The Dubai Letters: 8. Shopping
Dubai, United Arab Emirates -- June/July 2007

I've been inclined
To believe they never would

Neil Diamond, Sweet Caroline

Dubai is a city of malls, shopping centres, and souks^[1], and the Emiratis have embraced mall culture with a near-religious fervour. The malls become the social centres for communities, where people gather to smoke, socialise and, most importantly, shop. If there is one thing the people of Dubai love doing, it is spending money and buying things.

This is a city where every new development comes with a new mall. This is a city where more people know the name of a mall than the name of the community it is in. This is a city with not one, but two shopping festivals each year. A city where mall-walking is a justified keep-fit activity.

I admit to not getting it. I am not big on the shopping thing, and could not care if the city had ten malls or a hundred. However, I could hardly come to Dubai and not report the city's love affair with Buying Things, so I will try.

The beginning of June is marked by the approach of Cyclone Gonu in the Indian Ocean. The cyclone heads straight for the east coast of the United Arab Emirates, menacing and promising damage on a vast scale. Whilst the residents of Fujairah and Kalba and Dibba are tying down everything they own and then retreating to high ground, the residents of Dubai are excited by the prospect of some variation in the weather. Summer has been in full swing for over a month, and the prospect of a really good storm to break up the monotony is too exciting.

Gonu never arrives^[2], and never gets anywhere near the western cities, but the damage done to Fujairah and neighbouring Oman is immense. Whole sections of beach and revetment are destroyed or simply washed away. Coastal towns are severely flooded.

As a maritime engineer, the cyclone is both exciting and sobering. It is interesting to see what withstands the storm and what does not, but there is a subtle reminder that we are dealing with the unknown here. Records only began 60 years ago, and we don't really know what the worst storm event could be. Certainly, no one predicted anything like Gonu.

Laughing in the face of nature: Despite the damage done, the Al Aqar hotel tries to put a brave face on things as it begins the clean up.

Sumibiya is a Japenese/Korean restaurant located in Deira, the old part of Dubai. The selling point is not the food, but the fact that you cook it yourself. Each tabletop has one or two small gas grills in the surface, on which you gradually incinerate whichever platter of meat you have chosen for your main course.

The fact that the food is not great is probably down to the fact that I am cooking it, but remind me again how much you are charging me for the priviledge of doing all the work? I could have done this at home, and I would have chosen something a bit more substantial than a few strips of steak on a lettuce leaf. Amusingly, one of the grillable desserts is fruit and ice cream. You turn the fruit into an unidentifiable brown mush, and then eat it with the ice cream^[3]. Unfortunately, they discourage barbecuing the ice cream.

Needless to say, we do not leave much of a tip. We cannot help but feel they should be tipping us.

Kim Chi at Sumibiya

There are a multitude of malls in Dubai, most with a unique selling point. There is Ibn Battuta^[4], with its world-themed zones. Festival City Waterfront Mall, smoke free. Mercato, quaintly tucked away on Beach Road with a secret cinema. Wafi City, on the way to somewhere else.

I spend the most time in the Burjuman Centre, primarily because they built my gym on the roof, but also because it is within walking distance of my flat. It is actually useless for shopping -- with over half the mall selling designer labels -- but if there is a particular Jeremy Clarkson book^[5] you want from Magrudy's or you want someone to spray aftershave in your face at Virgin, it may be worth visiting.

On the rare occassions I need to shop, the mall of choice is Deira City Centre. A reasonably-sized mall that manages to feel quite compact, there is a good selection of shops and it is ideal for people watching. Its the best mall in town, in my humble opinion.

Unfortunately, the mall is on the wrong side of Dubai Creek, what we call the darkside, and thus pretty much inaccessible. So, when times are particularly desperate, one must head to the Mall of the Emirates. This mall is a monster; hundreds of shops, numerous fast-food outlets, coffeeshops, and restaurants, a branch of Carrefour the size of Paris, and a cinema where locals go to have loud mobile phone conversations. It has some good shops^[6], but navigating it is a chore. And, of course, it is home to Dubai's infamous indoor ski slope.

Nestled in the heart of Karama is the Karama Shopping Centre, or the Tat Souk as I have taken to calling it. An area of small shops selling cheap clothing, accessories and electrical goods, it is more popularly known for a behind-doors market in cheap replica goods and pirate DVDs. This is where you go for a dodgy Rollex or a mock-Burberry handbag.

Only a perfunctory attempt is made at hiding illicit goings-on, and as one walks through one is constantly offered fake stuff by men in shop doorways. A friend and I visited some time back, because she wanted a Tagg watch for her sister. Most of the stuff on display in the shops is legit -- genuine cheap crap -- but look even remotely interested in the other stuff and you are soon led through the changing room at the back, up some stairs, and into a tiny attic space filled with knock-off watches and handbags.

Fiscally, I can understand the appeal of the market. I do not care much for labels, but I can understand the ability to buy a decent looking watch for only £30. The chief reason I haven't bought anything is that I have a perfectly good watch already.

I get a call to tell me that I have a visitor waiting in reception. Now, as a lowly assistant engineer I do not often get visitors, but I wander over to reception to find a friend from back in the Concrete Kingdom of Swindon with a big conspirator's smile on his face.

Swindon management needed a document couriering to a client in the capital, and rather than entrust it to some international delivery company, they put my friend on a plane for a day-long jaunt to the U.A.E. Of course, they did all this without telling anyone in the Dubai office, so suddenly I found myself entertaining a visitor at short notice.

There is always plenty to do in Dubai, so keeping him occupied until his late flight is not a problem, but the question remained: what would create a suitable first impression of the city? Personally, I want to be seen as a good host; professionally, we want to poach U.K. staff, and to do that we need to show them that Dubai Is A Great Place To Live and Work.

My idea was to take him to the beach -- to enjoy the views -- and then take him down to Souk Madinat Jumeirah, which is one of the best looking places to go out in Dubai and has a fine selection of bars and restaurants. I think it was a good call, he left having had a good meal and seen a lot of the sights. I think he was more inclined to a move out here when I dropped him at the airport as well.

Souk Madinat Jumeirah
(taken by Matt Baker)

The Road and Transport Authority's belated attempts to fix transport in Dubai continue in an hilarious fashion. Following on from the Metro's selfish destruction of our favourite nightclubs, July sees the introduction of Salik, a road toll system. A toll gate is placed at either end of Sheikh Zayed Road, the city's scariest thoroughfare.

And at first glance it appears to work. Travelling down Z Road is now a pleasureable experience; there are few traffic jams and journey times have been slashed. However, ask any one who has tries to use one of the alternative routes, and they will tell you that shifting the problem is not the same as solving it. The untolled routes across the creek are now gridlocked every rush hour, and the residential areas around the other toll gate have become lorry parks.

In a city that loves to talk about traffic, Salik inevitably has its share of advocates and critics. Business men love the fact that they no longer spend three-quarters of their lives in their cars, taxi-drivers hate it and blame it for every traffic jam they encounter or bad tip they receive. I am relatively unaffected by it. I was annoyed that it took the hire car company three weeks to fit a tag to my car, but otherwise it has not much impacted my day-to-day life.

Nearly everything is available in Dubai, but I was surprised at how cheap some things can be, and how ridiculously expensive others are. Petrol is the obvious example of cheapness, where I can fill my hire car for about a quarter of the U.K. price, but this was no real surprise considering where I was moving. But I am continually stunned to find that a can of Coca Cola^[7] can be bought for only 13.5p, or a cinema ticket for only £4.

Beer, and alcohol generally, is more expensive. Fresh fruit and veg is more expensive because little is grown locally. Pork is more expensive because it has to be imported from some heathen overseas country.

Books are about the same price, although the choice is limited thanks to censorship. DVDs can be bought for about the same price for a genuine copy, or for a fraction of the price in the Tat Souk, although the genuine ones will suffer cuts at the hands of the censors. Some music artists never have their CDs released -- although the reason for this censorship escapes me -- and certain games consoles -- such as the Nintendo Wii -- do not seem to exist at all.

Clothes can be about the same, unless you go label-crazy in one of the malls. With familiar brands such as Next, Debenhams, and Marks and Spencers you can look exactly as you would back home.

You can live cheap, or live expensive. What is scary that a lot of the time I do not even realise what I spend a lot of the time. Cheap or expensive it all kind of washes over me until I come across a bar bill in my pocket and work out that I was spending £4 for a pint of beer. That I have become so flippant about the money I spend worries me sometimes, but I guess it is a natural by product of having more disposable income.

Harry Ghatto's is a Japenese-themed karaoke bar in the Emirates Towers Hotel. A small dark bar with business men screaming into microphones at a karaoke screen projected onto one empty wall. I cannot describe it further than that because I had been drinking for about six hours on an empty stomach when we arrived. I know I did not sing, but that is about all I can swear to.

At one point the entire department -- or at least those that had made it out so late -- sang a rousing rendition of the Neil Diamond classic Sweet Caroline. Since then the song seems to have become the unofficial anthem of the team. People hum it around the office, the lyrics are on the notice boards, and one colleague has even gone so far as to set the song as the ringtone on his mobile phone -- but only for people in our department.

One of our colleagues invites us out for her fiancé's 30th birthday celebration aboard El Mundo, a catamaran chartered out for day trips around the Dubai coastline. We gather, one sweltering Friday afternoon, aboard the boat, yell surprise when the guest of honour arrives, and set sail. Our route takes us around the Palm Jumeirah, which from our low vantage is little more than a rock revetment, but which is much bigger than I imagined it to be.

We continue up the coast, past the Burj Al Arab and Jumeirah Beach Hotel. It is the first time I have seen these structures from this vantage, and they are even more impressive than they are from the land. With nothing between you and them, you can really see just how stunning a pair of buildings they really are.

We moor up in the lee of an island further up the coast, and a couple of hours are spent swimming or sunbathing or just sitting around drinking beer. When we return to shore, we spend the evening at Barasti, a cool little bar that opens right out onto the beach.

The Burj Al Arab from off the Dubai coastline

In attempt to convince people that there are still things to do in Dubai, even in the sweltering summer months, they launched Dubai Summer Surprises [DSS]. DSS is a series of ten themed weeks, during which events pertaining to the particular week's theme are held in the various malls and shopping centres across Dubai.

This would not merit mention -- as I said earlier I do not much care for shopping -- except that about seven years ago they introduced a mascot to help promote the event. The mascot teaches kids across the Emirates as the importance of shopping and merchandising. It is named Modhesh, a grinning yellow nightmare that looks like the result of an unholy union between tellytubbie and a bendy straw. That's Modhesh over there to the right, greedily eyeing up my meal.

Modhesh is taking over Dubai.

That grinning yellow bastard is everywhere. There are statues of him by Trade Centre roundabout. His first incarnation -- a smile with hair -- flaps from flagpoles festooned along every freeway. There are statues in the malls. There are Modhesh merchandise stalls everywhere, where you can buy Modhesh lunchboxes, statuettes, cushions, pillows, orange juice, you name it. He even has his own theme park -- Modhesh fun city.

The rumours that Modhesh was due to go year round have chilled my blood.

As if that is not bad enough, one of the posse has a rather unhealthy obsession with the 'hesh. Three months ago, when that grinning yellow bastard began appearing, he took to Modhesh Spotting, shouting out 'It's Modhesh!' at the top of his voice regardless of where we were. He has a sincere desire to go to Modhesh Fun City, even though he has recently turned 30 years of age.

I am fairly sure that he has a Modhesh lunch box somewhere as well.

That grinning yellow bastard

In July, the Death Spire becomes the tallest manmade structure in the world. It will not officially be recognised as such until it is opened and occupied, which means that Taipei 101 will hold the title for a while longer.

I spent my last four years in Swindon, where the tallest thing around was the Tower of Brunel, so it is weird to think that I now live in the city with the world's tallest building. Most days I do not even see it because it is too hazy or polluted or intervening buildings get in the way. When I do see it, it is usually up close, and it is hard to get any perspective. It is only when you see it from a distance that you realise just how stupidly big it is.

It is currently only a skeleton, having little cladding to give it any pretence of a graceful shape. Time will tell whether it will be beautiful or an eyesore, but there is no disputing that it stands out.

The Burj Dubai^[8] from off the coast of Dubai

Photographs taken in the U.A.E. in June and July (along with notes and annotations) can be found here: http://www.flickr.com/photos/53537358@N00/sets/72157600209831342/

[1] Arabic: Market place
[2] At the last minute it turned north to pester Iran.
[3] Which is probably one of the least manly things I've done in my ten months in the desert.
[4] An old arabian explorer of some fame.
[5] It's the weirdest thing. Only certain books are approved for sale out here, and thus the choice is sometimes limited. The writing of Clarkson somehow got cleared for sale, and subsequently there has not been a week since I arrived in Dubai that there has not been at least one of his books in the top ten at Magrudy's. For someone who must have offended everybody on the planet by now, he is amazingly successful here.
[6] Including the Middle East's first branch of Borders. This got me very excited when it opened. Immediately became the best bookshop in the Emirates.
[7] The fact that drinks can have the old style ringpull continually amuses me as well.
[8] Arabic: Dubai Tower