hahahahahaha! I went to Dubai at the beginning of June to y'kno let off some of that exam steam! And while there our wonderful hotel organised trips and excursions everyday, to the beach in the morning, and 'shopping' in the afternoons. 'Wow' we thought, 'all those famous luxury Dubai malls, you know the ones with ski slopes inside and 5 star (freezing cold) cinemas...' we couldn't wait. So Monday rolls around and instead of naming the place we would be going shopping, all we were told is " yes, its very good place, nice, discount shopping yes good place!" Hmmm, I don't know about anyone else but I was envisaging a mixture of Primark and Poundland, boy what i got was a mixture of Deptford Market, an 'English for foreign learners' class and a bin!

I'm not actually joking when we got there people from our hotel were backing away from the lurid green shopfront where we were greeted by a massive poster saying " RUB-A-DUB DUB CLEAN YOUR TOTS IN THE TUB " accompanied by a Rubberduckzilla monstrosity, weird! And it just got weirder, rows and rows of terribly-made cheap clothes next to prams next to packets of crisps, and the whole while a bearded man following you round the nighties trying to make you take a trolley.
After our initial bout of nausea and convulsions, we decided to look around and thank God we did. You know when you go to other countries you find some strange engrish emblazoned across tee-shirts etc, these were the worst i have ever seen! Once in Martinique I did see a top that said 'Music looks at me PHARD' huh? what?
Anyway, back to Nine Town (as this Oasis in the Emirate Desert was called) the tops ranged from the depressing - a top with a 20 line poem about holding your dog's paw when the time comes to put him down- to the spiritual -incomplete inaccurate lyrics from a Hillsongs song- to the retro- a beautiful piece with I ROCK RUFF AND STUFF WITH THE AFRO PUFF across it- Yes yes Lady of Rage!

Eurgh! the shop was disgusting, afterwards we were thrown into a tro-tro (van/minibus) with about 25 Iranians who found our dark skin and our English extremely funny, horrific, one of them was making a video of us! Lord have mercy!
Not a minute too soon we were returned to our hotel where we wept with shock and relief, it was over, Nine Town was over. Oh and did I forget to mention the Iranians bags were bulging with tat from Nine Town, yuck!