Mall of the Emirates

Today we played tourist again. We took a taxi to another mall, The Mall of the Emirates. Aside from being anchored by two massive hotels, this mall boasts an indoor ski slope that is operated all year long. It's the silver tube-like projection you can see jutting out of the back in this stock photo of the mall.

If I haven't said it before now, we arrived in Dubai during their annual month long shopping festival. People travel from all over to enjoy the shopping in Dubai. A lot of those people have a ton of money to spend. So, it's safe for me to say that this mall is upscale. Filled with designer stores. And because their demographic is people with money to spend, the entire mall is gorgeous and finished with the finest surfaces.

There's a lot of vertical space. The whole mall feels airy and large, even filled to capacity with a roiling crowd. It sprawls out in several directions and without the mall directories, it would be easy to get lost.

Three full floors with arching atriums and connection points that form central circles with spokes that jet out. It's sleek and modern but it feels lush and rich at the same time. All the floors are beautiful stone and each atrium area has a giant mosaic pattern that has to be seen from over head to appreciate.

I can't count the number of times we dodged to get out of somebody's photo opportunity. We even saw one chick who changed her shoes so that she was wearing designer heels for the picture, then swapped back into her comfy shoes to keep walking the mall. It's an amazing place. And I'm not just saying that because they had a Dairy Queen and I bought a dipped cone.

There was every designer store you can think of, but there were also import shops with stuff from all around the globe. Even some local artisans selling their wares. My favorite was welded sculptures of movie monsters. Some life sized. He had the Predator and an Alien that was bigger than DH. Every tiny detail was worked out with scraps of engine parts, bicycles and chains. If you look closely, you can see wrenches, nuts and bolts. I love to see art made from throw away waste. I'm trying to convince DH that we need the 7 foot tall Predator sculpture. It would make a wonderful Valentine's gift, I'm sure.

But of all the wonders that filled the shops in this mall, the biggest attraction is the ski slope. At the west end food court, you can sit down to lunch and watch the skiing antics through giant plate glass windows.

Kind of interesting, sitting and enjoying lunch while folks are playing at snow sports on the other side of a wall. They had little rides for kids, all kinds of toboggans and even one of the blow up balls you can get inside. They were putting kids inside of it and then rolling it down the bunny slope. All the while, the ski lift was taking serious enthusiasts up the hill so they could shush down the white stuff. An amazing tourist attraction.

When I saw the original pictures of this construction, they were labeled in such a way as to denigrate the builders as being oil rich millionaires with too much money, and not enough sense.

After seeing it, I'm convinced they were geniuses. The folks in Dubai might have made their money in oil, but their economy is not limited to the black gold. When that well has run dry, this stuff is still going to be attracting tourists from all over the region and the world. They have successfully moved from the desert to an oil based economy to a tourism based economy in less than 60 years.
The Mall of the Emirates is competing with a mall that has an aquarium in it. They have a ski slope.

You kind of have to see both of them to believe it. It truly is a tourist's heaven.

Oh, and I want one of these.

--Sandee Wagner