Tahun lalu gue pergi jalan-jalan ke Dubai sendirian. Beruntung temen baik gue kerja disana, jadi minimal bisa dapet tempat tinggal dan tour guide yang adalah temen sendiri. Berhubung temen gue lagi di main ke Jakarta nih, jadi kepengen cerita kelakuan kita di Dubai.
//My best friend is in town. She arrived last night for her cousin’s wedding this September in Jakarta all the way from Dubai. She works for a private bank in Dubai as a credit analyst and has done a great job to make them keep her there for almost 3 years now. I visited her in Dubai exactly one year ago.//
Gue terbang pake Emirates ke Dubai dan mendarat di pagi hari. Musti buru-buru langsung ke kota dari airport karena ngejer waktu ke apartemen temen gue sebelum dia berangkat ke kantornya. Gue udah dikasih tau untuk mending nyari taksi yang supirnya perempuan supaya aman, tapi udah nggak sempet lagi. Nyari yang ada aja.
Berangkatlah gue ke Apartemen Burj Khalifa, tempat temen gue tinggal. Ini ternyata salah satu apartemen yang paling menyenangkan di Dubai, karena terletak di pelataran Burj Khalifa, gedung yang sekarang memegang gelar sebagai gedung tertinggi di dunia (828 meter tingginya). Tengah kota banget! Nggak mungkin nyasar taksi kesini. Dari airport ke situ, gue harus membayar sekitar Rp.230.000,-
//I flew with Emirates, and landed early in the morning in Dubai International Airport. I had to hurry and be at my friend’s apartment before she leaves for work. The cab I took was familiar with her apartment. Of course, it’s at the same area with the most famous building there in Dubai, the Burj Khalifa, or the world’s tallest building at the moment (828 meters tall). The cab fare was 85 Dirhams or around US$ 25.//
Begitu sampe, temen gue udah nungguin di bawah dan dialah yang bayar taksinya soalnya gue nggak sempet ngambil duit. Hehehe maap yak. Tadinya mau langsung di culik ke kantornya, tapi gue tepar, mo tidur dulu bentar….zzzzz….
Siangnya dia minta gue mampir ke kantornya untuk makan siang bareng. Ternyata, kantornya itu, DIFC, adalah salah satu lokasi tempat syuting filmnya Tom Cruise, Mission Impossible -Ghost Protocol-. Dia dan temen-temennya sibuk cerita betapa serunya ngeliat syuting film Hollywood di Dubai dan sibuk juga cerita betapa pendeknya Tom Cruise untuk seorang aktor Hollywood. Ganteng tapi mini. HA!
Sambil cerita, makanlah kita di sebuah resto Timur Tengah dengan Pita Bread dan Hummus sebagai makanan pendamping. Hmmm, enak! Kita juga dikasih semacam lalapan disini. Orang Arab doyan lalap juga ternyata hahaha.
//She was waiting in front of her apartment building when I arrived. She had to pay for my cab cause I didn’t have time to cash in (sorryyy). But anyway I was so happy to see her….finally I was there! yeayyy! She let me sleep for a while and at lunchtime I went to her office.
She told me to go to a certain address, and find a building called DIFC which made of glass. Apparently her office was a hit at that time, as being one of the buildings being used in Tom Cruise’ Mission Impossible movie -Ghost Protocol-. Everyone at her office remembered how exciting the moment was, and how short Tom Cruise is for a Hollywood star. Ha! She took me to lunch at one of the restaurants there for a bite of Middle Eastern’s. Pita Bread and Hummus and raw veggies as side dishes. Yum!//
Dari situ gue langsung lanjut jalan-jalan ke MALL. Untuk Dubai, mampir ke mall adalah kewajiban karena mall bukan cuma tempat belanja tapi tempat wisata! Ada kurang lebih 75 mall di Dubai. DUBAI MALL, sampai di tahun gue berkunjung ke Dubai ini, masih tercatat sebagai mall TERBESAR di DUNIA.
Dan emang sih, ini mall terbesar yang pernah gue datengin di hidup gue. GEDE banget. Letaknya sebelahan persis sama Burj Khalifa. Ini adalah rumah dari butik-butik merk terkenal dunia.
Percaya atau nggak, para wanita Arab bersuamikan para pengusaha minyak itu kerjaannya borong di butik-butik itu tadi. Satu orang bisa bawa puluhan tas belanjaan. Prada, Gucci, LV, Chanel, etc. Uniknya, para wanita Arab itu semua memakai baju Muslim tertutup seluruh tubuh yang hanya memperlihatkan mata. Kadang bahkan ada yang matanya pun tertutup kain tipis. Gue jadi mikir, berarti di balik baju Muslim itu mereka pakai rancangan designer musim terbaru persis kayak film “sex & the city 2″. WEW.
//From there I got back to Dubai’s Downtown and hit the mall. Located next to Burj Khalifa, which means a walking distance from my friend’s apartment, DUBAI MALL is the biggest mall in United Arab Emirates and apparently still the biggest also in the world. That place is HUGE! Jakarta is all about malls, but it does not have one that big. I came back the next day for part two, since I couldn’t check out the whole thing in one time visit.
The Dubai Mall is a home to just about every major fashion brand in the world, in my opinion. The Arabic women, the Sheik’s wives I assumed, loveee to shop for branded items. They were everywhere bringing shopping bags of Prada, Chanel, Jimmy Choo, etc. It’s very interesting since almost all of them were wearing burqa (outer garment worn by women in some Moslem’s traditions to cover their bodies in public). I couldn’t even see their shoes. Underneath the long burqa, they might be wearing this season’s fashion designer’s collections, head to toe. Just like the scene in the sex & the city movie. //
Didalam mall ini juga ada akuarium raksasa yang menampung 33,000 makhluk laut hidup. Sadis!!! Gue menghabiskan berjam-jam hanya memandangi si akuarium ini. Keren banget. Di luar mallnya, ada juga pemandangan nggak kalah seru, yaitu air mancur yang setiap beberapa jam bakal ‘menari-nari’ diiringin berbagai jenis musik. Beda lagu beda pancuran airnya. Konsepnya keren banget deh pokoknya. Nggak bakal bosen muter-muter di Dubai Mall.
Gue kasi tau ya, saking gedenya, gue bukan cuma nyasar disini, tapi harus balik lagi besokannya untuk bisa abis muterin satu mall. Sehari doang nggak sanggup gue. Jalan kakinya terlalu capek. Kebayang kan ya gedenya kayak apa.
Karena apartemen temen gue persis di sebelah mall ini, jadi gue sering makan disini dan pagi-pagi gue juga sering jogging dihalaman belakangnya karena kompleksnya jadi satu gitu. It’s so big and beautiful!
//Inside Dubai Mall, I found this giant aquarium. I heard it contains 33,000 living animals. Wow. I saw some people dove inside around the stingrays and sharks. I was there for almost an hour watching the tank! It was awesome. Outside the mall there was another show, the dancing fountain. I watched it around 9 p.m. on my way back to the apartment. It lasted for 4 minutes and it was cool. It was just a little too crowded. I had to stand on a chair to be able to enjoy it. Completely distracted.//
Itulah cerita hari pertama gue di Dubai. Hari-hari berikutnya makin seru.
Gue dibawa muterin Dubai, dan pergi ke tempat-tempat yang keren. Kita ke gurun pasir, pantai, pulau, hotel, kalap belanja di IKEA yang ada di Dubai Festival City sampai barang mulai kebanyakan dan nggak muat di koper.
Terus kita juga nongkrong di “Trader’s Vic’”, tempat yang lagi hits di dubai untuk bisa menikmati minuman khas disitu bernama ‘Tikka Pukka Pukka‘ sambil belajar salsa dance. Hang out di Jazz café – Blue Bar- for a quality time, naik unta, ke gereja internasional yang ada di Dubai, nyobain macem-macem makanan enak, and many many many more! Gue beneran harus nulis beberapa halaman lagi untuk cerita.
BACA 10 things I did in DUBAI klik disini
//That was my FIRST day in Dubai. The next week I spent in Dubai was totally exciting. I tried on the Dubai Metro public transport to see the city, went to an island, beaches, deserts, cool hotels, shopped like crazy in IKEA until my suitcase overloaded, rode and ate a camel, sipped my ‘Tikka Pukka Pukka‘ while learning how to salsa in Trader’s Vic, hang out at Blue Bar jazz club, ate so many different food and etc. I wrote many other pages for the story.//
Thanks for the hospitality of my dear friend Nita in Dubai! I surely had a blast, girl! Big HUG!
I agree with what I was told: Dubai IS the heart of the desert
olivelatuputty.com/blog – @shiningliv