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Surely you are familiar with the state when the mood easily spoils and even on weekends there is not enough strength for anything. Where to find resources? The good news is that they are already inside of us. You can get access to them in different ways, one of them is to fly to another planet.
The next holidays were approaching, but it was difficult to answer the question “what do I want to receive as a gift”. Most of all I wanted to just relax and not think about anything. The feeling of “I don’t want anything” makes us live on the machine: we lose contact with feelings, we don’t understand what we are striving for, what worries and what pleases. The condition is uncomfortable, and if it lasts a long time, even dangerous. Vacation helps to get out of it.
Changing the usual picture allows you to take a fresh look at the world. On vacation, we even smile more often. It becomes curious how people live in a foreign country, what exotic fruits taste like. And along with interest in the outside world, interest in the inner world awakens. We often listen to feelings, think about what we like in an unfamiliar place and what we don’t.
How to spend your vacation? You can go to a neighboring city, to the country, or even stay at home. But it is better to go somewhere where everything is not like everyday life. The ideal place would be another planet, where, forgetting the usual reality, you can better understand what is happening inside. And although you probably think that traveling there is the plot for a Hollywood blockbuster, I’m willing to bet. After all, only five hours, and you are already there, on a planet called Dubai.
City of the future in the Martian desert
I would compare Dubai with Mars: endless deserts, lack of fresh water. But, despite the similarity of landscapes, there is one difference: this is the Mars of the future, where man has become the master. In Dubai, the world’s largest desalination plants, bulk islands in the Persian Gulf are visible from space and carry the unofficial status of the eighth wonder of the world. Surface metro trains run around the city, but you will not see drivers in them: the cars move automatically, as it should be in the city of the future.
Urban landscapes resemble frames from science fiction films. Dubai is a city of skyscrapers. But those who consider them boring pieces of glass will change their minds after getting acquainted with the architecture of Dubai. Each building has its own design. Some are made in a futuristic style and look like spaceships that have landed in the Martian desert. Others are complemented by Arabic decor, reminding that Dubai is primarily an oriental country.
The king of all skyscrapers, of course, Burj Khalifa is the tallest skyscraper not only in the city, but in the whole world. What do you feel when you go up to its observation deck? Looking at the city landscape from the height of the 148th floor, you realize that nothing is impossible. We often set limits for ourselves. We are stopped by fictitious fears, the opinions of others, and even our own laziness, which the subconscious mind does not come up with to prevent us.
I felt admiration for those who once defied the desert and built the city of the future here. And then I noticed that I myself want to start implementing not so ambitious, but postponed plans. But I have not noticed signs of enthusiasm in myself for a long time.
Check the laws of gravity and return to childhood
No matter how old we are, a curious child always lives inside, who dreams of being in a fairy tale. Contact with the carefree and direct childish part allows you to experience sincere emotions, opens up opportunities for creativity. Absorbed by the daily routine, we forget how it is to enjoy the little things. There are many ways to get back a lost contact. Amusement parks helped me who returned to childhood for the whole day.
As soon as I was in the Legoland children’s park, a little girl woke up inside, who could not resist a whole city made of Lego. It is said that over 50 bricks were used to create the park. Legoland is divided into two zones: the amusement park and Legoland Water Park. Even very young visitors to the park can go down the water slides: its entertainment is designed for children from 000 to 2 years old.
The rides at Motiongate Dubai are designed more for adults and older children. Themed areas are designed by Columbia Pictures, Lionsgate and DreamWorks Animation. You can ride the roller coaster in the Smurfs Village or experience the tallest free fall tower, 58 meters high, in the Zombieland zone. In total, Motiongate has 27 attractions, the scenery for which is made according to the plots of Kung Fu Panda, Shrek, Madagascar and other animated films.
The areas of the Bollywood Park are dedicated to Indian blockbusters: Don, Krrish, Lagaan, Fearless, Revenge and the Law. But even for those who, like me, are completely unfamiliar with the world of Indian cinema, the rides and a walk in the park will bring pleasure: music plays everywhere, artists perform, the atmosphere of adventure and romance.
The last time I rode rides was when I was very young. And those Soviet carousels cannot even be compared with entertainment in the parks of Dubai. Just a few minutes, and I managed to experience mixed feelings from horror to delight. Working in the office, I forgot what it means to be physically frightened. In ordinary life, we are more often afraid of not coping with work, of disappointing loved ones, but it was new to be frightened by the whole body from dizzying ascents and descents. I think this is similar to the sensations experienced by those who go in for extreme sports. With one difference, safety is guaranteed in Dubai amusement parks.
Forget about daily routine
Weekends in Moscow fly by so imperceptibly and quickly that I don’t have time to relax. Why is 48 hours not enough to restore strength? It’s simple: most of the time you have to clean up, go shopping, cook food. A few days in Dubai replaced a week of good rest. Taking a bath in the evening, I did not think about what to cook for dinner, but went over in my memory the impressions of the past day. In a luxurious room , decorated with marble, overlooking Dubai Marina, the fussy thoughts that I brought from Moscow subsided and ceased to disturb.
There are several pools on site, but in the morning, before it got too hot, I liked to go out to the bay. V Five Palm Jumeirah Hotel is an Instagrammer’s paradise because you want to take pictures of everything: marble floor ornaments, palm trees, glass walls of the hotel, food in the restaurant and, of course, the promenade. And after sunset, you need to climb to the open veranda of the top floor to spend the evening admiring Dubai at night.
It’s nice that the hotel has a lot of Russian-speaking staff, usually those who came to Dubai from Russia and the CIS countries. Perhaps this is not such a serious bonus for the younger generation, but our parents, whose English is often not very fluent, would definitely be pleased with it.
Ask questions to the desert
I have noticed more than once that I need nature to restore my mental and physical strength. Far from civilization, you feel special – contact with nature helps to establish contact with yourself. Along with vivid emotions and impressions, Dubai brought up to date many internal issues. What qualities do I consider to be the main ones in myself, which ones do I like, and which ones do I want to get rid of? How do I choose people and how do I feel that they choose me? To understand yourself, you need to establish a connection with your deep “I”, because only there, inside you can find answers.
At home, I would go out of town for a walk in the woods. But around Dubai there are no familiar forests, there is only a desert, endless with fine golden sand. The trip there became a whole mini-trip, for which I even had to change transport – transfer to luxury SUVs.
A safari on the slopes of the dunes was like a roller coaster in Dubai amusement parks. Picking up speed, the jeep took off on steep slopes, and then abruptly rolled down. But if in Motiongate you feel like in a fantasy world, then in the desert you experience something else. Here you feel reality more sharply, realizing that everything around you is real, the same as it was a hundred, two hundred and thousand years ago.
There is nothing superfluous in the desert: only sands and sky. In the kingdom of dunes, you are just a small grain of sand, but this does not scare you. For some reason, I trust these expanses, accepting their greatness, and at the same time I notice how I trust myself more.
Climbing to the top of the dune, I watch the sun slowly sink below the golden horizon, and begin a new journey – a journey deep into myself, to my desires and fears. Here, everything unnecessary and insignificant seems to fade into the background, and what seemed incomprehensible in Moscow becomes clear. I want to stop this moment of peace and harmony so that it lasts forever …
***
The plane began to descend, and another, snowy, desert is already visible, much more familiar and familiar, giving way to the outlines of a familiar city. It’s a little stuffy in my ears, but I don’t react in the usual way: my inner child is happy again, like going down a steep rollercoaster slope. It turns out that something unusual happens to us much more often than it seems.
Together with the sand grains of the Arabian Desert in my boots, I brought new ideas and plans to Moscow, and most importantly, I found strength inside that I will use to implement them. I am grateful to this alien city of skyscrapers that helped me get back in touch with myself.