Tuesday, December 10, 2013

Exploring Dubai: Trip One

I talked my Oregonian friend Lori into going skiing with me! We made a day of it and stopped off at the world's tallest building too.

First Stop: 
The Burj Khalifa 
(translates: Khalifa Tower) aka The World's Tallest Building
at Dubai Mall 
Side note: This is one of world's largest malls. Of course it is...just wouldn't be right to have the world's tallest building in a small mall or just on it's own, would it?


Diving men fountain…too early in the morning for water I guess…rough landing.

Even the scaled-down, lit-up model is quite tall


Construction timeline - it took 6 years to build

Going Up…
This elevator was fast, smooth, and quiet!
I think it took less time to go 124 floors than it takes me to go 22 at my apartment.


"At The Top" means the 124th floor out of 200. They say that businesses and residences are on those floors, but I sort of wonder about that...

Looking down...


Had to do the classic dork shot falling off The Burj

View one direction…landscape changes quickly once you get out of the city

View of our shadow…kinda cool eh?
Notice the gold sci-fi looking Metro station just to the left

Photo of a photo - this is a shot of the fireworks at midnight on New year's Eve

View from the bottom - hard to get it all in one screen and my camera 
doesn't want to do a "vertical panorama"

Remember the view looking down? This is the same pool of water from the ground.

A few attractions at Dubai Mall…
The aquarium 
(notice the reflection of the ESPRIT store sign?)

Big fishes & little fishes…all mixed together
How do they keep the sharks from eating everyone else?

Cute family enjoying a look up-close…for a price of course!
Everything here has a price it seems.

Me, Lori, and all the other cheapskates enjoyed a look from afar

Lamborghini model carved from a solid bar of gold with touches of platinum

Hey look, you can even buy one - take your pick, a prototype or a real one?

Diving men fountain…with water this time, lucky guys!

They're down-diving and I'm up-diving

Part Two: Ski Dubai at The Mall of the Emirates
Warning: You WILL lose for car in mall parking lots if do not adequately document exactly where you parked!

 Oh-no! Does that say Gate 1 or Gate 4 or Gate A?!

Do you see two items on this mall directions sign that seem to be a bit conflicting?

Square donuts? 
Is this a UAE thing or a Starbucks thing?

Cool fountain 

Weird store window display 


Lunch at the chalet style Ski Dubai restaurant

OK…got our passes!

Just a little weird to go from sandals to ski boots

Here we go!

Lori's telling me how long it's been since she's skied and how few times she's actually been
…not nervous at ALL ; )

 Angie's thought bubble:
"Early November now…they haven't even opened the slopes back in Oregon yet…Haha, joke's on YOU guys. The desert rat gets the first turns this year!"

Looking towards the bottom from almost mid-way
Behind those windows are restaurants and a mall viewing area.

Whew, made it to the mid-way point! 
Maybe we'll go to the top on the next run.

The mid-way cafe
…under construction so we didn't get to go in and check it out.

Heading to the upper slope! 

Looking up the hill
Progressive-notice the rail in the ski park off to the right.
Also notice the huge air coolers along the wall on the left.

 Looking towards bottom from near the top

Top of the lift 

The snow cat has what looks to be a plastic covered mattress 
attached to the front of the blade…?! 

I decided to go for the tough stuff - a poma lift!
 they call it a "drag lift"



BONUS: penguin show below!





Human Snowballs! 
There are people in those things and they are rolling down the hill and hitting a snow bank to stop at the bottom! They climb out and up they go again on a giant snowball convertor belt. I think my vertigo issue would not be good if I tried this : (  Darn - mighta been fun!

Done with ski equipment? Just dump it in the bins.

Does it seem at all odd to you to see a fire exit on the ski hill?

Fun day!

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