The Dubai Mall

This morning after breakfast, we headed out to the Dubai Mall with a bunch of friends. What a place - it's GINORMOUS. We walked around for 2+ hours, and apparently we didn't even see 1/4 of the mall.

It was quite interesting - most of the stores and restaurants were stores that we would see in Western malls. From high end to chain food restaurant. It was all there. I've learned that people and visitors to Dubai love American chain restaurants. We saw everything from the Red Lobster, Chili's and Macaroni Grill to cupcake stores. With the exception of the enormity and grandness of the mall, we could have been in any large mall in the US....

...except for the enormously large aquarium, smack dab in the middle of the mall, larger than any I've ever seen. Complete with Shark, stings rays, and a cage for guests to pay admission to go into. We didn't go inside, but I saw that there was a tube that went through the aquarium for visitors to walk through.

The mall also had an Arabic wing with fashion and jewelry. It was fun to window shop in these stores, and helped a couple of friends buy some last minute purchases for the wedding festivities.

The world's tallest building, The Burj Khalifa (of Mission Impossible 3 Fame, apparently) is just outside the Dubai Mall. We're actually going to be there tonight for the Sangeet (song and dance) celebration! Cool!

The Dubai Fountains were outside, at the base of the Burj Khalifa, and are supposed to be quite amazing. Unfortunately, they weren't turned on while we were there.

Also inside the mall was an impressive waterfall, with sculptures of figures that looked like they were diving/flying down the falls. The photos don't capture how beautiful it was.


entrance to the mall


entrance into the aquarium


View of the aquarium from the inside of the mall


cute kids walking single file


more cute kids in front of a cool Gap window display


A Chili's restaurant in Dubai


view of the aquarium from the upper floor of the mall


The Souk section of the mall


everyone in our group buying stuffed camels at the Camel Company


Omar standing next to the Surface display (his product) at the Microsoft Display at the Dubai Mall


Dick and Trina outside the Burj Khalifa


another great use of the panorama feature on my new phone - I could not get the entire building in one single frame!


Cool waterfall and sculptures inside the mall


another shot of the waterfall and sculptures