Like everything else in Dubai, the Mall of the Emirates is totally over the top. It was for a short time, the largest mall in the Emirates (and one of the largest in the world), but because Dubai's all about everyone always out-doing each other, it's already been eclipsed in size by two other malls!
It's also sort of a hub of the country's social scene. People don't just go to the mall to shop - they go there to socialize and be seen.
Needless to say, we road that shit like three times! Hahahah. After the mall, our original plan was to go to Bernadette's skeet shooting club, but we ended up losing track of time at the amusement park by the time we were ready to head out, the shooting club had already closed! So after the mall, we went out for an Italian dinner (where I strangely didn't take any photos)...
Check this jim-jam out! It's a giant robot arm that has a two-person ROLLER COASTER seat attached to where you'd expect to find the giant robot hand! Meredith and I watched it for like 10 seconds and then we were like, "Yes, I think we'll try that."
Here's a group shot of the four of us doing our best to pretend that we're not freezing our fucking asses off! (We all laughed at the winter hats that were for sale because we figured "How cold can it really be in there?" Surprise, surprise! Turns out, if you want to keep snow in the desert from melting, you need a room that's really fucking cold.
After we'd finished skiing indoors, I didn't think that the mall would have any other tricks up its sleeve that would impress me...but that was only because I didn't know that the Mall of the Emirates is also home to...
Even though the complex was crowded, the slope for skiing and snowboarding was pretty much empty. The majority of people were there to do snow tubing because they don't know how to ski or ride...you know, it being the middle of the fucking desert and everything.
If you've done any type of outdoor skiing, the place is kind of a joke. The longest run there is 400m (1,312 feet). The run starts here, and then down at the bottom of the hill, the slope makes a ninety degree turn to the right and curves around the top of the other chairlift you can see.
Check this noise out! After you get through the changing area, there's an escalator that takes you up to the base of the skiing and snowboarding section. Thumbs up (and crazy eyes!) from Faisal!
The lift tickets included skis, boots and winter clothes (because NO ONE in Dubai even owns any type of clothing designed to keep you warm). Here's Philip getting suited up!
I was so fucking excited to go I could hardly finish my lunch! Here's Faisal and Biba about to enter a world of indoor skiing! (Everyone decided to ski except Meredith. She was like "I don't even like skiing outdoors...fuck that bullshit." Hahaha).
That's right, the entire back wall of the restaurant was made of glass and it looked out onto Ski Dubai, the 250,000 sq. ft indoor downhill skiing and snow tubing complex!
The driver is buckled into a racing seat that sits on a platform that's supported by four hydraulic legs that tilt, shake, vibrate and dip the "car" to mimic exactly what the car would feel like as you drive it on the track.
No caption I can write will really do this ride justice. Not only was the ride awesome and huge, it was made all the better by the fact that it was hard for your brain to believe that something that big was operating indoors.
This thing was RIDICULOUS! It wasn't so much of a ride as much as it was a robot-experiment in how much g-force humans can sustain without dying. No rhyme, no reason. Just a giant robo-arm whipping us around hurky-jerky and willy-nilly!
