Inside Souk Madinat

On Sunday I thought I would ring the changes so I cam here - Souk Madinat - which is also quite close to my hotel. It's just up the beach from the Burj Al Arab. The Souk Madinat is a modern day Mall but built in the style of an Arab Souk and it sell loads of handcrafts, textiles, shisha pipes etc as well as a henna shop and cafes/restaurants bars etc. It was really nice to wonder around here. I lost count of the time I walked through the courtyard where the shisha cafes were - just to smell the scented tabacco! Like all Dubai that I have seen so far, it is very new and very clean and very safe for children to run around playing games without their parents worrying. I don't know what to make of Dubai. I could definately live here for a couple of years but probably no more. The lifestyle would be great - fantastic weather for 9 months of the year, beaches, palms, great food and drink in excellent restaurants/cafes/bars, amazing shopping from gold to electronics, any kind of sport that you could possibly think of, incrediably safe (perhaps because if, for example there is a flight in the street if you are an Emirati you are locked up and if foreign deported) and very clean and new. Even cleaner than Japan! However it just doesn't seem real. I know that's a rubbish statement as of course it is real, and this reality is just as valid as any other. I think because it is so new it can feel a bit toy towny. No, I think what it really feels like is some kind of James Bond Utopia (what was the film when some guy got all these 'perfect' couples together to populate a space station and then poison earth?) - everything clean and nice and people from all over the world living in harmony...... I just have a sneaking suspision its not true.... Or maybe its because when I travel I'm so used to really engaging in the new culture but here as 80% of the population is expat I just seem to be engaging with Brits, Aussies & Kiwis. Don'y get me wrong though I do really see why people love living here - and its not just the tax free income.