I was invited to Dubai last April to attend the Middle East Film & Comic Con - I had been wanting to attend the previous two years and was so glad that I could finally make it.
Dubai is a wonderful international city and even though the main language is Arabic, English is the second language that is spoken by the majority of folks who power the service sector so if you are thinking of traveling and feel more comfy speaking in English then you wont have any probs making your way around.
April had a good climate to visit - not too hot (when in the shade) with cool evenings - felt a lot like Los Angeles.
We stayed at the Conrad Hotel in Dubai which is located just opposite the MEFCC venue at the World Trade Center. Great service and brekkie in a good location. I was surprised that tourists to Dubai had to pay a "tourist tax" per day - its not much though at about 5 USD.
To travel on the metro, get yourself a NOL card and top it up when needed.
For most of my childhood, I was brought up by an Indian family where we watched pretty much every Amitabh Bachchan movie there was.
At Dubai Mall - the world largest which is big enough to house dinosaurs.
Our Mirai-chan just happens to work part time at Kinokuniya - here she is stacking the Japanese learning deck of cards Moekanji.
Mirai-chan enjoyed her trip to Dubai too. Here she is wearing the prototype T-shirt developed by Murasaki.me.
This is the main street in Dubai - Sheikh Zayed Road used to look like this back in 1990.
With comrades Jassim and Fatma who I met through Instagram. I helped them to establish Qatar's first ever hobby store "Hobbychan" who also became official distributors of Smart Doll.
The Burj Khalifa is the worlds tallest artificial structure - many of you who watched the latest Mission Impossible would have seen it being scaled by Tom Cruise.
Before I released Smart Doll, I carried around Mirai for a year or so as a test run - the learnings that I gained from the posing, storage during transit etc are all reflected in the final product.
Shisha (also known as Hookah) is a waterpipe which vaporizes herbs and leaves through hot water placed inside.
I was told that there is no nicotine and is harmless so I tried it once - and will never try it again as it left me feeling dizzy for a long time ><
At least it doesn't smell like cigarette smoke though.
And this is where I will be seeing you again at MEFCC - check out the previous years event photo report here.