Date of Visit: 22 August 2011
Just a quick note to all who are taking emirates and transiting in Dubai, you get to have a free buffet meal in the airport! Its a very nice thing that they provide, and the food is not bad too.
So after spending 4 hours trying to catch some sleep in the airport chairs, we decided to get out of the airport and explore the city! We bought a metro day pass for 16Dhs(S$1 to 3Dhs) which allowed us to take unlimited metro and buses in the city. It's very useful considering that we want to hide under the aircon protection of the buses and metros most of the time.
The public transportation in Dubai is very new, and very clean. It's not overcrowded like all our public transportation. Overall, it's very good and comfortable.
First stop, the spice and gold souk. I do not know what's the hype about this place though, it's just a long row of shops that sells spices on one side and gold on the other side. Our little India and Mustafa Center will trump their spice and gold souk respectively, IMO. The only interesting thing I saw, thus the only photo, is this giant ring. It's apparently the largest ring in the world!
Thoughout Dubai, and I dare say Middle East, most of the buildings are rather dull in colour, like brown and beige. I think it's mainly due to the amount of sand that they have. No matter what colour you paint them, it's gonna get covered in sand and become brown. Nonetheless, the buildings are truly middle-eastern-ish. Like those we see in games such as CoD4. Haha. Here's a sample of the buildings:
Then we went to the Dubai Museum, which showed us the history of Dubai. Their growth is almost like Singapore, started in 1960s when they discovered oil to now. The difference is we have no black gold. The museum is housed in an old fort:
As the strong mid day sun beat down on our sweaty backs (40 degrees or more), we seek shelter under their bus services and travel to see the Burj Al Arab, the famous sail. Upon reaching there, my previous impression on the place is sealed. As it is built on an island off the mainland, it is only accessible if you own a private yacht or helicopter. Poor commoners like us can only see it from beyond the gates of the link-bridge. Nonetheless, it's still amazing to see this building in front of me! World's 7-Star hotel...
On our way to the enormous Dubai Mall, which is connected to the Burj Khalifa, we went pass Dubai's most famous mosque. It looked ordinary, unlike those mosques I've seen in Brunei where they are all lavishly decorated with domes and minarets etc.
Our last stop: Dubai Mall and Burj Khalifa. Dubai mall is humongous! Imagine a few Vivo City together! It takes freaking long to walk from one end of the mall to the other. Most of the time the shops by itself is very large and spacious.
The highlight of the day itself is Burj Khalifa, the world's tallest building at 828meters. That's a few Bukit Timah Hill stacked on top of each other! Unfortunately, we did not take a photo outside with the building in the day, and it seems that they spent all the money building the structure and have no money left to buy lightings for the night. It's so dim at night, my camera can't take a photo of it.
We took the world's fastest elevator up 126 levels in 45seconds. Once at the top, it's surprisingly windless. It's just calm up there. It's so unlike Taipei 101 where the strong wind felt like you could be blown off the building anytime. It was rather dusty during the time, so it affected the visibility quite a bit. But while looking down to all the buildings underneath me, it struck me that Dubai is really a city built on the desert. Any empty space that you see is just sand. The only greenery are those planted along the highways.
I picked the evening time so we can witness the sunset at the top. It was a good decision! The view was spectacular, getting to see the sun set below the horizon, with a glimpse of their "the world" projects. It really is something special. "another reason is that now is the month of ramadan, so we can't have dinner until sunset anyway, no point going down early"
Another interesting object is the Gold Vending Machine. Yes, it's a vending machine that sells gold bar.
We tried to have something Middle Eastern for dinner, so ended up having Kebab at a food court. Nothing special about it though. So that's the end of our Dubai trip. Most of time we spent in Dubai is actually just waiting. The day seems so long and there's nothing much to do. We can't even catch a movie and had to spend the last few hours in Dubai mall enjoying tea and donuts (9dhs only, with 2 donuts, cheap!), before heading back to the airport.
Dubai is really an amazing place, a city in the desert with outrageous building projects. It's also a very cosmopolitan city with people from everywhere, e.g. Africans, Filipinos, Chinese, Filipinos, Indians, Filipinos Caucasians, and some more Filipinos. It almost seems as if they imported Philipinos into their country. Nonetheless, the local people here are generally friendly and helpful. But I doubt I would visit again anytime soon...
Next Stop: United Kingdom
So did you buy any gold bar??
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