An abnormally long Saudi National Day holiday gave us the opportunity to travel to the tip of the Palm Jumeirah artificial island in Dubai to stay at the Atlantis resort. Complete with its own aquarium and water park it is a pleasant place to spend a few days. It was, of course, about has hot and humid as it can get on the planet earth and any visit to Dubai is a bit surreal given that is it a caricature of unsustainable excess.
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Kai and Nora at the Dubai baggage claim. With zen-like patience they didn't start complaining about the wait for at least 5 minutes.

A panorama of the gulf from our room.
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Tourist that flocked to take pictures of the hotel.

Kai, Nora and Ben at the aquarium
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Making friends with a Ray.
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Kai reads the paper while we wait for our room

Nora at the aquarium
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Kai, Nora and Crystal at the lobby aquarium.
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Kai shows a friend the starfish in the petting pool.
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Nora and a queensland grouper.

A view of the arch at the Atlantis Palm