Day Four - Ibn Battuta, Souk Madinat, a HUGE Traffic Jam and Sealand

After leaving the college, we ventured to Ibn Battuta which is an amazingly crafted up-scale mall that has four themed sections: China, India, Egypt and Tunisia. Each courtyard had been built to scale with towering columns and mosaic arches or Sphinxes and wood-carved junks. We walked the entire length and had a coffee at the Starbucks in the Tunisian court before feeling the call to lunch, meeting another friend at the Madinat.




The Souk Madinat is a nicely architected living, dining, shopping and leisure activity area for tourists and citizens alike. We had a nice lunch outside in the afternoon air and walked around to see Al Burj in the background, decorative wind towers atop the condominiums, condolas slipping through the waterways and many shops, bulging with goods for purchase.

We left Dubai at about 5 p.m. and spent the next three hours in bumper to bumper traffic. Between these sunlit photos of the Madinat and the darkened front of Sealand, we were stuck in a traffic jam. Dubai and its enlightened city planners will need to come up with a solution to the issue of too many cars traveling on roads not planned for so many. And yet the building of highrise living quarters continues...



Not to be too overwhelmed by the traffic, we had dinner upon arrival at a restaurant just down the Corniche from where I was staying. Sealand is an Indian restaurant designed to transport you either into a G.I. tract fiber optic exploration, Captain Nemo's voyage into the deep or just into someone's version of having fun with a lot of plaster and irridescent paints. The ceiling was sculpted and the boothes flanked by what looked like coral outcroppings. Truly a surreal dining experience - great food and as always, exceptional company and conversation.