Notorious B.I.G.

“A whole lamb inside.” That’s what a sticker on the eight-burner, stainless steel, Tecnogas gas stove advertised at one store in the Dubai Mall. Presumably, it was making the claim that a whole lamb could fit inside, not that the stove sold with the little fellow already in there. 

Regardless, it’s an example–the worst one, probably–that everything in Dubai is a little bigger. 

In a place that has a website dedicated to the records it holds (www.uaeworldrecords.com), the Dubai Mall is just another feat recognized by the Guinness Book of World Records, which was so tired of making trips to the emirate to document these feats that it opened an office in Dubai Median City in 2012. The mall is the world’s largest by total area, though only a paltry 13th by “gross leasable area,” and is part of the $20 billion Downtown Dubai complex. The mall has 1,200 shops, 22 cinemas, motion simulators developed by Sega, an ice rink, a dinosaur exhibit, an aquarium, and a fountain (outside) that shoots water 500 feet in the air. 

Inside, it’s a true melting pot. Local Emirati men in traditional kandoras (long white robes, also known as a thawb or dishdasha) and keffiyehs (headdress) walk with women in hijabs and burqas, while western expats shops alongside them in shorts and mini-skirts. There are Jews and Christians, Malaysians, Indians and Pakistanis, Europeans and Americans. Except for a greater frequency of Muslim garb, it could be any mall in New York City, really. But with better food courts. 

Another of Dubai’s world records is its transit system, the Dubai Metro, which is the world’s longest fully automated subway line with 47 miles of track. It has two lines, the green and red, the latter of which runs for much of its length down adjacent to Sheikh Zayad Road, the city’s main highway that cuts through Downtown Dubai and, ultimately, leads to Abu Dhabi. 

The Metro stations are fantastically modern, each shaped like a huge golden snail shell, and the trains themselves are without litter or debris. This couldn’t be any subway train in New York City, really.