Day 3 17th July Dubai

Last night we went to Souk Madinat (souk is market) The Madinat complex is fairly new and is meant to look like Venice with lots of canals, 2 hotels, and the souk which consists of lots of shops, restaurants. It even smelled like an old souk did with lots of different spice and middle eastern smells wafting through.

We started today with the magnificent Sofitel buffet breakfast.  We caught the free shuttle bus to the Mall of the Emirates - a huge shopping centre with a ski resort inside it!!!  Its 45 degrees outside and snow inside - only Dubai could do this. We were fascinated  by Carrefour,  the largest Supermarket / Superstore we have ever seen.  The spices and dates were amazing.

We decided to get a day ticket on the driverless train and went from Mall of the Emirates to Dubai Airport and back.  The density of Dubai astounded us.  We hadn’t realised just how big it was until we went on the train.  The trains run every 10 minutes. At the last station the people hop off and the cleaners hop on and by the time the train is ready to go back (5 mins) the whole train is clean!!!  (Just like the Metro in Melbourne!!)

The heat at the moment is unbearable and the humidity has to be felt to be believed.  I haven’t been able to take any outside photos as the lens fogs up as soon as I go outside.  The visibility was very poor yesterday due to the heat/humidity.  All these photos have been taken inside a building, train, bus.  Some when moving at fairly high speed.  The new Lumix camera is doing a fantastic job.

Souk Madinat

Mall of the Emirates

"Ski Dubai" inside Mall of the Emirates

This photo's for you Emmy. You get inside this giant ball and roll all the way down the slope

Chairlift inside ski Dubai

Thousands of pairs of ski shoes for hire + other equipment

Carrefour Supermarket / mega-store. Spices

Olives

Dates

A tiny section

Entry to train (driverless)

A380 landing at Dubai airport. This was taken from the train which was moving fast
 with about 1 sec to shoot it - fantastic camera! Check the poor visibilty.
 All the photos taken yesterday were like this and all had to be taken from inside something.
45 degrees 85% humidity

Burj Kalifa - the tallest building in the world (850 metres) We went up it last time.
Would have been a waste this time as there was barely any visibility

There are thousands of these high rise buildings everywhere

Construction of new shopping centre taken with panaroma setting on
camera from our balcony at the Sofitel