The final day of our holiday was (of course) a shopping extravaganza. What more would you expect in the luxury shopping capital of the southern hemisphere? Especially when we were within two minutes walk of one of its largest mall. We started the day in a relaxed fashion with a leisurely breakfast in the hotel before final packing and checking out. And with that we were off to the mall.

Given our markedly different interests – I was likely to spend much of the day looking at shoes while TC would no doubt peruse the multitude of electronic stores on offer. We made a plan to meet back at the entrance for lunch and off I set. My initial plan was to just do a complete circuit of the mall and then go back and look at things. I reassessed that strategy after a detailed look at the centre plans. I guestimated that it probably would have taken the best part of half a day just to do a circuit and by that stage I would have forgotten what I wanted to look at. So my new plan was to look in shops as I went and (gasp) just buy things on impulse if the stood out to me. Even in a shopping metropolis like Dubai I still didn’t have the confidence to enter the likes of Armani, Gucci or even Vivienne Westwood, so I skipped quickly past the grand circle of fashion and on to stores more my speed. Of course these included every shoe store in the place, including Camper, some window shopping in the jewelry stores and a visit to some of the UK chains on offer including Debenhams. Debenhams proved to be a boon – probably the UK’s Target equivalent, they were having a summer clearance sale and I managed to pick up quite a few things in my size, that were far from the usual hideous offerings at bargain basement prices. The rest of my day’s haul included two more pairs of shoes – patent leather Mary Jane’s from Clarks and a pair of Mary Janes from Camper with a gorgeous floral design painted on them.

The mall itself was spectacular with an ice skating rink, several water sculptures and heaps of eating areas. There were also plenty of Emirates wandering about, with many more shopping bags than me. By now we had gotten used to the dynamic of local women and men shopping separately and the fact that most of the shop assistants were Indian or Filipino. (Strange Déjà vu – Dream Theatre. To me Dream Theatre is winter music. Each time I hear this track it reminds me of a 3am solo drive back from seeing Mighty Mighty Bosstones at the snow after my first (pitiful) attempt at snowboarding.)

After our shopping ordeal TC and I met for a quick lunch in the mall before checking out of the hotel and getting a cab to the Etihad bus station. On arrival at the bus station, we were able to check in our bags for the flight through to Sydney which made things really easy when we arrived at the airport in Abu Dhabi. We had a brief look around the duty free section of the airport and then just sat in a café awaiting our long 14 hour flight home. We were exhausted when we got off the plane in Sydney but there was still time enough to pick up a couple of duty free items. We got through Customs quickly and after a brief wait in the domestic Qantas lounge, we were on our way for the quick hop home to Canberra where our own bed awaited.