When you hear about Dubai, people mention deserts, futuristic buildings, landmarks, and shopping. The Burj Khalifa is the world’s tallest building and averages 17 million visitors a year. While that and so many other buildings are superlative-laden: tallest, leaning-est, most spiraling, I ended up having interesting side quests that I didn’t have in my itinerary.
While I was solo in Dubai, I stayed with some friends once I made it to Abu Dhabi (an hour’s drive from Dubai) and they took me on some lesser-known adventures:
- Expat Brunch Culture
- Expo City
- The Last Exit – a Mad Max Rest Stop
Expat Brunch Culture
As of 2024, more than 90% of Dubai’s population are expats. I’m pretty sure that 100% of them love to have brunch. We met up with some of their friends (one from U.S., one from England) – both lovely people. We started our brunching at 1pm and brunched until 6pm. I don’t think I’ve ever brunched so hard. Course after course, drink after drink, we were swelling like ticks but cutely, on a beach and in nice outfits.
We chose Zenzi Beach on the Palm Jumeirah, brunching like responsible adults who are very cognizant that they should not be obviously intoxicated in public but still having enough fun that it was approaching sunset as we left. The Palm Jumeirah is a man-made, palm-tree-shaped island.
Note: Dubai does everything bigger, so of course it has the biggest ferris wheel in the world — beating its counterpart in London by 250+ meters and capable of carrying 1,400 people at a time (versus London’s 800).
