the sky's the limit; Vicki Woods checks out the ubermalls-and uberspenders-in the fast-expanding Mideast capital.(Dubai)

Byline: Vicki Woods

Dubai is the shopping hot spot of the globe. It always had the best souks in the Middle East, but it suddenly turned into mall world. Right now, I am in the Mall of the Emirates, which is the size of Cincinnati and only opened in September. It is therefore Dubai's newest mall (so far), its biggest (so far), and the third largest in the world (so far). So far, so superlative.

Since Dubai is in the desert, I am dressed for daytime temperatures of 80 to 90 degrees (white shirt, crop pants, sandals). I am freezing cold, and _warming my hands on a caffe latte. This is partly because Dubai's air-conditioning attracts its own superlative (world's chilliest). Mostly it's because my nose is pressed against the thick wall of glass that separates Starbucks from the snow-laden ski slope.

Ski Dubai (I know, I know-it sounds like Ski Mississippi) is a world first-a $272 million superluxe add-on to lure the mall's customers: indoor black runs, ski lifts, a quarter pipe for snowboarders, real snow made afresh every night by alpine snow machines. The men riding the cable car wear bathrobe-length hooded ski coats over their cotton dishdashas and Arab headdresses. One guy's forlorn feet are sticking out the bottom in sandals.

Dubai is the hardest city to get a handle on I ever came across. That's because it's still in mid-_explosion. Twenty-five years ago it was a palm-fringed seaport ideally placed to import India's gold and sell it on to the gold-hungry Middle East. Now it's part construction site and part futuristic, sci-fi cityscape. The buildings are the world's tallest, newest, ritziest, edgiest: black glass, steel, concrete, jagged-edged, soaring, one shaped like a scimitar jabbed into the desert. The effect is dizzying. It's Wall Street power meets Las Vegas boom-boom. It's architectural hubris meets town-planning hell (the one road through the city is now an eight-lane freeway, gridlocked from dawn till dinnertime). It's a spiderweb of cranes. ("A third of the world's cranes are right here in Dubai." I heard that 20 times.)

Looming over the whole place is the Burj Dubai ("world's tallest tower," "world's biggest mall," and "world's ritziest skylife apartments"). Well-looms is the wrong word. It isn't built yet, but its footprint (a 500-acre site) looms large. The billboard says history is rising, alongside a mock-up of a slender, silvery, spiral-stepped, needle-topped building. History has risen only five floors so far, but history in Dubai is on fast-forward. The sky residences, ready in 2008, are already being sold. (To whom? I heard Posh and Becks's names more than once.)

There is so much money thundering through this city that I half expect everybody to be dressed in daytime diamonds and haute couture, but-no. Tourists wear mostly shorts and tees. Dubai is a luxe vacation hot spot, as well, the Gulf-lapped beach hotels and spas vying to provide the most pampering, most luxurious, most cosseting experience you can pay for.