Saturday, March 17, 2018

Dubai Mall and the Burj Khalifa

Nerve blocks are such a wonderful thing!! I had thought I would be way too out of it to do a blog post today, but here I am!!  I'm a little tired  but doing quite well otherwise.  We shall see how it all goes Sunday night when the nerve block wears off.  But for now, come join me on a trip to Dubai Mall and the Burj Khalifa.   

February 26th found us on our way to visit not only the biggest mall in the world, but the biggest building in the world.  With all of the "world's biggest" they have, I decided to look up the world's records.

Apparently Dubai is the record breaking hub in the Middle-East.  It holds more world records than any other city in the region.  The UAE on a whole holds 186 records with Dubai holding 139 of them.  Here is an interesting read on some of them.

Saying goodbye to the nephews as they head out for school.

And of course, I have to give Mango his loves.
 So, driving in Dubai is an interesting experience.  For instance, here in America, when we build anything, we prepare ahead.  Ground cleared, the infrastructure is put in place, gas, water, electricity, etc, roads are built for access and then the building begins......Not in Dubai.  They find a plot of ground and just start building, the roads are the last thing that get's added.  I swear there is no thought or planning that goes into where they decide to build things.  You end up with roads that don't connect to freeway entrances and exits and have to drive miles out of your way to find an exit that will allow you to turn around and drive miles back to the exit you need.  Oh, and they LOVE round-about's over there.  You had to go through three round-about's just to get out of Aaron's complex, and another two just to get to the freeway.  So, from his house to the nearest grocery store is about the distance from my house down the Dicks Market.  That drive takes me all of about 3 to 4 minutes, it's about a 20 minute drive for Aaron.  If you think Utah road etiquette is bad, you haven't seen bad until you've been to Dubai.  I will never again complain about Utah drivers as long as I live!!  There is no such thing as the fast lane and the slow lane, it's pick a lane and drive whatever speed you feel like in whatever lane you feel like.  The delivery trucks have a speed limit cap on how fast they can go and frequently they drive in what should be the fast lane, when really they should be in the slow lane.  And people pass on both the left and the right.  Freeway exits are a nightmare.  The cultures over there don't believe in waiting in line or merging.  They think they should be first.  So you end up having cars stop in the middle of the freeway just so they can push their way in to a spot at the front.  That ends up slowing down all the lanes.  Everyone tailgates over there, you have to otherwise you have cars cutting you off and squeezing themselves in.  And if a freeway exit gets too backed up (as in a freeway exit a mile down the road is backed clear up to the one you need to get off on), good luck, because not only do they back up the freeway lanes, they'll pull into the freeway exit lanes and block them up all in an effort to NOT have to wait in a long line of cars.  That's where it helps to have a four wheel drive truck.  They don't care if you go off into the desert to forge your own road.  Aaron has many such "shortcuts." In Dubai you have to be both an offensive driver as well as a defensive one, there is no room for being a distracted driver.  And guess what else?!?!?  My Utah drivers licence is a valid driver's licence over there and had brought it with me....not because I wanted to drive, but just in case I needed it for ID in the airports or something.  Well, Aaron thought it would be fun for me to experience driving in Dubai and I took him up on the challenge.  So, before we could head off to the Burj Khalifa, we had to make a grocery run to Spinney's and I drove.......
Doing okay, we were still in Aaron's complex, going around the bazillion round-about's.

This is how I looked by the time we got to Spinney's.  Never driving in Dubai again!!  I'll leave that to the experts.
 After our morning adventures to Spinney's we then made our trek to the Dubai Mall and the Burj Khalifa.
2,722 feet tall.  The world's largest building with 160 stories tall with 153 of those stories as usable spaces!!

You can take tours up to the 124th and 125th floors as well as to the 148th floor.  I did not go to the 148th floor as that would have cost me $130.00 to do so.  I opted for the much cheaper and more reasonable price and went up to the 124th and 125th floors, which was still pretty cool.
 I did a little research on the Burj Khalifa (of course) and found some interesting facts that I'll share.  For a more detailed fact sheet if you are interested, you can go here.
The 124th floor at 1,483 feet was the highest outdoor observation deck when it first opened.  After 'Cloud Top 488' opened a deck at 1,601 feet on the Canton Tower in China, Burj Khalifa opened the 148th floor SKY level at 1,821 feet to once again have the claim to the worlds highest observation deck.  
 After we purchased our tickets, we had about an hour to kill before out tour time.  So, we did a little shopping.  And I finally got to go to the Patchi store!!  I had been looking forward to this!!!  The Patchi store is where they sell my favorite chocolates!!  I LOVE the toasted sesame seed chocolates and so I bought myself a huge box of them.
And naturally I had to have my picture taken!!
 Then we walked around the Dubai mall and had some fun.  I also looked up some interesting facts about the Dubai Mall.....
It is the world's largest mall, with 5.9 million square feet of total interior floor and 3.77 million square feet of gross leaseable space and has over 1,200 retail outlets.

They have this huge three story tall waterfall.  

Did I also mention that the Dubai mall also has an Olympic sized skating rink?

Let's go for a dive!!
 The next several pictures are from up on the 124th and 125th floors of the Burj Khalifa.  The Burj Khalifa was named in honor of the rule of Abu Dhabi and president of the UAE, Khalifa bin Zayed Al Nahyan.  September 2007, just 1,325 days after excavation began on-site, it became the tallest freestanding structure in the world!!
It's design was inspired by the Spider-Lily, a desert flower.  Giorgio Armani designed the entrance to the Armani Hotel Dubai to give visitors the sense that they were stepping into his home.  As a result, the reception has no check-in-desk.

The lobby of 'The Residence' at the Burj is dominated by "World Voices" sculpture.  The piece incorporates 196 Cymbals with water dropping gently from the ceiling it strikes the Cymbals and creates a "chorus" of distinct tones that "represent" the voices of people world wide.  To me, that just sounds like it would be an obnoxious noise.  The Burj also has the worlds tallest art gallery with works from over 85 artists from around the world.

There are 144 Armani residences located on levels 9 to 16.  The Burj also has a total of 2,909 steps leading up to the 160th floor.  Ladders are used to climb any higher.

It is home to the worlds first Armani Hotel and the tower's landscaped areas are divided into three distinct sections: for the residences, the offices, and the hotel.  The landscape design comprises a palm court, six water features, a lake-side promenade, forest groves, a play area, and terraced gardens.

It took 22 million man hours to build the tower.  The highest occupied floor is 1,800 feet up.

The Burj Khalifa, on it's own, holds several world records: Tallest building, tallest man-made structure, tallest free-standing structure, largest number of stories, highest occupied floor, highest outdoor observation deck, world record for vertical concrete pumping, tallest service elevator, and highest aluminium and glass facade.  It took six years from the time excavation started to the globally televised launch on January 4, 2010.
 I have to tell you, these exit signs cracked me up to no end.  "Run for your lives....this way!!"
The facade is lit by a series of stroboscopes that can be individually programmed to chase up the tower or sparkle in a pattern at random.  Approximately 26,000 glass panels make up the exterior cladding.
 Up on the 125th floor, they had these nifty swinging chairs that you could sit and swing in while looking out the window.  They were very comfy.  My mom and I enjoyed them immensely.
The Burj has been called a "vertical city" given it's magnitude and mixed-use facilities.  It holds in the region of 10,000 people at any given point in time.  The elevators that take visitors to the observation decks run at a speed of 10 m/s (that's fast enough to make your ears pop the whole ride up and back down again).  It also features the world's highest library which is located on level 123 of the Residences.
 Here is a video of our elevator ride up.



There are three sky lobbies which are located on levels 43, 76, and 123.  These public spaces offer amenities such as: spas, pools, outdoor sundecks,gyms, and juice bars.  It is the world's largest tower to include residential spaces.

The ambient temperature at the tip of the Burj is six degrees cooler than the temperature at ground level.  The maximum occupancy is 35,000 which is about the population of a small town.

Public spaces can be seen clearly on Google Street view.  It has 900 residences ranging from studio, to one, two, three, and four bedroom suites which are located on levels 19-108.

Level 153, which is the highest occupied level has a private terrace and is used for corporate and private events.  The Burj is so tall that you can see the sunset twice in the same evening. First from a low floor and then again from 'At the Top.'

The Burj's three primary entrances, Armani Hotel, Residence, and corporate suites were designed to be on different levels to ensure a smooth flow of traffic at all times.
 Here a couple of videos I took at the 124th floor.


After the Burj Khalifa tour, it was lunch time and so we went to the food court to hunt something down to eat.  Apparently there are over 200 food and beverage outlets in the Dubai Mall.  So, yeah, have fun choosing what you want!!  And all of the food vendors try and get you to come eat at their joint.
Ever since watching the first Avengers movie, I have been curious about Schwarma and I finally got my chance to have some.  It was very tasty.  The pickles weren't, however.

My dad got KFC for his lunch, and a hamburger bun was their idea of a biscuit.
 Where we might think it is strange to have things like aquariums, ski resorts, amusement parks, and skating rinks in a mall, it makes sense when you consider that summers in Dubai can get up to 140 degrees.  At the Dubai mall, they have the Dubai Aquarium and Under Water Zoo.  It's HUGE!!  Well, it would have to be since, it has one of the largest suspended aquariums in the world!!  We got a package deal when we bought the tickets for the Burj Khalifa, which also included tickets to the aquarium and underwater zoo.  If you want to take a virtual tour you can click here
It houses thousands of aquatic animals.

Over 140 species, including 300 sharks and the largest collection of Sand Sharks in the world.

You can also go on a glass bottom boat ride.  Other things you can do...You can feed the piranha's, you can go snorkeling and feed the sharks, you can help feed the otters and many other things.  We only did the glass bottom boat ride.  But I did get some cute video of the otters, a video of some penguins, and a video of them feeding the Piranha's, all of which I will post here.



And of course, one cannot come see the Burj Khalifa without staying for the evening's water shows....
We ate at TGI Friday's which has the best location for watching the water show.  We got their early enough to get the best seats.  And I somehow managed to catch this awesome sunset picture.

And this one with the Burj Khalifa.
 The water shows were amazing.  They ran every half hour and lasted anywhere from 3 to five minutes.  Each show is different and set to different music.  We were there for four shows.  I took videos of all of the shows, but they are way too long to fit on my blog.  I have posted them to my Facebook if anyone is curious to watch them there.  They were really cool.  I did get some pretty neat pictures though.  So here they are.  These are the ones from the first show of the evening.






These are all from the second show of the evening.
After the sun had gone down enough, the lights on the Burj Khalifa, surrounding grounds, and the pond started to sparkle and shine.  It was a really cool effect.



These are the shots from the third show.









After we finished dinner, we went and did some shopping at the gift shops.  I tried to get some cool pictures of the Burj Khalifa.


Me and the nephews.
 And this was the last water show we saw.  We watched it from ground level.  It was really neat, but I think I liked watching them better from up above.

The one show I can post a video of here is the short video I was able to get of the light show they had on the Burj Khalifa.  I would have liked to get a longer shot, but my phone ran out of memory space. :(

For those of you who are joining me on this journey to Dubai, I hope you are enjoying it.  I hope you don't mind all of the mass of information, pictures, and videos I'm putting up.  This blog is kind of like my Journal, so I want to remember every detail of this trip that I possibly can.  I also figure it's been long enough so I have turned the comments back on.  So, feel free to leave a comment if you would like.  And feel free to join me tomorrow for the next part of my adventures in Dubai.