When a visitor arrives in the UAE, you pretty much have to take that person to a Dubai mall. Or two. Dubai is about shopping and malls even more than it is about top-end hotels and tall buildings.

Dubai’s motto: “I shop, therefore I am.”

The plan was to go to one mall, but Dubai and malls being concepts inextricably entwined, we ended up at two.

Generally, I would rather go to the office than shop. I’m odd like that.

The day began with the drive from Abu Dhabi to the Ibn Battuta Mall near the southern edge of Dubai, not because we had the slightest interest in the Ibn Battuta Mall, but because we figured we could park there and take the Dubai Metro (which is, in fact, impressive) deeper into the city — avoiding the gridlock and nightmarish road grid that also is quintessentially Dubai.

So, the run across a four-lane street (no stop lights, no stop sign; no, really) to get to the Metro station, then the 10-minute ride to Mall of the Emirates.

We had two fairly good reasons for Mall of the Emirates: 1) that’s where the famous indoor ski slope is located and 2) it also is the location of the only Crate and Barrel in the UAE.

So, it’s just a huge place. You wander around. You look at stuff. You head for the ski slope, which really is fairly amazing. Anyone can tumble down the 250-foot decline, if he/she is willing to pay the fairly steep price for equipment.

For the rest of us, looking through the windows at the slope and the two-person chair taking people up to the top of the piste, and the final few yards of the sled run … is exotic enough.

Next, the stop at Crate and Barrel, where a particular pot was coveted but it was heavy, and we had to acknowledge it would be a curse to carry around the rest of the day.

Back to the Metro, and onward to the Burj Khalifa stop. And presumably everyone in the country who is not me already knows that the Burj Khalifa stop is also the Dubai Mall stop. To me, it seemed like a sort of bait-and-switch. “Sure, this the nearest stop to the Burj, but you have to trek through Dubai Mall to get there.”

First is the mile walk, or so it seems, most of it over moving sidewalks, as the “heading for Burj Khalifa” concept increasingly becomes apparent as the “doomed to Dubai Mall” walk.

Dubai Mall makes many claims, including that of being the world’s biggest mall (in terms of area), having 1,200 retail outlets (though no Crate and Barrel), having more “visitor arrivals” in a year (65 million in 2012) than all the amusement parks in the world and also containing the world’s largest acrylic panel (holding in the water for the big aquarium; see photo, above) and the world’s biggest candy store (Candylicious).

So, a non-shopper faces a long slog through this enormous sprawl just to get to the back end, where you can walk outside and see the Burj Khalifa, the world’s tallest building.

We did not actually enter the Burf Khalifa, because (rookie mistake) we had not purchased tickets a week ahead of time, and the elevator going up to the observation platform on the 124th floor was sold out. (And would have cost more than $100 per person. And not all of us were all that keen to make that trip into low orbit, anyway.) So we gaped at it from 500 yards away, then went in and stared at the aquarium (lots of fish packed in there, and a few divers, and it isn’t clear why the sharks don’t go after them), and hung around for the 6 p.m. “water show” in the large pond between Dubai Mall and the Burj … and talk about a letdown, the show lasted three minutes. (Bellagio, it is not.)

Then came the slog back to the Metro stop, and by now we were in accord that hauling around a pot for the previous three hours would have been unbearable. Once we were heading back out of town, a sense of exhaustion set in, barking dogs could be felt, and general plans for having dinner at Jumeirah Beach Walk evaporated, and we rode on to Ibn Battuta for the drive back, pretty much broken by the exertion. Imagine if we had done any real shopping.

So, total number of purchases: Two. A small box of peanut butter M&Ms from Candylicious and three cups of ice cream while waiting for the water show.

But in a country with limited entertainment options, especially during the summer months, malls themselves become what most people do for fun. (Return to link at the top of the post.) It is a bit perverse, certainly.

But if you come to the UAE, you have to go to the malls. And our visitor has now been there and done that, and seen the two most famous, at least at this moment in history.