Abu Dhabi was never on my holiday list, in fact most of the Middle East weren't high on my holiday list. I would like to go to Iran, but I'm not that brave. And my impression of many of the other more 'open' middle east countries such as Dubai, Bahrain were a bit too artificial for my liking. If you have money, you can build anything.
On planning for my trip back to UK last month, I was searching for the cheapest tickets, as you would. There were limited options from Taiwan, most would transfer in Hong Kong, not a good idea at that time, or via one of the middle east airlines who normally do pretty good prices. Then I figured since I already booked my trip to Singapore, why not fly from Singapore back to UK? Perhaps there were more options than Taiwan. There were, and the cheapest ones were still the middle east airlines, and they were a tad cheaper than flying out from Taiwan.
In the end I flew from Singapore back to UK with Etihad as they were the cheapest. In addition, they threw in two nights free hotel at Abu Dhabi for passengers who wanted to do a stopover. That sounded like a good deal. A planned holiday to Singapore, followed by an unplanned stopover in Abu Dhabi, and finally an unknown duration stay back in UK. What's not to like about all this?
I arrived at Abu Dhabi airport at 11pm, and flew out at 1pm the day after next. I had 38 hours to explore Abu Dhabi, probably just enough to get a taster of the country. I was sort of doing a runner (from the virus), so wasn't really in the mood to do that much exploring. I only wanted to go to one place, the Sheikh Zayed Grand Mosque which would take me 3 or 4 hours the max. That would leave me a good half a day to wander around the city.
CENTRAL MARKET
Ideally I would have like to visit a souk or market whilst in town, but I read something about the last main one being burnt down a while ago. I had to settle on a shopping mall called Central Market that sold a lot of handicraft stuff. One shop sold carpets and had this sign "feel me" above a carpet. I did, and boy, the carpet was so soft and smooth! I fell in love with it immediately. The owner invited me into the shop, throwing all his carpets on the floor for me to touch. The really soft ones were knitted with 100% silk and were so beautiful. If I bought one, I wouldn't be able to bring myself to step on them.
Next stop was my favourite place when I go away - the supermarket. I love how you can learn about people's lives from a supermarket. Of course, I spent a lot of time around the snacks aisle, not that I was going to buy anything as my luggage was full already. However, it was interesting to see that Kit Kat had created some mini desserts flavours. They always do interesting flavour in many countries. I like these popcorns because they had Tom and Jerry on the carton. They were my favourite cartoon when I was a kid.
LIME SCOOTERS
As I was walking around the city, I noticed quite a few scooters randomly left on the streets. And it wasn't just at one spot. It was on quite a few different spots. I thought how odd, and risky as someone could just take it away. Then I went to take a closer look. Turns out these are shared e-scooters. I've seen shared bikes before, but scooters is the first. Interesting.
ONE THE RUN
One thing that I did buy at the supermarket earlier that day was some henna to colour my hair. Yes, random I know. I've been meaning to colour my hair for ages but just never got round to it. When I saw the henna at the supermarket, I thought why not, as henna originated in the middle east or thereabouts. And since I didn't have much to do at the hotel in the evening, I figured I'd go the whole hog when one goes on the run. I hacked down a coke bottle with hubby's nose clipper scissors and used the coffee stirrer to mix the henna. I think it turned out ok 😚
And that's a quick overview of my 38 hour layover in Abu Dhabi before I flew back home to UK.
Next time, I'm going to share my visit to the Sheikh Zayed Grand Mosque. Perhaps I shall make that my first Hive post.
