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| It looks so unreal at night The Dubai Tower - 2500 feet tall |
We are in the City of Dubai - in the United Arab Emirates. Lulu is here to give a presentation. Because of delays - our plane arrives on Sunday at 1 AM local time - and Lulu's presentation was just 11 hours later - Sunday at noon. So after 16 hours of flying spread out over 3 days - she very professionally pulled it all together. After being at the conference in our Flora Hotel for 6 hours - we went our on the town for 6 hours.
It is midnight now here - Lulu is sacked out - I get to type a little - and show you some pictures.
No one likes travel whiners so I will be brief. We left Tallahassee at 6 PM on Thursday. When we hit Atlanta - we were late for our regular plane - not our fault. The airline put us up in a hotel - and we spent 24 hours there for the next plane. Then we had an 8 hours plane to Frankfurt - Germany. Finally a 6 hour plane to Dubai.
After Lulu's conference day - we took a cab to the Dubai Tower Mall. What a fantastic place! The place is spotless. We have not seen any dogs over here - and smoking in public is forbidden. That really keep the place clean. Dogs are considered unclean in the religion. Lots of ex-pats that come here to work have to weigh the high pay against the dog unfriendly culture.
There is a big water show at the mall - similar to the one at the Bellaggio in LasVegas. Disney would be proud of the dancing lights - water - lasers - and music. The people that stopped to watch the show were relatively subdued compared to American crowds. Yelling - gunshots - banging garbage cans - etc - are frowned upon. No barking animals - psychology pets - etc.
We had lunch/supper in the mall - typical food courts - local ware - and the chains. Although dogs are not allowed in restaurants - parents staring at their iPhones while their kids act up is an American habit that caught on here.
After that we caught a train back to our hotel - about 6 miles from the Dubai Tower. The train system is spotless. Lots of colored tiles - sparkling clean windows - crisp new seats - and soaring stations. It was unusual to see heavy construction going on during the night. In the dark - there were men wiping down decorative tiles even on the street poles.
When we got to our hotel train station - we shopped a little at a Bollywood store - open all night. I was surprised to only find shaving cream in tubes - no aerosol cans.
Alcohol can only be served in hotel restaurants and private clubs. Drinking age is 21. You cannot drink in public. This does not bother me one bit - it seems to make people act more civilized - no shooting off guns at night. One last thing - we have not seen one bit of grafiti here.
Some final facts and figure. United Arab Emirates is a country smaller than Pennsylvania - 30,000 square miles. It has 9 million people to Pennsylvania's 13 million. An Emriate is a dynastic Arab shiekdom. I think 7 of them went together to from UAE. Dubai is one - Abu Dhabi is one. The shieks take turns being president. It runs in the family.
Some local stores - some chains
Lulu got a phone case at the Apple store. Worker checks her out on the spot.
The decorative water system was filtered water
Look at the tile work in the mall
Filtered water in the canal
Ice skating in the mall
Many skyscrapers
The water show was here
Nice Sunday afternoon crowd about 6 pm
Our hotel - red spot - Dubai Mall - blue spot
Cleanest trains I ever saw
24 hour store by our hotel
Shave cream in tubes - no aerosols
Bollywood store right by our train station. Street are relatively crime free
Dubai Mall
Buy souvenir of you trip up the 2500 foot tower. It is $40 to the top - we did not go. I think I was scared - a little bit. More than twice as tall at the Empire State Building
It looks surreal at night
I think these were replicas of the old Citroen food trucks. They just looked too good.
Not a museum - just the mall
It was hard to get them both in the picture
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