Day 7 - Dubai : big - bigger - biggest

Mall of the Emirates has a beautiful layout and is designed as an immense station hall. It is still quiet this Friday morning, the Emirati day off. Fortunately, the visibility is now a lot better. The most special attraction in Mall of the Emirates is not so much the design, the many exclusive shops or the eateries, but the ...  Dubai ski slope.

The Mall is connected to the ski slope and from the shopping paradise, because of the many windows, you have a terrific view on what can best be described as an impressive winter landscape. It looks like we are in an alpine village during Christmas. Thickly dressed skiers are going up with the chairlift. They descend via the normal ski slope or via the slalom course. Down below a village with wooden chalets, snow-covered trees awaits them and they are cheered on by a christmassy lit snowman. It is currently 31° C outside but only 5° C inhere. Every detail has been thought out and you even forget that you are actually staying in the desert. Everything is possible in Dubai.

They do not want to be the tallest in buildings alone. The Dubai Mall shatters records. The largest shopping center in the world has no less than 1,200 stores. Just spending 5 minutes in each of them would cost you at least a week. In the mall you will find all well-known international brands and chains including Galeries Lafayette, H & M, Bonhams, Debenhams, Marks & Spencer and Bloomingdale's. Top designers such as Prado, Louis Vuitton, Armani, Dolce & Gabbana, Burberry, Chanel and Dior have found their own home in Fashion Avenue. In The Souk you will find mainly local products. No need to go hungry or thirsty with branches of just about all known chains: both restaurants and fast food.

Tired of all that shopping, eating and drinking? Next to shops and eateries you will find other activities in the Mall: there is a skating rink with Olympic dimensions for as many as 2,000 skaters and a cinema complex with no less than 22 theaters.

But the topper is the gigantic aquarium, the largest in the world. As many as 33,000 marine animals swim above and beside you while you walk through the aquarium via a tunnel. Among these animals are also sharks and stingrays. Next to the aquarium there is also an 'Underwater Zoo' with even more fish, and also penguins, beavers, etc.

But the biggest attraction is outside. The Mall is located in the shadow of the mighty Burj Khalifa and from here you have an undisturbed view of the gigantic tower.

I love the design of the Burj. Actually it is a very clean, pure design that shows a tidy, simple beauty. Oval tubes are as it were, fastened together with kilometers of steel wire with the central part reaching to the sky. Tons of glass, steel and concrete, nothing more is needed for this top design. It literally and figuratively puts the other buildings in the shade with their sometimes unnecessary architectural designs.

Every day, in front of the Burj on Dubai Lake, the largest, most famous and most spectacular fountain show in the world is performed. In the afternoon there are two shows, in the evening the show is repeated every 30 minutes between 6 pm and 11 pm.

Each fountain show lasts only 3 minutes (the duration of a song from a changing repertoire) but the amount of water that is ejected into the air is phenomenal. The dancing fountains have a length of 275 m and the water splashes up to 150 m high. 6.000 lights are used during the evening performances to illuminate the fountains. Today I see no less than four shows, two in the afternoon and  two in the evening. Especially the last show that I see and takes place after dusk is impressive. Andrea Bocelli and Sarah Brightman enchant us with  'Con te Partiro' while the illuminated fountains dance to the tones of the music with a perfect choreography. After the watertap is turned off, the Burj takes over with a light show that can be viewed throughout the city.

Also in The Creek where we end the evening with a dinner on a traditional wooden dhow.

During a traditional dinner we sail with a traditional boat through The Creek which is surrounded by non-traditional skyscrapers that all project their version of a light show. That is because we are in Dubai, where there is only one motto: big, bigger, biggest - expensive, more expensive, most expensive - fast, faster, fastest. Dubai is the place where everything is possible..