Despite our exhaustion, we spent a fascinating day exploring Dubai.  We took the hotel shuttle downtown to the Mall of Dubai, adjacent to which is the world’s tallest building (currently, that is; the bearer of this distinction changes fairly often), Burj Khalifa.  The Mall is also currently the world’s largest indoor mall, and full of high-end shops as well as an aquarium boasting the word’s largest single pane of plexiglass.  We wandered around for an hour or so and found a great little coffee shop full of locals (men in robes and headdresses, women in burkas) for a late breakfast of a “papparoti” bun drizzled with chocolate and a very good mocha for Phyllis.

Turning to public transit, we next took the metro (almost all above ground here) in search of a place to catch a city bus tour.  We never found an official tour bus but more or less made up our own tour of the highlights by taking a water taxi down Dubai Creek to the old souk and the Dubai Museum, then back on the metro to the Mall of the Emirates.  This Mall was formerly the largest in the Middle East but is now somewhat dated.  It has compensated for that by opening an adjoining indoor downhill ski area, complete with ski lifts and toboggan area.  We can’t imagine how much energy it must take to keep that place refrigerated.

Throughout the day, it was very striking to see all the variety in clothing worn by both men and women.  The majority wear Western styles but there is a significant amount of traditional Arabic attire as well.  The men seem to wear white robes almost exclusively, with their individualism expressed by different styles of headscarf.  Most fascinating was the difference between women’s burkas: a few having only a narrow slit for the eyes in the face veil (and once or twice not even an eye slit—must be one-way fabric!), but many with the eyes well exposed… and heavily made up.  And even younger women with the head covered but face fully exposed, also heavily made up.  Lastly, a large number of women in Western clothes but with a simple head covering (the hijab).

The full burkas are black but often with flourishes of color on the sleeves and hijab.  In the restrooms, Phyllis was amused to see women in jeans etc coming out of the stalls, looking for all the world like in any restroom back home, and then retrieving their burkas from a friend who had been holding it for them, and then returning the favor for the friend to attend to nature’s call.  What would we women do without each other??  (Craig suggested that they might use the hooks on the inside of the stalls, but Phyllis did not see any in some restrooms.)  Phyllis wonders what the men wear under those robes and if they help each other out as well?  (Craig says, "are you kidding me?")  Life would sure be a lot easier without the robes…

We went back to the Mall of Dubai for dinner overlooking an ice skating rink.  In such a hot and dry place, they seem fascinated by snow and ice.  We then returned to our hotel by metro, picked up our luggage and headed to the airport for that last grueling overnight flight.