There are 5 big animals also known as ‘the big five games’ of Africa. Those animals are
They are referred to as the Big Five because they are the most difficult animals to hunt on foot. They can easily kill you and crush you.
According to our tour guide, he said it’s extremely difficult to find Leopards and Rhinoceros but we were so lucky that we managed to see all 5.
I’ve been travelling since the age of 1. My first trip was to the Philippines; however, my mum and I had a stopover in Brunei which makes it the first country I’ve ever visited. As a child, my travel was limited and it was only between Lebanon and Philippines. Since being born and raised in Dubai, my parents did not want me to forget my roots.
My first diverse route was to Syria where I visited historical places. Syria was only a 2 hour drive from where we stayed in Lebanon. Then in 2010 I’ve travelled to a new destination outside my comfort zone and that’s where I caught the travel bug. That destination was India, later I couldn’t stop travelling; I visited Oman, Brunei again, Spain, Germany and Malaysia. So from family travels, I diverted to visiting new destinations outside my culture to witness the other countries touristic attractions.
Years later in 2014, I booked a last minute ticket to Singapore and ended up meeting my husband. Our trip included fun activities such as visiting Singapore Zoo and Universal Studios. In my blog ‘How We Met’ (https://belliontravels.com/2016/06/17/singapore/) , I’ve mentioned that we met every month in a new country to sustain our long distance relationship. Since they were short trips, we became travellers who squeezed a lot of touristic attractions and fun activities in a short period of time.
Once we got married, our travel habit has changed. Since we both have full time jobs and have limited annual leave, we decided to visit as many places as we can and the trip ends up to be rapido rapido rapido……
After taking 2 weeks off of work, we managed to visit Japan, Philippines, Macau and Hong Kong. I was beyond content and especially that Japan affected me a lot. I thought I took really awesome pictures for the blog and social media accounts until 5 of my friends who visited Japan a week after me took similar pictures and that’s when I realised that Tim and I need to change our travel style.
When I was having lunch with Tim and my brother ‘Mohammad’, I was telling them that something was missing in my travels. I want something different and unique. At this stage, I’ve decided to travel to new places and learn as much as I can until I find the right style. Where myself and others can benefit from.
So for now and hopefully not for long, we will be the kind of travellers who cram as much knowledge as we can but someday we will find what I’m searching for.
Arabian Tea House was recommended by my dear friend Christina. Tim and I visited old Dubai several times for Art Night, Dubai Treasure Hunt and many other events.
Arabian Tea House is one of the few original and cultural places in Dubai that serves Arabic food in an old traditional Emirati house. The restaurant is a mix of Gulf and Levant dishes. Their Arabic coffee is a must; they prepare it really well. If you ever want to try it make sure to ask the waiter to boil the coffee, it brings out the flavor.
The prices are fairly reasonable and their salads are very delicious. If you are visiting from abroad, I recommend you take Al Fahidi station and walk towards the Dubai Museum or Creek. Take the traditional Abra ride for AED 1 equivalent to £ 0.21 to go to the Gold Souq on your way back take the Abra and stop at Arabian Tea House for a traditional meal.
Sahtein – Bon Appetite
Tim and I took 14 days off of work; actually to be precis, we took 10 working days off to finalise personal errands in the Philippines and then continue our holiday to other destinations.
So our itinerary of 14 days covered, Philippines, Japan, Hong Kong and Macau. I guess being a full-time employee to a huge organisation restricts our travels because of the limited days off.
In UAE, we are entitled for 22 working days off but being an expatriate, our holidays include visiting families abroad which means travelling to the same destination quite often. We don’t mind it at all because we really do miss them. So our current travel mission is to cover as much places as we can in a short period of time.
Here is how our itinerary looked like (not detailed)
Day 1: Landed late night in Philippines
Day 2: Makati, Philippines
Day 3:
Day 4: Landed in Narita Airport and took a bullet train to Kyoto
Day 5: Kyoto
Day 6: Nara & Kyoto
Day 7: Kyoto and took a bullet train to Tokyo
Day 8: Tokyo
Day 9:
Day 10:
Day 11: Macau & Hong Kong Island
Day 12: Lantau Island – travelled to Philippines
Day 13: Eastwood, Green Hills, Pasig, Marikina and Antipolo.
Day 14: We woke up an hour before check out and had breakfast in Pasig and headed straight to the airport.
Day 15: BACK TO THE OFFICE
PHEW!!! Typing the itinerary was as tiring as the trip but worth it. LOL. I really want to dedicate time to write about it because we’ve learned a lot and observed a lot and I’m dying to share everything with you.
Unlike most of my other posts, I want to put a lot more effort into writing about our experiences and stories, particularly Japan. I’ve visited 20+ countries and Tim has been to 30+ countries and by far our favourite country is Japan and I can’t think of any other place that can beat it. It was Tim’s third visit and that says a lot and I can’t wait to go back.
Tim and I are back from our holiday. We’ve managed to squeeze Philippines (Makati, Pasig and Bonifacio), Japan (Tokyo, Kyoto and Nara), Hong Kong (Kowloon, HK and Lantau Island) and Macau in just 2 weeks.
I’ve got lots to blog about especially Japan. It was my first and Tim’s third visit to the most awesome country in the world.
I FELL IN LOVE WITH JAPAN.
Today, I visited a coffee shop near our apartment called ‘Drip House’. It’s located in Dubai Investment Park and every Saturday they organise a meet up event about various things. The topic I attended was about Social Media and Blogging which I benefited from, ALOT.
Before brainstorming and writing about our trip, you may check out our other Social Media platforms to follow. Where I update my stories on Instagram and share other bloggers/ vloggers content on my facebook page.
Can’t wait to share our travel stories with you…
Follow BellionTravels for daily updates
Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/belliontravels/
Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/belliontravels/
Twitter: https://twitter.com/BellionTravels
Catch you later
Xx
When Tim and I were dating, we managed to travel almost every month to a new country and explore new places. The thing is, circumstances have changed, the market isn’t doing great and everyone is careful on how they are spending their money.
So instead, Tim and I thought why not stay at resorts and visit historical places around UAE. And that’s when we booked a night at a 5 star resort in Ras Al Khaimah called ‘The Cove Rotana Resort’. Yeah, I know what you’re thinking… Ahaaa careful with their money and staying at 5 star hotels. Well here’s the thing we book months in advance and in addition, booking.com always updates me about upcoming deals and of course I check groupon.ae everyday for affordable deals.
Our stay included breakfast so when it came to dinner, Tim an I drove 10 minutes to a new development called ‘Mina Al Arab’. It was a stretch of restaurants and coffee shops and since we have the ‘entertainer app’, we picked a restaurant that was included in the app so we ate at a Vietnamese restaurant called ‘Hanoi’. The food was extremely delicious but the coffee was just too sweet.
We spent the night at the lounge called ‘Breeze’ till 1AM. The place served Hookah aka Shisha. There are so many restaurants to try at the hotel. Our actual first stop was at ‘Breakers on the Beach’ but we got there at 10PM when they were already closing. Like C’mon who closes a bar at 10PM. Anyway that’s when we continued to Breeze. For breakfast we went to a restaurant called Cinnamon which is an all-day dining place. Before leaving the hotel, we had a pina colda sorbet at the Sunset Bar.
I spent a few hours sitting at the terrace of our room, blogging and editing photos for upcoming blogs.It was so relaxing and it was exactly what Tim and I needed of the weekend. Hotel has a vibe of Spanish and a mix of Moroccan which we really love and the best thing about the hotel was the infinity pool that overlooks the beach and the hotel rooms.
I recommend the place for the weekend, it’s one of the best hotels we stayed at in UAE.
1996 was the year when Dubai Shopping Festival began and it was a huge thing back then. People from around the world would visit just to go shopping. It was held from Feb – March however currently it’s being held for months. One of the concepts for Shopping Festival was to have ‘Global Village’.
It’s one of my favourite places to go for food shopping. Why is that you say? Well because distributors and traders bring unique products from housewares, clothes, food, equipment’s etc. from all around the world.
When Tim moved to Dubai, I recommended that we should go and check it out because he loves trying out food from around the world. We bought Zaatar (dried thyme) from Palestine, teas from China, Lattes and Sweets from Japan, Nuts from Iran, Apple Tea and Coffee from Turkey and the list goes on and on…..
Last year, we took my mother in law and my brothers around the world for 1 day. We had a great time, watching live performances and trying out food samples.
Global Village opens in November and closes beginning of April. So visit anytime in between. February and March are the perfect months to visit because the weather won’t be cold and won’t be hot and doesn’t rain much.
Bon Voyage 🙂
Rove Hotel offers an urban hipster kinda looking style hotel for budgeted travellers. The company I work for offered discounted rates for staff in any of the 3 branches in Dubai. So Tim and I selected Downtown area, it is closer to Dubai Mall and the hub of the city.
We’ve booked 2 rooms so that my father and brothers can experience the hotel and it’s accommodating services. We paid £40 (AED 200) a night inclusive of breakfast and tax. We all arrived at 1PM for an early check in. Later, we got into our swimming suits and went for a swim and of course sun bathing.
As it got dark, we went back to our rooms to rest a little and get ready for dinner. We then went for a walk to Dubai Mall which took us around 15 minutes. We had the entertainer vouchers so we ate at an Asian restaurant called ‘Japengo’.
We went back to our hotel to have tea and juices at their only restaurant called ‘The Daily’ and it’s the same place where we had our breakfast. The next day, we woke up at 6AM went straight to the gym and afterwards had breakfast and of course went for a swim.
The hotel is a lovely place to stay, it’s cozy and affordable. The ambiance is urban but homely and the reception has a play station for the people to play. Definitely a good hotel to stay at for budgeted travellers.
Tim’s mum ‘Shirley’ visited us for Christmas and New Years. So I took a day off and we drove to Ras Al Khaimah to visit Dhayah Fort. On our way to the place, the GPS led me through a small town and narrow roads which got us a bit worried anyway after a bumpy ride and being cautious, we found our way to the Fort and it was located on a hill.
When we arrived at our destination, I parked my car in front of a Guest House called ‘Qalat Dhayah’ which translates to Dhayah Castle, so I assumed that we would have to purchase a ticket so when Tim and I got out of the car, two boys in their early 20’s shouted the F’ Word for no reason. We just ignored and wanted to continue to the fort but unexpectedly an old man comes out of the balcony and asks me if someone swore and I replied in Arabic and said Yes but it’s okay. He then invited us in and explained that the Emirati culture is about welcoming guests and being hospitable and he called authorities and filed a complain. He served us Arabic coffee and dates from his farm and later told us he was the owner of the farm and gave us a history lesson of Ras Al Khaimah. He even gave us a free tour to show us his goats, bulls, cats and dogs.
Anyway as we thanked him and continued to the Fort, the Athan’ Call for Prayer’ started and was being chanted beautifully and the view was surreal. Everything the light touched belong to the old man. LOL just wanted to sound like Mufasa from The Lion King. By the look of it all, he owned the majority of the farms that were surrounding the fort.
It was a joyful trip, the weather was perfect, we met interesting people and we learned a lot. On the same day, we continued our journey to Ajman to have lunch with my brother Omar and my dad.
Tim and I have seen the best two aquariums in Dubai. The first one we visited is located in Dubai Mall which is one of the top 5 biggest aquariums in the world and is located in the biggest mall in the world. The place is called ‘Dubai Aquarium and Under Water Zoo’.
http://www.thedubaiaquarium.com/en/Default.aspx
The second aquarium is called’The Lost Chambers’ and is located in the Atlantis. It’s one of the best resorts on the Palm Island. I PERSONALLY LOVE THAT PLACE. The aquarium has really awesome interiors and you’ll feel like you are in a Sci-Fi movie. The resort also has an amazing water park and offers an experience of a lifetime, swimming with dolphins which I will blog about separately.
https://www.atlantisthepalm.com/marine-water-park/lost-chambers-aquarium
I highly recommend you visit both, there are activities such as diving with sharks, feeding fish and many many more…
There are other aquariums located in the UAE however those are the best ones so don’t miss it if you visit Dubai.
