Dubai: the Burj Khalifa, Palm Island & a Cultural Lunch

 

The iconic Frame, that divides Old Dubai from New Dubai.

The Future Museum

The 828 m Burj Khalifa

Even at 456 m there is a lot of building above! (Toronto's CN Tower observation deck is 447 m)

The view from the world's tallest building...

The BurjAl Arab, made to look like a sail.

This is one of the three famous man made Palm islands, Jumeirah, Jebel Ali and Deira, as seen from a satelitte which is where you need to be to see it, not from a bus driving on it where you see nothing but the buildings on it or waves crashing on the perimeter wall.

The old renovated town of Dubai

The structures on top would bring air into the building to cool it.

A cultural lunch... ('open door, open minds')

Our hotess who explained Islam traditions, including the black plastic nose piece.

You can always find men sitting around solving the world's problems...

We took one of these boats across the 'creek'.

The spice souk...

the gold souk...

and the fabric souk.

Monday, February 16th. 

We headed out early this morning to try to be among the first at the Burj Khalifa, the tallest building in the world. It was a 40 minute drive and we got there by 8:45 but still had to wait almost 2 hrs in the line to get to the elevator that took you to the observation deck. The view, despite the dust haze, was amazing, but I’m not sure it was the best use of our time, but nevermind. Then we walked back through the Dubai Mall past all the shops and the line for the Burj Khalifa was easily five times as long; and since there are no markers and you can’t see the end of the line, the people would have no idea that they would be spending the better part of the day in line, yikes. On the way to the Burj Khalifa and on the way back we drove past the magnificent ‘eye’ structure of the Future Museum.

We drove for another half hour to get to the manmade Palm Islands but you cannot see the shape at all, which was disappointing. We stopped on the corniche at the end to see the sea and watch the waves, why? And to see the outside of the seven star hotel, again, why? We had lunch at the cultural centre where they had prepared a number of dishes for us and we ate in a traditional homestay set up and had a female guide who told us about the traditions and culture of the UAE including why women wear black and men wear white; men because white is cooler in the heat and women black because it is more modest and reveals less of the body within, contours them. And the cover over her nose was explained as sun protection but has become a desired look, so again it is cultural. It was quite interesting. Then we took a small boat or ombra across the Dubai Creek (which is more like a river)  to the gold and spice souks where we had an hour to wander around and explore or purchase something if we chose. The shop owners are all Indians and they have the same banter trying to engage you to get you in their shop. I’m good at resisting that. Then we boarded the bus again for the drive back to the hotel.

We are only in Dubai for one full day and I was disappointed with what we did, so I decided to remedy that. Stay tuned….