This was “The Souq” at The Dubai Mall, for me probably the most interesting part of it for shopping. We were there during the annual Dubai Shopping Festival and ended up buying a lovely (but tiny) Persian carpet at 50 percent off (they said, anyway).

We’ll be spending a long weekend in Qatar, so will keep up as I can. Amazingly enough, the heavy rain in the picture posted yesterday in the Emirates is nothing compared to the downpour in Riyadh today. There is bound to be a lot of flooding in residences, with nobody to help as the embassy is still closed.