Weekend in Dubai

Palm Jumeirah

We celebrated Halloween weekend with a little family trip to Dubai. Dubai is a very unique place – everything is new, huge, and the best description of the culture we heard was a “mall culture.” We had a blast! We enjoyed time with family friends the first evening, then spent our first afternoon walking through the Mall of the Emirates – where we indulged in as much American stuff as possible (think P.F. Changs & PinkBerry) and gaped at the indoor ski slopes. Skiing, indoors, in the middle of the desert – crazy! Then we headed out to Palm Jumeirah and the Atlantis hotel to take in sunset over the Gulf.
 

Mall of the Emirates

Ski Dubai

After a fantastic dinner, we slept in, got up and went back to the mall. This time, it was Dubai Mall, the largest mall in the world, which had stores from pretty much everywhere, including Chicago's own Garret's Popcorn. From there we headed next door to Burj Khalifa, the tallest building in the world. We went up to the observatory on the 124th floor, which was still 50 or so floors from the actual top. It's quite the view.

Burj Khalifa

In the evening, we watched the water show outside of Burj Khalifa, which was designed by the same engineers who designed the show for the Bellagio in Vegas. The weekend went by fast and we really enjoyed ourselves. Certainly a pretty great way to spend Halloween!

View from the 124th floor

Jad gets artsy with his photography

Jad strolling through Dubai Mall with his new buddy...the 3 year old son of our friends. His dad works at Cartier, hence the reason he's the only kid-o walking through the mall with 2 Cartier bags in his hands (although, they are only filled with puzzles) :)