A Playful Misconception, A Childhood's Dream

It’s almost 7am in Dubai. The crisp and cold morning air greeted me as I opened up the window and glanced across the skyline of Dubai guarded by its skyscrapers (the sheer magnificence of The Address on the right and the Burj Dubai on the right takes up most of skyline). Watching a few people with warm clothing sitting outside an al fresco Starbucks neatly tucked away at the corner of the Al-Manzil Hotel’s club adjacent to the main building, probably waiting to get their daily dose of caffeine, I am certainly reminded of England. But not for long.

The surrounding buildings are built and shaped to look like forts and castles. Probably a concept for the desert. Even their exterior colour of the buildings is one sandy yellow. Or is this all for the benefit of tourists?

Al-Manzil Hotel is situated in the Old Town, and a five minute walk towards the left (though the concierge said two) will bring up the Dubai Mall. And this is where the family headed first on the first morning here yesterday.

It’s difficult to tell exactly how big this place from the outside, or even from the inside for that matter, until you really start walking around. But the mall was quite empty during the earlier part of the day, strange because this is a tourist area and tourists come the full year round. Only well into the afternoon and more and more people can be seen at the attraction locations like the aquarium and underwater zoo inside the mall. But because the mall is so spacious, it can never get too crowded. Best thing about this is you never need to hunt for seats at the food court.

In the end, we spent the whole day here just tiring our legs to no end. Partly also because we figured there’s no point to go to the “new town” of Bur Dubai as that’s where our final day of this trip will be spent. And also because we were all still tired out from the flight here which got in at 1am the previous night that riding the desert had no appeal at the moment.

So more browsing ensued until it was time to catch the main attraction here at 6pm, the musical fountain, while we dined at an al fresco restaurant. I particularly enjoyed the cool breeze like I knew I would.

Keepers of shops here pride in good service, even more so the owners and partners. I was surprised to see so many Filipinos here. Sometimes it didn’t feel that much different from back home. Obesity is also an issue but its on the opposite sex from back home – the men flaunt what they carried.

There are a lot of Lebanese as well doing business here, and they are quite a big species generally speaking. Reminds me of the Germans, who proliferated quite a bit here as well. And people here really do dress well no matter what they do. Helps if the weather is cool I guess.

And yes, you’re right. Apart from shopping there’s really not much else to do. But the streets and roads here are very well lit, and the lamp posts (and palm trees) are so close to one another that they light up everything everywhere. No point not living up to the oil exporter title but definitely a massive waste of energy.

I just realised that I haven’t come across any book store or music store. Half way round the world, some things are still the same.