I'm sitting on the balcony of my hotel in downtown Dubai looking at the worlds tallest man made building, and I'm thinking I am one lucky girl! Just when I think it can't get more amazing, it does. Today we started the morning with a site inspection at the other hotels in the Jumeirah Beach complex. More opulent rooms were found here again! There are standard rooms, suites and villas in this part of the resort and we got to see each one of those types of rooms. In Il Castel the lobby has the only blue marble laid in the floors and the most beautiful crystal chandeliers. The entrance to this part of the resort is just like arriving at the palace of the sheikh. It was absolutely gorgeous.
After picking up our luggage, we headed to our next destination, Burj Kahlifa. This is the worlds tallest building and includes an observation deck on the 124th floor. The view from up there is absolutely breathtaking. To get up to the observation deck, you must take, what else? The worlds fastest elevator. First floor to 124th in 60 seconds. Chew gum on this ride, your ears will pop at that rate!! After taking a lot of pictures from the 360* deck, it was off to the Dubai Mall, which is the largest in the world, complete with an ice skating rink (regulation hockey sized) and underwater aquarium and zoo. We only had time for lunch today, but as we walked through the mall and to the food court, it was like being at home.......Sephora, Bloomingdales, Levi's, Coach as well as many other high end stores. The floors are arranged by type of stores (women's, men's, kids, shoes, etc) with a nice sized food court including Cinnabon, Johnny Rockets, Pizza Hut and more. There were also familiar restaurants......Texas Roadhouse, California Pizza Kitchen and Red Lobster, to name just a few.  
After finishing lunch, it was off to look at a few other buildings (I am traveling with students from the Architecture, Construction and Interior Design programs after all) and then to the Gold Souq by way of a water taxi down Dubai Creek. Again, reminding me so much of Venice! While at the Souq, I was very thankful to have Matt to navigate the allies because after a while, they all start to look the same. I see now why teams on The Amazing Race had trouble here!! A few of the group made purchases, but the bartering wasn't producing the deals we wanted, so some of us left empty handed. We'll be visiting another Souq on Saturday, so maybe something will work out there.
Our final event of the day was dinner on a floating restaurant that took us up and down Dubai Creek. It was a beautiful night for a dinner cruise. Dinner was served buffet style and included both Middle Eastern fare as well as some more familiar dishes. None of us went away hungry, that's for sure. There was also a lady doing henna on board, so almost all of us girls had some new ink added. This is much less painful than my last tattoo, which was great!
As midnight approaches, I'm headed off to bed so I can get up early tomorrow before we head out and grab some breakfast and wifi at Starbucks to be able to actually post this. Sleep well everyone! Tomorrow, it's Palm Island, The World and dune bashing.......can't wait!