My wife Diana arrived in Dubai last night and I met her at the airport. Despite having flown from Canada she had some energy so we went to the old town for something to eat.
By the way, iconic Canadian chain Tim Horton's has a location in the Dubai old town (which among other things tells you how not authentic this old town feels!).
After some dinner (not at Tim Horton's) we crossed the creek (and back) on an abra before calling it a night.
We had an ambitious itinerary for today largely designed around Diana's desire to see "Dubai's nice buildings." We began with the Dubai Frame, which you can spot from the metro, but is way more impressive as you approach.
The Frame is set in a lovely park, which was largely empty at this time on a Monday.
We got back on the metro and rode a few more stops to get to the super cool Museum of the Future building.
Whether the museum exhibits are any good I cannot say because the museum was closed, but the building itself is worth viewing from the outside nonetheless.
From here you can also see some of the downtown buildings including the "Big Ben" tower (which is actually mostly blocked out by another building in the photo below).
We then took the metro quite aways further west to the Dubai Marina. The skyline here is really something, and the marina walkway was nicely shaded so it was a super pleasant place to be. We found a restaurant patio to sit and enjoy lunch while appreciating the architecture.
From the marina a combination of tram and taxi took us to Palm Jumeirah, which was Diana's number one Dubai site to see. We rode up to the viewpoint, which gives you a 360 degree view of the development. Frankly, it is surreal to see.
Back down more-or-less at ground level in the shopping mall, we explored a grocery store that included a fancy dried fruits counter with dates dressed up in all sorts of ways. We bought some of these because clearly you have not experienced the Middle East fully without enjoying dates.
From the Palm Jumeirah mall we headed to the even bigger Dubai mall, but this proved more difficult than we expected because it was now rush hour and the metro was packed. We missed several trains before managing to squeeze onto one. Anyway, eventually we reached the mall.
Yesterday I had noticed that there were all sorts of restaurants with patios overlooking the fountains, and I was surprised that without much difficulty we found one with a table. Of course, the menu prices reflect the premium view, but we felt it was well worth a nice dinner to enjoy multiple fountain shows from this vantage point.
And, we stayed for one more fountain show before wrapping up our tour for the night.
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