Ibn Batuta Mall

  Dubai, United Arab Emirates
Saturday, February 3, 2007

Ibn Batuta was an North African adventurer/traveller a long time ago, during the height of the Islamic Empire.  He began his travels when he went on a pilgrimmage (I think) and somehow just never came back for the next twenty-or-so years.  He travelled pretty much all of the known world, had many adventures, saw many things, and wrote it all down in a little book, which is how we know about it today.

Now, everything in Dubai has a "theme", and that includes the malls.  (They also have a 40-day Shopping Festival, which is why we were at Ibn Batuta Mall to begin with--but that's another story.)  The theme in Ibn Batuta Mall is that of his travels--hence, everything is built to look like China, or Egypt, or Spain; each section of the mall brings to life one area of his travels.

It's so cool...that I took pictures.  They're representative of the sort of stuff I see around me every day (incredible poshness).  You want to click on them to see the incredibly ornate details (might take a few minutes to download, but it's worth it):

Al-Andalus

China

Here is Egypt, decorated in the style of the pharoahs, even though Ibn Batuta missed that era by about 5000 years:

Egypt

India had this massive dome, which I have tried to capture in the first picture; and some pretty cool architecture:

India dome

India

Several shots from the Persian quarter.  I'm not sure what the first one is a picture of.  Some sort of display about the old Persians, which is the first thing you see when you walk in that particular door.  The guy in the bottom corner of the third one PROVES that I am really where I say:

Persia

Persia 2

In the halls of Ibn Battuta mall

And last, but not least, here is Tunisia.  Tunisia was really my favorite section of the mall.  It's the food court for one thing (you know us starving college students); for another they had it lighted to look like twilight.  The ambiance was very nice:

Tunisia

Tunis 2

And this is for the horse lovers in my family (that means you, Mom and Kate!).  They have these horses all around the city, kind of like the painted flying "sui" in Cincinnati.  The first one is the horse, the second is the detail from its back.  Now THAT'S how I want my paintings to look:

Horse

Horse Detail

They also have several exhibits with information and artifacts.  If you ever wind up in Dubai, you want to check it out for yourself.  It's fun!

Bathroom

(this is how fancy the bathroom was)