Hammer time

For several years I have had MC Hammer's tune in my head: Everywhere I'm goin, from London to Dubai, it's Hammer-go-Hammer-MC-Hammer-yo-Hammer and the rest can go and play. Can't touch this.
Are you dancing yet?
After a couple of years of talking about it, I finally made my way to visit Yasmine in Dubai. An old childhood friend, and my first to get married and have children, visiting Yas was an adventure that went beyond crashing elegant hotel foyers to gawk, it was a trip where our marathon shopping trips were punctuated with family meals, diapers, parent-teacher interviews (no, I didn't attend) and visits to the neighbours. As much as Dubai is chalked up to being the decadent commercial capital of the Middle East, there's definitely a heart here. Young couples (albeit, eerily beautiful) stroll the streets with chubby cheeked children at their legs. This place makes parenting look cool, and Yas was one hip mama.
From the shores of Jumeira Beach, where we swam and sunned on women's only day, to hitting the hill at Ski Dubai inside of Mall of the Emirates, I got a chance to check out some of the emirate's big attractions that show off just how extreme Dubai can be. We indulged in suishi at the Budha Bar and sipped at our Seattle's Best while pushing strollers. It's true, I cheaply tried to take credit for the bundles in the carriages, but Yas was too busy in the change rooms to notice me modestly chuckling over the challenges of motherhood with the shop keepers.
It's the incessant swirl of the cranes (as one columnist put it, the national bird of Dubai is the crane), the starched stiff galabayas of the gulfies sipping their Starbucks, the sugary accents, the snap of the heat. It's the next wild west, only east.