Dubai

We got in at about 0530 and had pre-arranged pick up with "Arabian Adventures" to take us to the Ascott Bur Dubai. Once we got there we found no wheel chair access. Also the receptionist said they had no rooms big enough for the 3 of us, so they sent us to the Ascott Roya, an adjoining Hotel. After checking in we had breakfast and went back to our room to sleep till about 11. After waking we thought about where to go and decided the only thing we really hadn't seen was the Burj Kalifa. the hotel limo man took us there and on the way advised we should have booked online or through the hotel checkin desk; "Because there might be a long wait".

He was right, the tickets were booked out for 2 days ahead. we then went for a walk around the
bottom of the tower near the fountain. The driver, Wajid, told us to be there in the evening for the fountain show.

It was fairly warm (42C) so we decided outdoor things were no the go. the Limo driver took us to a souk (Madinat Jumeirah) near the Sails Hotel. We had stopped in the car park to look at it on the previous trip but this time we went inside and spent some time looking around. It was a small shopping precinct, made up to look like an old souk but not much patronised now by the looks. I suspect it was an earlier version before Dubai expanded rapidly and is now left somewhat stranded. The bigger malls such as Mall of the Emirates and Dubai Mall have probably taken away a lot of the custom here. We had some icecream and Uschi bought some little bowls. Some of the "antiques" included antique statues of TinTin. We left at about 15:00 to go back to the Burj Khalifa where we spent a lot more time in the Dubai Mall.

Traveling in a taxi back to Burg Kalifa, we seemed to travel west till reaching the Mall of the Emirates and the old Carrefour we visited on our last trip. We then headed east (?) on a six lane highway parallel to and north of the Metro track.

We had previously visited the mall in 2008 but it wasn't finished then. Now it appears complete. we happened to be in the book shop (which we visited in 2008) and I found that it had a cafe (Cafe Kino) which overlooked the fountain. we had been intending to go to a restaurant near teh fountain and have tea while the display was in progress, but the cafe had a balcony overlooking the fountain. We ordered curry chicken and rice for me and Christl and curry beef and rice for Uschi at about 18:30. Uschi's beef was actually a patty, maybe a hamburger. We watched the fountain display from there. After the display we kept looking around the bookshop and walking around the mall till around 22:00 then we retired to the hotel.