Date: 8th April 2010

After yesterday’s tiring walk (despite being an eventful day), it was back to more mall-hopping today. After Dubai Mall, it was off to the next most popular mall in Dubai: Mall of Emirates.

As usual, I took the metro from Union Station.

Mall of Emirates is located after Dubai Mall (as per the metro line) so the ride takes nearly 20 minutes.

There is a Mall of Emirates stop on the metro line and a walk-way metro link connects directly to the mall.

Now Mall of Emirates isn’t the most impressive-looking of malls (architecture wise) — or at least compared to the expensive Dubai Mall. Therefore you’re not going to see a whole lot of photos in this post, simply because I didn’t take that many.

The only portion of the mall that impressed me was this bit…

… that was it.

Oh, Mall of Emirates also houses Ski Dubai – the first in-door ski resort in the Middle East.

I was tempted to go in and check it out because I have yet to experience snow — and yes, I know Ski Dubai uses fake snow. But still, something for next time.

Not much else to say about the mall. It was the usual collection of high-end brands but what I liked about Mall of Emirates is that it still offers something for everyone. Maybe it was the anchor tenant Carrefour, but I saw more people in Mall of Emirates than I did see in Dubai Mall… and this was on a week day morning.

More people were shopping too. I mean actually buying stuff unlike most of the visitors I saw in Dubai Mall.

I was one of those shoppers. I was in the hunt for a particular lens (which was hard to come by) and my friend did advice me to check out the Virgin Megastore in the Mall of Emirates. Which I did. Then I saw a lot of stuff I wanted to buy… and then told the sales people I would be back because what I wanted to buy was kinda big.

I had to check out electronics retailer Sharaf DG, whose largest outlet in UAE was located in another mall. And so I decided to step out of Mall of Emirates, have lunch at the Lulu Center nearby and take a taxi to Times Square Center.

After an India lunch, I hopped in to a taxi and went to Times Square Center which was actually before Mall of Emirates (as per the metro line).

Times Square Center isn’t very big (comparatively by Dubai’s new standards).  As soon as I walked in, lay before me stood these machines.

I don’t know if it was Yellow Hat who put them up, but the collection was impressive.

Sharaf DG was located on the top floor in Times Square Center.

The outlet is definitely big and has pretty much everything you need — except that the lens I wanted was out of stock. Sharaf DG make a claim that if they don’t have something in stock, the buyer will get a hefty discount*.

They still took my information down and told me they would contact me once the Tamron lens I wanted would arrive. The price they quoted was much less than what it cost in India, even from the grey market.

I soon left and made my way back to Mall of Emirates by cab…

… hopped backed into Virgin Megastore and spent close to Dhs 1000.

I then struggled to carry my purchases to the taxi and in the process, managed to get the only workout during my time in UAE.

I finally managed to get it all back to the room.

So what did I buy?

The Band Hero set was a straight 25% off on the price (and they threw in a free copy of Guitar Hero World Tour — which I already had). I got Arkham Asylum pretty cheap too (considering it wasn’t an old game by any means) and I got a free Nintendo t-shirt too. All-in-all, a great deal!

Now all I had to worry about was how to get it all back to Bangalore.

Next posts in this series:

UAE 2010: Driving around Dubai (Souk Madinat Jumeirah, The Atlantis & The Palm Islands) – Part 1

UAE 2010: Dubai Marina, Jumeirah, The Walk and David Guetta concert – Part 2

UAE 2010: Showing my parents the sights of Dubai; inside Ibn Battuta Mall

UAE 2010: From the desert sands of Abu Dhabi to the corniche

UAE 2010: Yas Island, Abu Dhabi – Ferrari World and Yas Marina Circuit

Previous posts in this series:

UAE 2010: Heading back to the Gulf after 7 years

UAE 2010: Driving from Abu Dhabi to Dubai (& back)

UAE 2010: Sheikh Zayed Mosque, Abu Dhabi

UAE 2010: Heading to Dubai by bus; checking out Bur Dubai

UAE 2010: Dubai Mall (Aquarium, Underwater Zoo & Gold Souk) – Part 1

UAE 2010: Burj Khalifa, At the Top (and Wafi Mall) – Part 2