Despite getting into Dubai in the wee hours of the morning, the first thing I experienced was the dry heat. It must've been close to 40C degrees. Breezing through the super-empty immigration lines, we were in bed at the Admiral Plaza Hotel within the hour. Not wanting to waste a moment of our now-truncated layover, we took a four-hour power nap and by 7.30am, we were in a taxi headed for the Burj Khalifa, the tallest building in the world. The only problem? Apparently, Dubai does not wake up until 10am. Hmm…what to do? After multiple attempts to capture the entire building in one picture, all unsuccessful I might add, we decided to sit down in the ginormous mall adjacent to the Burj Khalifa and regroup. Should we (a) wait for the building to open so we could actually stand in the tallest building in the world, (b) head to the Jumeira mosque to visit the only mosque in the UAE that is open to non-Muslim visitors, or (c) head back to Old Town to see the dhows and the souqs? It turned out that an immediate visit up the tower would cost us 400 Dirhams (roughly USD $108) as opposed to the 100 Dirhams we'd pay if we bought a ticket for the afternoon. The cheap Asian in me just couldn't stomach being gypped, so we hopped into a taxi and decided to try our luck at the Jumeira mosque. That's where we hit roadblock number two. The mosque was not open for tours on Tuesdays. Our fabulous Pakistani taxi driver agreed to wait for us while we took a few quick pictures and then solved our timing dilemma by taking us to the Al-Fahidi Fort in Old Town, which houses the Dubai Museum and is a two-minute walk to the souqs. Best Recommendation Ever. From the outside, the fort is smaller than a city block. But once you get underground, the exhibits stretch in every direction. The little nerd in me got super excited and we easily killed the 90 minutes before the souqs opened. Then, armed with our taxi drivers' tip that the souq merchants would quote us about 600% of what we should end up paying them, we embarked on a buying spree, making only a brief pit-stop to take pictures of dhows on the waterfront. As we neared the end of the souqs, we realized, much to our surprise, that we were less than a five-minute walk from our hotel. Score! This left us with plenty of time to get to the airport and grab a bite before the next leg of our journey.