Day 9 - Dubai

Time to catch up on writing about my adventures - have had a very busy past two days...

It started on Thursday morning with a city tour of Dubai beginning with the Palm Jumeirah. This is the view as you drive onto the "trunk", you can see the Burj Al Arab off in the distance.

After 5km driving up the palm tree (all the way to the top), you reach Atlantis The Palm. It's one of Dubai's signature buildings these days but probably the best feature is inside. Google "Poseidon Suite" and you'll see some of the rooms feature an aquarium view.

Next stop, Souk Madinat Jumeirah. It's designed to look old but in reality it's anything but. Nice to walk through a traditional style souk with air conditioning!

Wander out the back and you're greeted with this...

A picturesque view of the Burj Al Arab! What more can you say than 7 stars of luxury. Although they did invent the term "7 star", no rating organisation goes higher than 5!

Can I top that?

Well the next couple of places we visited were basically ones where they try and get tourists to part with cash for local goods.

And then we entered The Mall of the Emirates...

Let it snow, let it snow, let it snow! Welcome to Ski Dubai, the ski field inside a shopping mall. Brrr..I think it's about -4 in there!

And at the other extreme, you have Jumeirah Beach. 35 degrees and hardly a soul in sight - that would never happen in Australia!

A sneaky shot to make the world's tallest building look a bit smaller. Behind the palm tree is "The Address", another 5 star hotel - and of course the 828 metre Burj Khalifa brought down a peg or two.

From there it was on into the city. Wrong time of day...here's gridlock on the floating bridge across Dubai Creek.

 

Once we got past that, we were greeted with the sight of the Deira Clock Tower. It stands where the main flow of traffic used to run through the city, but nowadays there's a bypass of Dubai so many cars wouldn't get to see it.

And finally, in the "no they'd never do that in Australia because it makes too much sense" file, check out this air conditioned bus stop. These things are everywhere - what a great idea!

Righto, that's enough now because I need a good night's sleep before the flight tomorrow night.

Tomorrow, I'll catch you up with my Thursday night creek cruise and all the action from today - I promise it'll be worth your while! Not only that, but it'll give me something to do while I'm hanging around at the airport...