the update, part 1

things got crazy around here. i'll fill in the blanks from the last post to when mom left. we had a blast, by the way! just too bad that the last 4 days she was here, i got really sick - turns out i have/had strep throat, just waiting for confirmation tonight, although i've been on meds for 3 days now.

anyway...

the 29th of march, we went to the WAFI mall, which is a large egyptian-themed mall, sort of. there is a huge pyramid in the middle and other statues and things around the place. it is quite strangely organized, if i may say, only because it is divided into random sections. not the easiest to navigate, although based on the caliber of shops within, we weren't too worried. not shopping at prada any time soon, thanks.

they have a gourmet store selling mainly lebanese food and sweets. it was beautiful to look at, but as i said to my mom, there is always so much that looks good, in the end, it's hard to choose what you want. and then when you do finally pick something, it's usually not as good as you thought it was going to be. and more often than not, expensive for what it is. needless to say, we did not eat there.

thanks to the organization of the mall, we were unable to find the one cafe i knew was reasonably priced (turns out it was way far down from where we were), so we hit up the food court, which was horrid. they had subway, some pizza place and a chicken joint called marry brown. we had pizza (blech) and julian had a nuggets kid's meal (disgusting). bad food day. you'd think a fancy-pants mall like that would have something better for the peons to munch on. it even looked kind of nasty. don't let the peasants eat bread!

the one interesting thing this mall has is the khan marjan souk. it has sections from persia, syria, morocco, egypt, etc.  really beautifully done with an interior court and all. cafes, etc. it wasn't the best day to sit down there because it was raining on and off, but still interesting to see. i found a copper plate that reminded me of one my grandmother had. ah, nostalgia.

since it was still early, we decided to hit the dubai outlet mall. it's right off of the bypass road that we use to get to dubai when there is traffic (like all the time). it is huge! as in most outlet malls, they pretty much carry last season's stuff, but they have quite a selection, should we ever be in the mood to shop until we drop. and good to know - their food court looks like it is good. (how did it come to this? judging places by the quality of their food court? sad.)