Mirage of the Gulf (1)

After getting the National Day holiday, plus roughly a week off before and after it, I decided to find somewhere to travel. At first, I had planned to go with a friend and had already made a Plan A, but for certain reasons that plan fell through — I’ll leave that part aside for now. Still, I kept thinking that it would be a waste to simply stay at home during such a rare long break. After weighing various options, I came up with Plan B, which is the current plan: a solo trip. Before departure, I had been so busy that I did not even manage to plan the detailed itinerary or buy various tickets in advance. I only booked the flights and hotel.

The in-flight meals on Air China were honestly not very good. They served two meals, but I just ate a little of each and left it at that. By the time I arrived at Dubai Airport and went through immigration, it was already almost 11 p.m. I noticed that apart from the immigration officers stamping passports, almost all the other airport staff seemed to be foreign workers. The hotel I booked was about 600 meters from a metro station. As soon as I came out of the station, a wave of heat hit me in the face. I checked the temperature and saw that it was already 35°C.

The next day, I first went to Al Seef Street. The architecture had a very Middle Eastern feel, but upon closer inspection, it was basically the Middle Eastern version of the various “modern ancient towns” you see all over China. After walking around for about an hour, I felt like I was being roasted by the sun, so I went to the nearby Al Shindagha Museum. The whole museum consists of around twenty houses, each roughly 200 to 300 square meters in size. The interiors were quite nicely done, and the museum mainly tells the history of Dubai. However, there were probably fewer than five visitors in the entire place, while the security guards and staff in all the buildings combined must have numbered in the dozens. Maybe that is because Dubai does not really have that much history to talk about.

After lunch, I went to the Gold Souk. It felt like the covered shopping streets I had seen in Japan, except that all the shops along the sides had been replaced by gold stores. Obviously, I was not going to buy anything, so I hurried through. Then I took the Green Line of the metro and transferred to a ferry to Dubai Creek Harbour, which is a pretty good spot for photographing the Burj Khalifa. Unfortunately, it was so hot under the sun that I could not stay there for long. During the ferry ride, the boat stirred up ripples on the water, reflecting distorted images of the buildings.

After that, I took a taxi to Dubai Mall and the Burj Khalifa. Since I had booked a ticket for a specific time slot, 5 p.m., I had to rush through Dubai Mall with navigation open the whole way. When I finally arrived, I discovered that there was a long queue for the elevator up the tower. After waiting in line for about 45 minutes, I finally got up there. Coming down required queuing as well. By the time I got back to Dubai Mall, I happened to see a McDonald’s, so I had dinner there directly and then took the metro back to the hotel, just in time to hit the evening rush hour.

The visitors inside Dubai Mall were mainly people in white robes and Western tourists. Based on my rough impression, the ratio was probably: white robes, Westerners, well-dressed Black people, and others = 3:4:2:1. There is a very long corridor between Dubai Mall and the metro station. As soon as you leave Dubai Mall, you can immediately feel a cliff-like drop in the level of decoration and maintenance in that corridor. After all, people who need to take the metro are clearly not the target demographic, haha. The metro was almost entirely full of foreign workers. My rough estimate was that Indians and Pakistanis, Filipinos, and others made up a ratio of about 6:3:1.

On the morning of the third day, I went to Palm Jumeirah. I had booked a ticket for 10 a.m. and headed straight for The View at The Palm, but I arrived late, so the ticket I had bought was simply voided. I had no choice but to buy another one. The earliest available time I could choose was 1 p.m. So I went to deal with lunch first. While wandering around the mall downstairs, I found a Din Tai Fung. I tried it, and the price was probably about twice as expensive as in China, but the taste was indeed good. After that, I went to Alserkal Avenue. I had thought it would be an art district similar to 798 in Beijing, but when I arrived, I found that it was mostly closed workshops, and it did not really seem open for casual visits. Later, I went to the Museum of the Future. For a ticket costing more than 300 yuan, it did not feel very worthwhile. It is probably more suitable for children to play around in.

After dinner, I went to the Carrefour near the hotel. In the Indian food section, it was actually quite interesting to pick up all kinds of jars and bottles of sauces and read their ingredient lists. I bought some bread and milk and went back. At this point, my itinerary in Dubai was basically over.