Supermarket as a tourist hot spot

Something you don't see in every shop - bubbles with real gold flakes. It's not real champagne though - it's non-alcoholic. — Something you don’t see in every shop – bubbles with real gold flakes. It’s not real champagne though – it’s non-alcoholic.

I like to shop. That’s no great secret. I’m pretty good at it too (even if I do say so myself). And I love to shop in unusual places.

I’ve just returned from Dubai – where shopping appears to be the national sport, not to mention the favourite tourist activity.

My hotel was attached to a shopping mall. The 40^th largest mall in the world –two and a half million square feet of things for sale. And it is only the city’s SECOND biggest mall.

After work one evening I walked for an hour and a half through the mall – and did not see everything. Nor did I buy anything.

It seemed to me most of the shops featured designer clothes (mostly for women) and jewellery. I overheard two teenage English girls getting excited when they saw Top Shop. I don’t understand that. You can find Top Shop in almost any UK high street. Why come all this way for more of the same?

Likewise, the designer clothes didn’t attract me. I can buy them in London – or I could if I could afford them.

When I’m shopping in new places – I want to see new things. And I did… in the supermarket.

I love supermarkets – they tell you so much about the place you are in. I spent more time in the supermarket than any other shop.

This is what I call shopping….

I wish there were tubs of olives like this in my local Tesco,

I love it when I find fruit I don't even recognise. — I love it when I find fruit I don’t even recognise for sale.

The cabinet of caviar was taller than I am.

Dubai already has the world tallest building – and recently announced plans to build the largest shopping centre on the planet: a seven kilometre long shopping street that is totally enclosed and air conditioned. Yes really – seven kilometres.

There is going to be a system of trams to take shoppers along the covered and air conditioned streets.

There will also be 100 hotels, a cultural centre and theatre district and an indoor theme park – a whole climate controlled city to protect people from the unbearable heat in the summer. They are going to call it The Mall of the World and it’s going to cost nearly 7 BILLION US dollars.

Imagine – taking a holiday there and never setting foot outside. I think I’ve read a few Science Fiction stories that involve totally enclosed cities.

The developers images look like the cover of a sci fi novel.

When I was told about this, I found it hard to believe – but, after all, this is the country that has built a ski slope with real snow in the middle of the desert.

I've been inside the ski slope. It's huge - and makes it easy to forget there's a desert outside those walls. — I’ve been inside the ski slope. It’s huge – and makes it easy to forget there’s a desert outside those walls.

And a residential `estate shaped like a palm tree in the sea.

There are actually several such developments built by Dubai in the waters of the Persian Gulf.

I just hope that somewhere in the middle of this new mega-mall, they build a supermarket for shoppers like me. With buckets of olives instead of trays of diamonds, and exotic fruit instead of designer clothes.