A Visit to Burj Khalifa, the Tallest Building in the World
Dubai has an estimated total population of about 1.8 million people, out of which about 80% are expatriates, attracted by tax free working conditions and the relatively crime free lifestyle, which explains why one hardly comes across the Emiratis. It was also particularly exciting for me because, for the first time, we experimented with allowing […]
Dubai has an estimated total population of about 1.8 million people, out of which about 80% are expatriates, attracted by tax free working conditions and the relatively crime free lifestyle, which explains why one hardly comes across the Emiratis. It was also particularly exciting for me because, for the first time, we experimented with allowing the children travel on their own, thus exposing them to the complexities of travelling through modern airports, especially that of Dubai, which is the busiest in the Middle East, with a capacity to handle over 40 million passengers per year currently.
Do we need to make any comparisons? No, I don’t think so. We decided on this because their mother opted out of Dubai for a holiday somewhere else, and I had to leave before the long vacation because of a commitment to attend a wedding in Beirut, from where I proceeded to Dubai. I will skip the Beirut part and go straight to Dubai, as I intend doing a piece on Arabian weddings soon insha Allah. The logistics for this trip was made easy by my big brothers, Bashir el Rufai and Salis, one of the few people recognizable with their first names only, like say, the Madiba or Madonna. My Kenyan/Tanzanian friend’s children, Tauhida, Zakiyya and Farida, who are based in Dubai, also contributed in no small measure with their time and resources to make this trip truly memorable.
Bashir made available to us a car and his Sri Lankan maid Renuka, who incidentally knows how to cook our local tuwo so well, it eliminated that aspect of life you first miss when you travel. Salis made available his three bedroom flat. Sakinas children made themselves available to the kids for all the fun and to cap it all, a very good friend of mine showed up unexpectedly and showered the children with pocket money.
Now, what more could one ask or hope for? I have said it before and I will say it again. ‘I am not loaded, but, rather, am with friends who are, which I guess is almost the same as being anyway, or what do you think? In any case, I say Alhamdu Lillah [all thanks are to God for enriching me with such generous friends].
We picked the kids up together with Hamid, our Ugandan driver, on an unforgettably and unpredently hot Friday afternoon. I can still recall the expression on their faces when they looked at me and uttered that heavily pregnant one word question; ‘Baba?’ as the sliding doors that expose all Dubai new arrivals to the hot afternoon breeze swung open. I said ‘Baku kuke son zuwa Dubai ba?’ [Aren’t you the ones who want to come to Dubai?]
It was indeed they who insisted; otherwise my sights were firmly on Zambia or Zimbabwe to see the mighty Zambezi River, and Victoria Falls, the largest curtain of water falls in this whole wide world. I pray we make it next year. Help me say ‘amen,’ to that please. I, as of then, had no idea this trip would generate so much fun and happiness in the children. We practically sprinted to the car park and drove off straight to the apartment in Sharjar. That first night, I introduced them to the Sahara mall at Sharjar which is rather small by Dubai standards, but with fairly big children’s play area. The environment and shops excited the bigger ones, Fatima, Maryam and Halima.
The following day, I became an onlooker as Tauhida and Zakiyya took over and arranged a programme of activities that sometimes excluded me. First to take them out was Tauhida, who drove them to a metro station on Sheikh Zayed road and parked the car, in order to give them the experience of riding in the newly built driverless, I repeat, driverless metro, opened September last year. The metro runs 6am to 11pm Saturdays to Thursdays and from 2pm to midnight on Fridays, in case you want to try.
The trains run at four minutes intervals during rush hours, and seven minutes at other times. They make an average of 80,000 journeys each day. Their destination was mall of the emirates, located on the same Sheikh Zayed road, which has a huge enclosed ski centre. One of the highlights of the mall is the ski centre in the two storey magic planet, parked with rides and entertainment which they tried their hands and feet on.
Can you imagine that this mall, with an area equivalent to the size of 73 football fields, is currently undergoing a huge expansion programme due to be completed by the end of the year? I mean how much bigger can these malls really get?
But the killer is, even on completion, it will still be smaller than the Dubai mall, which I will get to describe in a bit. In Dubai, one can spend a whole day in a Mall, as such; the bunch [not Brady’s] didn’t get back home until around 10pm. By then Renuka had already laid the table with tuwo and miyan kuka or ‘ugali as it’s referred to in Swahili’ said Tauhida. On their 3rd day, I was co-opted into the programme.
The destination was the Dubai Mall. Now, the Dubai mall is without any argument, the world’s largest shopping and entertainment destination. It is spread over a total area of 12 million square feet. Compare this with the biggest mall in the United States which occupies an area of a little over 4 million square feet, in order to have an idea of what these Sheikhs have done, or are doing. It has 1200 retail stores ranging from designer brands with funny names like Mango, Osh Kosh, B’ gosh, Jimmy Choo and Agent provocateur[I wonder why the provocation] to the not so funny like Manolo Blahnik, and Tommy, to those with easily recognizable names like Zara, Gianfranco Ferre and Valentino.
All these brands are located in a 440,000 squre feet area dedicated to haute couture appropriately named Fashion Avenue. Big department stores represented include and not limited to, are Debenhams, Marks and Spencer, Galleries Lafayette and Bloomingdales. I like Bloomingdales. How can I forget Bloomingdales and its employees? It was there my eight year old son Muhammad was made to wait, when he went missing in this mighty, mighty mall that I am sure your whole village will fit into.
Well, maybe not. I am sorry. I have no idea how big your village is, but I am pretty sure mine will. Please allow me to fast forward a little bit, in order to digress on how it happened. On that particular day[,not our first at the mall,] Me, my friend from Washington, Mr Bello Ringim [with whom we attended the wedding in Beirut], Tauhida and my son, Muhammad[Tauhidas favourite] went to the Dubai mall to quickly pick up incense she wanted to buy for Bello’s wife.
Although there is ample parking provided in the multi-level car park, [enough to park 1000 cars on certain floors] you may sometimes find it a little difficult getting space if you insist on parking close to a particular entrance. That was what happened to us. Tauhida suggested we drop and meet at the incense shop whilst they look for parking together with Muhammad.
Now, abinka da yan kauye, [typical of the villagers that we are] instead of going there direct, we strayed to window shop. So, by the time we located the place, Tauhida [who knows the geography of the mall like the back of her hands] and Muhammad had already been there and left. Much as we tried, we couldn’t reach her on phone. Unknown to us, her battery was dead and they could see us from where they were at an upper floor.
‘I waived and showed Muhammad where you were and how to reach there, confident that you had seen us and went to the ladies,’ Tauhida told us much later. Unknown to her also, we hadn’t seen them at all. By the time Muhammad reached down, we had left, so he did what up to date I give him credit for, by stopping a man and telling him he had lost his parents. The man, sorry, the gooood man, took him to an equally gooood Bloomingdales cashier, who in turn informed security and gave him a chair to sit down, knowing that a report would be lodged eventually.
See why I like Bloomingdales and their employees? After some time, Tauhida borrowed a phone and called to enquire of where we were and if Muhammad was with us. I said ‘NO’; she immediately dropped the line and went to security. I knew there was something wrong when the line went dead. She did not get back to us until he was located. So you can imagine our anxiety. Were this to happen in other lands, you know the anxiety would have been more, if you catch my drift.
All the same, I cannot even begin to tell you the thoughts that went through my mind before she called. It’s only someone who has had a child missing, even if it’s for just 5 minutes only that would understand what I went through. She gave us the good news, went on to describe where she was and dropped the line.
We met her waiting, and after about 20 minutes, a security man showed up with Muhammad innocently tagging along. The mixed feeling of elation and pity for the boy that is diametrically opposed to the previous one I felt is also indescribable. Pray you don’t experience both. I was made to give my details and sign some papers before he was released to us. I commended him for what he did and cautioned that he should have approached a uniformed security man. Tauhida asked if he cried, and putting a brave face he said, ‘no, it was only tears that flowed from my eyes’, whatever that means. I think he must have equated crying with wailing.
Back to the Dubai mall, if your interest is gold, then there is a gold souk featuring over 200 stores within. Leisure attractions worth checking at the Mall are the Dubai aquarium and underwater zoo with over 33,000 aquatic animals including sharks and a walk through tunnel. Mind boggling KO? There is also an Olympic size ice- rink which the children insisted on trying, and which I allowed them to.
The food court has enough seats for up to 3000 people at a time. The Mall has several cinema halls, well equipped with differential seats ranging from the ordinary to the platinum that comes with a personal servant at your beck and call. Such luxury, or more appropriately, excess can only be found in Dubai.
The entrance to the ‘AT THE TOP’ experience is at the lower level of the Mall, from where you can also access, if you wish, [but which I personally consider a must] a fountain which displays an unbelievable and soothing dance to Arabian, orchestra and classical music. We reached the Tower around 3.pm, purchased tickets and walked our way to the lifts through a long corridor full of written and pictorial display of the history of how this architectural and engineering feat was achieved.
Eventually, we entered the lift and shot our way up to the 124th floor [the highest observatory deck in the world] at an unbelievable speed of 10metres [that’s about 3 floors] per second. Can you imagine? I mean, this has got to be the fastest lift in the world. The good thing about it is, the lifts are completely sealed, so you don’t see the surrounding buildings or the speed at which you are moving.
Besides, they take your mind off from thinking of where you are by playing nice soothing music for the duration of time it takes the lifts to get to the top, which is exactly one minute. I don’t need to tell you that the view from up there is absolutely breathtaking. The feeling of being atop ‘theoretically’, and looking down, not literally, but otherwise, on everything and everybody within view was, to put it mildly, elating and at the same time scary. The children took it in their strides surprisingly, Maryam especially; whom I thought would not be able to look down.
In any case, it’s only with the computerized viewfinders placed around the circular viewing platform that you will be able to scan the horizon, surrounding buildings and distant streets below. Now that we are at the top, let me roll out some statistics pertaining to this edifice. The building tagged ‘Burj khalifa’ was officially unveiled on the 4th of January this year amidst a crescendo of fireworks and fountain displays. The official height of the tower is 828mts or 2,716 ft.
At an average of 3 mts per floor, that’s way above 200 floors. You do the maths. This is 320 mts taller than Taipei 101 which had held the record since 2004. Other world records for the Burj include the highest occupied floor in the world, [I wouldn’t want to live or have an office there for anything in this world], the highest outdoor observation deck [this I did, and can do 1 or 2 more times], and the tallest service elevator which goes to a height of 1649 ft. It has a total built up area of 6 million squre feet and the lowest part is occupied by the Armani hotel and residence. Please look at the figures rolled out in this piece again and again in order to appreciate the sheer sizes.
You can get a free one or two day transit stay in this luxurious designer hotel when you fly Emirates 1st class. There is of course, a souveneir shop at the viewing platform with a variety of items to pick from. We did. Their fifth day was dedicated for a visit to Abu Dhabi, which is the capital of the United Arab Emirates. For this trip, we hired a jeep that conveniently carried all 6 of us.
The journey is about 100 kms or slightly more, if I can remember. There, our first stop was the heritage village, which gives visitors an idea of how life was in the Emirates before the assault of modernity. We arrived there through a Cornice that is certainly one of; [if not] the most beautiful I have ever set eyes upon.
The seaside walkways, sprinkled with beautifully decorated wrought iron benches, are paved with unbelievably beautiful blue colored stones. This creates a pattern when looked at in relation to the clear blue sea. I could never forget that sight. Take note please when you visit. From there, we went to the Emirates hotel. Definitely the most beautiful and luxurious hotel I have seen to date. The lobby alone, which seemed to have been made of gold, is amazing just to look at.
It is here that all visiting dignitaries, from heads of states to royalty are accommodated. We toured the grounds and left for lunch at Carrefour. Doing lunch there, all seven of us [driver inclusive] would have costed me a fortune, or to put in clearer perspective, would have cost the equivalent of 12 bags of rice here.
I know so because on a subsequent visit with Mr Ringim and Tauhida, we braved it. Though I wasn’t the one who paid, the cost [which I won’t disclose] in comparison to what was served is still engraved in my mind. It was also at the lobby of this hotel I saw an ATM machine that dispenses gold. I still haven’t seen one anywhere else again. Lunch, or more appropriately snacks over, we went to see the biggest Masjid in the world, putting aside the two Harams in Saudi Arabia of course. Needless to say everything about the Mosque, from its columns, domes, artistry and right down to the chandeliers [which includes the largest in the world] is grand.
I like Abu Dhabi. The comparison between it and Dubai is like that of Lagos and Abuja. The only snag is the weather. The heat coupled with the humidity is unbearable. It was almost dawn when we left Abu Dhabi and arrived home to a wonderful dinner of biryani rice cooked by the amiable Renuka. The sixth day was devoted to good bargain shopping at Ajman with Zakiyya and the kids. At the end of the day, I was told they all had fun. You know how it feels like when you think you really had a good kill at the markets. The 7th day was reserved for Wild Wadi with Tauhida. It turned out to be the kid’s most exiting day of the trip. Let me tell you what and where Wild Wadi is. It is a water theme park covering 12 acres that features about 30 fun filled and thrilling rides, located next to the famous Burj al Arab hotel.
Though some of the rides look and appear dangerous, they are completely safe as they are patrolled by numerous lifeguards scattered everywhere. Upon entry, guests are usually supplied with water proof wrist watches that store electronic credits so that towels, food and drinks can be paid for electronically, which eliminates the need of carrying cash. Left over credit is paid back when exiting the water park.
How convenient. In this place, where you have to appear in swim suites, I opted out for obvious reasons. But all the same, I will highly recommend it for good wild fun, [if there is anything like that], for all the family if you are oyinboyishly inclined, or just for the kids only, if you are conservative like me.
On my last day in Dubai, Farida invited all of us for that rich and generous sandwich at Subway; I overheard the children who had two more days to stay, planning on a desert safari, which I initially objected to with Tauhida as I left for the airport leaving them in the care of the trio. In any case, it is one of the must do’s in Dubai. Others are the big bus tour and of course, sampling restaurants. If you happen to find yourself there in the holy month of Ramadan, I will suggest you do iftar at Al Boom tourist village, where you can have a variety of over 300, I repeat 300, different menus to choose from.
This will certainly eliminate the need of going to different restaurants for sampling. Next time you are in Dubai, ease off on the shopping. Please don’t get me wrong, I understand why we, especially those of us from this part of the globe have to shop. But just spare time to go experience the enthralling ‘AT THE TOP’ experience. The tower can conveniently be accessed from the biggest shopping Mall in Dubai anyway, which makes resumption of the shopping easier.