Dubai

The Mercato Shopping Plaza
in Dubai....one of the many.














After a reasonably uneventful (except for the National Day celebrations which went for 3 days) 2 weeks in Abu Dhabi we headed to Dubai for another work function for Carrie. Now, if you've ever seen any of the travel shows where they show Dubai or read anything about it, you would think it's good. However, we found out it's just a city in the desert with a lot of expensive hotels, shops and gold....oh, and a random ski slope.
We stayed in the Dusit Hotel which charges about 4 times what you would expect to pay in Australia. This seemed to be the theme of the week. There are a huge amount of shopping centres for a city that is not actually that big. Most of them have top end designer fashion. We didn't even bother looking in the windows of those. We checked out The Mall of the Emirates which is the shopping centre with the ski slope. It's amazing they can keep that going in the middle of the desert. Rod went to Wild Wadi which is a water theme park like Wet 'n Wild in QLD.
One night we decided that while in Rome we should do as the Romans do.......or Arabs in this matter....and go to the Gold Souk. The Gold Souk is a city block chockers of jewellery shops filled with gold. Carrie bought a gold necklace, Rod decided against some bling.
On another night we both went to the Karama market (Rod went during the day so already had it sussed out). The market is a bunch of small shops that sell mostly designer knock-offs like jeans and t-shirts as well as handbags, shoes and dodgy DVDs. Definetely the highlight was Carrie being asked by a shop keeper if she wanted "some bling shoes for Christmas". Firstly, that sentence did not sound right coming out of a middle aged Indian, and secondly, the shoes looked like they should have been on a hooker.
After a week in Dubai we were glad to get back to quiet old Muscat, where things aren't so fake and flashy, and where driving isn't considered an extreme sport.