PALORDINIA

Shopping for a birthday party is tiresome mission. It is more so when you are shopping for a shirt to wear for the theme party. As if buying gifts isn't hard enough.

So the theme was Hawaii! Basically swim wear, shorts, slippers, and shirts with the maximum number of trees and flowers on them. In a Middle Eastern country, even if it's Dubai, it's hard to find such things in abundance. There was this one shop, tommy-something, in Mall of Emirates who had them, but unless I'm planning to go to Hawaii for a holiday this year, I wasn't going to spend more than 100 Dollars to buy it. Sometimes you wish you were a girl! They are all fit, and they'll show in their bikinis and look sexy. Well, that is not my department.

So, how do we go about this?!

A couple of phone calls, SMS', and BBM's, all lead to one place; KARAMA!! Go to the intersection behind Burjuman, then take right, look for the Filipino shopping center then take right, then pass by the Indian neighborhood, take right, and the from the roundabout head to the Fish Market, then ask people! Of all the people who can give you direction in Dubai, it was an English guy who knew the direction to Ali Baba's cave.

Sounds like Kingdom of Heaven, "Go to where they speak Italian, and then continue till they speak something else."

I have lived in Dubai for 5 years now, and I always knew about Karama, but for some reason it was an undiscovered geography for me. You hear a lot about the things you can find there, and how cheap they are, but you never realize it until you are actually there. It was so weird. It felt like Al Hamadanyya market, Jabal Al Hussein, and Sweifieh all mixed in one.

Salesmen are hunting you at the doorsteps. They speak to you in Arabic, English, Urdu, Hindi, Tagalog, and a combination of all the above. You can find all the "Brands" in one place. It's the only place in Dubai where you can buy a D&G shirt for 20 AED, or an LV bag for 500 AED. CK, Armani, Polo Shirts, Lacoste, etc. It's all there.

Something interesting caught my attention while I was there, the place was swarmed by Europeans. My friend remarked, slyly, that they buy things here and go strut their stuff back in Europe as if it was the real deal.

Eventually, we made our way through the jungle and we found the place we needed, and after a very short round of negotiation we got two Hawaiian shirts for 60 AED. The original price was 70 AED.
In all cases, the party started 20 minutes ago, and I'm heading there now. This better be good. The preparation took the whole day. I already feel like a girl.