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!------