The weekend falls on Friday and Saturday in Dubai, so today I had some time to myself. The plan was to sleep in a bit before heading down to the Mall of the Emirates and visit the world's largest indoor ski slope for a long-awaited snowboarding session. Unfortunately sometimes things just don't work out...
I started off waking up early and checking my work email, promptly getting embroiled in a work conversation where I was just trying to help but was dragged into someone else's crisis. After a couple of hours I gave up, left it alone and grabbed breakfast at a local Tim Horton's - a mistake in its own right. Then at around 10.30am I left to go snowboarding and walked down to the local transit station. After walking across the road to the train station it turns out that trains don't run on Fridays until 1pm, so half an hour after leaving the hotel I had to walk back across the road and jump into a cab to get me to the mall. The cab dropped me at the opposite end of the mall to the snow slope but after a 15 minute walk I got to the 'ski resort'
although it looked strangely quiet on the slopes with no chairlifts running
It turns out that the slope was closed until midday because they were running a charity competition, and I was meeting friends at 2.30pm so no boarding for me that day. All I could do was look longingly at the guys that were shaping the snow...
I didn't want to catch a cab back to the hotel so decided to wait for the trains to start running and wander round the mall instead. I get bored shopping fairly quickly, but the architecture was pretty impressive (in a traditionally ostentatious way)
At 1pm I wandered over to the transit area and joined the rush as the doors opened and hoards of people dashed through the the station, only to wait 30 minutes for the first train to arrive. It was a busy one too...
I looked at the crush and thought 'I'm never going to fit on that', but then thought I'd give it a go. Not only did I get on but two other people pushed in behind me before the doors closed, although the third guy dragging a suitcase that he tried to leave outside the doors for the journey whilst still hanging onto the handle was unceremoniously ejected by the guard. It was an uncomfortable 30 minute journey where every station turned into a moshpit as new travellers fought to get on before the already packed crowd could let people out. Things weren't helped by the unsettling sensation that the guy next to me was enjoying the press against my leg a little bit too much, but I had nowhere to go so I just focussed on not crushing the older lady to my right as the train swayed.
Did I achieve what I set out to do? Nope, nowhere close. But it was an interesting morning nonetheless...
I started off waking up early and checking my work email, promptly getting embroiled in a work conversation where I was just trying to help but was dragged into someone else's crisis. After a couple of hours I gave up, left it alone and grabbed breakfast at a local Tim Horton's - a mistake in its own right. Then at around 10.30am I left to go snowboarding and walked down to the local transit station. After walking across the road to the train station it turns out that trains don't run on Fridays until 1pm, so half an hour after leaving the hotel I had to walk back across the road and jump into a cab to get me to the mall. The cab dropped me at the opposite end of the mall to the snow slope but after a 15 minute walk I got to the 'ski resort'
Did I achieve what I set out to do? Nope, nowhere close. But it was an interesting morning nonetheless...
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