Dubai, UAE: Burj Khalifa

On our last day in Dubai (again with Tbilisi's early morning arrivals our flight didn't leave until after midnight), we headed to the world's tallest manmade structure....the Burj Khalifa.

According their website, the Burj Khalifa is 828 meters (2716.5 feet) tall. It touts the highest number of stories, the highest occupied floor, and the highest observation deck to name a few.

We opted for the basic ticket that takes you to the 124th floor (you can pay 4x as much to go all the way to the 148th floor).

I am well aware that Dubai was built from nothing in the desert. I still commented to Richard that everything was so brown/sand colored.....from the ground there is lots of landscaping and you don't notice all the sand as much.

 Looking up from the 124 floor to the top of the building.

Note the shadow of the Burj Khalifa.

You can see the 'World of Islands' that I mentioned was across from Jumeriah Beach.

Buildings, buildings everywhere as far as the eye can see!

An ariel shot of the fountain used in the nightly water/light show. We watched the show the night before from the little bridge to the left of the picture.

I found it interesting that construction began in 2004,

and the building was completed in 2010. Those 6 years seem like a long time in one respect, but then when you admire the hugeness of the building, it seems like such a short time.

Afterwards, we had lunch in the Dubai Mall (it is connected to the tourist entrance to the Burj Khalifa). Then we both went our separate ways to explore the mall (I'm not as interested in electronic stores and Richard could care less about going into to Sephora).

Overall, we had a great trip. We brought the kids back some surprises which made their day, but we are definitely planning on bringing them back to visit.

Dubai, UAE Trip

So back in 2013, Richard and I had planned and booked a trip to Hawaii to celebrate our 5th Anniversary.....then State called and his training started the week after we would have returned from said trip.....sadly, with having to pack up our lives and sell our house (and not enough time), we cancelled the trip. With Richard's parents visiting, we took advantage of someone here to watch the kids and headed to an equally warm and sunny tropical local....Dubai in the United Arab Emirates!

An unfortunate quirk about the Tbilisi airport is about 90% of their flights arrive between 3 & 5 am and depart between 4 & 6 am......so we got a VERY early start to our first day. We dropped our luggage off at the hotel and took the shuttle to the Dubai Mall for some shopping and dining.

Dubai is (successfully) striving to be a tourist destination. Part of achieving that goal is to build the biggest and best of everything. So naturally, the Dubai Mall is the biggest mall in the world (above photo is almost entirely the mall)! We had an aquarium, 1200 shops & restaurants to entertain ourselves with that day.

Given that about 80% of the 2.2 million people living in Dubai are expats....most of the shops and stores are chains from other countries......such as the US, Britain, France, etc. So throughout our trip, Richard and I happily partook in tasty bites from: Starbucks (of course), The Cheesecake Factory, Outback, P.F. Changs, Dunkin Donuts (I was even the best mom ever and brought the kids back a box of donut holes!), Shake Shack, Baskin Robbins, Subway, Pizza Hut, Mc Donalds. The majority of which we haven't had to chance to eat at since we were stateside.......

There are dinosaur footprints in the mall, leading you to the Dubai Dino down in the Gold Souk section of the mall. It is the original skeleton of a Sauropod that is 155 million years old. According to its website, the dinosaur was discovered in Dana Quarry in Wyoming in 2008. Almost all the bones were intact....making it the most complete exhibit in the world.

Of course, being a marine biologist....we had to go to the aquarium in the mall.....and with no kids on the trip...we must act like kids....

King Croc lives at the aquarium as well. He is huge....over 750 kgs (a little more than 14.5 large grown men) and over 5 m long (longer than 6 supermarket shopping carts)! He is the largest reptile in an aquarium (and a sign at the exhibit suggested he may get over 1000 kgs when fully grown).

One nice thing about Dubai, is when people own really expensive cars....they actually drive them! I never see fancy cars on the roads in the states but in we saw Bentley, Porsches (counted 6 in morning rush hour traffic one day), Lamborghini (everyone with a Y-chromosome in the shuttle oogled that one as we came up next to it and then later passed it), Aston Martin, Ferrari, etc. Here's a couple we saw in the special valet parking area in front of Bloomingdales (there is a small sign in the window of the car that says "Do Not Touch Car")....

And no, I didn't not touch it though it appears so in the picture.....how cool! Pink!

There were multiple candy stores......

Comic book store with life size hulk

Gold vending machines!

HUGE toy store with really cool lego things

All the different wings had a different decor/style.....this atrium had a really neat butterfly sculpture was cool....

We were even surprised on a different day in the mall we came upon a wing we hadn't seen yet. This wing allowed me to channel my extremely distant cousin-in-law with a love a British designers...

And what coastal town mall is complete without a lighted palm tree avenue?