Dubai is hot but thankfully it hasn’t hit its peaks of 50 degrees yet so the average temperature is hovering around 40! The heat is dry a lot like Perth so even though the heat is like an oven, it doesn’t effect you as much as humid heat.
We opted to take a taxi as we don’t really know where the Dubai mall is or how the train in the city works just yet. The taxi’s are pretty reasonable in price and go by the meter. Opposed to KL where they all want to haggle a price that is usually triple the metered rate.
The eight lane highway is huge and the cars move very fast and we were frequently being passed by Mercedes, Porches and the odd Ferrari. Hitting the highway during the day showed us just how vertical this city is with what looks like the majority of buildings over 50 floors in height but all being surpassed by the mighty Burj Khalifa at 160 floors. Wow it really is a surreal sight to behold and a incredible work of engineering to build a building 898 meters high.
As we approached the Dubai Mall i started to feel a bit faint when thinking of the size of the place and frankly shopping isn’t my favorite thing.
Thankfully we arrived early and a lot of the shops were closed to Toni’s disgust, but this gave us some time to survey the huge center. We decided to make our way to the Aquarium which is in the center of the shopping mall, well sort of anyway.
Holy crap, the aquarium is a sight to see and it is truly mesmerising to be greeted by a wall with graceful fish, sharks, eels, rays and just so many fish. Just on the outside of the biggest piece of acrylic is a Guinness Record stating that this is the largest single piece of acrylic at 8m high by 36m wide and 75mm thick. Its big and truly mesmerising to watch the fish.
Looking in at the fish and some schools swim together and we witnessed what looked to be a game of chase being performed by 3 rays and sharks being pestered by big fish, we just stood there watching for at least 30 minutes. Definitely a highlight of Dubai and a highly recommended visit.
Once we peeled our eyes from the Aquarium we decided to grab a coffee on the outer balcony where I could look at the Burj Khalifa another amazing sight to see here. In front of the Burj Khalifa is a huge man made lake of crystal blue water where the water fountain show takes place in the afternoon. Everything about Dubai is incredible and over the top in size, quality and beauty.
Next we walked some more through the mall and came across the indoor waterfalls with stone men diving pretty neat place and each part of the mall is quite different in style and decorations.
Just beside here is an outdoor section with a huge retractable roof kind of designed to look the the Dubai old city, but as everything was still quite we headed to the ice rink.
This to was another great thing to see, i full sized indoor ice rink. There were a lot of people taking advantage of the indoor rink.
It was getting late and we were feeling a bit hungry so we opted to hit the themed restaurant overlooking the aquarium. Every few minutes the animals in the place would come to life… monkeys squealing, apes pounding, tigers roaring it was really cool.
After dinner we headed out to the water fountain show outside to watch the dancing water in the night sky for the third time. Its really impressive with the Arabic music thumping in the background.
Its been a long day so we headed back buggered. Lights out!
the photos are simply amazing. this place is like a giant play ground for adults! just amazing!
Dubai is pretty cool, definitely put it on your list to see!
i have always wanted to see dubai and europe! hope you guys are well x
You should Cora, its definitely worth travelling!