Day 3, December 25: Christmas Day Touring Dubai -- Part 2

Museum of the Future, Christmas night

Upon our return from the morning's tour and shopping, we immediately went to the hotel's Cinescope Restaurant, the place where we eat breakfast each morning. This time, we were joining them for the "Christmas Day Roast." We had registered for it on the previous day. The restaurant had been decorated with a variety of Christmas and Willy Wonka themes. Fortunately for you, dear reader, my camera had run out of power, so I took no pictures. However, I captured three photos using Patrise's phone. Here they are:

Left to right: the table setting, the napkin greeting, the dessert samples

After the Christmas roast -- it was sufficiently festive, but frankly the food was not well prepared. The duck, in particular, was very tough! -- we returned to the room and crashed for a very much needed nap. I slept for a long time; Patrise not so much.

Upon awakening, we washed up and dressed for the evening's cruise and dinner. This evening had been declared "white night" by the travel agency, encouraging all of us to wear white outfits. We dressed in white, made our way to the ground floor, met up with the other travelers and then off we went.

The cruise was up and down Dubai Creek, which is where Dubai began as a settlement. Our guide, Marshall to us that the "original" creek was significantly extended by engineers into the much longer waterway we traversed this evening. We had a good buffet of local cuisine, while listening to music and viewing scenes of the city lights at night. The music was intriguing to me, as the selection of songs were curious. We heard Arab hip hop to "The Wobble." It was all good dancing music, but we just did our dancing in our seats. The evening ended with a spectacular fire works display.

Dubai could be called the "City of Lights," except Paris claimed that nom de guerre long before Dubai was a city of any significance. Still, it is a beautiful city at night. Here is a gallery of photos from the evening.

After the boat ride, we did some souvenir shopping in the shop of Ibrahim Naseri (depicted in the final photo below, purchasing perfumes, spices, and other knick knacks. Then the bus made its way back to the hotel. It was a long, but enjoyable Christmas Day away from the Unites States.