Dubai, Day 2

May 21, 2009

Dubai, UAE

This was a day of a lot of walking.  We started off with some window shopping at an upscale mall called Wafi.  This was my first experience with the Emirates concept of "mall;" huge, and very snazzy.  This one had an egyptian theme, and was shaped like a pyramid.

Giant stained glass window forming the tip of the pyramid.

The shortest escalators I've ever seen.  Silly lazy people.

The basement of the mall had a Moroccan theme

Starbucks really is everywhere.  The sign is in Arabic, read right to left.

In one computer store, I spotted the keyboards-- with English and Arabic letters.  I got some very funny looks taking pictures of the laptop.

We stopped in an arabic sweet shop in the mall, which was great because all the workers there were quite enthusiastic about feeding us samples of the various baclava and other sweets.

We ate lunch at a little Indian restaurant, where I had a delicious dosa and a mango lassi.  We all (especially Hillary and I, the clearly American-looking ones) got a lot of stares from the regulars there-- this was clearly no tourist joint.

Dosa-- something like a crepe.  There is a small amount of filling in the middle, but mostly you "rip and dip" the outside into the 3 dips you see on the tray.

After lunch we walked to a pool hall for a mid-afternoon break.  This was a very common thing to do-- spend the hottest hours of the afternoon indoors, sitting around talking and relaxing.  And it was REALY hot that day.  The walk to the pool hall in the 106 degree heat was killer.  You could literally feel the sun baking your skin.

A flower that grows on some trees there, very orange and very big.  Translated, the name means "fire in the forest."

We spent the afternoon at Karama, a market district where more locals shop.  It was quite the reverse of Wafi, including some intense haggling that was really interesting to watch.

For dinner, we went out with Illika's parents to a restaurant next to the fountain show.  Here, we ate outside while watching a very well choreographed fountain show every half hour.

This fountain is the tallest in the world-- 15 stories high.