The first "official" day started with this:

A camel race on TV. It We settled on it to provide background noise in lieu of some of the other channels that seemed to exclusively showcase the many achievements and feats of ruler Sheikh Mohammed. I'd never seen a camel race before. I'd honestly never seen a camel run before, falsely believing that they just moseyed about the desert all chill and whatnot. They can actually run up to 65km/hr. It was fascinating to see. They were as gangly and graceless as I imagine I looked back in high school gym class. This made me appreciate and bond with the animal in a way that would become rather awkward a few days later...

At 9:30am, we left our hotel and made our way to the closest metro station, Sharaf. I wanted to take my friend to "Old Dubai", the Deira area, where we could get lost in the sights and sounds of traditional middle eastern markets and have the opportunity to experience something very different from back home. I also may have wanted to buy pajamas. The driverless metro was incredibly efficient, with trains coming every five minutes on the dot. The female-only cars were also appreciated as it was often incredibly crowded and, of course, THAT HEAT. The cars are air conditioned, but one still can't escape the draining exhaustion brought on by THAT HEAT. I'll write more on it later, but as someone who just left a Canadian winter, I felt like I was going to spontaneously burst into flames everyday.

It was still considered early when we arrived at the market. It appeared to be in preparation for a later tourist rush. The eight men for every one woman statistic was never more apparent than when we were touring this area at this time. We were, literally, the only females walking about. At one point, both of us glanced at each other telepathically communicating that we weren't to leave the other's side.

"Louis Vuitton, Prada. Designer bags."

The Gold Souk was ridiculously over-the-top. I have never seen such grandiose creations made out of the metal before. I couldn't imagine where I would wear something so flashy ... or even how much some of the pieces would weigh (much less cost!). It would take great effort to move wearing some of the jewellery on display. My friend couldn't concentrate on all the bling though, as something else seemed to be distracting her.