New Cinema

Posted by Kanga.

The Century Mall in Fujairah opened with just a couple of stores, adding a few more along the way. As you can see above, the food court is all set, except that there isn’t a single restaurant, yet.

The cinema opened recently. This is the massive and spectacularly lit lobby. We’ve been to this theatre twice now. The admission price is a little higher than that of the old cinema which is still operating. We think this might be why the talkative teenagers are still frequenting the old cinema. That is fine with us. We prefer to watch movies without listening to the drone of teens who CAN’T SHUT UP, even being told to be quiet. Don’t get me started… It also helps to go during the Middle Eastern dinnertime 8-10pm.

Student Sculptures

Posted by Kanga.

Last week we were in Dubai doing some shopping and errands. We visited Mirdif City Center Mall for the second time, ever. We saw banners indicating that there was a display of student sculptures somewhere in the mall (which is massive). Luckily, we found the sculpture display around the central information desk. The theme includes recycling and UAE symbols.

The Emirates Towers

Arabian Horse

We were particularly impressed with the falcon. The artist(s) even included the hood. Very creative.

If you are in the Mirdif City Centre Mall soon, look for the display. In order to vote, you must present mall store receipts for a minimum of 200 AED to the information desk.

Is No One Else Apalled?

Posted by Kanga.

These banners are stretched across the Emirates Mall passageways over apparently oblivious shoppers.

These distorted images are wrong in so many ways. Added to ugly clothing, the images are distorted so that the head and feet are enlarged, Bratz doll style. That’s bad enough, but the faces appear to be about 6 or 7 years old, while the bodies are clearly adult. The hyper-sexualization of children is offensive, or at least, should be.

I’ve never heard of the Steve Madden store before. Clearly, I am not in their target demographic. Even if I were, I would not shop there.

Rainslicker

We were at Dubai Festival City shopping mall this week. These window displays amused me. A rainslicker is the last thing one needs here. When it rains, ain’t no slicker gonna help you or keep you dry.

Modesh

We saw Modesh when we first arrived here back in August. We didn’t know who or what he was, but he was everywhere. He disappeared shortly thereafter, but he has returned. Modesh is the mascot of Dubai Summer Surprises, which is a ten week long shopping promotion. Each week has it’s own theme and there will be lots of activities for children in the malls. Like this:

And this:

Where does Modesh come from? Watch this video posted on YouTube by someone else.

Where do all those Modeshes (Modi? Modeshi?) go?

When we first heard him called by name, it was by an East Indian who referred to Modesh as evil. Being ignorant of most world religions, I thought maybe this evil Modesh was part of a pantheon of gods, like Kali or Ganesh. Therefore, we lovingly refer to Modesh as the god of destruction.

(There’s another book I should add to my summer reading list – Introduction to Hinduism.)

Ibn Battuta Mall

We finally went to Ibn Battuta Mall, which is a lengthy drive from our side of town, so that is why it has taken us so long. It is very beautiful and a revisit is certainly on our list of things to do. Perhaps on a day and time when there will be few other people there, so that we can take our time and look at everything and read the informational plaques. Ibn Battuta was a scholar and world traveler. This mall is designed to illustrate some of his travels and serves as an educational museum exhibit as well as a shopping opportunity.
So, here’s our first picture of Daddybird posing with a camel and it is an almost life sized stuffed toy camel. We didn’t find a price tag on it. If you have to ask, you can’t afford it. Notice there are two baby camels also. And that lens louse Bert is poking his head in just to get into the picture! This store was pretty amazing. They had life sized giraffes, a buffalo, a moose, etc. The koala bear, however, was gigantic and not at all life sized. Unfortunately, my pictures did not turn out, so will have to try again on our next visit.
The parts of the mall represent some of the countries that Ibn Battuta traveled to – China, India, Persia, Egypt, Tunisia and Andalusia. In each section is a large rotunda/courtyard area with some pretty amazing decorations. I think this is Andalusia with a beautiful fountain with water spitting lions.
In the China courtyard is a lifesize boat. Quite amazing.
Judging from the lifesize elephant, I’m going to guess this was India. Like I said, we need to go back when we have time to stop and read the information and learn a little something.

I’m sad that my pictures of the Eqypt section didn’t come out. I did take some video which I will upload in a few days that will give you a larger view of things.
This wasn’t Mecca, but it seems like it to me. A Borders bookstore…ahhhh.

This week in Dubai

This is the view from a restaurant where we ate sitting outside in the pleasant cool evening (cool is 60-70F). The water is Dubai Creek (more like a bay or inlet) and the bridge is lit with blue lights underneath. Very beautiful. While sitting there enjoying the view and the good food, we talked about how we no longer feel like newbies here, but this is our home. Not that we aren’t still seeing new things and being amazed by the unexpected, but we are very comfortable here and so very glad we came. Instead of asking ourselves “What have we done?” we are asking “Why didn’t we do this sooner?”
Here is our current rental car. We started out with a Caprice, which was rather large and a real challenge to get into our parking space. Then we had a Honda City, which was smaller, but not what we really wanted. So, now we have a Honda Jazz and really like it. It is small and peppy, both things that are advantageous when driving in Dubai. We’ll probably keep this one until June. Then, when we come back in the fall, we’ll lease or buy a new one.
For two days this week I attended a conference on teaching. It was very enjoyable and I learned some good things. The next four pictures are the view from the pool deck of the hotel where the conference was held. The large silver thing in the center of the first picture is the indoor ski slope, Ski Dubai, in the Mall of the Emirates.



The Christmas decorations have finally disappeared at Festival City mall and been replaced by brightly colored ribbons for the Shopping Festival. They also have a carnival set up on the walkway by the Creek.
Below is a fountain that consists of beaded strings that hang down several floors and water is running down the strings and then dropping into a pool at the bottom.

Below are several pictures of another of Paul’s favorite fountains. The stairs switch-back through the fountain which consists of water running over the “boulders.” He always has to stick his fingers in the water. It is imperative.



Below is a garden and fountain in the lower basement parking area. It is open to the sky directly above the garden. Leave it to Dubai to have a basement parking lot garden. Again, Paul had to stick his fingers into the water.
Now we move to Lamcy Plaza. A truly unique mall. Below is the waterfall fountain that you see immediately as you walk in.
Behind us at the entrance is a replica of the Tower Bridge (London tower???) Anyway, it is definitely European, not Middle Eastern. None of the decor here matched. Very eclectic. There were no walls and doors between the different stores either, so was hard to keep track of where you were and who you should pay for what you had picked up.
There you have it. Our week in Dubai. Home, sweet home.

Aquarium and mall redux

We went back to Dubai Mall last night and ate at Taco Bell again. As you can see by the line, it is popular and not particularly fast fast food.
Below are our “cheesy fries” which are just fries with nacho cheese sauce poured over them. The fries were good and crunchy and would be much much better without the cheese.
Below is Paul’s expression when I take pictures of our food. He thinks I am crazy and is probably embarrassed to be seen in public with me. I know you are all dying to see what we are eating, so I suffer his scorn to satisfy my audience.
A toddler at a neighboring table climbed out of his high chair and proceeded to run away. An extremely observant busboy caught him and put him back. Only then did we realize that there was no one else at the table, just a purse and some shopping bags. No parents of this boy to be seen anywhere. The busboy hovered around keeping his eye on the boy and looking for the parents. People at a neighboring table signaled him to move the boy over to their table and they began to take care of him. We left before the parent(s) of this child returned. I hope someone tore them a new one for having left him unattended, but I suppose that is unlikely. We tipped the busboy. He definitely deserved it.

We went through the aquarium. It has two parts — small tank areas with different fish, reptiles, otters, seals, penguins, etc., and the big tank area with the walk through tunnel. There is a serious design flaw, however. You can enter either section, pay once and your receipt will get you into both. The parts are completely separate though. We entered the upper floor with the small tank displays and walked all through it. It exits through the gift shop and back out into the mall. You then have to walk back around past the entrance to the escalators that take you down to the lower floor where the big tank is and you have to walk back around to the far side in order to enter the tunnel. The tunnel entrance is directly below the exit of the upper section, so why they didn’t just design it so that you didn’t have to exit the top floor walk all the way around and back again, I don’t know. A simple elevator or escalator where the gift shop is would have done the trick very nicely.
These are pictures of the giant groupers they have in the big tank. They are quite impressive and these pictures don’t do them justice. They can grow to 9 ft in length and these guys looked to be at the 7 ft range. They are related to hamour (brown spotted reef cod), the very tasty fish that is common on menus here. If you get fish and chips, it is most likely to be hamour.

Fountains

Despite the scarcity of water and the fact that most of it comes from desalinization, there are innumerable fountains in Dubai. Every new construction involves some sort of water features – fountains, canals, pools, etc. Some of them are quite massive and some are quite creative and interesting.
Here is one of the massive ones. This is in Dubai Mall.

The diver sculptures are life sized, so that gives you some idea how tall and wide this is. Not only that, but this is one of a pair of fountains.
Below is one of Paul’s favorite fountains. He is a waterbaby and could watch fountains like this for hours given the chance. This is in Festival City mall and is an example of the interesting design type of fountain.
It is a sloped wall and at short intervals water comes down in waves.
The slope is covered with sea shells which is what causes the frothiness of the water and the sound of waves on the beach.

Dubai Mall miscellanea

The Dubai Mall is the biggest and most recent mall. It is at the base of the Burj Dubai (tallest building). Many of the store spaces are still vacant with “store opening soon” signs. I kinda figure if it doesn’t say the name of a specific store, that nothing is opening there “soon.”

When we go into these massive and confusing shopping malls, I am very lucky to have my spacial genius husband to do the navigating. I would have to spend all my time looking at the maps to figure out where to go. Sometimes the maps don’t have the “you are here” indicator, so that increases my fruitless staring at the map time.
There are giant led boards displaying ads or national symbols on the sides of the walkways.
We were especially amused by the Ribs and Rumps restaurant. Doesn’t that sound appetizing?
Here is the one and only Taco Bell in Dubai. Yes, we ate here. The rule is that if we didn’t eat at an American fast food restaurant back home, we won’t eat at it here either. We did our fair share of Taco Bell back home. However, this TB does not have the burrito supreme, but it does have cheesy fries?!?!?!?!? We did not try the fries. There seems to be a rule that you can’t open a restaurant unless it has fries on the menu.
The mall has a giant ice skating ring.
And a large aquarium. We were too tired of foot to go through the aquarium, but it is on our list of things to do. I love the aquariums where you can walk through the tube and see the fish all around. After they had stocked the tanks they were having trouble with the fish eating each other, especially the big sharks eating the smaller sharks. Go figure! I’m not sure how they resolved this. They have regular feeding times (one of the things advertised on the reader boards), so maybe that keeps the predating down.