Old Dubai

 Beautiful wood carved floating staircase in the Marina Mall

Breathtaking wood atrium lined with restaurants and leading to food court.

The Dubai Museum is housed within the Al Fahid Fort which was originally built in 1787 to defend the Emiratis against invasion.

Traditional boating vessels

The museum's exhibits and film presentations trace the city's meteoric development from a small desert settlement to the center of Arabian commerce, finance, and tourism.

Wooden Dhow in the background upon exiting the museum.

Bustling Dubai Creek in Old Dubai

A stroll through the gold souq (market) reveals storefronts full of gold jewelry. The light reflecting on these brilliant displays was blinding at night.

The gold inventory extends past the storefront.

Old Dubai Souq. This is where the wheeling and dealing happens. The vendors are ridiculously, aggressive, but you can get good deals if you're comfortable negotiating and willing to walk away. There are so many vendors selling similar items that the buyer has the advantage if you're willing to leverage it.

After an exhaustive negotiating session with this vendor, we did purchase some spices. The rule of thumb is to aim for a 40% - 50% discount from the original price. We were successful in getting a 60% - 70% discount in our negotiations so we did pretty well.

This vendor was pretty funny and did his best to persuade me to buy this head wrap. Note that he's wearing my hat as he conducts his demonstration. 😁

 

Final look. He didn't close the sale, but the experience was pretty fun.

Crystal shopping for a pashmina. Expertly tied by our astute salesman.

Working on an add on sale

  

A discerning shopper leafing through the fabric. Note that the salesman has tied a different pashmina around Crystal's neck at this point in our visit.

          

I don't think Crystal is buying what he's selling. 

  

 

We have a winner. This pashmina goes home with us after another round of tough negotiating.

Wind towers were an architectural element of Arabic housing. They were designed to deflect the air down to cool the rooms below. Sometimes water was thrown on the floor beneath the towers to cool the room further.

Merchandise being loaded and unloaded along the Dubai creek port in old Dubai.

The sun has set on Old Dubai.

  

Ski Dubai and The Marina

This mall houses Ski Dubai and an awesome Carrefour store. Carrefour is like a super Wal-mart.

Ski Dubai ski slope jutting out from the Mall. 

This was something that I hadn't seen in the U.S. at the time. Now they're a more common place and are referred to as  Hover boards. The Smart Balance Wheel Scooter is a cross between a skateboard and a Segway. The employee made it look easy gliding around the store effortlessly. However, a customer tried it and almost took out the entire store.

The famous Ski Dubai at the Mall of the Emirates.

The restaurant that borders Ski Dubai is fashioned as a ski lodge. The ski lodge overlooks the ski slopes and winter fun park.

  

Winter fun park

Another view of the winter fun park area

 

Ski Dubai was a lot of fun. The temperature on the slopes was a cool 29 degrees Fahrenheit which was a nice relief from the 100 degree temperatures in the desert.

View from the chairlift. Black diamond trail on the left and Intermediate and beginner slope on the right.

   

 

After hanging up our skis, we ventured back into the mall to check out the Carrefour store. It's hard to convey the sheer size of the store, but the mall map gives some scale to the store's foot print on this level of the mall.

Carrefour. The aisles seem endless.

This picture was taken in the other direction. Pictures can't do justice to the large size of this store.

This is one of the small appliance aisles of the store. On weekends, the number of sales associates available to help you is staggering. In some departments, they outnumber the customers. Fortunately, they aren't overbearing. They're available to help, but they're not pushing product unlike the souqs.

I don't know if this size flat screen is available in mainstream U.S. electronic stores yet, but there were 85 inch flat screens in Carrefour.

An entire aisle of eggs. How many different types of eggs could there be? We couldn't get the entire selection in our picture.

Snap, Crackle and Pop have a Swedish vibe going on in Dubai.

A different look to an old favorite.

The adolescent boy in me found this cereal name to be hilarious.

The next stop was the Marina. The Marina was just incredible. It's essentially a city within the city.

Selfie in the Marina

A tower with a twist. I love the distinctive twist of the Cayan tower on the left.

We took this tour Dubai cruise from the Marina.

Panoramic of the Marina skyline from the water.

This is the drop zone for those fearless enough to skydive Dubai.

  

Aboard the cruise

My iPhone tapped out on the cruise in the withering desert heat. Maybe I do need to spring for that 24k gold model. 

Cool Pier 7 rotunda restaurant overlooking the Marina. Every table has a view.

A look at the Marina walk from the tour boat.

A water taxi

Beach along the Marina with the city skyscrapers as a backdrop

Most food deliveries are handled by motorcyclist like this one.  The container strapped to the back of the motorcycle contains the food and keeps it hot or cold. In the foreground of the skyline, you can see the futuristic looking metro station.

I am married to an educator so the requisite school bus pic