It's a short flight from Amman, and as soon as you land and make your way through the airport you know you are in Dubai. The airport, the hub of Emirates and one of the world's busiest, is modern, efficient, and huuuge. Our friend Ricardo was waiting for us at the terminal and drove us straight into town, where all you see are three-, four-, and five-lane highways, modern skyscrapers, and an even more modern metro system. There's still a lot of construction going on in Dubai.
Plenty has been written about Dubai, but it's another thing to actually see it. The city was described to us by our local friends as a cross between Miami and Las Vegas, and that seems pretty accurate, except that in Dubai everything seems more something: more luxurious, more outrageous, more big, or more over the top. More extravagant.
Life and tourism seem to revolve around malls and hotels, and English is spoken just about everywhere. We made a quick stop at the Mall of the Emirates, in the heart of Dubai. This is the mall that has its own indoor ski run, as well as a five star Kempinski Hotel, and the first thing you see when you get there is the structure for the ski run. There were plenty of kids skiing inside.
The next day we visited the waterfront area near the Dubai Marina, where our hosts invited us to a great Sunday brunch, which in this part of the world happens on Saturday. It's no coincidence they took us to Paul, a wonderful French bakery and restaurant. Here we are with Paola and Ricardo and their kids.
We also visited the Dubai Mall, "the world's largest mall," located in the Downtown Dubai development. This one has it's own aquarium, ice skating rink, the largest candy store, and the Divers Fountain, a cool waterfall that runs through the entire height of the mall and is adorned with art sculptures of human divers. There's a beautiful esplanade between the mall and the man-made Burj Khalifa lake that has dozens of outdoor cafes and restaurants. In the middle of the lake they've built the Dubai Fountain, a choreographed fountain system designed by the same company that did the fountains at the Bellagio Hotel Lake in Las Vegas. We were fortunate to see it at night, although my picture does not do it justice.
