Admiring the Tallest in the World, Dubai, UAE

787 Dreamliner Large Window Leaving Doha, we were pleasantly surprised to find ourselves on a brand new Boeing 787 Dreamliner. The inside was beautiful! There was a ton of overhead space and the walkways were not cramped. There were large windows that tinted for the sun rather than completely blocking the view with a plastic shade. The seats felt spacious and very comfortable. Too bad our flight to Dubai was only 45 minutes long! Once we arrived, we had another quick and easy transfer to our hotel.

Dinner at Afghan Kabab House – mixed kebabs and chicken kadai

The heat was still present along with fasting for Ramadan. Our hotel, Landmark Plaza, was right across the street from a metro station so we only had to briefly brave the heat while crossing the street. We hid in our hotel room the rest of the afternoon while waiting for fasting to end. Once it was dark and slightly cooler, we ventured out to find dinner. Sara found Afghan Kabab House a few blocks away where we had tasty chicken kadai and an assortment of kebabs. I am still not totally sure what type of meat was included in the assortment but hopefully nothing too strange!

On the walk back to Landmark Plaza, Sara reminded me that we wouldn’t be able to get food for breakfast or lunch. We found a local grocery store and picked up yogurt, juice and snacks for the next couple days. Ever since our stop in Langkawi, Malaysia, we’ve preferred yogurt for breakfast on our own – it’s cheap, filling and nutritious.

Tallest Building in the World -Burj Khalifa At The Top

The only real reason I wanted to spend any time in Dubai was to see the Burj Khalifa. This building is the tallest in the world at 828 metres (2,716.5 feet) tall. While researching online, I was disappointed to find out that the public lookout is only about halfway to the top at 452 m (1,483 ft). Even so, we decided that we had to visit or else we would both regret not going up the tallest manmade structure in the world.

On the train ride to Burj Khalifa, it was interesting to see the city layout. There was no central downtown area. Instead, it seemed like the tall buildings were built along the main road/train line. For most of the journey, we couldn’t see the Burj Khalifa because of the thick desert haze. We disembarked the train into a nice climate controlled walkway that meandered several blocks from the train station all the way to the Dubai Mall. Once in the mall, the signs for the tower became few and far between. We got lost a couple times in the beautiful mall lined with expensive stores but finally found the entrance to At the Top.

Burj Khalifa At the Top celebrating Ramadan

One of the nice benefits of visiting Dubai during Ramadan was less tourists. Usually, there is long line for At the Top but we walked right in with no wait. The experience was very well laid out. On the walk to the elevators, there were many informative signs and videos depicting the design and construction. Once at the elevators, we were whisked all the way up to the 124th floor and then out doors to an outside viewing platform. Even through the thick haze, the view was spectacular. Every direction, there were unique buildings rising from the sand. Straight below us, we could see the massive structure housing the Dubai Mall and a turquoise blue lake with fountain structures in the middle. The surrounding areas seemed to be condos and hotels. Looking to the west, we could see the Persian Gulf coastline. As the horizon blurred into the haze, we could just barely see manmade islands grouped together to resemble the world.

Downtown row in Dubai

After descending from the Burj Khalifa, At The Top experience convently exited directly back into the Dubai Mall. Sara took the opportunity to look for some new shoes. We wandered around the huge mall not finding shoes but we did stumble upon a Pinkberry frozen yogurt shop (Sara’s favorite and she decided we would be coming back for dessert).

Fourth of July Celebration

All American dinner for the 4th of July

Outside the mall in the shadow of the Burj Khalifa, we found the large pool with fountains and learned it has a show every evening. While trying to find a good vantage point for the show, we saw a hotdog and burger restaurant, Shake Shack. Since it was the Fourth of July, we were excited to find something resembling an American barbecue. Again, we had to wait for Ramadan fasting to end before we could eat. During the wait, we wandered around the pool taking pictures of the Burj Khalifa.

Two minute fountain show outside Dubai Mall

Finally at sunset, marked by the blast from an artillery cannon, we were able to eat our burgers and hotdogs. The Shake Shack even had root beer from Abita brewery in Louisiana! While we were enjoying our festive dinner, the fountain show began. But in the time it took me to put my hotdog down and pick up my camera, it was over. I think they should stop advertising it as a show because it is painfully short and anti-climatic. Good thing we didn’t end up waiting around just for that!

After dinner, Sara made sure we stopped at Pinkberry for dessert to finish off our American celebration. During the day, noticed there weren’t too many Muslims in traditional costumes in Dubai compared to Doha, but they all must have been at home. As it got later, I saw more and more Muslims wandering the mall.

Dubai Marina and Palm Jumeirah Beach

We had one more full day to explore Dubai before flying to London. Sara really wanted to see the Palm Jumeirah in person since we couldn’t see if from the top of the Burj Khalifa. She found a panoramic restaurant at the top of a Marriott hotel where we could go, get a drink and enjoy the view. While down south, we also wanted to see the Burj Al Arab, a swanky seven star hotel. We took the main metro line south towards both buildings. When we got close to the Burj Al Arab, we got off the train to look for a westward bus to the Gulf.

Ski Dubai at the Mall of Emirates

Ski Dubai Summer Ramadan On the walkway from the train station, I realized that this place looked familiar from “Build it Bigger” on the Science Channel. We were at the location of Ski Dubai, a fully functional indoor ski resort! It turned out that there were no busses going towards the Burj Al Arab so we made a quick detour to see the ski resort before heading back to the train. If you didn’t know you were in the middle of the desert, you wouldn’t think there was anything special about the resort – it looked just like any other ski area!

Enjoying our drink at The Observatory

Sara pulled me away before I spent our entire day’s budget on an hour of skiing. Back on the train, we continued south to the Marriott. Even though it was Ramadan, we heard hotel restaurants are exempt from the fasting laws. We also read that bars in hotels are permitted to sell alcohol in the otherwise dry country. We entered the Marriott and went to their top floor lounge just as their happy hour started. Unfortunately, we were told that during the day in Ramadan, they could only serve non-alcoholic beverages. Oh well! We ordered a virgin mixed drink to share and enjoy the hazy view of Palm Jumeirah.

From the Marriott, there was a bus north that passed the Burj Al Arab. Right when we got to the bus stop, a small van pulled up and several locals piled into the already crowed vehicle. We looked at each other and laughed. That couldn’t possibly be the actual bus! Maybe we’d see that in a small town in Africa or Southeast Asia but not in this city, right? As we kept waiting, I became more and more suspicious that the small vans were in fact part of their bus system. Just as we were thinking about getting into the next van, an actual bus with our route number pulled up and we boarded the air conditioned vehicle.

Jumeirah Beach Hotel

Several stops later, we exited the bus and walked towards the Burj Al Arab. We quickly realized there was no way to get onto the property because the one entrance to it’s manmade island was gated. Instead of getting back on the bus and looking for a public beach, we decided to walk down the street to find some type of beach access. A block over, we found the Jumeriah Beach Hotel which looked inviting. We walked through the lobby and out to their boardwalk were we had a cool view of the magnificent building at sunset. I now see why this is called the “most photographed building in the world”.

Burj Al Arab

Eating before our final day of fasting

Because it was close to Iftar, we took a bus towards a couple restaurants that Sara found online. The first one we tried, The Fish Basket, was supposed to have a tasty fish sampler. Once at the restaurant, we didn’t see a combination platter and there was only a counter to pick your own fish which was sold by weight. We couldn’t understand how to order any of the fish and stay within our budget so we left to find the other restaurant.

We were really getting hungry by the time we found The Curry Leaf inside of a creepy looking deserted mall. Since we were hungry, we stayed and ordered food. We ordered a fish curry and hoppers to share. The hoppers, rice flour pancakes with a fried egg and spicy sides, were great, but we did not like the fish curry at all (too fishy for our taste). At one point, the manager noticed we hadn’t eaten any curry and gave us a chicken curry replacement free of charge! With the curry replaced, the food was pretty good and it at least satisfied our hunger. After a long day exploring (and fasting) we had no trouble falling asleep once back at the hotel.

Qantas A380 Dubai The next morning, we finished off our yogurt and canned fruit breakfast before heading to the airport. After finding the metro system easy to use the last couple days, it was surprising that there was no information on airport terminal train stops. There were three terminals and we didn’t know which was the correct stop for Qantas. We got off at the stop for terminal one, which turned out to be incorrect. Luckily the airport has a free shuttle that took us to the correct terminal – but why were there no signs?
Upon checking-in, Sara pointed out that our seats were on the upper deck – we were on an A380 to London and on the top floor! We were getting spoiled with all these flights on new planes.