A few hours roaming in The Mall of the Emirates (Dubai)

Woo-hoo, it's a three-day weekend!

Thursday, 24th January was the Prophet's birthday, giving schools and government agencies (and probably a lot of businesses outside of retail and tourist) the day off.

For his spring break in February, my nephew Eric is going on a school ski trip to Switzerland.  So parents organized some practice ski time for the 24th at Ski Dubai (at Mall of the Emirates).  I decided to tag along ... not to ski, but to go out and about.

My brother Tom enjoyed the skiing as well, and my sister-in-law Danielle and I did our own thing wandering about for the afternoon.

We got to the mall around Noon. There are many restaurant options.  A good food court (some I would deem gourmet for a food court with a variety of ethnic foods, plus fast food like McDonalds which also seems to be taking over the world!), coffee shops (yes, including Starbucks, which also seems to be taking over the world!), casual open-area restaurants (CPK, Chili's, and others that are unique to me and are more regional), and a few sit-down restaurants. I decided to splurge and I chose a sit-down Lebanese restaurant that overlooks Ski Dubai.

This is a straight-on shot. The ski lift and the slope on the left go quite a way up to toward the left. You might enjoy going on to googlemaps.com and typing "mall of the emirates", and then zoom in. You'll see a large silver section that is sort of a "L" shape. That's Ski Dubai. If you get the chance to look at it at ground level, it goes up high above the mall.

They do ski lessons, too.

At the restaurant I enjoyed some Shanglish, and some Hummus with meat and pine nuts. The hummus was different than I'd had before; this was very creamy and thick.  Good, just different. Some warm puffed-up pita bread, and a large plate of vegetables. And Jalab to drink ... Jalab is not to everyone's taste. It's a combination of date juice and rose water, with some pine nuts thrown in for good measure. I think it's quite fun and tasty.

After that I wandered in and out of stores. I do prefer to explore stores that I am not familiar with (versus Guess and The Body Shop and H&M, etc. ... nothing against them, just prefer stores unique to me).

I took a photo of a very pretty glass done that is over the center of the fashion section of the mall. (Another section is geared toward home products.)

And facing the other way, with more of the mall in view, for scale.

Later I sat down for a cup of hot chocolate (it's really not a good thing for me if I go with caffeine later in the day!), read from my kindle, and watched people stroll by. A huge variety of people, so fun people watching. And many different languages.

Oh! Almost forgot. While this photo is not going to be clear enough to read, this is a sign at the mall's entrances.  It matches what is in the mall's brochure that you can pick up, that includes store names, map, and behavioral guidelines. Yes, that is a visual sample of a suggested conservative dress.  Things to know should you visit some places in the UAE.

To quote the Courtesy Policy listed in the Mall of the Emirates Guide:

• "Please wear conservative clothing. We advise avoiding showing your shoulders and knees."

• "No kissing or overt displays of affection"

• "No smoking in the mall"

• "No consumption of alcohol in the mall"

• "No dangerous activities, i.e.  sport games, rollerblading or skateboarding"