Today I went skiing for the first time in my life inside the Emirates Mall. Yes, I went skiing INSIDE a mall! There is an attraction called Ski Dubai which contains 22,500m^2 of snow covered slopes. This trip has contained many once in a lifetime experiences, but this one has to rank somewhere near the top.
Logan and myself were the only two who decided to take this journey on a spur of the moment decision at the end of our first full day in Dubai. We began our day by touring a string of 5 star hotels lead by our friend Ron from FTR. Today also included a trip to the tallest building in the world, the Burj Khalifa (myself or one of my my colleagues will be blogging about that later). After doing all that touring most of the group was tired, but I guess the adrenalin of the situation influenced my choice to try skiing.
Ski Dubai has 5 hills of varying slope and difficulty. I started on the easy one. The first trip down I took a pretty awkwardly comical fall, and unfortunately Logan has video evidence to prove this. But I am proud to say that it was my first and last fall of the day and my advice for all the future first time skiers is to master the wedge (experience skiers, you know what I mean).
But perhaps the most interesting thing about this trip was the diverse group of ages and backgrounds congregating on the slopes. On the lift ride to the top of the first slope we talked to an IT office manager from Australia who was on holiday, and I received some advice from young Indian boy who was traveling with his parents. I met the boy when I came spinning down the slope backwards in a desperate attempt to stop myself from hitting the fence. He just laughed at me and said, “bend you knees more” as he zipped down the hill and caught air on a ramp.
Its these unique experiences that make me not regret my decision to try something like Ski Dubai or visit the middle east, after all, how many chances will I get to go skiing in the desert.
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