The Dubai Mall

 A Lamborghini exiting our hotel. Throughout the city, exotic sports cars such as Lamborghinis, Bentleys, Rolls Royces, Bugottis, Maseratis and Ferraris were pretty common on the Dubai streets almost as common as you see Lexus, BMWs, and Mercedes on U.S. streets. 

We used this escalator each day to access the platform to take the metro train. The thing is the escalator was out of order more days than it was working during our stay. I don't know much about escalators, but the maintenance that I saw being done cleaning treads, painting the motor, etc. made me question why I was walking up a stopped escalator each day. It was almost as if the crew was creating work for themselves each day. Whom am I to judge? Maybe that's the key to Dubai's record low unemployment.

The Rose Rayhaan during the day.

Skyscrapers along a major city artery, Sheik Zayed Road.

 

The two twin triangular towers in the background are the Jumeirah Emirate Towers. The taller tower houses Dubai Crown Prince Sheikh Mohammed bin Rashid al Maktoum's (that's a mouthful) office.

Usually a mall is not a must see destination, but when it's the largest in the world upon completion in 2008 (based on total area), it's something that you don't want to miss. It has over 1200 stores and services, including the entrance to Burj Khalifa's observation deck, as well as two large water falls, a large aquarium that is a destination of its own, a hockey rink, a souk (market) and international department stores. In 2012, the mall attracted 65 million visitors, more than the cities of New York and Los Angeles! The internal floor area is 59 million square feet. The mall also features the world's largest candy store and 22 cinemas.

View from the Dubai mall entrance complete with a Rolls Royce in the bottom left corner. I was surprised to see so many palm trees as part of the desert landscape. Beautiful trees, but they offer very little shelter from the scorching desert heat.

The space in front of the mall looked like an ultra luxury car dealership. Most whips parked out front were well north of $200K. The wealth in this country is dizzying. Introducing the cars of Dubai. The mall edition.

Lamborghini

Ferrari

Rolls Royce

Bentley

One thing that stood out about the city of Dubai and the malls, hotels, restaurants, etc. was cleanliness. The place is spotless. Full time bathroom attendants are assigned to individual restrooms in the malls and metro stations. Their job was to keep that one restroom clean and they excelled. Any water drops on the floor were immediately wiped up and the counters constantly wiped. Likewise, mall housekeeping staff constantly "swiffered" the marble floors and cleaned up among the mall shoppers.

Breathtaking two story waterfall in one of the mall atriums

For the shoe lovers out there. On a side note, we saw a lot of sales that were pretty drastic markdowns. An example, an item normally priced at 400 dirhams ($109) was marked down to 40 dirhams ($11). That's a 90% markdown! Crystal, the skeptic, thinks its just a marketing ploy to lure you in and that the item is never sold for the 400 dirhams. She's probably on to something.

Most of the malls included large grocery stores. The malls were so impressive and glitzy that it took some getting used to when mall patrons are seen pushing shopping carts throughout the mall.

Huge ice skating rink in the Dubai mall. The emirates apparently like to defy logic. Where else would you expect to find an ice rink than the middle of the desert?

Not something that you see every day in the states. Certified 24 kt. gold iPhones. They'll only set you back a mere $2000. Dubai is known as the "Gold City", but come on, man!

Just a sample of the luxury stores throughout the Dubai malls. A stroll through the mall is a who's who of high end fashion and jewelry such as Versace, Gucci, Cartier, and a host of other name brands that I can't pronounce and don't shop in. Most of the high end stores have well dressed doormen posted at the glass door entrance. I guess they'll usher you in or out depending on your checkbook.

What mall is complete without an authentic dinosaur exhibit? This specimen was pretty impressive and actually hails from the U.S.. It was discovered in Wyoming relatively recently (2008) and the entire skeleton was escavated except for a few bones in the tip of the tail that were reconstructed.

Crystal in a souk style marketplace within the mall.

Huge aquarium attraction in the mall complete with sharks and stingrays.

Almost as impressive as the aquarium was this Garrett popcorn shop that was located in the world's largest candy store across from the aquarium. If you're not familiar with Garretts, then your taste buds are missing out. This popcorn is one of Chicago's yummiest exports. The Chicago mix is the best (cheese and caramel mix). So I had to come to Dubai to get my Garrett fix. That's okay. We made the most of it and made two trips during our stay.

The Dubai plaza adjoining the Dubai mall. In the foreground, is a large Arabian style souk marketplace in case the largest mall in the world doesn't quench your shopping desires.

Famous Dubai Fountains in between the Burj Khalifah plaza and the Dubai mall. Sound and light shows occur daily and the fountains hold the title of the world's tallest fountain. Note the cranes as additional skyscrapers were being built around Dubai lake and the Burj Kalifah plaza.

The Address Downtown Hotel bordering Lake Dubai and the Dubai fountain

Burj Khalifa - the world's tallest building! It was completed in 2010 and is 829m to the top of the spire (739m to the roof) and has 163 floors! It is a mixed use building and houses both offices, apartments and luxury hotels, like the 7-star Armani Hotel.

In addition to the Big Bus hop on and hop off bus tour, we navigated the city by metro rail as opposed to cabs. It was pretty easy to understand and you could get anywhere of interest. The language barrier is minimal in Dubai because everything is written in English alongside the Arabic. Trains arrive every 4 minutes.

The metro station was a block from our hotel.

You scan a re-loadable "no-el" card to access and depart the platform.

 As long as you figure out the right direction (to Jebel Ali or Rashidiya) and corresponding platform, you can't go wrong on the metro.

Separate cabin and platform entrance for women. This station has the women's cabin clearly marked, but that's not the case at every station. Prior to me learning that there was a separate car for women, Crystal and I made the mistake of jumping on one together. Luckily, one of the ladies pointed out my mistake and we were able to hop back off in time. Talk about embarrassing. I didn't make that mistake again.

The real Dubai experience. This train would be considered pretty empty based on Dubai standards and you can see it's pretty full. Most were full to the point that you were standing shoulder to shoulder even with the frequency of the trains. By the way, the trains are driverless. I believe I read somewhere that the rail system is the longest driverless train system in the world.

One of the many mosques found throughout the city

Iconic Burj al Arab. World's tallest all-suite hotel and situated on an artificial island. This hotel has an underwater restaurant. Diners can watch their dinner swim by.

The billowing sail of the traditional Arabian dhow (boat) was the inspiration for the Burj al Arab.

Jumeirah Beach hotel was built in a shape that mirrors a breaking wave.

In 10 years, more than 300 skyscrapers arose from the Dubai desert. As the cranes attest, there are more on the way that will further enhance the city's skyline.

Dubai College which is part of Knowledge City. Dubai is establishing industry specific "cities" within their city. They've established free zones (no taxes, foreign ownership, and custom related benefits) to lure businesses and universities to establish a presence in these cities. Knowledge city is a human resources management, professional learning and educational free trade zone campus that provides facilities for corporate training and learning institutions. There's also a Healthcare City and Dubai Internet City which is an industrial cluster for technology companies.

This is a Dubai bus stop. It's fully enclosed and air conditioned. Due to the extreme desert heat, the governor ordered all bus stops to be air conditioned so they all follow this model.