A City in a Day: Dubai

Dubai is a city of grandeur and extremities. It is luxurious and hyper-modern, with decadence dripping off from every corner. The magnitude of everything is surreal – the buildings, the shops, the portion sizes, and apparently peoples’ bank accounts. When staying with my housemate in her family home in Abu Dhabi over the summer, I got the chance to visit the capital of consumerism. So, how is it possible to fit the city of vastness into a mere 12 hours I hear you ask? Here’s how:

12pm: Madinat Jumeirah Souks

Due to still being slightly jet-lagged, we set off from Abu Dhabi coach station a little later than planned, meaning we arrived at Ibn Battuta metro station at around midday. Here we bought metro day passes for the equivalent of around £4.50 and set off to our first stop: Emirates Mall. Once we arrived we headed over to the Madinat Jumeirah souks by taxi. The souks were located inside a guarded hotel. Unlike the souks of Marrakech which are dedicated to stalls selling local wares, these souks were woven in amongst more luxurious, high-end shops like Pandora and Lulu Guinness, which made for a bizarre shopping experience. Perhaps due to this being a more high-end souk in a wealthier area, sellers were less inclined to barter, only dropping prices by 10-25% unlike other markets where you can haggle at around 50% off.

3pm: Dubai Mall

Dubai Mall was one of the most overwhelming places I’ve ever been. It feels like half the population of the world is congregated in one extensive building. There are gold ATMs, which are (as you can probably guess) ATMs where you can quite literally exchange money for gold in seconds. Home to both an aquarium, a ski slope and 1,2000 shops, Dubai mall is the biggest mall in the world. You could easily get lost for a whole week just in this one building, which meant it was actually quite hard to do any shopping. If you do plan on shopping, it would help to have an idea of exactly which shops you want to go to and where they’re located, or else you’ll get lost in the void of diamond sellers and over-priced fountain pen shops.

4pm: Burj Khalifa

By far the highlight of the day. In keeping with Dubai’s theme of extremity and grandness, we embarked on a trip up the tallest building in the world. We headed through Dubai Mall to the entrance of the Burj where we were whisked up 124 floors to the highest viewing platform on earth. While the experience was a little commercialised and rushed (people will persistently try and take your picture to sell it to you), it was an epic experience. Dubai is one of the fastest developing cities; 20 years ago the area was predominantly sand. While on ground level you don’t particularly appreciate this phenomenon, from 124 floors up you can witness the stark contrast between the shiny new high rise buildings and the massive expanse of barren desert that lies beyond. It’s a view that won’t be forgotten any time soon.

5pm: Not the most authentic Arabic gastronomic experience, but in need of a quick refreshment we headed to the Cheesecake factory, where milkshakes and smoothies are served in pint glasses, and a side of chips can potentially feed a family of 4. Once again, living up to its status as a city of excess.

6pm: The Fountain Show

Suitably filled with cheesecake, chips and milkshakes, we headed outside the mall to watch the fountain show. This was a beautiful experience with fountains erupting with water and light in time to music with a backdrop of the Burj Khalifa. The show was extravagant, and is repeated half hourly throughout the day. (For this experience on a budget; play some drumming music while sitting on a bench outside Maths and Stats in the hope that they might one day turn the fountains on).

7pm: Al Fahidi, Bastikaya

In search of a slightly more authentic Arabic experience and an escape from the overwhelmingly commercial city centre, we headed a bit further out of town to the old city. I would have loved a little more time to explore this area of Dubai. It was far less touristy and actually had buildings that hadn’t been built in the last 5 years. We stopped at the ‘Arabian Tea House’, an authentic Arabic mud building where we wound down from the day over a cup of mint tea (I wish I’d held out and eaten here instead of the Cheesecake Factory – the platters looked delicious). While it was short-lived, it was good to have seen this side of the city to put the grandeur and luxe of the centre into perspective.

After this, we hopped on the metro back to Ibn Battuta and whizzed away from the city, leaving the immense buildings and bright lights behind us. I felt drained, but content that I’d got a feel for the city in the limited time we had. A true whirlwind of a day indeed!