23.2 - Bur Dubai

Perfect holiday morning - slept till 10 :) and spent an hour laying in the sun and reading. It must have been about 30C outside, the sun was burning and seemed to be the most intense sun ever. Was great though, I'd better get a nice tan while I'm here.

We had agreed to meet in town with Jaana in the afternoon. So I ended up navigating my way to Deira City Center by metro. Metro is nice here, it is brand new and it runs mostly on higher ground above the roads. Antoher line will be opened soon. In all the buses and also in metro there are special seating areas for females - men are not allowed to be there. And if there are no seats left in the female area then females are not allowed to stand up or anything, they have to catch the next bus (this rule does not apply in the metro). Strangest thing :) Aah and apparently there are even special taxis for ladies - the driver is a female.

Whole lot of shopping and then via bus to Bur Dubai to visit the Souq's or markets - spice market and most importantly gold market.

Malls are very very much the same as everywhere in the world - no there are no special nifty additions or anything (besides the huge downhill skiing park or aquarium of course ;) ). Food court in the mall still has Subway and Pizza Hut or Hardeys and McDonalds - nothing fancy, nothing special. Stores are the same as everywhere - Next, Gap, Nike, Promode, Zara, Adidas, Banana Republic and so on.

And the markets are just like in Thailand :) They basically block your way and drag you into their little shop to show their goods and to get you to buy at least one little pillow case.

Jaana's friend took us to dinner in Festival City - they had the best cheese cake there :) Dinner was super nice and it was great to dine in a good company. Tomorrow we will go on a trip to Abu Dhabi - the capital.