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Right now I'm so ridiculously tired that I was even considering just not writing a blog today. My feet are super, super sore after being on them for like ten hours today!
We decided to check out the world famous Dubai Mall! It is so huge it's absolutely insane. It's really, really easy to get lost - in fact I think it's a guaranteed part of the experience that you will totally lose yourself amongst the by far over one thousand shops. There are heaps of things in there ranging from the high end fashion stores like Prada to cheap food places like Burger King to a super huge aquarium, ice rink and so on!
It also homes the world's tallest building - the Burj Khalifa! This building is super big, I think they said over 800m. We paid about NZ$45 each to go up near the top. The process was pretty intense as we booked it online and then when we arrived we had to show our ID multiple times, go through security gates, have our bags scanned and so on! Going up the lift was pretty painful - I think the woman said we were going up about 10m per second. However unlike most big towers I've been up, the lift isn't made out of glass so you can't see outside whilst you're zooming up! But that's probably a good thing.
The view was pretty awesome from the top. Something that surprises me about Dubai is that it seems to be this absolutely huge place with a global reputation for its insaneness, but from up that high it seems so small. It's not like a typical city where the whole landscape is covered in buildings (although it seems to have photos taken from an angle that shows it does). In reality its like one huge skyscraper, huge amounts of sand and empty space around it. Next huge sky scraper, huge amounts of sand and empty space around it. It's not like most cities where not only do you have skyscrapers but also heaps of smaller buildings so that the whole area is covered. Dubai has a huge amount of space for expansion - but that makes it even stranger that they have felt the need to reclaim land from the sea (which we could also see from the top of the Burj Khalifa - we saw the palm island and the globe islands etc.!)
I also realised that actually there's barely any difference in view whether you're 200m or 800m high. The fact is the view was no fancier than when I've been in the Sky Tower in Auckland or the London Eye in England etc. Having the tallest building in the world is clearly just for show ;)
After the Khalifa we headed down to the mall to have a "quick" look around. I was hoping we could visit another part of the city during the day some time, but our quick look around suddenly took over the entire day. It's such a huuuuge mall I can't even explain. Take a look at my photos on Facebook seriously - even the aquarium which you can see the front of randomly in the mall is like three floors high. It's amazing. We also FINALLY completed the impossible challenge of finding jandals! So, firstly - I can claim I went shopping in Dubai! Secondly, for the first time in months we've finally felt more like NZers in our jandals and not had to wear proper shoes :) I currently have mad blisters from it but I know once we hit Thailand and Australia it'll be a total life saver.
We also had a walk around the mall since the whole place is a beautiful complex. It's torture walking along the manmade water front as it's all crystal clear and the tiles below are a blue colour so it looks so nice and inviting! This area also gave us a good view of the burj khalifa from outside and gave us the opportunity to take some cheesy selfies haha!
After a while we spontaneously decided to pay to go the aquarium. I thought it was quite expensive - around $40 :( But it was a very cool experience. You spend a while in this huge tunnel within the aquarium/giant fish tank and have all sorts of fish swimming around you! Even sharks etc :O There's also a large underwater zoo which has everything from otters to piranhas to penguins to giant spider grabs to jellyfish to teeny baby sharks. It was very impressive! Our ticket also included a behind the scenes tour of the aquarium, and a chance to feed the fish in the giant fish tank! It was crazy because when we were throwing the food in thousands of fish started swimming clockwise allll together. Mental creatures. Our ticket also meant we could get a free (cheap) souvenir. So we grabbed a scary shark key ring :D Ah and we got to watch the shark feeding session which was intense! They teeth are so scary and they open their mouths so slowly and then go crazy when they're biting :(
Later on we met Matt's cousin to have a drink in a flash bar overlooking the fountain show outside the Burj Khalifa. Firstly, I REALLLYYY miss the cheapness of alcohol in eastern Europe :'( I feel like on average we are paying like 45zl for just a single beer here! Whereas in Poland you'd be shocked to pay anything over 12zl. It's quite heart-breaking and my bank account isn't feeling too smug anymore. On the other hand, we expected Dubai to be expensive and it's worth the experience. The fountain show outside the Burj Khalifa here was very similar to the one outside the Bellagio hotel in Las Vegas! However I was actually surprised that the ones here were a lot smaller! It was still a great show, but yeah something I thought that was worth mentioning. Though I think for people who haven't seen the Vegas one they would still find this REALLY impressive (because it is).
AH also for my Polish friends - this bar served a drink that was almost EXACTLY like malinki karolinki :O :O :O It was beautiful and made me so happy ;)
Our evening ended with a nice Italian dinner with the cousins that again, looked over the fountains! I had a delicious pizza covered in feta cheese, spinach and sundried tomatoes :) I saved half for breakfast though wooop. Ah we also when we were talking over dinner Becs asked what is it that we miss the most about New Zealand. My first response was WHITTAKERS!!! (an NZ brand of chocolate). She told us that we could buy some from the local supermarket :O So you can guess where our evening actually ended haha…
So yeah, a nice chilled day (with HEAPS of walking around). Tomorrow we are heading to a place called Bastakiya. It's a historic district in the city that has some of the old residential areas, a creek, the Al Fahidi Fort and so on. So that'll be a cool experience as it gives us a chance to experience the old traditional Dubai and be able to compare it to what we've seen of super modern luxurious Dubai of today! After this we're having a few cheeky pre-drinks at home before we head off for some desert horse racing which will be an interesting and new experience! So I'm sure I'll have a lot to tell :) Apparently on Friday we are hiring out some bikes and cycling along the those fake islands that make the palm shape and has that insane Atlantis hotel at the end! Lots of fun times for us :)
Thinking of you all as I eat this delicious berry and biscuit whittakers chocolate :) x Only ten days now :O
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Albert Jack Nice Blog.. Keep posting ;)