Arrival in Dubai at the Hotel
We arrived well on time in The Renaissance Downtown Hotel in Dubai. Luckily we had an early check in so we were quickly on our way to the Dubai Mall for breakfast and then the visit of the Burj Khalifa. The rooms were really magnificent!
Burj Khalifa at the Dubai Mall
Last time that I visited, I did only a small part of the mall together with the aquarium and the Burj Khalifa. Now we had all the freedom in the world, so we had the rest of the day to discover the mall as well as the surroundings.
We decided to have breakfast at the Pain Quotidien, a company created in 1990 by a Belgian in Brussels. I decided to take the Belgian waffle to stay in the Belgian mood, but unfortunately, it was a bit dry… but it looked good 🙂
But that was quickly forgotten when we started to make our way up to the tower. Well, 9 years ago, we saw a lot of construction sites with the desert and nothing has changed. The views however, are still as spectacular as they were before.
The Aquarium and the Dubai Mall
Then we moved on to the aquarium and after that, a discovery of the rest of the mall. We were thinking that we could walk in this shopping complex for days without having seen every shop. Also the number of restaurants was huge. Every type of food that you could think of was available.
The aquarium was really worth the visit. It was great to see all kinds of fish, jellyfish, seahorses, frogs,… We strolled along the different shops in the mall and we came at a point that we felt a bit hungry so we were looking for a restaurant amongst the hundred (if there were not more) eateries.
Late Lunch and discovering the surroundings
It was so difficult to make a choice, but eventually we went for a BBQ restaurant with a view of the ice rink below. From time to time there was snow falling from the sky, really ?
Ribs for Maxine, BBQ chicken for Koen and the cheese burger for me. I decided on the regular portion because the double one that I had seen at the table of the neighbours was impossible to eat. So big.. I asked for the medium rare version, but was almost certain that a well done burger would land on my plate. And that was indeed the case. But I was hungry, and I needed to admit, the burger was very tasty.
All of us were happy with our food, but we also realised that it would be impossible to have a real dinner in the evening because our stomachs were way too full. So we decided to do some physical exercise and walk back to the hotel to burn some calories. It felt like we were in a sauna. We did not immediately find the exit, so we followed the lake side. We ended up in an apartment complex where we finally found our way to the street. We were sure that the way home would probably have been very simple. Tomorrow, we would have another try. But we had some nice views of the tower on our way back to the hotel
