Dubai Mall

The promotion says “there is nothing else on earth quite like the Dubai Mall” and that certainly seemed true to us on our short visit.  This stupendous place is the largest mall in the world complete with an aquarium, a fountain sculpture, and ice skating  Rink.   There are different zones for everything such as electronics, shoes,  infant and children's clothes, a Bloomingdales, a fancy Souke with a dinosaur sculpture in the center and the Fashion Mall the site of all the designers shops.  We ran around for a little over an hour but it would take days to see it all. 

There are over 1200 retail outlets and this includes many of the most extravagant shops in the world.  It claims one of the world’s largest aquariums an Olympic size ice rink, and extraordinary waterfall with sculptured life size divers off the wall and a huge outdoor waterfall which regrettably we did not have a chance to see at night.   ALL the world’s “most desirable brands are located in an extensive area known as Fashion Avenue.  I felt like we had a good sample but to my surprise Al said he wished we could have stayed longer.

DIL Amy really likes shopping at H&M so we
have taken to finding H&M's all over the world
including inside the Arctic Circle.  Of course there
was one at the Dubai Mall!

Many of the shoppers were in Western dress but there were plenty of UAE citizens—men in their traditional dishdasha (long white cotton gown) with children in tow looking quite Western in their dress. And then followed by the mom in her abaya.  There is an entire section of abaya shops.   If she did not wear a face mask her makeup was impeccable and she carried a Fendi, Gucci or Furla hand bag!  We had an interesting encounter when we took an elevator.  As we approach the elevator the doors open and an Arab couple in traditional attire were in the elevator not planning to exit.   A western dressed woman who had pushed the button stepped in and we rushed to catch it as well.  The Arab women quickly put her veil over her face and they hurriedly rushed past us to exit.   The message was clear that she did not feel comfortable traveling on the elevator with us….not sure if it was other woman  and me or AL!

Sorry this picture of the Aquarium is so poor but it had to be included.  This aquarium is one of the major mall features and we really didn't have sufficient time to properly see it!  The ice rink is Olympic size and ice shoes and hockey games as well as recreational skating are regular features.

The figures on this several story high waterfall are life
size divers.  It is spectacular and unfortunately the pictures
don't do it justice.