4th day in Dubai

Today I went looking for Formula One related shops and stores. The best ones I found were at Dubai Mall of course because you can find almost anything there.

At first I found a Ferrari store with all kinds of shirts, caps, pants, miniature cars etc.

I wanted this shirt:

..but the salesman said that they don't have those at all. Weird though that he was wearing one of those shirts.

Then almost next door there was a shop that sold random motor racing stuff. DVD's, VHS-tapes, books, clothes, miniatures etc.

I had been in this shop 2 years earlier so I had a pretty good picture what I could find there.

When I made my previous visit I bought 2 DVD's and a VHS tape. The cashier told me that ”the bigger one is a VHS and not a DVD”. I laughed and told her that it is not a problem. They are cheap as hell!

This time I also bought a cheap VHS-tape. Let's hope that my VCR still works cause it hasn't been in use for a while. I also bought a DVD with an old Grand Prix from the 70's. I'll tell some more later about the stuff I bought when I get home.

But If you ever are at the Dubai Mall go to the top floor and check the map for the Ferrari store and Exoto Tifosi for random motor racing merchandise. Both of the stores are located next to the Sega Republic which is very hard to miss.

On Friday it all begins at last, the Abu Dhabi GP weekend, but not for me yet. I am going there on Saturday and Sunday.

Jay-Z, Muse and Depeche Mode are also performing this weekend at the Yas Marina track which is a nice bonus! Anyone who has a GP-ticket may see the concert for free.

In 2011 Paul McCartney was performing after the Grand Prix but I didn't have time to enjoy the concert. I had to get back to Dubai and it seems that this might just be the case this year as well but we'll see.

The 3rd day in Dubai

In my last post I said that I was planning to visit the Dubai Autodrome in Dubai's Motorcity.

It's a track that hosts an A1 Grand Prix every year. The Autodrome was also going to host winter testings for Formula One in 2014 but at the end Yas Marina got the honours.

I went there yesterday but it was closed and looked kind of spooky if you ask me.

So that plan kind of failed but anyways I took these pictures from the outside:

On the other side of the road I saw another track where people were driving go-karts.

I took several pictures but I can post those some other time when I get back to Europe.

After all of this I was a bit disapointed that I couldn't get inside the Autodrome area. So I jumped in a cab and went to Dubai Mall (the biggest shopping mall in the world).

At the mall I saw a big screen saying that Romain Grosjean is going to be there at 6:00PM.

The time was 6:45. Just my luck! So I couldn't visit the Autodrome and now this..

I continued to walk through the mall and stopped when I saw a small stage. There was a guard all by himself clearly waiting for something to happen. I asked him if there was anything going on and he told me that Lewis Hamilton is coming to the mall in 30 minutes.

It was going to be a short interview and then they had this Blackberry thing where people could send their questions to Lewis with their mobilephones.

Of course I waited the 30 minutes and I was standing almost at the front. Here's a picture:

Lewis also took a couple of pictures of the crowd, so if you see a picture like that on his twitter it is possible that I am in that picture.

I filmed the whole thing with my Canon 600D in FullHD. The footage is quite long so I can't post it right now from the hotel. I will do that later when I get back home and maybe edit it a little as well.

So that was it for today and I'll get back to you tomorrow with new updates from Dubai.