The (World's Largest) Dubai Mall Opens!

November 4th isn't just a historic day in the US - the leadership in Dubai also chose it to inaugurate the new world's largest mall. The Dubai Mall opened today to much fanfare - fortunately it had the room! It contains a full Olympic ski rink (complete with an enormous JumboTron, shown here with His Highness)...... and an indoor/outdoor Gold Souk, with hundreds of jewerly stores (3 pages of the fold-out map) replete with a throne......what must be the only Taco Bell in the Middle East (as evidenced by the line below)...

...and of course, the stores! You can land an Airbus A380 in the mall, which could be the backup plan if everything heads south.

Add all of that to the ski slopes in Mall of the Emirates, the replica ancient souks in Wafi Mall, and Seven Continents of Ibn Battuta, and you'll know why Dubai is also a mecca, but only for shopping.

It's great to finally have something so big open next door - we've had the pleasure (or pain) of watching it grow up from a skeleton to a full mall. Here's picture from our side of it in progress a few months ago: