du-bai me something nice?

the first day i arrived in dubai, i was pretty knackered. Since new Zealand isn’t close to really anywhere else in the world, of course it took me about a million hours to fly to dubai (3 to melbourne, 1 hour layover, and then another 12 to dubai – phew!) and i landed at about 5:30 am. It’s a sheer miracle I was able to speak English to get myself through customs, so organizing some big tourist attraction for the day was out of the question.

as this is the beginning of my trip, and I’m focused on a budget, when I found out that my hotel offered free shuttles to a few locations, I decided to base most all of my activities on where there was free transport offered to me.  so first stop – the mall of dubai.

so, this is where the whole “i’d like to come back with $10,000” part comes into play.  this mall was the most ridiculous mall i’ve ever been to, and this comes from a girl whose local mall was the infamous gardens mall (palm beachers, you know what i’m talking about). literally any store that i ever knew existed is in this mall and every food outlet as well (except pinkberry – but it’s coming soon!).  there was even an aquarium, an ice skating rink, and a major tourist attraction (burj khalifa) right in the confines of the mall. 

amazing fountain of diving naked men. mostly amazing for non-perverted reasons, i promise.

 

oh, just an ice skating rink. whatever.

dubai aquarium. yep, still in the mall here.

 

heeeeere fishy fishy fishy.

burj khalifa.

 the souk - as the sign tells you..

though it does seem like there isn’t a building in dubai that doesn’t have it’s own aquarium, the mall was extremely impressive, not to mention probably the largest test of my will power to date.  just about the only thing getting me through was my half-joking plans to come back with $10,000.  i may have already made a list of a few things i want….