Dubai in Detail - Day 3

Day 3 began with Part 2 of  The Big Bus Tour. This time we headed down the shoreline to see all the audacious hotels that we couldn't even afford the entrance fees to look inside of. We "hopped on" just before our 24 hour tickets expired, which meant that we couldn't get off again without having to find our own transport back to Deira. This was just fine with us, since we'd had such a long night before and the entire "beach" loop took almost 2 hours. Here is a sample of all the pretty things we saw:

The Jumeriah and Burj al-Arab hotels

New construction/what Dubai originally looked like - sand and water

Dubai Atlantis Hotel Palm, located on...

The Palm Jumeirah man-made island (courtesy of Conde Nast)

The Marina (as seen from the Palm Jumeirah main artery)

Artificial ski slope at the Mall of the Emirates

A metro station

We eventually got off at one of the malls and window shopped for a bit before heading to the Gold Souk, otherwise known and The Place Where 20 Men All Line Up to Yell the Exact Same Question at You: "You want Louis Vuitton, Gucci handbag, gold watch???" Dude, if I didn't want your fake crap from the 19 people who yelled at me right before you, why do you think I will want yours? (This was a very over-stimulating experience, in case you couldn't tell.)

In front of the daily gold prices sign.

Naturally, I bought things I couldn't really afford. But we won't talk about that....

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:

Dubai Museum, housed in the Old Fort, with a Big Bus tour bus

And that ends Day 3, our first day without anything ridiculous or extremely unexpected happening.