Nate and Kara Buchanan spend a day in Abu Dhabi guided by a local named Nagami. They visit local fish and vegetable markets and try street foods (paratha with chips, local tea). They experience luxury at the Emirates Palace where they drink a 23-karat gold-flake cappuccino, eat traditional dishes including kibba and chicken liver, ride the world's fastest roller coaster at Ferrari World (reported 240 km/h), and visit the Sheikh Zayed Grand Mosque (largest mosque in the UAE, 35-ton carpet made by 1,300 people, third-largest chandelier, founder buried there with Quran recitations in shifts for 11 years).
Chapters
Foreign.
Today is our first full day on our cruise through the Middle east. And last night we sailed from Dubai and to Abu Dhabi and we have the full day to explore here.
Yesterday we put on our Instagram story that we didn't really have plans today, and we asked for recommendations and this super nice lady who lives here offered to pick us up in her car at the cruise port and she's going to take us around.
Oh, no way.
Okay, so this is who we're going to call Nana, because we can't pronounce your name. Tell us. Jose.
Real name, Nagami.
It means melody, which is beautiful, but I have a hard time saying it. So she said we call her by her nickname. She brought us beautiful flowers and she said she's watched all of our videos. So she knows us really well and brought us to the local fish market because we love local markets. We're gonna go out groomed.
I'm so excited to have you here, really. Finally. I've been waiting. Just from last year.
Right.
So we're walking along the water right now, and she left her car running back there. Not locked or anything. And we just learned that this is one of the safest countries in the world.
Yeah. You can leave your phone, your wallet, any place, your car running, and no one will come close to it.
So apparently more than half of the population here is not local. No. There's a lot of Indian and 15%.
Maximum of the people here, they're locals.
So a lot of people are scared that they'll lose their job if.
And also security here is very strong. The police presence is a lot in the streets, and everyone love it. Love that. It's the safest. One of the safest countries.
You heard it here, folks.
Oh, yes.
Nice. Thank you.
I love it.
Thank you.
So one of the good things about being here with a local is my original plan was to buy fish here and get it cooked at a restaurant and eat here, because that's what I read to do on the Internet. And she said there is much better food elsewhere. So we're going to be getting a local dish later today.
Yeah. Yeah.
Thank you.
Thank you.
All right. That was awkward. So now we're at the local vegetable market and there's this little restaurant right here. We're trying the local tea. Yes, I'm gonna call it, which is actually what I drank on the border with the security officer when she was going through my bag, and it was super yummy. Cheers.
Cheers. What did we get to eat?
It's paratha cheese and chips. Oman.
Oh, it's the yummy bread.
Yes, it's bread actually filled with potato chips.
That is an amazing combination.
I love this. Definitely not very healthy, but delicious. And it was so cheap too. It was eight Durhams, which is about $3 for two sandwiches and three teas.
It's hard to go wrong stuffing barbecue potato chips into a delicious bread. I can't believe that's a thing, but it's so good.
Look at these tiny little mandarins.
Thank you.
Yeah, yeah, no problem.
Okay. One, two.
Thank you.
Thank you.
So a bus full of Chinese tourists just pulled up behind the car. We were stopping to take a picture and they all wanted pictures with the car and with the girls. That was hilarious.
I feel like a celebrity.
Wow.
We are now entering the Emirates palace, which I think should be nicknamed the Golden Palace. Everything is gold.
Whenever we post on Instagram yesterday asking what we should do in Abu Dhabi, pretty much everybody told us we had to come here.
It's a hotel, but they also do a lot of events here. And we heard that there is coffee with golden flakes on top.
I am speechless. Right now. I am holding a cup of coffee with pure 23 karat gold flakes on top. It was 76 grams, but Nana talked to some into it. She said, when else can you have coffee with gold on it?
It's delicious. I'm blowing more off. I can't really taste the gold. Is it on my lips?
Yeah, you do have golden lips.
I cannot believe that we just drank a golden cappuccino. Never in my life did I think that I would do something like that. A lot of YouTubers celebrate 100,000 subscribers with golden balloons. Golden coffee is more our style.
I like this.
Wow. That looks incredible.
So this is kibba. It's meat stuffed with meat and nuts. This is a chicken liver. We cook it with dibusa pomegranate sauce. And this is a cheese aged cheese. We mix it with onion and these things and you put olive oil. We also take the grape leaves and we stiff it with rice and meat. Eggplant, petoush. This is rocca and za'. Atar.
So everything on this table is like the best thing I've ever had. Seriously, I love all of it. But now I'm about to try my first chicken liver. Hopefully I'm saving the best for last. But I have a feeling.
Mmm.
It's the texture. It's a very, like, mushy, pasty kind of texture. But the sauce on the outside, I will say is a really nice taste. Probably Won't go back for seconds, but I will go back for seconds on everything else.
That looks intense.
Even though we just finished 11 these feast, you're only in the city that has the fastest roller coaster in the world once, maybe once. And we've been given the opportunity to ride it. So we are now at Ferrari World.
Oh, my gosh.
Wow. That was insane. We couldn't film for obvious reasons.
It went 240km an hour. I couldn't breathe.
I went to, like, scream. And then my mouth is instantly dry from the wind.
It goes straight up so fast. I've been on a ton of roller coasters, and I love them. And I can tell you, I have never lost my breath like that. Like, it was like, as soon as it started, just couldn't breathe, and I was frozen.
I would have loved to have had time to stay here all day. But we're trying to get to the Grand Mosque before the sun goes down.
So we have to go, and Nana's waiting on us. The Grand Mosque.
Sam.
This place is incredibly gorgeous. And we've learned a few fun facts from Nana. First of all, that was the biggest carpet in the world.
It weighed 35 tons and took 1300 people to make.
And they have the third largest chandelier in there, which is also beautiful and coolest thing. Their leader, who's been dead for 10 years, the founder of the UAE, everybody loved him. Apparently, after people die, sometimes people read the Quran to them. And he's never been alone in his grave. He's buried here.
Somebody's been constantly reading to him, like.
In shifts for 11 years.
And this is the largest mosque in the entire United Arab Emirates.
And they gave me this pretty thing to wear on top of my clothes for free.
And tell your husband thank you.
Naram.
You are the best. This is the best day ever. And I love Abu Dhabi.
We woke up this morning. Our plan was to try to figure out how to take the public bus around to some of the major.
So, like, three things.
I told her. The only problem was this was our first full day on the cruise, and I don't know how we're gonna beat this.
