Day 2 Shopping (take two)

so the sleeping thing is not working yet .. atleast not during regular Dubai nocturnal hours, so i figure I will recreate my post for today that was deleted......

ok, so take every store you ever wanted to go to in London, New York, Paris, LA and Montreal and put them in one place ... welcome to shopping in Dubai.


So the big outing today was the mall. The Mall of the Emirates. This is the mall with the ski hill in it. It also has everything else in it. What is amazing is there is several other rival malls in town. Makes me wonder what i will find there !!

so I did not take any pictures in the mall, as i felt sort of conspicuous. I am sure i will get over that. so you will have to try to see what i saw through my descriptions. my aplogies to all my writer and professional pr friends, painting pictures with words .. not a stenght i share with you.


So a few impressions:

1) the noise .... as you enter the mall the background decibel level is super high. there is a massive amount of energy and noise that comes along with that many people. I don't know why i expect quiet here, perhaps it is all the open space and the desert colouring ...

2) Burkas (sp) come in a super wide variety of styles. I suppose when you think about it, that makes sense. After all this is a garment that how many 100's of 1000's women wear dayily. But it was interesting looking at all the different outfits and coming to see the interstices, embellishment etc.

3) Everyone, save for the white expats, move in large groups. Seriously. This made navigating the mall and all the strollers a bit of a challenge. I only took out one or two errant kids. (that is not bad considering the sheer number of them) But my karma was redeemed when I stopped a little boy from leaving a shoe shop where his mom was looking at some really nice McQueens (only 3000 UAE dollars!!!!!)

4) So picture this…. Krispy Cream donut counter and three Arab men standing at the counter. They were there in their white traditional (?) suits (I need to learn the name of this attire) all with red ropes (again, need to learn the right name of this and what the significance is, if any of the colour – please forgive my cultural ignorance) adorning their head. I don’t know why the image struck me, I am sure partially b/c of the coulour constrast the green and white Crispy Cream logo with the white figures in front. Or just the fact they were eating donuts!

5) So in many places they have the north American name of the shop followed by the name written in English. The two best examples that struck me were Starbucks and Chilli’s. Don’t know why just struck me.

6) found the Borders (sp?) Books!!! Yeah

7) prices are the same as back home

8) I did not expect the pushy-ness. When in line for a taxi, to cash out, or to get something, people do not really care if you were there first. I suppose this is the Canadian in me. It is not as bad as it was in India or anything, but I did not expect it b/c this is one of the places where manners and politeness are paramount. Then again, maybe I just came across a small sub-group….

9) This is a hugely multi cultural city. I have never been anywhere where I have heard so many languages being spoken at one. It was incredible. Imagine being in the a big dressing room like Zara’s and hearing 6 conversations in 6 different languages, then multiple that during a 3 hour trip to the mall. V. cool.

10) It would be v. cool to have heaps of $$. There really is amazing shopping here !!!!!!! But I can’t wait to go to the souks (traditional markets). Hopefully, I can find someone local who can speak the language and bargain for me. I really need a new old rug. Something bigger for my dining room (and by my dining room, I mean the location in my yet to be purchased home lol). I would offer to bring back gold for people, but at today’s prices… even the souk prices will be a no-go.

I am sure there are other things …. But that is what I remember for now….


One of the main reasons for my trip to the mall was to go grocery shopping. I am staying in a standard apartment hotel, and I have a kitchen. So I figured it would be good to have some food to cook (yes Diane laugh now). Anyway they have a big Carrefour there. Just like the ones everywhere else in the world. Funny, while all grocery stores seem to be set up the same way, it still took me a long while to shop. Wading through all the different brands and food stuffs was cool. I am sure i missed half of what was there. By the end, I had to remind myself, I could come back … so off to the cash I went. I had my own bags with me, they sort of looked at me funny when I said this…. Yeah .. environmentalism has not quite made it here yet. So by 9pm I was done and off to the taxi.

One very important thing you should know about one of the largest malls in Dubai. It has one valet parking area and one taxi area. Both are located in the same entrance. Yeah … v. good planning. So after a long, yet very organized wait, I finally got into a taxi at 9:45pm!!

Ok that is enough for now. If can I am going to try to visit the “beach” tomorrow. But I have heaps of work and clearly now that it is 4:30am I will need to figure out how to sleep too.
ciao