You're just gonna make me run the gauntlet here, aren't you guys? (Salesman: "Spicey saffron!") Haha, not interested. Thank you, though.
I tend to come up with ideas for new projects and new stories
by just traveling and exploring, and one of my favorite places to explore while I'm on the road is markets
I love markets!
I recently had a layover in Dubai on my way from Europe to Asia
And I thought why not take a couple extra days and explore the markets there and see what I can find.
I'm here in the "Gold Souq" in Dubai, or the gold market. This is one of the largest gold markets in the world.
At any given time there are at least 10 tons of gold here, and 20% of the world's gold
Passes through here at some point or another. It's pretty amazing.
Apparently there's so much gold traded here
that the street sweepers, every day, sweep up enough to send to the refinery to melt down and turn back into usable amounts of gold.
It's amazing. Dubai is known for its opulence - this place is no exception. It's pretty amazing.
It's just shop after shop of jewelry and statues and gold bars and coins.
There are some Chinese tourists here and, predictably, they are all about the gold market.
Chinese love their gold. (To Merchant) Do you speak Chinese?
(Speaking Chinese to Man 1) "No."
Man 2:"Do you know Bakin?"
"Where's Bakin?" Man 2: "Bakin is the capital of China" Man 1: "Beijing"
Ohhh, Beijing? Are you from Beijing?
(Speaking Chinese to Man 1)
You get lots of Chinese here though, yeah? "Yeah, yeah."
Do they buy a lot?
No. Little. Little.
Not too much. Only little things.
Man 1: "Somebody buy small, small items." Small things? Yeah, yeah, yeah. Ok.
He fell down from the display, to here, and I catch him.
And now he works for you!
I didn't quite get it on camera, but I got a nice "Xie xie ni" at the end
which is "thank you" in Chinese, but we got to talking and apparently the gold workshops are just one street over
...in China
Making videos about the electronics markets there... (Man: "yeah") ...and they look like your shop, but not for jewelry - for electronics.
So, you said your customers are generally the jewelry shops. "Yeah, certainly. Manufacturers."
You can buy everything you need to make gold jewelry. "Yeah." Rings. "Yeah, everything: casting machine..." Yeah.
"Buffing machine" Yeah. "3D machine" Yeah.
Threading machine? "yeah." ...or 3D printing? "3D printing machine" Oh, 3D printing machine? "Yeah." For printing what? For printing wax? "No..."
Some kind of resin.
Yeah, okay, yeah? "So, this piece will be print in computer. The printer." Right... "You have casting machine."
Yeah, right. "So you direct castable this piece, so it's very easy and fast."
So you do a 'lost plastic' cast of this. "Yeah."
"The machine [uses] DLP printer." So, light. Using light. "Yeah." Not filaments.
"It uses a projector."
And then, what is the mold? Plaster?
"Yeah, plaster." So you make a plaster cast and then plaster mold
"See this one."
Oh! This is beautiful! Very fine details. "Yeah."
That's really cool!
"This is for 18 karat jewelry."
Why not 24?
"24 is because this is very soft." It's too soft? "Soft." Too soft. Yeah, yeah, yeah. "That's why." So this one is harder. 18 karat is harder. "Yeah."
And better for casting... So this, I would see in the electronics markets in Shenzhen
"Yeah." Why do you use it? "Because this is for plating."
For plating! Ahh...
Okay, for gold plating silver? "Rhodium , rhodium plating. Everything."
Yeah, okay, so you would set up a bath with that. "Yeah. Bath and pen. Both kinds of..."
Oh, you can do pen plating? "Yeah."
You have rollers here, which are for rolling rings?
"For rings, different kinds of things."
Yeah, yeah for rolling out gold... I love all this stuff. (Laughter) This is my favorite thing.
I love machinery.
And here I was thinking the gold markets were gonna be boring. Of course they have tool stores!
Why wouldn't they? That was really cool.
(To salesmen) I'm not interested... I'm not interested...
This is the spice bazaar - "spice souk".
And I am getting barraged by guys who want to pull me into their shop. I don't see that many spices.
I think it's just kind of turned into one of those
general tourist traps as far as I can tell.
Gonna take a few pictures here, but I would say one shop in five is a spice shop.
And the rest is just kind of general tourist crap.
(Shopkeep) "YouTube?" YouTube.
"Can I speak with you?" Sure.
"My name is John." John, nice to meet you. I'm Scotty.
You were telling me what a few of these things are. "This is alum. This is for after shave."
Yeah, right. "When you have cut it will stop the blood." Right. "And this is indigo." Yes. "This is for dyeing."
Yeah, for dying clothes. "Yes, yeah, and this is sulfur, the yellow one. Is good for skin allergies."
Yeah. "When you have some allergy you make into powder,
"Put into oil" Yeah. "You make to massage and the allergy is finished." Got it. And this one is one is the one that smells bad, right?
It doesn't smell bad in this form. A little bit.
"This is roses from Iran, used for tea. "
"And this is turmeric."
Yeah, I know turmeric. It's a spice.
"Turmeric has two kinds." Yeah. "This is for food, what I have. This one is for face." The big one.
This is incense.
That's incense?
"Yeah this is meant for burning." Ahh, okay.
"It is good for bed... like, bed business." Yeah, yeah. Right. "And this is also incense - our big one, the red one." Right. "And this is nutmeg."
Ahh I've never seen nutmeg whole. I've only seen it in, like, a jar, right? "Yeah." Awesome. "I'm finished."
Thank you. "You're welcome." Thank you for your time.
I think I've just about tapped out the markets for the day
And the sun's gone down so it's time to head over to the Burj Khalifa
which is the tallest building in the world, and I'm gonna try out the Dubai subway for the first time.
Gotta figure out where it is first.
Hahaha, I found it. It was literally right in front of me. Here we go.
I figured if there was a gold class, I pretty much had to take that one, so here we go!
I was really hoping for more gold plating but
I guess I'll take it.
The funny thing is that I don't really know how it compares to the rest of the train. All I know is that I got a seat.
So that's kind of nice!
There's no doubt about it: this place is a little strange.
It's a... I dunno... a bit like a Middle Eastern Las Vegas. This is the Dubai Mall.
It has an Apple store, of course, a whole bunch of high-end brands, an aquarium, and somewhere around here is the Burj Khalifa.
But I can't find my way out of the mall yet, so... I'm working on that!
But it's amazing - people from all over the world here, getting their shopping on.
There it is.
The Burj Khalifa. It's the tallest building in the world.
And there is the most amazing crowd of selfie takers and cell phone users standing around the base. There's a giant water fountain here.
It's quite the spectacle. I'm having more fun
looking at the crowd than I am at the building. The building's pretty - the crowd is super entertaining
I just don't know what more I can say about it that hasn't already been said.
No idea if that's in focus.
It's been short, but fun here in Dubai.
I'm off to my next destination. On my way to the airport now.
Stay tuned for the next adventure and hit that subscribe button down below.
I'm Scotty with Strange Parts. I'll see you next time!