Dubai - Out and About

Took a tour, which involved walking around, checking out some different parts of town, walking through a gold market, and taking a boat across the river.
The sail shaped building is the Burj al Arab, the most expensive hotel in the world. Every room is a multi-level suite. The bar on the top has $1000 US drinks. Its not a place for us, so move along, move along...

Dubai - Atlantis Hotel

A huge hotel out on one of the palm frond islands. There are two palm islands, man-made islands made in the shape of palm trees to maximize ocean front property. The hotel is very impressive, massive in every scale. Its very reminiscent of a Vegas hotel, just on the ocean.

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A big glass statue in the lobby, apparently shipped from Italy (where-ever it is in Italy where they make obnoxious things) and worth several million dollars.

Dubai - Malls

I went to two malls in Dubai. Lets start with the Mall of the Emirates. The Mall of the Emirates is a luxury mall down near Jumeirah. Its huge, all high-end stores. A nice movie theater with 12 screens. A bunch of restaurants. A big Tower store where I picked up a couple PS3 games. Oh, and a goddamn skiing resort. The ski run from the outside looks like a huge silver worm like structure extending from one end of the mall up twisting up into the sky. From the inside it looks like a little ski village covered in snow. Its cold in the ski area, winter coat cold.


Okay, now lets talk about the Dubai Mall. The Dubai Mall surrounds the Burj Kalifa and is, of course, the largest mall in the world. Its really big, just like the building it surrounds. Again, its a high-end mall filled with high-end brands, an amazing brand new theater, lots of restaurants. Its mostly American brands, American chain restaurants. But, most of Dubai is. Its like a brand new city in the US, full of chain restaurants and new construction. Kind of like Scottsdale, Arizona, but on the beach. Its weirdly ironic that the middle east has built their own little USA right south of Iraq.
But, how embarrassing for the Dubai mall, there is no ski slope. What's that? Oh, right, there's a hundred foot deep aquarium running through the center of it like a huge column, filled with 40,000 fish, including sharks. That you can scuba dive in. But its so deep you need to be a certified diver. Oh, Dubai...

Dubai - The Address Hotel Downtown

'The Address' is a chain of super-luxury hotels through the middle east. There are three in Dubai, two right next to each other surrounding the Burj Kalifa, and one down in the south suburb of Jumeirah. I stayed at the larger of the two next to the Burj Kalifa. The Burj Kalifa also has two hotels and a residency condo part designed and run by Armani. Cheap, I'm sure.
So, anyway, The Address Downtown. There are three classes of hotels in Dubai (well, I'm sure there are crappy scary places somewhere, but I'm not including them). There is the fairly reasonable 5 star hotels, several of which are around the downtown area, a few in Jumeirah. There is the top end 5 star hotels, The Address is one of these, so is Atlantis (pictures of Atlantis in a later post). And then there is what they call a 7 star hotel, the Burj al Arab, the most expensive hotel in the world. I'll post about it later too. So, The Address was swanky to the extreme. It was modern, lots of black and mirrors. Reminded me of an even nicer W hotel. It was 63 stories tall, about a 1/3 hotel rooms and the remaining 2/3 condo residences. The room was lavishly spacious, all of the toiletries were Aveda (my favorite!), the two clubs were the places to be in town, the fine dining restaurant was amazing... obviously I'm not going to bash on this hotel too much. This is as nice as a contemporary modern hotel there is in the world. Parked out front when I first got in Friday night was a Ferrari California, and it was the first California I've seen on the road so that was exciting. Over the weekend, as I saw the 2nd, 3rd, 4th, and 5th Ferrari California on the road, I, sadly, decided its the least impressive Ferrari ever built. Ever. It just doesn't scream "ITALIAN EXOTIC" (all caps were invented for talking about exotic sports cars). It more like whispers "classy luxury roadster". The car it most reminds me of is the Lexus roadster. I nice car to be sure, but not in the Ferrari class. So, "boo" California, although its clear they are attempting to strongly differentiate their brand in the starter exotic class from the Lambo Gallardo.
I'm including a picture of The Address downtown that I took from space... err, the observation deck of the Burj Kalifa to give you some scale. Remember, The Address is 63 stories tall. For my dear Angelenos, remember the tallest building in the LA skyline, the Library Tower (US Bank Tower, Wedding Cake, etc) is 73 stories. And while The Address is right next to the Kalifa, it looks like a tiny little model building from only 2/3 of the way up the Burj Kalifa. The Burj Kalifa is really tall. Mind boggling.

Dubai - Burj Kalifa

Dubai is a strange, awesome place. Its definitely a playground for the super-rich, as will be made evident by future posts. But, its also got plenty to do for the not super rich but still lots of disposable income crowd too. Its a place of striking juxtaposition, conservative Muslims next to liberal expats, Burqas next to bikinis, nightclubs next to mosques.
The weather was amazing, everything is spotlessly clean, the air quality is amazing, the water of the Persian gulf is the best I've ever been in.
No photoshop trickery, the sky was actually this beautiful color of blue when I took this picture. The Burj Kalifa, the tallest building in the world, is a majestic and futuristic site. Those three little towers to the left in the picture are actually huge tower skyscrapers themselves, but everything... everything is dwarfed by the Burj. I'll do another post on it about when I took the ride to the top.