Dubai - Wow!

My hearing did return and we got up on a beautiful morning to look out from our balcony over the Arabian Gulf.

After breakfast we decided to take a taxi into the city and do some site-seeing on the way. Dubai is a truly amazing place, and it's still being built. We stopped at a number of places to take photos, including the 7 Star Burj el Arab Hotel (the Sail), The Palms, and a 170 storey building, still under construction, that's intended to be the tallest in the world (they won't release the final height in case somebody beats it).

We were dropped off in the centre of the City but, being on a Friday, most shops were closed, so we had a walk up to Dubai Creek and along the waterfront. This was a very different Dubai from the high tech wonderland we'd seen up to now - the creek was busy with boats of all shapes and sizes and we took a ride on a water taxi to see the souks on the other side of the Creek. The Gold Souk was very busy and just what you'd expect of an arab market - every trader trying to drag us into his shop.

Our last stop for the day was at The Mall of the Emirates. This is a huge air-conditioned shopping mall with all the well-known high street names, Virgin, Debenhams, Harvey Nichols, Next etc but at tax free prices - plus loads of coffee shops, restaurants and, of course, skiing.