Trotting Globally through the Village

After days of family visits and house parties, it was time to play the tourist once again. So after attending Sunday mass (which actually felt like Monday, cause Sunday is the monday here... damn this is puzzling), which felt like ages since I attended mass on a Sunday, it was off to being a tourist.

The Global Village combines cultures of 90 countries across the world at one place. It claims to be the world's largest tourism, leisure, shopping and entertainment project. It is the region's first cultural, entertainment, family and shopping destination (source Wikipedia). So in short, became a global trotter without even stepping beyond my current position on the globe, oops I mean location.

You were in a melting pot of different cultures in a single location. Seems like most of Dubai is a melting pot. The amount of crowd at the place kind of surprised me, considering it was a Dubai Monday, even though it was a Sunday. I can swear I must have photobombed a thousand of selfies and photos. If you run a facial recognition i think you’ll find me in thousands of pics.

Walking in Global Village is a literal trip around the world. The different sections allocated to each country was fascinating. Walking past shops, or was it stalls, checking out what they had on sale. Each shop/stall more fascinating than the other, more colourful, more fascinating (damn I am using this adjective so often, feels like I am running out of terms or language is deserting me), representing the areas which they belonged to. 

cream.

 There was stall with all these colourful lamps, it was like the Lord said let there be light and man made these beautiful colourful lamps. You had a stall selling figurines, the flamingoes reminded me of my buddy Anubha and her fascination for the birds. Then you had snow globes, which perked my interest, and another where you could make a wax caste of your hand, how awesome would that be. There were many other stores, each more interesting (or equally interesting, to be fare) than the other. The Turkish ice cream sellers were up to their usual tricks, playing around with their patron’s ice

The whole place had this holiday vibe (of course it would, after all it’s the holidays), there was excitement in the air, like an electric current. People from all walks of life, all age gender, ethnicity, culture, religion, nationality, mingling together in a single location. You had families pushing around babies in prams, gaggles of ladies in burqa having a ladies night out. Everywhere you could see people haggling, enquiring, browsing, doing what a socially conscious people would do, pout and click selfies (oh I meant social media conscious ), people running around with huge stuffed dogs (which I too wanted but too chicken to try, and if I got one where would I keep it?) which they must have won in some game.

On the Main Stage you had performances by acts from various cultures across the globe. When we reached it you had a troupe doing the Bhangra which actually got the crowd all riled up and excited. You had people running to the stage to get a glimpse of the dance. They had their phones out, clicking and recording it, quite to the bemusement of someone who found this normal.

And once again there was lights and fountain show but this time to a James Bond theme. You had the fountain, the lights on the water, and you had a bit of fireworks. How I wish those pesky boats were not in the way blocking the view.

So we ended up walking quite a bit, from the parking lot to the entrance and then round the different countries. We could actually say we became globe trotters, trotting around the globe in a single place. We walked more than we had, or at least I can say that, in the past few days. But you know what, I didn’t mind all the walking, in fact welcomed it, or was good to get the blood flowing through the feet, though was concerned about how mumma would take with all the walking. But hey she managed it in Ladakh, so here it was a piece of cake.

In the end, even though the feet may have been complaining from all the walking, but  the head and heart we’re glad to have done that, cause they could do with all the walking. So now I can say that I trotted globally through the village.