Do-buy
December 20th, 2008Short stories from Dubai:
You may have heard that Dubai has the tallest building in the world, the tallest and biggest hotel in the world, the largest artificial islands (under construction), but they also have the largest shopping mall. It is so large that the mall information stations have free fold up paper guides like some large museums so that you don’t get lost. I think I only saw a part of it but I did manage to stumble upon the indoor ski slope and snow park, inside the mall… But it was my last day here and all five of the sunglass shops I checked had the shades I wanted marked up between 50-100% over what it costs online, so I head outside to get a taxi to the beach where the tallest hotel, Burj al Arab, is located. Its the one that almost looks like a really big sailboat. And there is an endless line of taxis waiting. My driver was really pissed that he got stuck with me, going only a “short” distance, and said it took him an hour to get through the line, “sorry..” I told him. So five or six minutes later I am dropped off at the beach and I see it up close, well still probably a km or so away. I didn’t get to go inside the, since if you aren’t a guest, they won’t let you even cross the bridge that leads to it. Unless of course you have to have an appointment for lunch, which runs about 150 USD, I’ll pass.
On my first day I got up too late and missed the hotel shuttle to whatever touristy place it was going to that day, so I had to find something nearby and the Dubai Museum was within walking distance, also the Top 10 guide book I got listed it at number one of ten things to do in Dubai. I was a little skeptical but nothing else was even remotely close and I needed to get out and eat something anyway. So I find the place a short 5-10 min walk from my hotel. To be honest, it wasn’t much of a museum, as probably should be expected for a city that is only recently became of any significance. From the outside it looks like just the remains of a small fort, smaller than half a football field. Oh well, entry fee is less than 1 USD, how bad can it be? Let me just say, you get what you pay for, which in this case is not much. To their credit, there was a larger underground area, but all it consisted of was dioramas of the brief history of the city. Zzzz..
The good news is I didn’t waste that much time there, and the Lebanese Grill restaurant I passed earlier was open now so I went there to grab some lunch. I don’t think I’ve ever had Lebanese food before and it was pretty good. Had the mixed grill with lamb and chicken and some sausage type thing, but I don’t think it was pork. Also came with a big salad, olives, bread and a coke all for about 12 USD.
One thing I wanted to do in Eilat but didn’t have time for was a Desert Safari so I thought I would see if I could do one here. Fortunately I was able to book one for the same day, and they had included pick up and drop off. It was pretty fun, spinning around sand dunes in a small jeep convoy. My group definitely had the best driver, and somehow I managed to get the front seat so I had a great view. I got a couple videos of going up some 40+ ft dunes and other craziness. After they took us to a meeting point where other groups doing the same thing all gathered for Camel riding, BBQ dinner, and belly dancing… fun, and for a good price.
I didn’t bring shaving cream with me because I wanted to do the carry-on only thing but most airlines are making me check my carry-on bag anyway so I finally broke down after several excruciatingly painful dry shaving experiences and bought some shaving cream in Dubai. It wasn’t the normal Gillette aerosol gel in a can, instead it’s inside a toothpaste-like container. I was about out of blades too and the ones I brought with me were a new kind I had never tried at home, so I wasn’t sure it the problem was no cream or bad blade, anyway, I got some of my normal razors as well, and let me tell you, that was the best shave I’ve ever had. That is some excellent shaving grease, which is what I am calling it now, since it is much more like grease than a foaming cream. I think I will keep it for special occasions and when I haven’t shaved for two weeks or more; why use a cannon to kill a mouse?
Emirates is the official UAE airline, and they have their own private terminal at the Dubai International airport. If I had to pick one word to describe this place it would be ‘empty.’ I had to walk what seemed like 300m just to get to the ticketing counters after coming through the front doors, I saw less than 20 other non airport staff. From there it was another 200m to the passport control, no waiting here either, several booths active, none with lines, only one other had a passenger. Only 50m to the security check point this time, which was manned by no less than 9 or 10 groups of people operating the x-ray machines and metal detectors, none with lines, of course. On to the duty free shopping! I had planned to eat before coming to the airport but my hotel rushed me out into my ‘courtesy shuttle’ which was actually a taxi, that I had to pay for… so I got some food here, it wasn’t too bad and it let me spend all but two of my AED cash, too bad the cashier only has one AED coin left!… Whatever, it’s worthless to me now anyway. There is a story in here about boarding as well but this is already getting longer than I wanted, so on to the flight! A menu, metal silverware, free alcohol, comfy seats, no flight attendant nagging me to turn off my mp3 player on take off and landing, a hot moist cloth washcloth at the start of the flight, entertainment on the seat-back in front of you and decent movie selection. Also had front, rear and down cameras (pretty cool on takeoff and landing), flight info, as well as a bunch of other stuff we never get on domestic flights. The only thing that would have been better was to not be forced to use the stupid two pronged headphone jack so that I could have used my own earbuds.
One of the many things Dubai seems to have an abundance of is tall buildings. On my way to the biggest mall, the main street was lined on both sides with tall buildings, almost all 20-25 minutes of the drive there. The funny thing is, on my flight out, I could see a part of town where just one main street had tall buildings and everything else behind them was small 2-3 stories. I really don’t understand it, so many huge hotels, they can’t all be full or even close, because as far as I can tell, there simply isn’t hardly anything to do in Dubai.
To sum up, Dubai is where the desert meets the ridiculous and absurdly extravagant. As a side note, Emirates is probably the best airline I have flown on, I can’t wait to see what business class is like to Hong Kong…