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two friends, forty takes, one adventure across continents
January 4th by adrianna
Dear May,
Three months (and the holidays) passed too quickly in Dubai. That’s what you get when you live in one of the world’s fastest growing cities — nothing stays still for long. Or perhaps nothing stays still at all!
I haven’t really showed you much of what living in this city is like. There’s a lot to this place, but for the most part Dubai comes down to two things: traffic and malls. In that you spend most of your time in either. Malls, you say? They’re not… regular malls.
You can do anything in one.
Not only are there indoor ski slopes (with real snow, made fresh everyday!), there are mid-slope cafes that do up fabulous hot chocolates… even if it’s 50 degrees Celsius outside in the summer. But you can also run and jog in one (there’s running club every morning; they run/jog/walk before the shops open); and pretty soon you’d be able to skydive in one, too. There’s another place where you can attempt to break Guinness world records by simply strutting up to the booth and saying, “I want to try to be the world’s fastest texter/loudest shouter…” and you get to attempt it on the spot. In addition to the endless variety of shopping, of course.
I don’t know what to make of it, since shopping and malls aren’t quite my cup of tea, but it certainly makes for wonderful entertainment, especially when I joined the mall joggers in doing their warm-up exercises, pulling our calves and discussing exercise goals for the year between a bank and a furniture store. I’m still trying to get the hang of this city, but for now, the year came to a close for me in the heart of India — a long, long shot from Dubai’s world of traffic, malls, and refrigerated beaches.
Dubai, United Arab Emirates
Note
Almost all footage here (except traffic and India) was shot inside Dubai’s malls!
Posted in dubai, malls, shopping, traffic, uae, video.