There have been many studies that discussed the culture shock of international students in popular destinations country such as the USA, Britain, Australia, Korea, France, and Germany. However, there is still little attention and studies that discussed the culture shock of international students in a Middle Eastern country such as Abu Dhabi, UAE. Hence, this study aimed to find out about (1) the stages of culture shock, (2) sources of culture shock, and (3) strategies to overcome culture shock of 8 students from a new Indonesian study abroad scholarship program namely IISMA that happened to study abroad in Abu Dhabi for 4 months. By using qualitative and thematic analysis approach in analyzing the interview transcripts and weekly report documents, it is indicated that even though all the students were going to the same place with the same duration of the study, not all the students experienced the same stage of culture shock. The current study also revealed the sources of culture shock which is divided into 4 major themes included: academic, personal, environment, and social. Moreover, this study revealed the strategies that Indonesian student use to conquer the sources of culture shock including being open minded; exploring the new places; making friends with national, international, and local people; managing money spending; planning anything strategically, searching detail information of the country; and video calling relatives in Indonesia. This study revealed that no matter the environment would like to be, a person will still likely experience culture shock due to the unfamiliar situation.