The Dubai Mall

The Dubai Mall.

Like going to The Galleria in the burbs, only bigger. 

Al Burj during day

Al Burj at night

OK, it does have the world's tallest building close by.


















And the Dancing Fountain, which is quite entertaining the first three times you see it.

Here is the sunset performance with an Arabian song:  



And here is a night-time performance, sung to Whitney Houston's I Will Always Love You. The camera is shaky in the beginning because I'm walking toward a better view: 

And the aquarium.

High-priced, mediocre food and service at the Lebanese restaurant. Wait, I'm being slightly too harsh. I had a really tasty "shanklish," described on the menu as "pungent goat cheese," which sold me immediately.











"Gourmet" popcorn.

A Chili's.

I did like the supermarket, as I saw fruit there I'd never seen before.

Lychee

 

Rambutan

Mangosteen

 

A kind of date or fig?

Dragonfruit

Was it worth the claustrophobic, body-scrunching ride amidst my fellow bourgoisie on the free Dubai Mall shuttle bus between the closest metro station and the mall? Unsure.

Dubai: Spice, Women, and a Girl in a Bubble

Frankincense from Oman

Interior, RTA water taxi, Dubai

Went back over the Creek to the Deira side to find the Spice Souk. To do that, I took a different kind of water taxi, the one operated by Dubai's RTA, the public transportation system. I tagged my refillable metro card before boarding this taxi, which is enclosed, has comfortable seats, and has the capacity for perhaps 30 passengers. It is a sleek vessel, iron grey.








I smelled the Spice Souk before I entered it. Luscious to breathe in the marvelous scents, see the intense colors, touch the surfaces.

A form of cinnamon bark

Crystal that has deodorant properties

Indigo for dyeing fabrics

Sunflower

I bought a bar of sandalwood soap.

I wandered in the neighborhood. This scene below, with the sensual figures of a woman adjacent to a mosque, is typical of Dubai, a place in which women's dress ranges from the black abaya with full head covering (except for the eye slit) to Daisy Dukes and tank tops.

(One might argue that the abaya with almost total head covering sexualizes women rather than de-sexualize them. They suggest that by women just being women, they invite harm to men's souls. In other words, if a man has impure thoughts, it is a woman's fault, not his. Interesting article on the subject here from an Orthodox rabbi.)

A couple of other scenes:

Finished here, I again went over to the Bur Dubai side.

 

In the evening, there was a festival along the Creek walk. One of the activities a child could do was be placed into a partially-collapsed plastic bubble, which teetered on the side of a pool. An attendant blew air into the bubble until it expanded into a perfect transparent globe. The child, within the bubble, dived against one side of the bubble to get it onto the water, where she commenced to being hamster-like.

 

Dubai: The Creek - Bur Dubai side

I took the one-dirham taxi over to the other side of the Creek, which placed me in the section of Dubai called Bur Dubai. Had lunch in a restaurant by the water.


Those are delectable little spinach-filled samosas, by the way, though they're called sambouseks here.

The coffee is "American" coffee. I'd asked for an americano, but I'm thinking this is either brewed or instant. I have no idea what the folks here consider to be "American" coffee.

I watch a cargo ship go by. Two men stand atop the goods, surveying the city around them. One man lifts his arms to the sky in a kingly manner and shouts something. I guess it's along the lines of: "Dubai! Here I am! I'm special!  I will conquer you!"

I see airplanes often in Dubai. The airport is near. The planes climb between buildings. The brain files information, I believe, by associations. So it is interesting to me how I associate these frequent planes, so close to the buildings, with 9/11.

I suppose it goes like this in my brain: Airplane flying - proximity to urban buildings - Dubai - middle east - Islamists**.

Add to that: In Dubai, there is a World Trade Center. Also, the world's-highest-building, the Al Burj, looks very similar to a proposed replacement for our own World Trade Center --> that single finger pointing to the sky, with bravado, perhaps.

But the reality is this: The planes are cargo ships loading and off-loading consumers and dealer-makers.

Some more Creek scenes:

** I use the term Islamist with deliberation. An Islamist (or alternatively, a Christianist or Judist, hmm, that last doesn't sound right) perverts religious tenets to justify the control or manipulation of others through coercive means.  As such, Islamists were responsible for 9/11, not Muslims.

Dubai: The Creek - Deira Side

  

The Creek, Dubai, UAE

Wearing my new gold necklace, I walked along the Creek. The Creek cuts through a part of Dubai, requiring you to drive under it through a tunnel or over it via a water taxi, to get from one side to another.  

The Creek, Dubai, UAE

I walked by small and large boats. Tourist boats, taxis, and cargo vessels. In the distance, I could even see cruise ships, but they were actually on the Gulf and not the Creek. In some parts, the Creek was very shallow and I could see the bottom easily, maybe only a two or three feet deep.

The Creek, Dubai, UAE

There is a customs wharf along the Deira side of the Creek. I saw boxes of items that had been off-loaded or maybe awaited on-loading.

Air conditioners on Dubai Creek wharf

The ships had colorful 'houses' at their aft end.

The Creek, Dubai, UAE

I saw these dirty, beat-up old office chairs on the wharf. Were they coming or going? To where?

The Creek, Dubai, UAE

I liked the contrast between these very old-style boats and the modern city along the Creek.

The Creek, Dubai, UAE

The Creek, Dubai, UAE

Some other scenes from the Deira side of the Creek:

The Creek, Dubai, UAE

The Creek, Dubai, UAE

The Creek, Dubai, UAE

The Creek, Dubai, UAE

I took a water taxi - an abra - to the other side of the Creek. It cost one dirham (about 30 cents).

The Creek, Dubai, UAE

Riders sit on the raised platform, probably about 10 people to each side. The 'taxi driver' sits in that square opening in the middle.

Dubai: Gold

Gold in Dubai

My lodging is in the section of Dubai called Deira. It doesn't have the modern high-rises that one sees in the tourist photos. It does have the Gold Souk, Spice Souk, and nearby, the Creek.

View from my alley, looking toward Al Khaleej Road

First order of business today was to walk to the water. When I'd emerged from the metro yesterday, I saw palm trees, blue skies, and the suggestion of water.

Across from the Hyatt Regency is a water-side walkway.

There is a lot of construction going on in the water, moving sand about.

"Flag" juice

Next stop: Breakfast.  Walked up 27th Street (which I think is also called Al Moussal Road or something similar), turned into a cafe. Had a "flag" juice plus a mutton breakfast sandwich. Both tasted fine; nothing special.

After some difficulty, found my way to the Gold Souk, which is a market of small shops devoted to selling gold jewelry. Every day there is the day's market price for gold per gram. Today it was 152 dirham ($41) for 18k, 182 dirham ($50) for 21k, and 186 dirham ($51) for 22k. Add onto that the cost of the craftsmanship, overhead, and other profit. Or maybe the "other profit" is built into the daily gold price. Negotiation is critical.

There's a rather modest entrance gateway to the gold souk, nothing on the scale of the entrance, for instance, to Chinatown in San Francisco, which would seem more fitting, considering the tourist buzz enjoyed by the Gold Souk.  

Gold Souk entrance

I have a pendant that my grandmother gave to me, which belonged to her mother. It has no chain and for years, I've intended to buy a necklace for it so I can wear this heirloom.

I'm in Dubai, so why not get that now? A side benefit: If someone compliments me on my necklace, I can touch it delicately and say with a sheepish smile, "Thank you, I picked it up in Dubai." So next time you see me, be sure to ask, OK? 

(This kind of thing always reminds me of a trip a long, long time ago when a fellow traveler began a story with, "We were picking strawberries in [insert exotic locale here] when ....") 


I visited a number of shops to look at different designs and compare prices. I loved a 22k necklace for its color, liquid design, and heft, and even considered buying it. But then gave myself a reality check. I'm rootless, hello? A constant tourist whose likelihood of being a target for theft is much higher than the average bear. Just another thing I'm going to have to keep track of, like a toddler. And why am I even thinking about spending this kind of money ....


I did, however, buy a more modest chain of a more modest karat. Something more in keeping with my station.