Dubai Part 11 - A sea of red!

The Chinese court was equally fascinating - the dragons and red color used all over gave that Chinese feel. Apparantely, Ibn Battuta while in India took the opportunity offered to him to be ambassador to China. He was robbed on the way, storms wrecked his ship and he nearly lost his life in the journey to China. They say he came across the use paper money when he reached there. Some of the construction in the Chinese court was done using wood imported from China! The main attraction in the Chinese court, apart from the ceilings and dragons, is the Junk! Not junk but "Junk" - a Chinese sailboat that was used to travel across oceans. They say Junks designed in 200 AD could carry 700 people! Ibn Battuta also traveled in a Junk.

The video attached was taken in the Chinese court - a sea of red (the Imax that you see is the cinema complex entrance).

There was a internal mall shuttle service vehicle running around the mall - the driver said it cost Dhs. 5 per person for a ride to any point in the mall. The vehicle had a specific route which was marked on the floor using direction stickers. We decided to walk since taking it for four of us would turn out to be costly; we arrived at the Chinese court 20 minutes ahead of the show time. After taking a few snaps and sending off my bro-in-law and nephew for the film, we decided to have dinner before exploring the mall. I surveyed the options available: there was a full fledged Indian restaurant, a Chinese restaurant, a pizza shop and an Iranian one. After examining all the menus and cost of dishes I picked the Iranian one. Most of the dishes came with Iranian bread (again similar to our Indian naan with a few seeds sprinkled on top) and potato fries (french fries) or rice. I also ordered an orange juice. We ordered only one dish and the waiter asked, "Are you sure one dish is sufficient for both of you. We stuck to one dish. The waiter brought 3 pieces of Iranian bread along with orange juice first. Taking a little bread along with hummus and a sip of orange juice tasted delicious. The bread was very soft and fresh. The main dish took more than 5 minutes to come and when we started eating I wondered how one person could eat so much - 3 pieces of bread was too much for one person; maybe even for two persons! Both of us together couldn't finish off all 3 breads and we asked them to parcel the food! I loved the food; so far I had tried out Lebanese, Chinese and now Iranian. Should try Japanese next time.

We hopped into a few shoe shops and a large sports shop - and to my good luck none of them had a sports shoe for me; there were a couple that did fit but were very tight and unfortunately the shop didn't have the next size in those models. The Tunisian court had a village setting along with forts and a different form of lighting that added to the Tunisian atmosphere. The ceiling is made to appear like the sky and you will feel as if the forts are touching the sky. We saw a weird antique shop which was selling broken and damaged articles! None of the items except a large candle was worth the price. By 10, the shops began shutting down. Avatar would end in a few minutes and we returned back to the Chinese court. There was a baby which seemed delighted on seeing me and responded happily to my gestures. Even in a couple of other malls it had happened - the babies, be it European or African or Indian, didn't care about region, religion, caste or creed - they were happy as long as someone was there to make them happy!