Desert Pundit

Skiing in Dubai!

Defying geography, upholding gravity, if not good taste! That sums up my repeated visits to Ski Dubai indoor skiing arena.

First on the place, all jokes aside, the place is fantastic, even with the misfortune of being attached to a shopping mall. The environment is as true to skiing environment as can be created indoors. I have been to an indoor skiing slope in Tokyo, and this looked and felt better.

On coldness: The place was a genuine -4 C cold, I felt it in my bones, coming from the pleasant 28 C outside is quite a shock. The snow looks and feels absolutely normal, and I could not discern any difference while skiing on it.

While I practiced skiing for two seasons while in Japan, the last time I did that was in Feb. 1997, quite a long time ago. While I was at best considered intermediate skier, while I dabbled on visits to Europe and the states, I never skied purposely after Japan. In the spirit of starting over, I took 2 skiing group lessons (beginner and Level 1) with a friend of mine. I am glad I did, because my form was horrific, I was always a kamikaze skier, but now you can add bulky to that.

It was fun to have the lessons again, and to be the best in class for a while, what was interesting, is the mix of people taking the lessons, especially interesting was the UAE local women, who looked normal in skiing attire, then transformed into national dress after the lesson, quite a transformation.

posted by Desert Pundit @ 6:21 AM