Mall Culture is Town Center

You won’t find a typical “downtown” like we have in American cities, but you will find loads of shopping malls that take the place of a downtown. I am not one to spend much time in shopping malls back home, but have found that much of everyday life happens in these places. The grocery stores are often inside the malls and are called hypermarkets which means department store (like a Target) and grocery combined. I often find myself driving my grocery cart through the mallways to run other errands or just back to the enormous parking structure. There are even escalators to accommodate the grocery carts-- kind of like a moving walkway. Café culture is also big in the mall. People meet friends for coffee or tea from early morning to late at night. There are loads of restaurants too, as well as movie theaters, children’s play parks, banks, pharmacies, the famous Ski Dubai, and even the Dubai Fine Arts and Theater Center (where we take violin and ballet lessons). Each mall is unique and the architecture is stunning. The Ibn Batuta Mall, named after a famous Arabic explorer, has country themes. As you walk through the mall, you might be in Egypt, Persia, China, or India. The ceilings are ornately decorated to match each theme. Often on Fridays, our church day here, we go to the Ibn Batuta Mall for brunch. The kids love to climb around the rocks in China. --Maria