Dubai, United Arab Emirates

My 3AM flight out of Bangkok headed for Kuwait was delayed until noon the next day due to weather. Luckily Kuwait Airlines put me up in a five-star hotel for the night and. after a decent-enough 7-hour flight, I am here in Kuwait Airport at the Oasis Lounge on a long layover. Unfortunately this delay has cost me one of my two planned days in Dubai and as a result I am tentatively planning on skipping my day-trip to Abu Dhabi and instead spending it in Dubai.

As a result of heavy internet regulation in the UAE, it's unlikely that I'll have access to the internet unless I pay a large sum of money, so I won't be able to make updates until I arrive in Istanbul.

My flight in from Kuwait was short and almost empty, arriving in Dubai International Airport at around 1AM. I've heard good things about Dubai airport but unfortunately I didn't have a chance to look around since it was just too late and I had to leave through customs/passport control. I hailed a taxi to my hotel near Dubai Creek and was pleasantly surprised that they upgraded me to larger suite for free (slow season I guess).

I knew before going to Dubai that I couldn't tackle this city in my usual fashion (conquer by foot). The heat is terribly oppressive and Dubai is really just not well-planned for walkers; everyone drives. Luckily the Dubai Metro system, while still somewhat limited, opened up recently and I decided to make use of that as much as possible. I started the day by taking a short walk on the north side of Dubai creek, catching a glimse of the Dubai skyline. From there I walked to the metro station and went straight for the Burj Khalifa and Dubai Mall.

The Emiratis are known for mall-building - some of the largest and nicest malls in the world are in the UAE. I can definitely see why: with a climate so oppressive, walking around an air-conditioned indoor shopping mall is virtually a national pasttime. The Dubai Mall did not dissapoint, and is one of the nicest malls I've been to, probably even better than Siam Paragon in Bangkok. Inside this mall is an ice skating rink, hundreds of stores and restaurants, a huge walk-through aquarium, and a indoor zoo. After exploring the mall for quite a bit, I visited the aquarium and zoo.

Dubai Mall is situated directly next to the Burj Khalifa, which is currently the tallest building in the world and opened only within the past year. The building looks extremely futuristic and absolutely blows away any other skyscraper on the Dubai skyline, or skyscrapers any other city for that matter. There's an observation deck/tour called "At the Top" (which isn't technically true - the observation deck is not quite at the top of the tower) that I decided to try. It was a very nice experience including a top-notch museum on the birth of the Burj Khalifa and of course the observation deck. Being up in the observation deck gives you a similar feeling to being in an airplane: cars down below look like toys. I had been up to the top of the Sears Tower in Chicago only a month ago, but ascending Burj Khalifa was much, much nicer.

I then continued down the metro line to reach Mall of the Emirates, the other famous mall in Dubai. This one features an indoor ski resort inside the mall, yet another example of the "nothing's too much" construction attitude of the Emiratis. While the ski resort was fun to see, this mall wasn't quite as nice as the Dubai Mall and I decided not to stick around. I left the mall and continued even further down the metro line to check out Dubai Marina, a classic marina with boats, restaurants, shopping, etc. - and a halful of high-rise apartment buildings.

Since at this point it was becoming dark, I took the metro line all the way back to Dubai creek and spent the rest of the night exploring (on foot; the sun was finally down!) the side-streets and shops near the creek, including "Old Souk", "Gold Souk", and "Spice Souk", three old-style markets in Dubai. This area seemed much less touristy, believe it or not, and I only spotted a handful of Westerners.

For a late dinner I found a nice Lebanese restaurant and had a mixed grill platter with... other stuff that I can't pronounce.

The next day, After sleeping in, I checked out of my hotel and took the metro down towards the financial district to snap some photos along Sheik Zayed Road (main 14-line road running along Dubai's coast), stopping at a Starbucks while I was there (they really are everywhere, just *everywhere*). I went right back to Dubai creek and walked around a bit more under the hot sun. To catch a break, I stopped by the Dubai Museum which was a nice but small museum with artifacts and displays on Dubai's humble beginnings as a fishing and trading village. From there I walked to the bus station to catch a bus headed for Abu Dhabi.