Global Village

Last weekend we went to Global Village. It's been on my "to do before we leave Dubai" list for at least a year, and so we finally decided to check it out. We had additional motivation in that a friend of our friend JB had been hired to perform there in a Stomp-style percussion band, so we were going to meet him and go for some drinks after.

Global Village is a 4 month annual festival that is best described as a giant Middle Eastern Epcot Center meets the New York State Fair. There are pavilions set up representing different [mostly Asian and Middle Eastern] countries to sell arts and handicrafts from the countries and also entertainment from the different places (dancers and bands). In addition, there is a midway/state fair-type area with rides and games, which we couldn't be bothered to check out (although I kind of regret not going for a ride on the air-conditioned Ferris Wheel)..

Each of the pavilions was 'decorated' to represent that country, and it was really interesting to see what they were selling and how the countries wanted themselves represented.

The Egypt Pavilion. I took a picture because this is probably the closest we're going to get to visiting Egypt at this point... It sold a lot of stereotypical 'Egypt' souvenirs: model pyramids, magnets, etc. but there was also a large volume of lingerie stalls... Hmmm...

The Yemen Pavilion. Also a country that this is the closest we will get to visiting. My impression of Yemen is pirates and terror cells, but I guess that isn't the image they are trying to portray and instead it was full of hundreds of spice stalls.

The India Pavilion. One of the most elaborately decorated of all.

The manually-powered merry-go-round inside the India Pavilion.

I was sufficiently impressed with the India Pavilion. It was probably the most authentic of all, HUGE and selling the largest selection and variety of handicrafts actually produced in India and actually representative of the country. Tons of beautiful scarves and other textiles. This is the only pavilion I would have actually been interested in buying anything from, but Jared wouldn't let me buy anything because he said what is the point in buying an Indian scarf from Dubai when I could buy one from India (which is actually a fair point since India is very high on our list of places to visit before we leave). Oh well, it was still fun to see.

Then, just as we were getting ready to leave the nightly Global Village fireworks show began. It just wouldn't be Dubai without random unnecessary displays of fireworks...

And after the fireworks we caught some of the stick-twirling Emirati dancers. Much less exciting than it sounds (if it sounded even remotely exciting). Overall, Global Village was an interesting thing to see, but not something we probably need to go to again. We concluded that the best part of the whole night was our friend's friend's percussion band. Chalk it up to another uniquely Dubai experience.