A belated birthday excursion

A day late I was off to celebrate my birthday a little bit further, I guess this year it will be a little bit more spread out!
We went to Al Qana and had sushi in the sunshine, with Tash and Hannah.

We also went to discover the newest attraction here in the capital, the Butterfly Gardens.

Two climate-controlled domes have been built next to the National Aquarium here in Al Qana, and Asian dome and an American dome with two different biomes.

Butterflies move freely through the domes, they were fluttering around and occasionally settled on us. Especially Nathan seemed to attract them!

There are more than 10,000 butterflies in these domes. So many butterflies, so many colours, so much fluttering!

This raised walkway took us up and around the dome. Good views from here, of all the butterflies, and of the animals that also lived in the domes.

A Palawan bearcat and a sloth:

A Sri Lankan giant squirrel:

A koi pond:

This Butterfly Gardens gives ample opportunity to learn all about the butterflies. Here is the emergence chamber, where butterflies begin their life cycle. Look at all these cocoons!

A nice little visit.

The Abrahamic Family House

For Mormors last cultural visit this time we drove up to the Abrahamic Family House. I hadn't been for a while here either and discovered the entrance procedure had become a bit more complicated, but we mangaged! We also managed to arrive just in time of one of their guided tours.

 

You can only do tours here with their in-house guides, and this time we had a really good one who ended up giving us a very thorough tour.

The views are now clear from building cranes as the new museums have finally been completed. So with blue skies like today, you get vistas like this.

A nice little trip to end Mormors visit for this time.

Mazaraa Farm visit

To make a little excursion and for a different lunch experience I brought Nathan and Mormor for a drive to the countryside and the Mazaraa Farm.

We started with lunch.

And a quick visit to their farm shop. I have been here before with Linnea, and then we bought some vegetables, but not today we left empty handed as we already had our dinner plans laid.

Mormor and I also took a little walk through the farm as I wanted to show her all the things they actually farm here in the desert. 
 

A perfect day for a farm visit!

We also saw some of the animals, camels of course:

And oryx:

And goats:

And fish!

Qasr al Watan

Today it was time for an excursion together with just Lucas. He had never been to visit the Presidential Palace, so he came along.
Qasr al Watan, this impressive complex, opened in 2017 and I have visited several times. It had been a while though, so I was looking forward to going with Mormor and Lucas.

It was quite a queue to get in, but it moved quickly. Obviously this is one of the main sights in Abu Dhabi, so there were so many visitors. Once inside the people seemed to disperse and it didn't feel crowded at all though.
Such an impressive building!

We had a look around at some of the objects displayed here, gifts presented by visiting officials from other countries, and at the exhibition about calligraphy.

And of course at the official meeting halls, and the lavish dining room:

Groupie!

We finished the visit with a bit of fika in the sun in the courtyard, before going back home.

Jubail Mangrove Park walk

To get a change from our neighbourhood walks we went driving back up to Jubail Island this morning, to take on the Mangrove Park walk.

We managed to hit the park at high tide, which was quite different to how I have seen it before. Some parts of the walk was actually under water!

We still made it the whole way around.

And up into the viewing tower. 

We didn't see many crabs, birds or fish this time, but the walk was lovely.