When I was in Italy, I walked a LOT and I really enjoyed it! So other than our walk to the store to get some supplies, it seemed to me that the Dubai Mall was fairly close and I decided (nope, did not include Andrew in this decision as he normally walks every day) that we would walk there! I looked at Google Maps and it looked like there was good path to get there so we started out. I do not like to walk with my phone in my hand for a variety of reasons – one being I am a target for some to grab it and two, I should be using both my hands on my walker. So I carry it in my travel purse and try and memorize where we are going. This sometimes works and sometimes does not. Also, you need to remember that it is a bit warm out – about 28 or 29 degrees at this point. First, we passed a National Landmark for Canada of which there are several of them in Dubai for some strange reason…
SO, I missed a right turn and we ended up walking a block too far. So we had to walk back that block and then cross the street at the light to walk back again to the busy street. Now, as I have already mentioned, in Dubai, street crossings are few and far between. So off we went, walking the opposite way of the mall to the next light. Boy are lights LONG here! I think we waited 10 minutes to cross the street only to walk back the other side of the street. The interesting thing was on the corner of this busy street was the Canadian University!
Now, I think sometimes Andrew wonders what I am getting us into – I like an adventure – that is for sure! Crossing the street here can be an adventure for sure – my tactics that I employed in Rome were not quite working as well – being the “plow” as Liz would say and causing traffic to stop as I put my walker out and start moving. It seems to be working only part of the time! Eventually we were able to cross a smaller street where the traffic was coming around a kind of blind corner and made it to the other side where there was a not that wide sidewalk (wide enough for my walker) that was basically on an off ramp that went around a building of lower end rent. Once we got around the corner though I knew we were in the clear – there was the equivalent to our Skytrain station! So we took the elevator up into the station and started walking into the mall. We walked and we walked and we walked through corridor and corridor above ground. Finally after about 3 km of walkways (which some had moving sidewalks which was cool) we made it to the mall! After all that we needed a break – no, DESERVED a break! So I had some GF gelato (they had it marked) and Andrew some iced coffee. Let’s go check out the mall and figure out where we need to go for tomorrow afternoons visit to the Burj Khalifa tower.
I THOUGHT Andrew might want to replace his “summer” shoes however he did not – so instead we just checked out the mall features. This is a HUGE, GIANT, MASSIVE mall. I cannot explain how big it is – it just went on forever and had stores that we recognized that probably is their only existence outside of the USA. There is “Fashion” row where the high end stores are and then the regular mall. In the regular mall there is an aquarium that is 3 floors high and an ice skating rink. So we went to go see the aquarium, which you can view from outside and took some pictures. To go inside was about $100 so we passed on that. We have seen many beautiful aquariums in our travels already.
Then we decided that this mall is boring (yes I said that) and on our way to find the taxi stand (it was very elusive) and looking to go outside to see the ponds / lakes at the mall to possibly see the fountain show, we ran into the Apple store and they had a balcony where you could sit and look out onto the patio area of the mall. So we did that for a while, until we realized that the fountain show was not going to happen for another hour! Off to the taxi’s we went. As it was 4pm there was a line up and so we waited and then they stopped me at the front of the line and had me wait while they brought a cab right to the curb for me. Now that was really nice of them! Back to the hotel, we decided to go to the bar on the 43rd floor of our hotel – which is a fairly well known bar in Dubai and listed in tourist books as the highest bar in a hotel. From there, we watched the sunset and I took various pictures that you see below. We also tried to have something to eat, however that did not go over very well as the cook in the restaurant thought gluten was in corn so they would not serve me any nachos. I ended up having edamame which is a good stand in however I think they went to pick it before they served it to me as it took so long!
We then retired to our room to eat left overs from our previous meals (Andrew had my stinking hot butter chicken from the Sheraton) and call it a night! Tomorrow we go up the Burj Khalifa building – tallest in the world!
