It’s Boxing Day, and what a day Ginny and
Sern has planned for us! Today we were going to visit the two most iconic
places in all of Dubai: Dubai Mall, and
the tallest building in the world, Burj Khalifa.
In order to beat the crowd we left Nuran
bright and early and reached Dubai Mall at about 8:00am. We grabbed a quick
breakfast at the nearest Starbucks we could find and headed straight for the lobby of the Burj Khalifa. It was a once-in-a-lifetime experience that required
a separate post for us to adequately gush.
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| we came pretty early |
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| Sern was psyched |
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| had time to stop for a shot though |
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| we were the only ones here |
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| a quick bite |
A full two hours later we came down from
the Burj Khalifa and headed back through Dubai Mall to grab us a proper meal,
but not before taking some photos of an Aston Martin on display.
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| right outside the lobby to the Burj |
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| the name's Bond |
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| James Bond |
We had brunch at Café Blanc, which promised us a Lebanese cuisine with a mouthwatering
contemporary twist. As we waited for our meals to be served Ginny and Sern
suggested that we walk around to enjoy the sights around the café, since it was
situated in the vicinity of the famed Downtown Dubai.
After brunch we headed back into Dubai Mall
and strolled along this vast place which is the largest shopping mall in Dubai
and in the world by total area. It is also the nineteenth largest shopping mall
in the world by gross leasable area.
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| a recurring theme here in the UAE |
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| the crowd was growing |
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| but hardly any hustle and bustle |
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| amazing architecture (and props) |
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| grand foyer |
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| this Mall is huge |
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| clean, neat and tidy stalls |
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| we didn't have to contend with large crowds (yet) |
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| elegant |
Right smack in the centre of the mall is DubaiDino,
a long-necked whip-tailed dinosaur more than 155 million years old measuring
four metres long and almost eight metre high. DubaiDino is a Diplodocus Longus
dinosaur from the late Jurassic period.
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| hello DubaiDino |
The remains of DubaiDino were discovered in
2008 at the Dana Quarry in Wyoming, US and it was flown to Dubai, and is the
first sauropod skeleton comprising of actual fossil bone to be mounted in an
upright position.
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| actual skeletal remains |
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| 155 million years old |
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| despite being a purple dinosaur |
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| the name's DubaiDino, not Barney! |
Further along the Dubai Mall we reached a huge
waterfall that celebrates Dubai's pearl diving history. There was a time when
pearling was one of this country’s major source of income.
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| architectural ode to days gone by |
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| before UAE discovered oil |
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| pearl divers were important |
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| an amazing creation |
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| 4 stories tall |
Thirty meters in diameter and twenty four meters
in height this waterfall is a masterpiece of Dubai Mall created as an ode to
this romantic and dangerous profession.
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| we could gaze at this the whole day |
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| as though suspended in mid air |
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| Dubai does not forget its past |
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| as it looks to the future |
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| the daredevil pearl diver! |
After a couple of hours exploring this vast
space called Dubai Mall we were off to another Mall, built to mimic another
aspect of Dubai’s rich past.
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