Dubai Miracle and Butterfly Garden

While my line sisters, LaTia and Makuyo were in town in April we went to check out the Miracle and Butterfly Garden in Dubai.  Note to self and those who are reading this, don't visit the gardens when it's hot outside...duh.  It's actually closed now until the winter season because it's just too hot here to visit.  Luckily the butterfly section had air conditioning and this part of the park is open year round.  

The Miracle Garden (not sure why they call it that) is a garden full of structures covered in flowers.  In my head I had pictured a lot more exotic plant and flowers, but I think due to the weather elements here they can only use so many kinds of plants.  Most of the plants seemed like the plants you choose at Home Depot that can handle themselves even if you don't tend to them (those are the type of plants I usually buy). 

The Buttrerfly Garden (which we thought was just another part of the park, but found out we had to pay for separately) has two sections.  The first section consist of art pieces where pictures were created using actual butterflies.  I really enjoyed the art pieces, but then wondered if they waited for these butterflies to die or did they hunt them down to complete these pieces?  I'm not sure but in the end the colors from the butterflies wings were really pleasing to the eye.  The next section was a series of domes filled with plants and butterflies flying all around you.  That took some getting used to and I needed to watch my step so I didn't accidentally take a butterfly's life.  It ended up being a nice experience once we got used to all the butterflies (I don't think Makuyo ever got used to the butterflies though).  Take a look at our day in the gardens!

Welcome to the Miracle Garden

The Peacoks

Here in Al Ain we have a clock like this in town center.  They call it the clock tower, even though it's not really a tower.

I think this is supposed to be Mother Nature

Dhow Boat

Knock Knock

Does this font look familiar to you?

Can you guess what garden we were about to enter?

Butterfly Art

Sheikh Khalifa - The current President of The UAE

Sheikh Maktoum - Current Vice President of The UAE

Love the butterfly design and symmetry

LaTia getting up close and personal with a butterfly friend

The butterfly getting up close and personal with Makuyo.  She wasn't a fan.

These butterflies were getting up close and personal with each other!

Inside the domes were areas where you could put nectar on your hand and have the butterflies land on you.  It took some time for me to get used to so many butterflies in such a small space.

The butterflies liked LaTia's hair

 I got one!

We look good together!

My attempt to pass my butterfly on to Makuyo.  She still wasn't feeling it.

On our way out of the gardens

A couple more pictures before we leave

Guess Who Came to Town?!

During the months of March, April, and May I have had visitors come to the UAE to visit (if you haven't checked out the Sister Visit post make sure you take a look).  Every time a different visitor came it felt like I was on vacation.  I was exploring new places right along with them.  I knew I would have people coming to visit me so I made sure I didn't do or see certain things until I had visitors come to town.  I'm so happy some of my friends and family had the opportunity to get a glimpse of my life abroad and experience a new culture.

Here are a few pictures from my visitors that came in April and May.  Maybe these pictures will convince some of you to visit the UAE next!

Dj, Z, and I at the Saffron Brunch at the Atlantis Resort on Palm Island

A few of specialty drinks included in our all you can eat and drink brunch!

One of the many ceilings at the Atlantis Resort in Dubai

More decor from Atlantis

  

The Atlantis Aquarium

It had big fish!

Pool time at the hotel

DJ went kandora shopping at Dubai Mall

Happy Birthday Salihah!

Elevator selfie!

Part of the decor at the JW Marriott Marquee in Dubai

Hanging out for Salihah's birthday.

So many people thought he was Rick Ross, I think he was starting to believe it himself.

The very next weekend my line sisters, LaTia and Makuyo came to visit.  

Beach time on Al Maya Island

Look what I found in Dubai!!! Back home I've only found Round Table Pizza in CA and Hawaii.  It's a Swann Family favorite!

 I was excited!  It was good!

Our visit to the Miracle Garden and Butterfly garden.  More pictures of that in my next post.

Last visitor was Jason.  We were getting ready for dune bashing.  I could do nothing but laugh through this experience.  My stomach was dropping constantly!

Jason with our crazy dune bashing driver.

Of course everyone has to see the Burj Khalifa!

Check out the video footage from our dune bashing experience and the Burj Khalifa water show.

Spring Break

April has been a busy month!  It started off with spring break and then I had two groups of visitors the last two weeks in April.  So this weekend I'm finally catching up on some much needed sleep and trying to catch up on post for this blog.  Here are pictures from my spring break to Thailand.  This was my second time visiting Thailand.  The first time I visited Phuket.  This time I went to Bangkok and headed back to the beach to Phuket.

My trip started with my flight being delayed due to a sand storm.  Luckily I didn't have to deal with much of the storm once I got on the highway on my way to Dubai.  But for those who are wondering a sand storm is very similar to fog.

Take a look at my Thailand video!

My last visitor before the school year ends will be coming next weekend.  I'll be sharing photos from all of my visitors soon.

Color Run Abu Dhabi

During the last weekend in March I participated in The Color Run Abu Dhabi.  I had participated in a color run back home once and this race was very similar but also had some differences.  With the race being in Abu Dhabi and with Abu Dhabi having so many people from all over the world living here the color run wasn't just colorful because of the colorful powder they threw on everyone but also from the array of cultures and participants in the race.

Color runs always seem to have a very upbeat energy, but this time the energy was turned up a few notches.  You could tell that a lot of people participating had never done anything like this before and were extremely eager to start the race and get colorful.  Now back home people get into the spirit of the race and run a 5k.  Here people got into the spirit and walked a 5k.  I had never seen so much walking in a 5k in my life.  I guess people were a little more interested in the color experience than the workout experience.  

Speaking of the color experience, if you have never done a color run this is how it works.  You run or walk a certain distance and then you approach a color station.  Once you reach the station you run or walk through while volunteers throw color (food colored corn starch) on you.  Now the key words are run or walk through.  Well, like I said people really were excited and in the spirit which means that some people (mostly teenagers) become residents of the color station.  They couldn't get enough color.  I even saw some people rolling on the ground to get more color!  Most of these eager colorist got their fix at the end of the race during the after party.  I would have to say that this was one of the best 5k after parties I've participated in.  There was music playing, people singing, people dancing, and color flying all over the place!  I think people were dancing so hard they made it rain (literally not figuratively) for about 2 minutes.

All in all it was a great and fun experience.  Check out my colorful experience below!