The Dubai shopping festival was setting in and was the second day after inauguration. I had extended my stay to accommodate the luxurious experience of shopping fiesta of Dubai. It was my last outing from Sharjah as I was returning back the same weekend. The shopping festival is also a good time to find deals on almost every product on display.

It was a Friday and the weekly holiday for my father as well. He planned to stay home and take rest from the past hectic week and we started a little late in morning. We headed directly to the Dubai Festival city which is supposed to be the heart of all shopping bonanza.

During the shopping festival time, all the city outlets participate in some way or the other but this is the central place for rippling out any effect to the city. It is a permanent shopping arena with multiple brands present under one roof. The only difference at festival time is that the deals kick in and the number of people visiting increases manifold.

As any other shopping area, it was huge with multi-level floor facility and lavishly decorated. The economic slowdown seemed to have had an impact on the buying power of people. There were lot of window shopping being done but the number of serious buyers was less. The food court on the top floor was busting with families on a picnic event. A good time and place for the entire family to enjoy the experience.

The festival city has a small artificially created stream with Abra ride. Abra is a small boat used for transportation and was mostly used in Dubai creek to travel passenger from either sides. Here it was more of a tourist attraction and children to enjoy. I felt it was an extremely novel idea to have a boat ride in a mall and relate it to the history of that region.

It was my first experience at an IKEA outlet which is quite famous in west and was impressive with the things on offer. After just looking at the different sections in ikea we headed for Columbia outdoor gear shop as I am keen to see such items. I tried a temperature resistant rough shoes and were on a good deal. I purchased it to try it out on my future snow expeditions. The shoe is marked with an astonishing -32 degree Celsius resistance.

The festival city is next to Dubai creek and outside the shopping area there was a setup for live band and performances. We could see private luxurious yachts parked in the creek area. It was a beautiful view with sun setting down behind the yachts.

After taking some photos we came out of the festival city area to find an ACE outlet across the road. I had no second thoughts in going straight inside and ventured for a long time in there.

This was the end of my experience of Dubai Shopping Festival 2009 and the trip to Dubai. The weekend was right close to catch my flight back home. I am still waiting for an opportunity to inaugurate my Columbia gear.

This is my last post from the series of visiting Dubai. It were a memorable 4 weeks wherein I tried many things for the first time in my life, like snorkeling, desert safari, camel ride and many others. A must visit place and I strongly recommend that if you get an opportunity, please do visit it, If you need any extended information which I might have missed in my travelogues, fee free to contact me.

The only photo in the post is the one I am referring to outside the Dubai Festival city overlooking the parking bay for private yachts. In the city skyline you can see the world’s tallest tower, Burj Dubai, emirates tower and many others located on the Sheikh Zayad road.

A Dhow is a traditional boat which is now converted to floating restaurants sailing inside the Dubai Creek.It is not a luxury ship or yacht where a party is organized. It is a simple boat well decorated which was used for fishing purpose and has now been used as floating restaurants.

It was my parents wedding anniversary and what better to have a Cruise dinner on one of the Dhows. Ours was the first pickup at 6:30pm with another 8 more people on way before we would start sailing in the Dhow.The other co-passengers were from different parts of the world and it was a good indication of Dubai being a truly international city. This also being a tourist season from Christmas and New Year, people had come from far away distances just to enjoy the city in desert.

It is a hugely famous activity amongst tourists. In the whole trip I have felt that any activity which is famous in Dubai has been created from a tourist perspective and not accounting for the locals. This is justified as tourism and trade are the pillar of the country’s economy.

After picking up everyone and more like a joy ride in Dubai, we reached the bay area around 8:30 pm where numerous dhows were parked. The driver helped us identify our dhow which was named Falcon Oasis. It was the first time all 3 of us were getting onto a Dhow. We straight went on the top deck for better view and good cold breezy weather.

It was a magnificent view sitting on the cruise and viewing the city skyscrapers on either side of the creek. It is a photographer’s paradise and tourists’ delight sitting there watching the city skyline.

After everyone got comfortable on the dhow, it started its ride along the creek distance. The Arabic songs were tuned in to set the mood and momentum of excitement. Then a magic show was organized for all the kids on the deck. In the adjoining dhow a newly married couple was being welcomed and a traditional dancer was displaying her class. It was so beautiful that people from all other dhows were applauding the dancing efforts of that little girl.

It was almost an hour by now and the weather was getting cold. We had not expected such drop in temperatures but as a precaution were carrying jackets which was a life savior. In no time the chilly wind was penetrating the jackets walls also and we had to move to the lower deck.

The lower deck was an enclosed area with huge glass windows for viewing the admirable surroundings. It was also the place where main course buffet was served. It was this place where we had come some time back for seeing the Gold Souk and heritage places. We were trying to identify the buildings we had seen in the broad daylight and how they now appeared under stars.

The dhow’s closing time is 10:30 pm and we were closing on it quite fast. The dinner was also well prepared and we shared some good moments to be cherished forever.

It was time to say goodbye to the Dhow and the wonderful experience all of us had. I loved the whole experience which I had seen on various occasions in movies. Living them myself was a dream come true.

The blog post of Dubai gives a description of how to go from Sharjah to Dubai, specifically Gold souk and the surrounding heritage places.

A gallery has been uploaded with a larger set of images to get a visual feel of how the area looks like and its neighboring heritage places which have been kept intact in the midst of city with all the lavish lifestyle and skyscrapers.

This gallery is also an experiment to see how the new gallery which has been integrated looks like and has the user experience for browsing the photos.

Feedback is welcome on that.

Click on the image below to visit the gallery link.

My second week in UAE was nearing end and it was our second visit to the city of Dubai. This time it was just me and my mother exploring the local transport service.

The local transport is extremely comfortable with Mercedes branded buses. This was my first visit to Dubai in the inter emirate local transport buses accompanied by my mother. We planned of visiting the world famous Gold Souk and the heritage places around it.

The local bus route can be found out at http://www.rta.ae/wpsv5/wps/portal/bus_time_table?SwitchToLatestLocale=true . The gold souk is a very popular and major bus station from where you can reach at any destination. We started our journey with the bus station in Sharjah near Rola. The link mentioned above is also the government website which gives correct and reliable data. The buses are on time and follow a schedule which is very good and helps in finer planning of the journey.

We boarded the double deck bus at Jubil bus station and got 2 seats on upper deck right above the driver for maximum view. This was a first time experience and I thoroughly enjoyed it. The journey took about 45 minutes for us to reach the Gold Souk. The word ’souk’ in Arabic means ‘market’. It is a very old trading place which has become a shopper’s paradise and also a heritage place. We went inside and I was just amazed to see the amount of gold which was on display in the shops. My mum had been here earlier and she was used to so much yellow metal around.

The good thing is that the souk has benches where people can sit as well. Apart from this being a market, it was also a tourist place and people were enjoying that. Photographers were indulging in street photography and I also got some good shots. My mother ended up buying some jewelry for herself as well.

Then we thought of visiting the heritage places before returning home. This was such a place where one could easily spend the entire day. The gold souk is on famous Dubai Creek and we had to cross it to reach the heritage sites. The underwater pedestrian subway is present which I think was quite innovative and we used it to cross the creek.
After exiting the tunnel and few meters away was the Diving Village. This place showed the village where diving people used to stay and how they indulged in diving for finding pearls. The part of the village has been kept intact surrounded by lavish and luxurious skyscrapers.

The other location is heritage village which showed the way a village looked like with places for community activities, their individual huts and other daily routine activities related places. Also beautiful to see was the architecture of houses and huts which ensured that even in cases of extreme heat and storms, the houses remained cool without the modern day facilities of ACs and desert coolers. The technique used to cool the house was Wind tunnels at particular angle and geometry of window opening which allowed the cold air to enter house.

After the visit to heritage village we went ahead to Sheikh Saeed’s house who was the then ruler of Dubai. It has now been converted into a museum cum exhibition structure. All these heritage sites are on the creek side and offer a good view of the city. Once we had visited all these places, we planned to return back before father arrives. We caught the bus back to Sharjah and we back home in just over an hour.