Photos from a Day In Dubai

Christmas eve day, we drove to Dubai early in the morning, passing wild camels on the side of the road. We toured a Mosque with a huge group of people, which turned out to be more a light intro to Islam. Our guide was carefully chosen for his rapport with non-muslims and disarmingly open attitude. He encouraged us to photograph anything we wanted in the Mosque, even himself praying. Of course, he glossed over some very important details in the culture and religion of Islam, but it was still very interesting.

Afterwards, we hit the Mall of the Emirates, the largest mall in the Middle East. We wandered around there for awhile, looking for trinkets and gismos we didn't really need, and after two hour of shopping, the only thing I wanted was a sweater from Zara. Then, to satisfy Tay's and my curiosity, we hit Ski Dubai for two hours of skiing.

This is not the only indoor ski resort in the world, just the one with the longest slope I believe. One can see the structure housing the slope rising out of mall from a long ways away, metal skin glinting in the sun. Price really isn't too bad. Two hours of skiing including skis/board, hemet, poles, ski pants and ski jacket is about $40. Everything is very streamlined and process-centric so we're able to get fitted for all our gear in less than 15 minutes. Almost as if we had joined a ski army. They gave us a card with a RFID tag which we used for everything from locking and unlocking lockers to boarding the ski lift.

Inside the "resort" it was very very cold. One is literally skiing in a refrigerator. Real snow on the ground, not very dry or powdery, but pretty standard sprayed snow. The place was pretty crowded but most people were taking the easier run. The ski slope was divided by the lift (yes, an actual ski lift, the shortest and slowest in the world, probably) with what I'd call a blue run on the left side and a green on the right. The total run length is maybe 200 yards long.

Surprisingly, there were some very good skiers and snowboarders who zoomed down the slope, dodging all the people who'd never skiied before, who must have finished the course in 30 seconds, where it took me maybe a minute to get down. Most of the skiiers there were terrible. Never been on skis or a snowboard before.

What was very bizzare was the total artificiality of it all. Taylor commented that it was a perfect symbol for Dubai. Everything is here, snow, a slope, even a very small lodge cafe in the middle of the run, but its not a mountain, and the wooden cafe was made of textured concrete.

Here are the pictures.


by archalec