We have just had two full days in Dubai. If you guessed I spent most of it shopping you'd be right. Yesterday I shopped at the Mall of the Emirates. So last year with it's internal ski field. Today I went to the far newer Dubai Mall which has an ice rink, a waterfall, a fountain copied from the one at the Bellagio in Las Vegas, AND an aquarium. Who needs to shop when you have all that? But shop I did. Two pairs of shoes and a handbag have fallen apart from too much use. So I of course they needed replacing. Bought more shoes than I needed, and a classic, black Kate Spade handbag. Very happy with my purchases anyway. I might have bought some clothes too.....
I did manage to squeeze in some sightseeing too. Dad and I, along with the captain and his wife, and half the senior crew members, took afternoon tea at the magnificent Burj Al Arab hotel. For those of you who don't know, that's the one shaped like a giant sail - the iconic image of Dubai. Normally you can only get inside if you're staying there, so our way round that was to dine there instead. But I'm getting ahead of myself. BEFORE that we went to the new marina, next to the Jumeriah Palm Island, and jumped on a large private catamaran for a 2 hour sail in the Arabian Gulf and to admire the sheer size of the Jumeirah Palm Island which is all man-made and on a scale far larger than I realised. It's a suburb in its own right, with several large hotels and a variety of apartment buildings and private beachfront houses. We drove by coach round it first. It's still a work in progress, although the monorail that runs the length of it is operational, as is the Atlantis Hotel (like something out of Disneyland). The cat cruise would've been great if the visibility had been better. We would've had a brilliant view of the city skyline but a seasonal sea haze has moved in and it's like looking at things through fog. The Burj Al Arab hotel is pretty impressive, but then I think that about all of Dubai. It's like the architects are trying to outdo each other. Our afternoon tea was everything you'd expect of a 5 star hotel: cucumber sandwiches, etc, scones (with passionfruit jam!!) and other sweet treats. Tea with REAL milk, not UHT. Bought myself a souvenir at the hotel too. Wait for it, wait for it...... a key ring. It's all I could afford.
Just a note on the taxis here. They're very cheap. And the roads are outstanding, generally seven lanes in EACH direction for a population of only two million. But they only have two speeds - flat out and stop. Not that you can see the speedometer because your eyes are watering too much from the driver's B.O. You've been warned!!
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