It’s back to school time and we lowly parents need to go and buy the costly uniforms again. Ready to be robbed in broad daylight, we went to Zaks at Uptown Mirdif, a rather sleepy open type mall with nail spas, pet salons, clothing shops and other random stuff. Mirdif is also a community of villas that are fairly cheaper than the ones in new Dubai (Jumeirah area) because of the low flying planes every 3 minutes or so.
There’s this fountain at the square.
There are open cafes around but who lounges outdoors when the temperature is as high as 40C at this time of the year? No one. Uptown Mirdif is particularly a ghost town, of sorts. I just don’t know how it is during the weekends or at night.
It’s a boring place.
We left after we bought the uniforms, straight to the car park. However, something caught our attention. There’s a shop called Khuttab Bookshop and Cafe. A small bookstore, mostly selling Arabic books. We went inside, to seek shade to be honest and to cool off. There was a decent array of Arabic books on display and we start to ask our 10 year old how to read this and that.
Pristine tells me, this reads: “Made in Jumeirah“. I asked around on Twitter if it’s correct and Arabic speakers said yes. I am always amazed and PROUD she can read something I can’t!
The bookstore connects to a cafe and I should have taken photos of the cakes on showcase (they looked amazing)…BUT what caught my attention was the adjacent reading corner. WAIT. Imagine there was something that made me look first instead of the cake? I can’t believe it myself, too.
This.
Wooden flooring, good natural light, charming chairs. A very cozy looking reading nook!
That moment, I just want to grab a book, press the busy life pause button and stay for a while.
Finding Backroads 
That looks like such a relaxing place to curl up with a good book! I used to be a total bookworm when I was a kid. I NEVER went somewhere without one – car trips, appointments, eating lunch, I was reading. Then I sort of lost interest during and after college; I think it was all the reading I had to do for schoolwork and I forgot my love of reading just for fun. Last year I joined the library again and started browsing the shelves, and I’m proud to report I read 37 books last year! Three of those were nonfiction and the rest were fiction. I love to read fantasy, mysteries, and history. This year so far I’ve read 25 books. I read before bed and during breakfast and lunch. I’ve stopped surfing the internet and watching Netflix as much and now I prioritize reading. I really enjoy it – I think it’s a bit more soothing to read a real book than to be staring at a screen for my entertainment. I’m going to try to keep up the habit throughout this year and during next year. 🙂
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Books! They are a lost bunch of friends ever since I came to the UAE. 😦 I just miss those days when I used to grab some book and read a few pages and tuck it under my pillow before I sleep. Hmmm.
Living in Sharjah, we find the Mirdiff City Center to be a very convenient place.
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Cheese and peas what a spot!! It looks so comforting to curl up with a good book and relax, a place where I will get lost in. Always loved reading and still do to this day, even though the ebook wins out a lot these days but I can still curl up in those cozy chairs 🙂
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I absolutely ADORE myself a good bookstore! Honestly, while I do enjoy the ‘big chain’ bookstores, I MUCH prefer myself a nice used hole-in-the-wall type of bookstore; there’s just something more homier about used books. More of a story (pun indeed intended) to tell 😉
That bookstore you guys stumbled upon looks quite lovely! Although I probably wouldn’t know how to read anything they carried. LOL
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