Friday, August 11, 2006

Of dragons n barbie-wannabes

On Wednesday Ben n I decide to go to Chinatown to look for stuff like rock sugar, barley, "liang teh", etc. We tell the cab driver "Chinatown"... He says, "China, at Battuta". We say "No, China-TOWN, market". He says ok, "China market... We go Hatta road...". Driver then takes us towards Hatta n I flip out my Dubai Street Directory (paid another Dhs.20 for this to exchange the useless Dhs.25 map I bought the other day). And I find that Hatta is way out of Dubai...near Oman! Finally the guy brings us to this place called Dragonmart.

We felt really bad after that cos the cab driver didn't have change when we paid the fare, and while trying to get change from other cab drivers around and with a line of impatient cars behind us honking away like mad (they do that here...just honk if they have to wait even 2 seconds)... The driver finally returned us our change, which Ben counted later to be something like Dhs.120 more than what he was supposed to return us. Poor guy...

So anyway, this Dragonmart place turns out to be a HUGE complex (what's new), not a mall, just a warehouse-like complex with shops run mainly by Chinese nationals selling stuff from toys to industrial machinery, bags to household electrical goods. We finally find a tiny shop selling some Chinese foodstuff. No barley, but we got our rock sugar n liang teh, and I spotted this, which of course made Ben all excited...


But our best find would be what we saw at a shop selling school bags... Nice pretty pink Barbie bag, and then next to Barbie...


It's Fulla! Shops also sell Fulla dolls, with different indoor and outdoor clothes. Outdoor fashion is of course, the trendy abaya with tudung, in chic black, or white.

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