Day 5 was something we were very much looking forward to because we were visiting the world's biggest mall, Dubai mall (based on total area) and the world's tallest building, Burj Khalifa. We woke up around 6.45am, got ready, had breakfast and left to Dubai mall in metro. We got down at the Dubai mall stop and had to walk for about 20 minutes to enter the mall. There is a special entrance for people coming by metro. The mall looked huge. After walking for a few minutes we felt as if we were lost. There are about 1200 stores inside the mall.
The first few outlets we stopped at, were the fashion outlets where I did some shopping. Shopping is perhaps the only thing which doesn't bore a girl and also it's a good exercise if we are allowed to go shopping everyday as we keep on walking and never get tired :) Later, we stopped at The Hershey's Chocolate World which is really huge especially for a chocolate store. The next shop we stopped at was the Disney outlet which is one of the cutest stores ever. The Disney accessories/merchandise are just too good. They have a huge collection of possibly everything a girl likes be it watches, footwear, handbags and much more. Next to this store was the superhero store where there are these huge, possibly all the superhero mannequins that you can think of and they also have superhero themed tees, caps, shoes and other boy stuff. Even for girls there were a few things available.
After having a look at these stores we went on to have a look at some of the footwear. The footwear lane is just awesome. But we can't take pictures inside the stores as they have guards to monitor this. Later, we went to the much awaited gold souk inside the Dubai mall. It was just mind blowing. We got to understand the meaning of souk when we saw this. Souk is something like a market where we get to see many stores selling the same thing. Here the market was full of gold. We had a look at a few stores and then moved on towards the fashion avenue which is also a big Bollywood attraction at the Dubai mall. Most of the movie promotions and other celebrity activities take place at this fashion avenue. The look of the fashion avenue is very classy. They have this huge ramp to walk but it's right on the floor with no extra elevation and just illuminated with different colours which is pretty big and cool. We could see children playing and walking on the illuminated lights on the ramp.
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| Entrance to the gold souk |
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| Entrance to the footwear lane |
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| Fashion Avenue. You can see the ramp in green n yellow lights |
Our next big attraction was the Dubai aquarium and the underwater zoo. We couldn't go in to have a look because of time constraints but we had an awesome time watching the aquarium from outside. This aquarium has one of world's largest acrylic panels and can withstand the pressure of 10 million litres of water. There are around 33,000 marine animals on display. If you are going with kids then don't miss out on this one. We wish we had some more time. Right in front of the aquarium is a huge candy store by name candylicious. This was probably the biggest candy store we both have seen till date and wherever you turn, you end up seeing candies and lollies. The interiors of the store is mind blowing. We then spotted a popcorn store by name Garrett popcorn. The store was really cool and they had a menu for popcorn!!! Really?? A menu for popcorn?? The options are too many. We were very confused to decide which one we want to buy. So we finally ended up with two flavours, caramel with salty butter and cheese which tasted delicious. But we couldn't eat much as we had to leave.
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| Candylicious |
After having a quick walk of almost the entire mall (couldn't see the whole mall for obvious reasons) , it was time to leave. We had booked a twilight AT THE TOP experience at Burj Khalifa so we had to get back to the hotel, rest for a while, get ready and go back to the mall. We walked back to the station and finally reached the hotel around 3.45 pm.
We rested for a while and left the hotel at 5pm. To visit Burj Khalifa, we have to enter the Dubai mall, go to the lower ground level and buy tickets for the observation deck and from there the staff will guide you. We had already booked tickets on-line so we didn't have to worry about queuing up to purchase the tickets. The tickets costed us 125 AED per person. We had booked for a 6pm experience as we could witness both day and night from the deck. But because we took a lot of time searching for the Burj Khalifa ticket counter, we were getting late and we reached there when it was around 5 minutes to 6 pm. Luckily the 6 pm batch had just started moving. We even took a guided headset which would help us in knowing more about Burj Khalifa.
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| View of Downtown Dubai from the Dubai mall |
We finally approached towards the line which lead us to the elevator that happens to be the world's third fastest elevator and it also has the distinction of offering the world's fastest double decker elevator with passengers able to travel the longest distance currently possible in an elevator. The elevator experience was unbelievable. The observation deck is in the 124th floor and the elevator takes us there in just 60 seconds at 10 meters per second. At one point, our ears were a little blocked due to the altitude. This elevator experience is a little attraction in itself.
Finally after a lovely 60 second elevator experience, we came to the observation deck. As the elevator door opens, we get to see unobstructed 360 degree view of the city, desert and ocean. The view from the deck was extraordinary and spectacular. It was difficult to get a perfect spot because there were people in every nook and corner. Finally we managed to get a decent view point and we loved standing atop and looking down at the miniature buildings. The Burj Khalifa stands tall and proud in front of all the other buildings. We heard that in this particular area or suburb which is called Downtown Dubai, there is a minimum height requirement for all the buildings. Almost all the buildings there are high raised ones. Then we went to the open air terrace to enjoy another perspective of the beautiful views. In short, this is something which you should experience in your lifetime. The thought of standing at the world's tallest building is something which cannot be explained. It's so difficult to believe the fact that humans have built such a gigantic structure.
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| View from the deck |
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| Open terrace |
Once we go to the observation deck, we can come out whenever we want to but the experience doesn't take more than an hour. After spending an hour there, we decided to head back and we were shocked to see the big queue for the elevator. There were hundreds of people waiting to take the elevator back to the mall. In the meantime, we had a fun photo shoot over there for which we had to wait for half an hour. The photo shoot is fun because they make you pose in funny ways which is later added with a few background graphics and made to look real. After the shoot we came to the photo collecting point only to realise that there was a mad crowd waiting to buy these pictures. We can review all the pictures and decide on which one we want and then wait for another half an hour till the picture is printed. We didn't want to waste our time for this because it was already 7.30 pm. We joined the elevator queue and finally around 8.45 pm, we got into the elevator and went down to the mall.
We then went for a lake ride at Downtown Dubai which has the Dubai fountain amidst the man made Burj Khalifa lake and it is supposed to be the world's largest choreographed fountain system. The fountain was amazing and performs every 30 minutes during the evening. The lake ride lasted around 20 minutes. We expected the lake ride to be amidst the fountain but it wasn't. The guide stopped at one corner for two minutes and we saw a smaller version of the fountain performance. They charged us 100 AED per person for the lake ride. After the ride, we went to a restaurant by the name California pizza kitchen. After a scrumptious dinner we finally left Dubai mall and went to the metro station to catch a metro back home. We left around 11.30pm and reached hotel around 12pm. It was one tiring day and we were glad we didn't have to rush the next day because we were visiting the gold souk and it was supposed to be a very relaxing day.
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| World's heaviest ring |
Later on we just had a walk around the gold souk and then went near the spice souk. But couldn't see the perfume souk. After our lunch in a nearby restaurant, we headed back. Day 6 was a very relaxing day but now we were excited about day 7 as we were visiting the world's first indoor ski park :)
Hope you guys enjoyed reading this post. Keep reading :) Thank you
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