It was pretty fun to be a tourist in Dubai. I realized I had no photos of the Dubai wonders while I lived here. It was mostly of my kids, me in the hospital having babies, or Axel and the fish he caught. We finally got to know what it felt like to stand in taxi lines, take pictures in front of everything, and limit our spending because of luggage restrictions.
One of the most impressive visits we made was to the new Dubai Mall. It is the largest mall in the world and it is located right beside the tallest building in the world.
The Burj
In front of the Dubai Mall
As soon as you walk into the Dubai Mall you can't miss the world's largest Aquarium. It is insane. The ambiance and fish are incredible.
There is also a tunnel you can go through to see the fish even closer.
The Hammour was gigantic. Axel would die to spearfish this guy. We lived off of Hammour while we lived in Dubai. Axel spearfished every weekend all in the name of 'providing for the family'. I don't know who he was kidding. It was just another hobby that he loved to do and it ended up being therapy for him. It took him from the quick pace of the Dubai work week and into a whole different world. And truthfully, in many ways, I do miss our family fish meals.
Axel's dream job
Outside of the aquarium, the Dubai Mall also has a elaborate waterworld attraction. They have every sealife creature you can imagine. In a MALL!
Crab legs, anyone?
In addition to the water themed attractions, they have a huge skating rink. Even for a Canadian, it was quite impressive.
The entire time we lived in Dubai, Axel always complained they didn't have a Taco Bell. It seems they carry most other chains, Krispy Kreame, Panda Express, Cold Stone, etc. You name it, they have it. EXCEPT Taco Bell. Well, the time has come! They have a Taco Bell and Axel and I ate two beef tacos and we experienced a little piece of home.
We didn't stop with that either. A burger and fries also cured us of any homesickness as well.
It was a shame that we spent most of our hunger on generic American food cause there were so many quaint cafes and restaurants. I wanted to try them all!
The other thing worth noting is--what else--the shopping! My brain was on overload. So many shops, so little time. We raced through most of the 12 million square feet and targeted only a few stores. I was disappointed they hadn't opened the Crate and Barrel quite yet. You have no idea how exciting it is to have a C & B about to open! It is a style of furniture that hasn't quite made it to the Middle East so it was super exciting.
They had a ton of high end stores that you can't even enter without a check to see if you look wealthy enough.
Like this store:
However, we were accepted to enter this store and drop a few bucks:
The Nepali Santa asked us to pick up a few things for the kids for Christmas. It is slim pick'ns in Nepal. However, it was a little painful to spend 50 bucks on a small piece of plastic. Seriously, could toys be any more expensive in Dubai????
We also went to Carrefore (which wasn't actually in the Dubai Mall. Instead, it was at the Emirates Mall -- the Ski Dubai Mall). Carrefore is like Walmart on steroids. It compensates a little for the lack of my favourite US store.
The whole visit felt like Thanksgiving. A shopping GORGE. I don't think I shopped harder or faster in all my life.
I was happy to return to Nepal... and so was my bank account.
3 comments:
But Abercrombie and Fitch is paying you to write this post, right? :P
Stacy - Hilarious. Can you tell that Abercrombie and Fitch have some kind of thing with Nepal? It is the only clothing here that I can stand to buy. The rest of it is scary Indian clothing (not the traditional stuff, I love that. Instead, it is the gold lame with 3D flowers that are the size of my head. YIKES! Or, some Chinese shirt that says, 'I love the like him' written on it.)
After being pregnant for all those years, I needed some decent street clothing. A & F was the only thing I could find here. Weird, I know. The nice thing is it isn't for the US A&F prices. I paid about a third of what I would pay in the US. I should be getting some kick back. I wish they didn't put their name on every single item of clothing. I do like the clothing (long shirts for tall people like me), but I hate the free advertisement.
That's so interesting! When I lived in West Africa, the people there would get care packages of the "reject" T-shirts (like the T-shirts that get made before game 7 of the NBA finals where they make winner t-shirts for both teams because they don't know who's going to win? Yeah, they'd get the losing team's shirts) or ones like you've described. I got a picture of a very serious-faced woman with her hair wrapped in her headdress and her pink T-shirt with one of those crazy, Boynton cats and the saying, "I'm a party waiting to happen!" :P
Post a Comment