even came out some new marketing ideas. Dinner ended around 10:30pm and when I returned to the hotel, I still had to settle the report and powerpoint slides. I think I slept for half and hour that day?

Blue Elephant (Thai Restaurant) which F-21 second in-line brought us to

I didn't get much free time and the only time I had was on the last day when the presentation to the CEO was finally done. The only time I had was this small window of 6 hours before we had to take the midnight flight back to Singapore. So with the little time I had, I took the metro to DCC again and I bought 2 shorts from H&M. The retail theapy was gratifying! Hahaha

Some pictures I took along the way...

Did I see this in Singapore before?

The street which I stayed along...

Random building near the financial district.

There are tonnes of fast and flashy cars in Dubai. The people are rich.

The colleague who drove us around kind of pity me so he volunteerd to drive us around on the last day, despite being tired himself. I felt so paiseh as he specifically took the trouble to give us a spin before heding back to Singapore with is.

He drove us to several touristy places:

Mall of Dubai...

Tried the same restuarant in Thailand

Burj Al Arab Atkins

Atlantis Hotel in Palm Jumeria

By the time we went back to the hotel, it was already 1230 and we had to gather at the hotel lobby at 1am to catch the flight back. While we were at the hotel lobby, the same colleague who drove us around gave me some good feedback and comments. Apreciative.

In any case, it was a fruitful trip. Maybe there will be a Part 2?