Shop 'Til You Drop -- Furniture and Household Goods

As I mentioned, shopping seems to be one of the official Abu Dhabi national pastimes.  There are malls everywhere:  Abu Dhabi Mall, Al Wahda Mall, Marina Mall (which, despite being touted as the best mall in Abu Dhabi, doesn't actually have a website), Madinat Zayed Shopping Centre and Gold Souk, Khalidiya Mall, Al Raha Mall, Al Muhairy Centre, and the tiny little Liwa Centre.  

And those are just the MALLS.  I won't even get started on shopping in nearby Dubai.  Hey, that rhymes!

Let me get something straight before I continue:  I'm a bit of an evolutionary mystery because, despite the fact that I'm a woman, I detest shopping.  Don't get me wrong, I like buying things (sometimes), but I don't like having to leave my house to do so and I really don't like paying retail.

But even though shopping is in my Personal Catalogue of Anathema, it's something that will just have to be done once we arrive in our new house that should be on the top of the city's condemned buildlings list villa next month.  We're not bringing much furniture with us, so we'll need sofas and chairs, a dining room set, beds for our room and the guest suites, office furniture for my husband (I can't do without my good old Ethan Allen), bookcases, lighting, curtains, a barbeque, and some portraits of the Crown Prince.

So where to start?

Fortunately, there are plenty of places to go for these and other things, and prices to suit various sizes of pocketbooks (including the Shylockian Austerity Budget and the Ebenezer Scrooge Husbandry Program).  Here's a handy little list:

Furniture

Ikea (yeah, yeah, I know)

Home Centre

Homes r Us (in the Madinat Zayed Shopping Centre)

The One (winner of the Stupidest Website on the Planet Award)

Pan Emirates

Natuzzi (sorry, Dad)

Marlin

Eldiar

Kitchenware

Carrefour

Ikea

The One

Jashanmal

Bed linens

Home Centre

Carrefour

The White Company (new!!)

Zara Home

Curtains and re-upholstering

Shadows

Christmas decorations

Home Centre (nice to know, but I haven't quite nailed down where we're going to find a Christmas tree to put them on...)

Gardening supplies

Ace

Plants

Mina Zayed Plant Souk

Miscellaneous electrical

Carrefour

The Abu Dhabi Co-op

Jashanmal

Plug Ins

and pretty much every shop on Electra Street

I'm not quite sure where we're going to find that portrait of HH, but isn't it a damn good thing for us that shopping ranks second to falconry as the national pastime?