A WEEK IN DUBAI! PART FOUR

Day 4: Souks To The Sky

Wednesday 14th October

Today we left the flat at 9:07am and got the Emirates bus to HQ, we then got the metro to Deira were we tried to pick up a hire car to travel to Abu Dhabi (we couldn't get one).  So we then decided to get a taxi to the Souks.  First we visited the Gold Souk which was amazing, gold literally everywhere!

We then visited the Spice Souk, this souk was my favourite the smell is indescribable, we spent a good amount of time in this souk as there aren't as many men trying to get you to buy things.  After visiting these 2 souks Kathryn and I decided to get a traditional boat across the creek, it only coast 1 diram to go on the boat and you get a really good view of the old parts of Dubai. After getting off the boat we visited the Fabric Souk before getting a taxi to Dubai mall.

Once at the mall we explored many areas of the mall including a visit to the fashion avenue area of the mall, we went into many designer shops including Chanel and Burberry. After having some lunch in one of the food courts, we walked round the huge mall some more try and went to book our tickets to go up to the top of the tallest building in the World, the Burj Khalifa!

In the few hours that we had to kill before going up into the sky we decided to visit the Aquarium and the Underwater Zoo (which are also both inside this humongous mall). We had a behind the scenes tour of the aquarium followed by a walk in front of the huge aquarium window and a walk through the long glass underwater tunnel, in the aquarium they have many sharks, stingrays, sawfish and other large fish.

After finishing in the aquarium we went into the underwater zoo were they have: thousands of smaller marine fish (mainly tropical fish), fresh water fish (including piranhas), otters, penguins, birds, baby crocodiles and King Croc! King Croc is already one of the largest crocodiles in the World, and he has to be kept in a protective environment as he was labelled a 'problem' crocodile (when he was living in Queensland Australia). Due to his aggressive nature and to avoid conflict with other male crocodiles and humans he can't be released back into the wild. He currently weighs a massive 750kg and is over 5m in length! He is expected to grow in weight and length over the next 50 years.

By the time we'd finished at the underwater zoo it was time to head to the entrance to the Burj Khalifa. We were going to the sky (148th floor) we were taken into a waiting room where we were given Arabian dates and Arabian Coffee (before we could go up to the top of the Burj Khalifa we had to give our shopping and any food and drink to our tour guide, she took our items to the cloakroom were she wrote a number on one of our tickets (we just showed this ticket when we come down to collect our items). We then had to go through an airport like security system before getting into the first elevator, once in the elevator we were shown a video (showing the heights of other famous buildings that we were passing by). Fun fact: The Burj Khalifa is so tall that you can watch the sunset from the ground and then travel up to the 148th floor and watch the sunset all over again. The first elevator took us up to the 125th floor, we then got into a second elevator that took us up to the 148th floor (otherwise known as the Sky). Once at the top we were treated to glasses of fruit juice and macaroons. Looking down from the top floor I couldn't see any people and cars looked like tiny ants stuck in jams that went miles into the distance. Kathryn and I managed to stay up the top longer than we were meant to, we took loads of photographs and we watched the Dubai fountains from the outside viewing platform and having a look in the sky shop. We then headed down to the 125th floor where we took many more photographs. We also went down to the 124th floor were we watched the Dubai fountains for the second time, I also did did a bit of family gift shopping in the At The Top shop. We then headed back down to Earth we collected our items and walked outside to watch the Dubai fountains again this time from ground level. It is amazing getting to watch the fountains from all of the aspects and I loved every minute of watching them. (The fountains run every 30 minutes for about 5 minutes).

When the fountains had finished it was about 10pm and we decided that we'd go to the Cheesecake Factory for our tea, I'd never been to the Cheesecake Factory before so I was excited for my first Cheese Factory experience. We both enjoyed our huge meals and then we headed back to Kathryn's flat as it was gone midnight. We got back to Kathryn's at about 12:30am and we didn't get to bed until about 1:30 - 2:00am.

Check back tomorrow for part 5,