Upon landing (again pretty rough with Tony doing the landing :P), we got to go in the cockpit and play with everything too.
Dubai airport is amazing, automated trains, huge lifts, fountains, it was awesome. We got a taxi to the Palm Tree Court resort which turns out to be about 60km from the airport but only took 30mins as the freeways are also great. When we arrived we came across our first slight hiccup... they weren't expecting us for another 14hours. As we arrived on the 21st, we had only booked the night of the 21st and not of the 20th, after some bribes tipping, the resort was happy to accommodate us and as we are now staying 3 nights, provide us all the privileges of a 3 night stay :) Anyway after sorting everything out it was all ok and we went to bed to try and limit the jet lag.
The resort is great as there are only tourists here and there are far less restrictions. After a hearty bacon and egg breakfast (It did pain us to get the bacon during Ramadan in Dubai, the chef was fasting, but we are talking about bacon here) we headed on the shuttle bus to the Mall of the Emirates.
The mall is also way over the top, and is massive.
There was a surprising lack of people, up until about 1PM. And being Ramadan all the food and cafe stores were not serving dine-in patrons. Asking one of the cafe's (by the way everyone speaks English very well) they advised that they could provide take away, asking what we are supposed to do with it then, they advised that it would be best to consume in your car or in the mall washrooms... We must confess to smuggling a brown paper bag with a jumbo flat white and jumbo chai latte in to the washroom and consuming it within a cubicle (the fact they were made of marble and meticulously maintained did not make the experience anymore enjoyable) Leaving the washroom, I noticed the bin was full of maccas wrappers (to the top, with no paper towels to be seen). Now caffeinated, we browsed the many designer stores, and visited the indoor them park with rides and arcade machines (all eerily devoid of any people)
At 2:30PM things were starting to pickup, we met up with Tony and went in to Ski Dubai which is also located in the mall. If you don't already know, Ski Dubai is the largest indoor ski field in the world. We got a 2 hour pass ($70AUD including all hire), they provided us some quite decent ski gear, new socks, pants and jacket, and made our way to the entrance. Outside air temp has been hovering at about 45degrees celsius, inside the huge snow building, it was -5. We jumped on the quad lift and went to the top, the lift also has a mid station with cafe. 6 minute trip up the lift, and 1 minute trip down, the snow was firm and dry and we used up every last bit of that 2 hours, it was definitely worth doing, but not for anymore than 2 hours. We also got to see the penguins during feeding time, that's right, they have a flock(?) of penguins!
After skiing and boarding, we went out again looking for a drink, eventually we came across a hotel attached to the mall (there are multiple) and asked if there was anywhere we could get a drink. We were led discreetly through a floor to ceiling curtain in to a huge dining room field with westerners munging down on food and drink. It was bizarre. Bron ordered a hot choclate with orange from her iPad menu, and I ordered a a Camel-cino, a cappuccino made from camels milk and sweetened with dates. It was quite intense but awesome, nothing like frothed camels milk to give you back some energy.
We jumped in to a taxi and headed to Dubai Mall, which is bigger again than the Mall of the Emirates, took some pictures in front of the Burj Khalifa, currently the tallest building in the world and watched the grey nurse sharks in the aquarium in the middle of the mall. At 7:15PM sunset marked the end of the fasting and hoardes of people flooded the shops, the place really came alive. We watched the fountain display in front of the Burj Khalifa.
After that we jumped in a taxi to go to a restaurant near the 7 star hotel. A 10 minute walk up a long pier led us to restaurant 360... which was closed, we stopped at a nice little bar on the way back and had a refreshing beverage before heading to off to Belgian beer cafe for dinner. After some more beverages and dinner, we headed back to our resort, the taxi driver was convinced it didn't exist and was taking us on a roundabout tour. We eventually made it back and had another good nights rest. I woke up at about 6AM local time which is noon Sydney time, so we have almost shaken off the jet lag. Bron is still sleeping (its 8AM now) so she is doing better than I am.
Dubai really is an interesting and diverse place, definitely not as scary as we expected from all the stories but definitely need to be aware of the culture. It is mind bogglingly hot all the time, it has rarely been under 40 even in the night. Anyway, I am off to wake up Bron so we can have breakfast and have a swim in the pool with underwater speakers.
