Do Buy in Dubai?

So after a long flight we arrived in Dubai, worn out, grumpy, and finally really sick of each other. There are some cool buildings, but we decided pretty quickly that our willingness to pay for a day in NY instead of a day in Dubai was high enough that we changed our flight to a day earlier. The city looked like it would be a cool city, once it's finished, but at least half of it is still under construction. By some accounts, literally a quarter of the world's cranes are in Dubai.

A typical view:

The future tallest building in the world, under construction of course:


That first day in Dubai, before we crashed hard, we went to the Mall of the Emirates, a gi-normous shopping mall of epic proportions with hundreds of stores, an arcade with carnival rides, a bowling alley, and of course- ski slopes. Dubai is a city of contrasts, of burkas and bowling, and Mc Arabia.

Mc Arabia- mmmm:

After a good night's sleep things looked a lot better and we even got along again, so we decided to make the most of our one day in Dubai. Since the amphibious Wonder-Bus tour was booked, we took the cheaper "Juan Matute Hop-On Hop-Off" tour of the city, which involved walking through a lot of construction sites (Dubai is by far the least pedestrian friendly city I have ever been to- and I grew up in LA!). We saw camels, did an Abra ride on Dubai Creek, wandered through the souks, watched the sunset on the Burj Al Arab hotel, and went skiing (fun!), before finding ourselves down by the creek to bring in the New Year watching the boats and a very unimpressive 5 minute fireworks display and heading to bed exhausted for a couple hours sleep before our early morning flight to New York.

The camels were friendly:


Abra on Dubai Creek:


One of the souks (open air markets):
The Burj Al-arab at night:

New Years on Dubai Creek: