The Burj Kahlifa is the tallest building and the tallest man made structure in the world.  To visit it, you start from the bottom floor of the largest mall in the world across from the food court.  There are normally long lines waiting to buy the tickets to visit floor 124.  As an alternate, you can buy tickets in advance to either tea or cocktails on the 154th floor.  The cocktail hour was 5 PM which fit our tour schedule, so we paid the big bucks and bought the tickets.  Our tour was late getting back from Sharjah, so we had to hustle to get to the mall on time.  The cab dropped us off at the Fashion Avenue entrance to the mall and we asked several security guards for directions to the At the Top area.  With our prepaid tickets, we skipped the long line and were shown to a waiting room where we were briefed on procedures.

At the appointed time, we were led through a maze of halls and escalators until we finally reached the fastest elevator in the world which took us in under a minute to floor 124.  I was surprised at how little this elevator ride affected my ears.  We then took a second elevator to our destination on floor 154 where we received our welcome drink.  We had the run of floors 152, 153, and 154.  They also had a modest selection of small appetizers on all three floors.  There were places to sit scattered around each floor.

There is a large man made pond behind the mall.  There are tour boats cruising the pond.

Dubai has a modern road system and traffic normally flows smoothly and quickly.  The two towers joined by a pool at the top is reminiscent of a similar building we visited in Singapore.

There are modern tall buildings in all directions.  Emaar is the name of the government construction company which built the buildings with its name on them.

We stayed for the sunset and managed to make a light dinner out of the appetizers.

With the help of more security guards, we then made our way down the elevators and through the mall to the area by the pond where we could view the fountain and light show.  This is essentially at the foot of the Burj Kahlifa so you can look up at it from the ground.

The buildings around the pond.

Every thirty minutes on the quarter hour there is a light show on the face of the Burj.

Every thirty minutes on the half hour, there is a fountain show reminiscent of the Bellagio in Las Vegas.  After the fountain and light show, we made our way to the mall taxi stand with the help of more security guards.  There we had to wait in a 25 minute line for our taxi to the nearby Taj Dubai hotel.

There we were treated to the view of the mosque below our room.