25 July 2013

The Dubai Series: Day 1 - Dubai Mall

Endlich endlich habe ich die meisten Fotos fertig bearbeitet! Und jetzt koennen die blogposts auch kommen, allerdings werde ich es so machen, dass ich die Texte zu meinen Dubai-Erlebnissen ganz auf Englisch schreibe, da es sonst einfach zuviel Schreiberei wird und die Fotos wohl in den Texten untergehen. Danach geht es aber wie gewohnt mit Deutsch-Englisch weiter :)

Finally I am done editing most of the photos! That means I am able to write my posts about Dubai and show you guys what I experienced. There will be one special thing about "The Dubai Series": All text will be in English, otherwise it would just be too much text.

Dubai is known for its shopping opportunities and it is home of the biggest mall in the world: The Dubai Mall. It has 1,200 stores - ranging from luxury to every day, you and me shops, an aquarium with an underwater zoo, an ice rink, a theme park and of course a movie theatre. I am not really a fan of such huge malls simply because I always manage to get lost in them. For that reason, my first stop was the aquarium. I have been to aquariums before but this one was the first time that I was able to walk through the tunnel section. It was a wee bit scary because my overly active imagination always had that picture of broken glass and me getting eaten by sharks - but as you can see, I am alive. After the tunnel, you had to go up two levels to get to the underwater zoo. Up there, they had a bunch of tropical, colorful fish, crabs and crocodiles. My favourite were the jellyfish that changed their colours every now and then.
After the aquarium, I went to the waterfall inside the mall. It is an art installation that reaches from the top of the mall all the way down to the ground level. An amazing sight and I am so sad that my pictures didn't really catch its beauty. Another beautiful part was the Denim District: A little village inside the mall only for shops that sell denim, like Levi's or Pepe Jeans London. It really looked like a small Arabian village and I especially liked the light colours. After the Denim District, I visited The Souk. Souks are open air market places, kind of like bazaars, just this one was inside the mall. It was the more traditional part and I enjoyed strolling through the stores and finally got to see some real Arabian clothing and jewellery pieces. I mentioned it before: When I travel, I want to see things of the nation's culture and not something I have right around the corner in my town at home. And let me tell you, Arabians know how to design jewellery! I am already a huge fan of Israeli gold pieces and a visit to the gold souk took my breath away. Twice. Once when I saw beautiful pieces and then when I discovered the price and converted it. 
When you leave The Souk and go outside, you get to the Dubai Fountains and the Burj Khalifa (the tallest building in the world). Honestly, the Burj Khalifa doesn't look that tall because it is quite "skinny" but I am sure once you get to the top, you will realise how tall that building is (especially if you're like me and afraid of heights). I did not go to the top because I did not want to pay a fortune. Furthermore the humidity was very high all the time and because of that, the air always seemed really foggy so you could not see far anyway. So a look from the outside and the ground was good enough for me. Next to this area they have another small shopping centre called "Souk Al Bahar" where they sell more traditional but also a lot of touristy stuff. It is worth a visit because the architecture is gorgeous! At the entrance they also have a throne but unfortunately I didn't catch details about it and I could not find information about it online either. But yes, there is a throne.
Since I still had enough time until the fountain show started, I decided to do a little shopping and eating. They had bazillions of food places and restaurants there, it was hard to decide. It ranged from the typical American restaurants (iHop, Red Lobster, Rainforest Cafe, Cheesecake Factory up to Texas Roadhouse which made me feel like I was back in Texas) to a few Chinese and Italian places to restaurants for vegetarians. I decided to try something new but not too exotic and ended up at The Noddle Company. After stuffing my face with the most delicious Lo-Mein and Chicken Satay, I explored some stores until it was time for the fountain show. And let me tell you, I imagined it to be quite boring - "It's just moving water" - but boy, was I wrong! They chose the perfect music so that it made the whole fountain show quite dramatic. I loved it! The fountain shows start at 18:00 o'clock and from them on, they're every hour and every time with a different music. If you ever visit the Dubai Mall, be sure to check it out.
As you can see there is so much to do in that mall, I really spent my entire first day there. Also, I got a lot of questions about the clothing guidelines there. Even though there are signs at the door stating that you should wear respectful clothing (knees and shoulders covered), a lot of tourists did not care. I saw hot pants, tube tops, short dresses and all you can imagine. However, I would not encourage to do this. While they didn't get taken aside by the security (except one but you could really see her butt fall out of her shorts), you will get looks from the locals. I wore a maxi skirt and a tank top and didn't get any looks at all. I even got a few smiles from local women. It is all about respect: Cover yourself and you won't have any problems and locals will be so much more friendly to you.

Click "Read more" to get the rest of the pictures. I tried to keep my blog a little bit organised n_n





































3 comments:

  1. schöne Bilder! Waren auch erst dort :)

    Ein Foto auf dem Stuhl (im Gebäude gegenüber von der Mall) haben wir auch gemacht! Und da gabs lecka Nüsse & ein Ami-Restaurant am Ende mit View auf den Turm.... wunderschön!

    LG

    ReplyDelete
  2. Super schöne Bilder. :)
    Liebe Grüße jelaegbe.blogspot.de

    ReplyDelete
  3. Sehr schöne Bilder :) Ich beneide dich :D Übrigens ist dein Outfit toll :) Ich Liebe Maxis :P

    Liebe Grüße http://primaballerina10.blogspot.de/

    ReplyDelete