Friday, our only full day in Dubai on this trip, and the Metro is closed, well until 2.30 anyway...So it is a taxi ride to the Mall of the Emirates, setting out mid-morning onto the empty ten lane highway that was the continual mass of Range Rovers and all manner of other high end cars...Ferrari, Lamborghini, Porsche...the oil refinery in the distance that was sparsely illuminated last evening is now a series of grey towers in the haze, still an oil refinery from this distance, with the exception of one tower stretching high up above the others like a very fine spire resembling Frank Lloyd Wright's 'Mile high tower' proposed for Chicago in 1956.
Passing the shells of the dormant metro, a huge sloping 'shed' appears on the left side of the highway, from in between the nondescript towers. A loop off the highway and to the underground drop off that forms the front door to the what was briefly the worlds largest mall and a demonstration of the ability of developers to create an alternate reality inside a huge, huge air-conditioned container. On entering the mall it has very much the characteristics of any other mall that has been opened in the past decade, elements of Bluewater in Kent, or Birmingham's Bull Ring are installed here from the same global branding manuals that exist for all these retailers.
Along the mall past all the usual suspects that appear in these malls and a glass wall reveals the unique selling point...snow! complete with Alpine ski lodge, ski lifts, bobsleigh run and a whole rabble of people dressed for winter conditions skiing down the slopes between the pine trees, to complete the illusion of an Alpine ski resort. Outside the glass wall in a comfortable 22 degrees, groups of Arabs shoot video of the people playing on the inside.
Some facts from the Ski Dubai website: the indoor park covers some 3000 square metres, is the equivalent of twenty five stories high and is some 80 metres wide. This is the world's largest indoor ski park and boasts 5 runs including a 400m black run, and apparently is home to a number of penguins although I did not know you found penguins in the Alps. It is January but it is 28 degrees outside, -2 on the inside due to super insulation of the external envelope in walls that are 5 metres thick, the temperature drops to -6 at nights and new snow is generated every night, as the 'old' snow melts it is used to cool the rest of the mall, and eventually to irrigate the gardens. It may seem inappropriate, frivolous or just plain insane to build a ski dome in the desert, but as a technical achievement this has to be nothing short of amazing.
Moving on from the Alps in a giant cool box, the Virgin Megastore in all its glory, sadly now missing from the UK cities, a fine representation of what a music store should be, selling everything from CD's, DVD's, band merchandise, and guitars, basses, drums along with some of the kit you need to play in your own band. Into Milano, or at least a plastic reproduction of some of the galleria that define the medieval quarter of Milano, that accommodates the Italian designer names, a seeming contradiction between the high design of the products in the shops and the artificial design of the container. The Gold Souk, clusters all the jewelry shops together in a reproduction of Mid town Manhattan minus the yellow cabs and Empire State building, except the shops are owned by Arabs.
Having spent a day in an alternate reality, it is time to experience the reality of getting back to the apartment using the public transportation system that is so new to this city, the Metro. The route from the Mall to the Metro station is something of a back route out of the Mall, an air conditioned pedestrian bridge threads its way past blank facades to one of the iconic golden shells that define the project. The sun has set without much of a fanfare, no orange glow, just a gradual darkening of the sky, and the towers become sihouettes against the fading light.
The train arrives into the shell, with its first car dedicated to ladies only, so alighting into the second car which allows mixed couples and families, it is a smooth and efficient journey back to Al Mankhool. As the towers pass by something does not seem to add up, I know it is the weekend but even so the expected cool glow of office blocks bathed in light that defines a buzzing metropolis are lacking, only the standard red lights that define the pinnacles and refuge floors of the blocks. Then it occurs to that these towers were built in the rush of a booming economy, the bubble has burst and the towers stand empty.
The incomplete stations that I had investigated the night before pass by with smooth regularity until the Metro goes to ground and our destination is reached, in the cool blue glow of the underground station, an escalator ride to the surface brings us out into a smaller golden shell, which is one of four at each corner of a large crossroads, with my sleeping ten-month-old daughter in my arms this is no time to walk back to the apartment especially when not exactly sure where it is. So hailing a Dubai taxi, all climbing in to find probably the only cab driver that does not know his way around, proceeding to tell us it is only his second day in the job, strangely we reach the apartments quickly after a pulled out the leaflet with the address on, having exited the cab, noticed lost wallet, reported it to taxi company colleagues, only to find said taxi cabbie was still lost, so flagged him down on his second pass of the block, wallet retrieved ...goodnight La-La-land!
Passing the shells of the dormant metro, a huge sloping 'shed' appears on the left side of the highway, from in between the nondescript towers. A loop off the highway and to the underground drop off that forms the front door to the what was briefly the worlds largest mall and a demonstration of the ability of developers to create an alternate reality inside a huge, huge air-conditioned container. On entering the mall it has very much the characteristics of any other mall that has been opened in the past decade, elements of Bluewater in Kent, or Birmingham's Bull Ring are installed here from the same global branding manuals that exist for all these retailers.
Along the mall past all the usual suspects that appear in these malls and a glass wall reveals the unique selling point...snow! complete with Alpine ski lodge, ski lifts, bobsleigh run and a whole rabble of people dressed for winter conditions skiing down the slopes between the pine trees, to complete the illusion of an Alpine ski resort. Outside the glass wall in a comfortable 22 degrees, groups of Arabs shoot video of the people playing on the inside.
Some facts from the Ski Dubai website: the indoor park covers some 3000 square metres, is the equivalent of twenty five stories high and is some 80 metres wide. This is the world's largest indoor ski park and boasts 5 runs including a 400m black run, and apparently is home to a number of penguins although I did not know you found penguins in the Alps. It is January but it is 28 degrees outside, -2 on the inside due to super insulation of the external envelope in walls that are 5 metres thick, the temperature drops to -6 at nights and new snow is generated every night, as the 'old' snow melts it is used to cool the rest of the mall, and eventually to irrigate the gardens. It may seem inappropriate, frivolous or just plain insane to build a ski dome in the desert, but as a technical achievement this has to be nothing short of amazing.
Moving on from the Alps in a giant cool box, the Virgin Megastore in all its glory, sadly now missing from the UK cities, a fine representation of what a music store should be, selling everything from CD's, DVD's, band merchandise, and guitars, basses, drums along with some of the kit you need to play in your own band. Into Milano, or at least a plastic reproduction of some of the galleria that define the medieval quarter of Milano, that accommodates the Italian designer names, a seeming contradiction between the high design of the products in the shops and the artificial design of the container. The Gold Souk, clusters all the jewelry shops together in a reproduction of Mid town Manhattan minus the yellow cabs and Empire State building, except the shops are owned by Arabs.
Having spent a day in an alternate reality, it is time to experience the reality of getting back to the apartment using the public transportation system that is so new to this city, the Metro. The route from the Mall to the Metro station is something of a back route out of the Mall, an air conditioned pedestrian bridge threads its way past blank facades to one of the iconic golden shells that define the project. The sun has set without much of a fanfare, no orange glow, just a gradual darkening of the sky, and the towers become sihouettes against the fading light.
The train arrives into the shell, with its first car dedicated to ladies only, so alighting into the second car which allows mixed couples and families, it is a smooth and efficient journey back to Al Mankhool. As the towers pass by something does not seem to add up, I know it is the weekend but even so the expected cool glow of office blocks bathed in light that defines a buzzing metropolis are lacking, only the standard red lights that define the pinnacles and refuge floors of the blocks. Then it occurs to that these towers were built in the rush of a booming economy, the bubble has burst and the towers stand empty.
The incomplete stations that I had investigated the night before pass by with smooth regularity until the Metro goes to ground and our destination is reached, in the cool blue glow of the underground station, an escalator ride to the surface brings us out into a smaller golden shell, which is one of four at each corner of a large crossroads, with my sleeping ten-month-old daughter in my arms this is no time to walk back to the apartment especially when not exactly sure where it is. So hailing a Dubai taxi, all climbing in to find probably the only cab driver that does not know his way around, proceeding to tell us it is only his second day in the job, strangely we reach the apartments quickly after a pulled out the leaflet with the address on, having exited the cab, noticed lost wallet, reported it to taxi company colleagues, only to find said taxi cabbie was still lost, so flagged him down on his second pass of the block, wallet retrieved ...goodnight La-La-land!
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