Dubai Glamour!

Okay, my last post on Dubai as promised. I got a little behind in posting--sorry! The shopping in Dubai is pretty spectacular, even by western standards. There are two enormous malls (or as the teenagers I used to teach would say: ginormous [a cross between gigantic and enormous]) in Dubai. Before even walking into the mall, we got a glimpse of the glamorous culture in Dubai when we saw this purple Bentley in the valet parking entrance to the Mall of the Emirates. 

The first one we visited was the Mall of the Emirates. It has an indoor ski area, replete with a fully-functioning/equipped lift for a ski slope, a bunny slope, rental store, a penguin pond, an "ice" luge, an snow tube ride, and a "snowball" rolling hill where you are inside the ball--all in an outdoorsy winter setting! This encompassed just one small corner of the mall, but it was anything but small!

They are "snowballing" here. It looked really interesting in that you climbed inside the big plastic looking sphere and then rolled down the hill!  Don took this picture from inside the Cheesecake Factory restaurant we ate at that evening.
Can I just say that the dinner was wonderful--some of the best food I've had since coming over here! He also was asked to not take any more pictures--they assumed he was taking pictures of the women and not the scenery!

Outside of the Ski Dubai area was a huge waterfall with life-size statues "diving" into the water below:

This picture really does not totally capture the
perspective of how big this waterfall truly is!

There were more shops than in any mall I'd ever been in up to this point. Of course, I hadn't been to the Dubai Mall yet. Words cannot explain just how big this 3-story mall is. I couldn't even imagine in my wildest dreams how big this mall is. It is the largest mall in the world, and I don't even think we covered it all! There is an indoor aquarium filled with all kinds of water plants, fish, sharks, and more. You can buy a ticket to walk underneath it through a tunnel. You can also pay for a glass bottom ride or a diving experience in the aquarium, it is so big.

The guide standing towards the left gives you a good perspective of just how tall this aquarium is. You can see the second story shop windows reflected onto the walls of the aquarium.

Outside the mall is a beautiful pond area with fountains. The fountains weren't operating while we were there, but you can see that the water is really pretty. The Burj Khalifa is the very, very, very tall building on the far side of the pond. If you read my last post and looked at the different buildings on the Dubai skyline, you can possible tell just how tall this building is in comparison to the others!

Walking across the footbridge, you can access yet another shopping area built like a souk. We glanced at it, but didn't have time to explore it fully---I see another shopping trip in my future!

Don was enthralled by the designer shoe section of the mall--again, it is so hard to describe. There are shoe stores all around the perimeter of the shoe section, and then in the middle there are several open displays of shoes. One of Don's favorites as we passed through......what do you think?

I know this must be popular in some circles--doesn't everyone want a pair of shoes with spikes on the toes?

 Of course, no shopping trip would be complete without a visit to the local souk. I would say the majority of the stores in this souk in Dubai sold gold and silver jewelry. There were some fantastic pieces.

Traditionally, women receive gold jewelry when they marry, and then that becomes their financial
security. These necklaces are designed in a more traditional style, but gold bangle
bracelets and other gold pieces are also very popular.

Just as we walked into the souk, I saw this man pulling a cart loaded high with goods. While the back end is definitely more modern, the front end is definitely more old school!

There will definitely be more shopping trips to Dubai in my future--how many depends on how long we live over here. Don may have to decide whether or not he can afford it!------

Dubai Glitz!

Wow--the buildings in Dubai are amazing in their quantity, variety, and uniqueness! The skyline is definitely the dominant feature of this city; then you add in the man-created landscape like the Palm Jumeirah, the fantastically large malls, and the personal wealth of its citizenry, and you have a "wow" kind of experience. Here are just a few of my favorite shots of the Dubai skyline. Which building do you like best?

Burj al Arab close-up--see the heliport pad towards the upper right of the building?

Burj al Arab skyline view

View of the skyline from one of the "fronds" on the Palm Jumeirah

This was a good view of the pictures of two of the Sheiks currently ruling in the Emirates.

I thought this was too funny to pass up!

My last post on Dubai will be about shopping--and what shopping it is!

Dubai, Dubai, Do!

The Dubai skyline from our car as we approached the city (yes, that haze is sand in the air!)

Don finally took me to Dubai this past weekend. Wow, what a change from Muscat! I just could not fully appreciate it without having been to Oman first. The shopping and the restaurants were much more westernized, as was the architecture of the buildings. But first, we had to get there.

There are two main checkpoints on the border between Oman and United Arab Emirates. Then there are at least three or four more checkpoints to go through to get across the border. Don thought it would be fun to go through the first passport stamp window without stopping at all. Of course, that was easy to do since there was NO sign indicating it was the place to stop and take care of that! We got to the next checkpoint a few kilometers down the road and had to go back. Then when we got back there, we were told to go inside the building. Once inside the building, we were told to go outside the building to the window (the one with NO sign indicating what it was!). I had to go to the restroom by this point, so while I was taking care of that, Don decided to go through the window without me. He got his passport stamped and the required receipt for the rental car. I came out of the building and we headed down the road. We made it past the first checkpoint just fine this time.

Arriving at the UAE side of the border, we had to park and stand in line for a passport check by the UAE authorities. When I handed my passport over, there was no exit stamp. (Remember? Don went through while I was in the bathroom and didn't get my passport stamped!) So, we had to go back not only to the first checkpoint, but the initial building to get my passport stamped! Did I tell you the traffic was horrendous? Did you catch that this was the THIRD time we had to go through the same building/windows in Oman? You can only laugh about such things if you don't want it to get the better of you! When we showed our paper slip at the window for the 3rd time as we drove through to go to the UAE post, the man wanted to laugh at us, but did not want to offend. When I laughed out loud and nodded, he did too!

After finally making it through all of the checkpoints and arriving in UAE with all the paperwork and the passports all stamped, we saw this herd of camels on the side of the road. We have laughed with some of our Texas friends over here about how we stop to take pictures of camels the way Omanians would stop and take pictures of longhorn cattle were the situations reversed. Just as we would think, "hey, it's only a cow," they are probably thinking about us, "hey, it's only a camel!" But still, not being used to seeing camels by the side of the road, we naturally had to stop and take pictures. Don encouraged me to get out of the car and do it. You can see from the first picture how far from the road they were.























Unbeknownst to me as I was snapping away, I had attracted the attention of a couple of loners out away from the rest of the herd. Since they have no reason to fear humans, they were curious about me.

Don hopped out of the car to pose with them, and they decided to get a little friendlier.....

The camel on the left is checking out Don's arm behind him. I wasn't so sure about that!

This mama camel decided to pose prettily for me!

We got back in the car to head on down the road, and I couldn't resist this last picture of a baby camel standing with its herd:

As we continued on, the landscape suddenly changed--to LOTS of sand. I am used to the sand in Muscat, and the mountains, but it was nothing like this sand:

Sand dunes like this were all that was in view in every direction!

The sand even drifts up against the center median divider like snow drifts!

 In my next blog, I will share some of the many and varied buildings that create the skyline of Dubai!