Now, I admit that normally I am a pretty big snob when it comes to generic 'touristy'
things and wouldn't be caught dead on something as bland as a Big Bus
Tour. But, considering our limited time to plan and be in the city, the
distance between the two parts of Dubai most worth visiting, and the
fact that all the fancy building charge hefty entry fees to enter them,
we decided that a Hop-On-Hop-Off tour was the most economical and
logical thing to do.
I can only speak for this tour in this city, but two of the things I liked best about this activity were: 1) you have a full 24 hours to use your tickets, so you can split the sightseeing up into 2 days, and 2) a double decker bus provides an awesome vantage point from which to view both tall buildings and intricate urban planning details such as well-manicured esplanades, roundabouts filled with beautiful flowers, etc.You also get a free dhow "cruise" and free entrance to the Dubai Museum.
We "hopped on" in the morning and did the old city part of the tour and
the dhow cruise only because we had to give ourselves enough time to
prepare for the concert.
The weather was sunny and gorgeous but surprisingly cold on the open second level of the bus. For anyone taking this tour during the winter months, bring a light jacket! I had my scarf wrapped around my arms like phylacteries in an attempt to shield as much skin from the wind as possible. My face even got a little wind burnt the second day.
After resting and changing, we were off to the concert. It was at
Meydan Racecourse,
which was the only thing we did in Dubai that was truly off the beaten
path and not accessible via public transport. We took an expensive taxi
ride there thinking that, since the Racecourse is so fancy and new that
it must have food venues where we could grab some dinner. It did,
technically, but they were merely kiosks for Pizza Inn, KFC, and
something else generic and pathetically Western. We downed two tasteless
personal pizzas that cost more than we'd spend on two meals earlier in
the day and found a place to sit for awhile until the crowd got big
enough that we needed to secure our standing area.
And then we waited...and waited...and waited some more. In true diva style, "Dear Old Nicki" made us wait for an excruciating period of time, not appearing on stage until close to 11:30pm and only playing for 45 minutes. In addition, the only "opening acts" we were treated to was a group of marginally talented teenagers performing a few dance routines and some DJs from the local radio station promoting this concert playing Top 40 music to keep us entertained. When she did finally grace us with her presence, she put on a great show.
The crowd turned out to be entertaining in its own right, as well. There was a shocking number of kids clearly under 18 at the concert and a good deal of actual children, as well. For an artist who likes to curse and sing about sex as much as Nicki Minaj does, we were really surprised to see so many young people. Granted, they were with their mothers, but their mothers clearly had no idea who the artist was. My favorite was the woman who came up behind me and asked if her daughter (around 10 years old) could cut in front of us to go up to the barricade so she would be be able to see. Her reason? "We came all the way from Saudi Arabia to see this concert." Really, lady? First of all, your country is literally adjoining the UAE, so it would be hard to come from a 'closer' country. Secondly, I came from fricking USA/Malawi and will actually remember this event a year from now, unlike your pre-pubescent child. But you never asked about me. I must have looked like a native Emerati, with my European features and tight pants....
Then there was the fight between a woman in a pink wig and some really burly guy that security had to break up, causing us to miss two entire songs as we were jostled around and had our view of the stage blocked.
The last adventure of the evening involved the race to get a cab out of the venue. Someone in charge had set up a sign announcing the 'taxi queue' at one end of the circular drive when you exit the arena. We dutifully got in line and waited, but we soon noticed that 1) clearly no one had bothered to inform any cab companies that there would be hundreds of people wanting to use their services after the concert, resulting in almost no cabs going by and 2) those that did go by all already had people in them. As we got increasingly frustrated, Alaa decided to go see what was going on at the other end of the drive way. About 10 minutes later she goes by in a cab, gets out and yells at me "hurry, I got one" and we dash off before someone can steal it from us. Evidently, no one had bothered to inform the taxis that there was a queue specifically for them, either, so they were simply picking up people at the beginning of the driveway and leaving all the people waiting in line for them S.O.L. I would say surviving this event counts as Curveball #3.
Next was the Dubai Museum, which was a little hokey but still worth seeing since it's so hard to find any evidence of Dubai's history among all its modern trappings. The fact that this megalopolis started out as a pearl diving community just blows my mind. This ceremonial skirt made out of goat hooves also blows my mind, but for other reasons:
