Discovering Mirdif

Friday is the first day of our weekend. This last Friday we slept in (which in our world means I get up at 7am, and Liz gets up at 7:30am) and then I cooked us a good Kiwi breakfast of baked beans, toast, scrambled eggs and bacon. If only we had sausages to go with it. It was great. There's nothing like the smell of bacon in the morning! It was while we were sitting at the table about to clear away the dishes that we got talking about a few things we wanted to buy next time we were in Dubai. Liz randomly said that if we wanted, we COULD just go there right away. Well, if you know us at all, you will, know that we LOVE doing things off the cuff. Before we knew it, we had washed the dishes, hung up the laundry and were out the door and on our way to Dubai.

It's about an hour and a half's drive to Dubai. We discovered that our wee Peugeot 207 doesn't have cruise control (or if it does, we can't find it) and it has an annoying beep that goes off the second you reach 120kph. So we drove at about 118~119kph all the way.

It's not exactly what I'd call a beautiful drive, but it's interesting and perhaps stunning in patches. I mean, the road is more or less a straight shot through the desert. At the Al Ain end, the sand is a deep orange colour, but the closer you get to the coast (Dubai) the sand gradually becomes lighter and whiter in colour. There are patches of palm trees (oases?) and you can see camels every now and then. The road is very smooth and new, and much of it is bordered on both sides by green shrubs, which serve to reduce the amount of sand that blows across the road when the wind picks up. At one point a truck carrying camels drove past, and Liz became very excited. She really loves camels. They do look funny when they stick their heads out over the back of the truck and look at you.
Anyway, once in Dubai, first stop: IKEA in Festival City. Last time we were there, we didn't have our own car with us, so we couldn't fill up the car with "stuff". So this time around we got a whole bunch of "stuff" we thought about getting last time.
After Ikea, it was off on an adventure to Mirdif City Centre. Liz had heard about this relatively new mall, and had located it on the map and worked out how to get there from Ikea. As it turned out, it was pretty straight forward and didn't take long at all. Once we parked in Mirdif City Centre, I got the car wash guy to clean our car (since it was still looking pretty scruffy after the sandstorm/rain combo we had a couple nights earlier.
Mirdif City Centre had LOADS of shops we knew from America or New Zealand. It was only two stories, which made it very navigable and it was open planned and spacious.
We had lunch at none other than the California Pizza Kitchen (a favourite of ours when in the America) and we had a bit of a shopping spree in Pottery Barn and Crate and Barrel (getting a few autumn accessories to help make our home feel autumn-like, and some kitchenware like a good knife set and some bright and happy mixing bowls etc.

So, as a result, we now have a new mall on our list, and it's a pretty good one, too! I think it's my favourite Dubai mall so far - not too big, not too small, filled to the brim with familiar stores and good restaurants.