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Published: January 18th 2007
Shopping and Getting Acclimated in Dubai
Dubai Shopping is Ginormous Today we forced ourselves out of bed at 8am despite the fact that we had gone to sleep less than 5 hours earlier. Sometimes the best way to deal with jet-lag is to just force yourself to get acclimated.
After breakfast, which was similar to breakfast in Europe just higher quality, we went down to the concierge to make some reservations for our stay. In Dubai hotel personel are very cognizant of the awards that are given in the area for best service given by individuals and staffs. The concierge staff of the Madinat Jumeirah won best concierge staff for Dubai in 2005 and one of their staff members won concierge of the year in 2006. While these awards might sound dumb to some of you, these people take this very seriously. We asked the concierge we worked with about the awards since he had a plaque on his desk. He told us that the concierge staff was very serious about winning staff of the year for 2007 and had big things in the works.
We booked a desert trip for Friday and
some dinner reservations for the rest of our stay to ensure that we got to do what we wanted. When finished we went back to the check in desk to ensure that we could stay for the extra night (see yesterday’s blog for an explanation). We were very lucky to get the extra night because the hotel was completely booked for the weekend.
Once all our planning was done we set off for the Mall of the Emirates. This mall is one of the top three malls in Dubai and is absolutely huge. Our hotel is very close to the mall and has a tram that runs every 30 minutes to and from the mall. On the way to the tram Kel showed her non-mountain-goatedness in rare form. It had rained overnight so the sidewalk was wet. Kel was wearing flip-flops with little traction. You see what’s coming…on the way outside in front of about 15 people Kel completely bit it and fell on her rear end. Everyone was quite startled especially due to the fact that Kel let out her signature falling yelp. She was really embarrassed but jumped right up and got on the tram with no
fuss. I was proud of her for jumping up with no tears or anything.
The mall is not very spectacular from the outside but is amazing (as amazing as a mall can be at least) on the inside. The three story mall is about a half a mile long with two full four full rows of stores running the length of two of the three stories. It has all of the luxury stores you could ever think of, a full size grocery store, tons of restaurants and an indoor skiing facility. You heard me correctly, an inside artificially generated snow landscape that is five stories tall and is complete with a chair lift and a few conveyer belt style people movers. WILD!!
Our main reason for shopping was clothing. I did not have an outfit sufficient for going to restaurants at our resort so needed one full outfit of shirt, pants and shoes. Kel was also looking for the elusive slides that she had been searching for in Frankfurt.
Thankfully Kel’s slides were almost immediately found. The third shop we saw was a Nine West; the rest is history. She found a sufficient pair of shoes, on
Dunkin Donuts
All you Bostoners might find this one interesting...never seen a Dunkin Donuts in Arabic before have you?sale no less, and we walked out with a new pair of shoes for her.
My part of the shopping took much more work. I was looking for clothes that fit, could travel with me going forward and were cheap. A task that was easier said than done for sure. Walking the whole mall with only a few short stops to browse took three hours. Seriously we never spent more than 10 minutes in a store and only stopped a couple of times. This mall is huge.
Kel gets to add this part because it was her moment to laugh back at me for my clumsiness: We were looking in the windows of a jewelry store - me at jewelry, Mike at watches. I saw a particularly snazzy Jacob the Jeweler watch and beckoned him over to stand next to me and see the watch too. He apparently either (a) misjudged the distance to the glass in the window by about 6” or (b) much like a glass cleaner commercial with confused smooshed birds on windows, completely forgot we were “window” shopping at all. Oh yeah, he leaned in to look and BONK went his head against the
glass. I struggled not to laugh out loud as I checked to see he was okay - the 3 people inside all fought to look sympathetic as the corners of their mouth suspiciously twitched up. Once Mike got his bearings back, we quickly scurried down a couple of storefronts to check his head and finally laugh out loud. We were even for the day - Dubai 2, Turners 0.
By lunch time I had acquired a shirt and pair of pants that were on sale and totaled about 60 dollars. Not a bad bit of work. We stopped at an Asian restaurant and got lunch. We had some of the best Hot and Sour soup I’ve had on this trip which says a lot because I love Hot and Sour soup.
From lunch we headed to s discount shoe store and got me a cheap pair of black dress shoes and then headed for home. After a 20 minute wait for the shuttle we were on our way. On our return we got the first chance to see our resort from a distance in daylight. It is a beautiful place which is made to look like a large
Arab palace, complete with large gold statues of Arabian horses on the entrance road. It has waterways that run through the grounds and is directly on the Arabian Gulf. Right next door is the Burj al Arab which is the only 7 star hotel in the world. It is owned by the same company as our hotel which allows us access to its restaurants. Thus we will be having dinner their in its 27th floor observation deck restaurant on Saturday night.
Activities to Waste the Afternoon We took our stuff to our room and Kel took a quick nap while I worked on the blog. After nap time, we walked the grounds and looked at the pool and the pier out to the beach. Kel got some great pics of the Burj al Arab and of our hotel. The weather here has been a little surprising. Today it was cloudy and very windy. The temp as we walked around the grounds was in the lower 60s. Somehow I expected it to be blisteringly hot in this part of the world, but it appears I am wrong. Dubai is on the same latitude as northern Florida so
I guess it makes sense that it wouldn’t be too hot, but still this is the Middle East.
Either way, as we returned to our room we dipped our hands in the pool and it was incredibly warm so we decided to take a swim. After a quick run to the room we were in the pool as the sun set. It was a little strange to have the pool to ourselves because we were the only people being watched by the four life guards on duty - the hotel seriously believes in manpower for every job. Not exactly a private swim session. Still, it was very cool to swim as it got dark and we could see the Burj al Arab towering over us. Kinda cool!
From the pool we sprinted back to the room and up to the room to change for happy hour. Our room is on the club level so we get a free hour of drinks and hors d’oeuvres. We each had a couple of drinks and a ton of hors d’oeuvres before heading back to our room to get ready for dinner. We took an hour and a half to get ready,
watch some TV (English channels here, yay!) and rest before heading to the Middle Eastern buffet which is by the pool.
Dinner was great, with the exception of the fact that we both ate WAY too much. Middle Eastern food really is better in the Middle East. Kel was really happy with the rice which she said was done exactly the way she likes it. I loved the deserts which were amazing. If you are ever in a Middle Eastern restaurant try dessert even if it looks weird because some of the weirdest looking desserts were the best ones.
Now we are both getting ready for bed while it is only 3:30 where you guys are back home. Funny! Well, good night and I hope you are all well and having a great day!
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Haines
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Dubai Fire
I guess you guys are probably well aware of this by now. Until I read your blog this morning, I probably would've never even clicked on this story link. http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20070118/ap_on_re_mi_ea/dubai_skycraper_fire Hope you're both doing well!