HIGHEST BUILDING IN THE WORLD  JAN. 7TH

Our last full day in Dubai we planned to see a few sites. I still woke up in the middle of the night, between 4 and 6 a.m., so didn’t get a great night’s sleep. I didn’t mention our roommates. Kusti (not sure if I spelled her name correctly) is living in this apartment and working for a real estate company. She’s from Indonesia. She enjoys meeting the various people who come through here. Chris, from London, is a young 20-something who is on his way to climb to the base camp of Everest with a group, so he’s traveling with a lot of equipment. 

Anyhow after breakfast at iHOP, Barbara and I headed to the tram to the Metro. Unfortunately we didn’t have any dirham (AED). A worker at the station tried to help us but the machine wouldn’t take any of our credit or debit cards to buy tram/metro tickets! Finally, this lovely young girl waiting bought us each a tram ticket to get to the Metro stop where there was an ATM machine and we could get some cash.

We were headed down by Dubai Creek to this Centre for Cultural Understanding. After a long hot walk, we arrived to find out that all their programs were over for the day! We had hoped to get on a tour of a mosque but not to be! Fortunately we had both been to Istanbul last year and been to a mosque. Now we headed walking along the creek with the wooden taxi boats floating by to this house/museum where the founder of UAE had lived (he died in 1958, I think). We passed through the Fabric Souk. I saw a cute “harem” outfit for Sarah and started to shop but REALLY had to find a bathroom. The young man in the shop led us to one, waited for me and walked us back. Turns out he was 18, married, from Afghanistan. He was then sole support of his 4 siblings and parents, and wife back home. He had already been in Dubai a couple of years. We started negotiations at 180 AED with the headpiece and two piece outfit. Finally he got down to 150 and I said, sorry, and walked away. He then said what would I pay. I put in 100 in the calculator and I said I knew that was too low. 130 he said. I walked away. He said okay, take it!! It’s very cute for dress up!

We ran into an Irish woman biking who stopped to ask where to go. She’d been biking around town on her own. We chatted a bit and parted. The Diwan Mosque blared out the call to prayer. We paused for water on a pile of prayer rugs that were left in a square rolled up for anyone to use, I guess. 

More walking to get to a Metro stop and back on the green line to the red line to the Burq Khalifa(tallest building)/Dubai Mall (largest mall in the world) for my scheduled trip to the top (124th floor). With a bit of a hassle at the WILL CALL line (I had already ordered and paid for my $65 ticket) where the guy had to log in on my iPhone to find the company I’d booked it with. Finally went off to follow the line while Barbara stayed below (she doesn’t like heights). 

Along the line wait were photos and films of the building of this showing workers dangling from high cables! It was completed in 2008. When we’d drive back from the desert the night before, we passed it and it looked like a waterfall, with lights suggesting water. Other times it sparkles all over. At the top I wandered and took photos from every angle. I was disappointed we were so far from the Palm Island that I wanted to see from above; but it was too far away. Spent about 1/2 an hour and then headed down to meet up with Barbara.

Burj Khalifa as we approached! 

View from 124th floor! Arabian Gulf in distance.

Special light display as we were leaving Burj Khalifa!

Barbara and her seatmate! 

Traffic on way from airport in Kolkata

Delicious pizza and budweiser on arrival!

Decorations for the Engagement party in the hotel

Couple that invited us in!

Bride and groom (actually they just got engaged/ wedding Sunday. 

She's 22 from Canada. He's like 26. Very cute!

Part of the Mall we wandered through was Moorish design called the Souk! Lovely! We found the ice rink and had a wonderful burger and cheesy fries at the “Elevated Burger” overlooking the ice rink where we watched the skaters as we ate. We went downstairs and outside to the courtyard for the Dancing Fountain display - a 5 minute amazing musici-accompanied show. It was so moving (LOVED the music but couldn’t name the opera it’s from!) I was in tears in the end. 

After so much walking we followed the long indoor path with moving sidewalks back to the Metro across town, to the tram and made it home about 7 p.m. Someone on the tram informed us that Friday and Saturday are the weekend here, and the metro doesn’t begin running until 10:30!! We had already bought a round trip ticket back to the airport that we had to leave with Gail! We checked at the Hilton across the street to see if maybe they had a shuttle service we could pay for - No luck!

The tops of my feet got sunburned (I left my lotion in the suitcase, at the airport!) and the bottoms were in pain!! So I did computer work with my feet up and felt better. I finally got a great night’s sleep before off to Kolkata, India, tomorrow. We left at 7:30 a..m. and hailed a cab for the 90 AED (about $30) ride to the airport. Since it was like a Saturday, we made it in 1/2 an hour (it had taken us 1 hr. to arrive on a work day using the Metro) It was a nice splurge!