Today was my final day in Dubai, and again I had to wake up fairly early to ensure I was able to see everything that I wanted to see. I woke up at 7:30am, got ready, and took the metro to the Mall of the Emirates to have Tim Hortons for breakfast, since it was on the way to my first stop at Legoland. They have more unique breakfast options than we do at home. I had a chicken and cheese English muffin, alongside a large coffee. The coffee here tastes way better than the Tim Hortons coffee back home.
I hopped back on the metro until the end of the line, where I transferred to an express bus to take me to Legoland. All in all, the trip from my hotel to Legoland took nearly 2.25 hours, including my 25 minute stop at the mall for breakfast. While this took a while, it sure did beat a $100 cab ride each way.
Legoland Dubai opened in October 2016, and is the eighth in the world. I have been to the one in California, and I believe the one in Florida as well, and those ones were substantially better than this one. The park features a few rollercoasters, 40 attractions, and utilizes over 20 million lego bricks to create 15000 miniature models of different landmarks and structures from around the world. I was mainly interested in the Miniatureland section, more so than the rides.
After exploring Legoland I took the bus and metro to the Al Fahidi Historical District, almost back where my hotel was. Al Fahidi is a historical neighbourhood that is well preserved so you can experience what Dubai would have been like in the late 1800’s. Construction of the neighbourhood was started in the 1890’s, and features about 60 housing units. It was built primarily for Persian Merchants who were drawn to Dubai by trade opportunities and the incentives offered by the Emerati government. In the 1980’s about half of the historic neighbourhood was knocked down to make way for the development of a new office complex. The rest of the area was slated for demolition by the city in 1989, however British architect Rayner Otter worked with the city to stop the planned demolition. In 2005 a project was initiated by the city to restore the old neighbourhood. Located within the neighbourhood is Al Fahidi Fort, which was built in the late 18th Century as a defensive structure along the city boundary. The fort was expanded between the 1830’s and 1850’s.
From the Al Fahidi district I could see my next stop across the water; the Dubai Spice Souk. Dubai’s Spice Souk, also known as the Old Souk, is a traditional spice market located in Deira (East Dubai). The souk is comprised of very narrow lanes which are lined with tiny stores that sell spices. It’s a colourful and aromatic sensory overload. It’s also a bit overwhelming being harassed by dozens of vendors to buy their stuff. I had my headphones on for this part, because I knew it would get annoying. Too busy for my liking, but a must see.
The final stop for my day was the Burj Kalifa and Dubai Fountain. The Burj Khalifa is a neo-futuristic skyscraper that was built between 2004 and 2009. It holds the record for being the tallest skyscraper in the world since it was finished in 2009, standing at 830 metres (2722 feet) tall. The building, named after the former president of the United Arab Emirates, was designed by architect Adrian Smith who works for Skidmore, Owings and Merrill, the same firm that designed the Sears Tower in Chicago. The building has a staggering 57 elevators and 8 escalators! Each elevator (some are double decker cabins) has a capacity of 14 people per cabin and can ascent at 10 metres per second! Some additional fun facts about the building are that the building uses nearly 1 million litres (250000 gallons) of water per day, the building has 347 km (215 miles) of pipes, and the cooling system that uses 46 MW of power!
After visiting the Burj Khalifa I had some ramen for dinner, while waiting for the 6:00pm show at the Dubai Fountain. The Dubai Fountain is a choreographed fountain system located in the artificial Burj Khalifa lake below the Burj Khalifa skyscraper. It was designed by WET Design, which has created some of the world’s most famous fountains including the waterfall I saw yesterday at Expo 2020, The Rain Vortex in Singapore, Fountains of Bellagio in Las Vegas, 1988 Lisbon Expo Fountains, Fountain of Nations at EPCOT in Florida, etc. WET (Water Entertainment Technologies) was founded by Mark Fuller, Melanie Simon and Alan Robinson in 1983. All three worked as Imagineers at Disney. Their original creation was the Leapfrog foundation at EPCOT. The Dubai Fountain features 6600 lights, 50 coloured projectors, and many jets that arranged into five circles, and two long arcs. The fountain can spray 83000 litres (22000 gallons) of water into the air at any moment, and the tallest jet can reach 152 metres (500 feet) in the air! You can watch the show on my YouTube page here.
After watching the three minute show at the fountain I took the metro back to my hotel, to blog for the remainder of the evening, before going to bed early, as I had an early morning flight to Yerevan, Armenia the next day.
Ian Griffin Photography 