Fellow blogger Dark Orpheus is moving to Dubai in a few days. Isn’t she brave? As a special Welcome To Dubai housewarming gift, I have written the following informational post for her and anyone else who finds themselves headed for DXB, in the hopes that it will help smooth the transition between Dubai and The Rest of the World. Because, let’s face it, Dubai is a strange and wonderful place to be living these days. It helps to have a guide.

 

BOOKSHOPS IN DUBAI

The best ones I’ve managed to find are:

          -Borders, in the Mall of the Emirates, has an amazing collection of self-help books, including the complete Chicken Soup for the Soul series, right down to the Chicken Soup for the Bookstore Self-Help Browser’s Soul. 

          -Magrudy’s, in Deira City Center, is best for YA fiction, contemporary fiction, and cheap classics. They also have some truly bizarre stationary items, like camel-shaped pencils and Arabic/English learning posters for things like vegetables and dinosaurs. It’s nice and big – good for wandering around.

          -Jashanmal, in the Sahara Mall, has a lot of magazines and some big glossy coffee-table books. Most of the store is taken up by birthday cards and souveniers, but if you can find the sale table there is usually something interesting there.

          -House of Prose, in Ibn Battuta Mall and Jumeirah Plaza (and a couple other places I’ve never been able to find) has secondhand paperbacks for cheap, and they will buy back books for half-price when you’re done reading them. I’ve found some great stuff at both places, but the store in Jumeirah is right across from a very good Indian restaurant, so if you’re hungry…

 

BEACHES IN DUBAI

Dubai has some of the nicest beaches in the world – very calm, clear, blue water, and lots of sunshine. The two largest are Jumeirah, in Dubai, and Al Mamzar, in Sharjah. Both have public beaches and parks, which charge admission but offer playgrounds, trees, and smaller crowds. The best time to go to the beach is in the early morning and late afternoon. Beware of sunstroke, tides and currents (they are pretty fierce, despite appearances), showing up underdressed (ladies, the sarong is your best friend here), creepy prowling men snapping pictures with their cell phones, and stubbing your toes on some of the dead coral washed ashore from construction sites.

 

DRIVING IN DUBAI

The main street, Sheikh Zayeed Road, is best practiced on early Friday mornings, when traffic is light. During rush hour it is seven lanes of madness, where every bad driving habit in the world can be seen. That said, if you know where you’re going, it’s an easy road to use. In fact, most roads around Dubai are easy to use – they are, for the most part, brand new and wide enough to handle the flow of traffic. Exits are not marked very well, and construction sites are frequent, but once you learn the roundabouts and the main landmarks, you can get where you’re going pretty easily.

          Taxis are cheap but famous for bad driving, and if you’re going between emirates (from Dubai to Sharjah, say) they will either refuse or charge you round-trip fare.

          The Metro is opening in 2009, says the newspaper. I am looking forward to that.

 

WEATHER IN DUBAI

Last year it rained five times. Usually the weather is hot and sunny, or, in the winter, slightly-less-hot and sunny. Sometimes there are clouds. Sandstorms happen every once in a while. The best weather of all is fog, which happens a few times a year and is spectacular to see, especially in downtown Dubai.

 

FUN THINGS TO DO IN DUBAI

 

I have done all these things, and can vouch for their funness.

-spend the morning wandering around Ibn Battuta Mall soaking up the interior design.

-take a picnic to Za’abeel Park and watch people playing cricket. Or, if you have enough friends, play cricket yourself.

-drive to the Omani border to see the mountains.

-go swimming in the ocean.

-walk along the waterfront near the end of the Creek, where you can see trade abras and fishing boats being loaded and unloaded.

-go people-watching at the souks.

-watch a Bollywood spectacular at the cinema.

-drive to Abu Dhabi and visit the Emirates Palace. Take a snapshot of yourself in any of the dozen gold-and-crystal lobbies; send it to your parents with a note saying, “I don’t know about this new apartment. It’s a little under-decorated for me.”

-watch little kids flailing down on the bobsled track at Ski Dubai. 

-go to the base of the Burj Dubai and look up until you start feeling dizzy.

-tell someone the following joke: Q: What is the national bird of Dubai? A: The crane.

-buy something gold.