Wikipedia lists 68 shopping malls in Dubai with even more under construction, so today we thought we’d see what this mall thing is about. Being American I thought I knew something about shopping. Turns out, not really.
We started off by going skiing. Ski Dubai is an indoor ski facility in the Mall of the Emirates (6.5 million square feet with hundreds, thousands, tens of thousands of stores? It’s hard to tell.). Artificial snow is maintained inside a large space with a single chair lift and several snow play activities. Only some of the customers actually skied, though E and her mom did for most of their 2-hour session in gear and clothes included with the rental price. B and I watched/napped from the adjacent Costa Coffee.
Many folks just came to experience the desert oddity of snow, even if it was the man made kind. Lots of families dressed up in the thick clothing so different from their native garb and posed for photos at the various landmarks, the pretend tree, plastic ice sculpture, chair lift, etc. They seemed without exception to be having a ball and it was a lot of fun just to sit there and watch them enjoy themselves. The odd juxtaposition of traditional muslim garb with the new opportunities of wealth continued to be very interesting. Every 15 minutes or so my girls would float by on the chair lift as B snored in her stroller.
After an après-ski rest back at the hotel, we tried the world’s largest Dubai Mall, which boasts an enormous indoor aquarium among its non-shopping related amenities. We felt bad for Emerati who might someday visit the Monterey Bay Aquarium and wonder what all the hype is about.
“The Fountain” is another cool distraction from the endless stores, and the several sections of this water work show silver divers in formation as water flows over rough stone beneath them. It’s very cool.
Speaking of cool, the weather has been very mild for the middle east desert, a blessing whenever out doors. But inside these malls I have to put a jacket on because it is so cold. It’s very strange. “Ok, going back outside where I can finally take this coat off.” And that isn’t including the Ski Dubai facility, which the girls reported was just as cold as skiing at Tahoe.
We also explored what must be one of the world’s largest candy stores, with vast selections of sugar in various forms and every size you can imagine. One of us was in high-fructose heaven.
We ended up having dinner again by the Dubai Fountain, and I brought a good camera to take a decent photo this time. The water choreography to Thriller was good and included some “fog” at the beginning, mist created via the water nozzles, I guess. You can see an amateur video of this one here. But I was lucky to see the performance I’d enjoyed most from last night’s visit, set to a Japanese (I think) piece I didn’t recognize. The programming of the water was very artful and told a story that went well with the music, rather than just being rhythmical tricks. For a few minutes the fountain seemed to come alive and be something more than a series of jets controlled by a computer. It made me think of how almost anything we can control can become an art form if the right person is inspired to make it happen. It also reminded me that beauty is in the eye of the beholder, because when this number was over, I seemed to have been the only one who was moved by it. Most of the crowd seemed to like Thriller as much or more. Oh well. Whomever is responsible for the one I liked, thank you. That was gorgeous.
