Alok is here visiting us for 2 weeks so we spent the first few days in Dubai. Compared to Doha it is a big bustling city with all the shops and amenities of any other big city in the world. Dubai is still growing though. On the map you see "u/c" next to everything which means under construction. Dubai has the most cranes than any other city in the world. I remember hearing once that a new company opens in Dubai everyday! Anyway despite Alok's jetlag and all the traffic in Dubai we managed to see quite a few things. We went to the Global Village which was part of the Dubai Shopping Festival (45 days of shopping craziness). They have different booths for countries around the world that sell "local" crafts. The booths are like Spring Carnival at CMU except on a much bigger scale and minus the booze. It was fun to go to countries where we would never normally go like Iraq, Saudi and Iran. Too bad Palestine wasn't open yet.
The next day we had lunch at the Burj Al-Arab (http://www.burj-al-arab.com). It was good to see for the sake of saying we've seen it now but not worth a second trip. No doubt this place is the definition of fancy but a bit excessive like everything in Dubai. They had a whole menu dedicated to different kinds of water! Alok had a mysterious truffle dish and I had some tasty art on a plate. My palate just isn't sophisticated enough to appreciate this kind of stuff. C'mon one of my favorite foods is a hot dog from Wrigley Field!
We hit the other big tourist spot next…Ski Dubai. We didn't go in though…skiing in the desert just doesn't feel right. We also tried seeing The Palms (the extraordinary new island residence where Trump is building a new hotel) but it's still under construction. We also went to Ibn Buttuta where the actual mall is more interesting than the shops. Each hall has a different country theme and the detail is amazing especially because it's just a mall!
All in all a good 3 days of good food and good fun. Alok may have a different story though…it was a lot of shopping for him :)
-Gen
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