We went to the Global Village last week and my wife bought an unusually large-sized robin from the China pavilion.

It now sits on our living room table like an overweight early bird that has a huge craving for tasty worms that it cannot resist.

Due to our yearly visits to the Global Village, we have an eclectic mix of stuff from around the world in our home and to a casual guest it seems like we are some sort of eccentric travellers.

There is a cute, plump, wooden hippopotamus that we picked up from the South Africa stall and have placed on the home theatre speaker. We offer nuts to visitors from a pretty, soap stone nut dish with giraffes painted on it.

Of course, my wife had to pick up a Tunisian wooden fridge magnet, after bargaining for what seemed like hours, since she has a fascination for fridge magnets. This one has the Hand of Fatima painted on it. I looked up what the Hand symbolises and found that it was a talisman, meant to be hung on the threshold of homes as protection to those who dwell inside against negative influences. The hand, or hamsa in Arabic, is the symbol of protection not only in Muslim but also in many other cultures. We also have a so-called Buddhist Singing Bowl that you strike on before and after meditation sessions. The Nepalese trader gave us an interesting insight into how these bowls are used in the monasteries and homes throughout the Himalayas.

You strike the bowl with a wooden stick and rub the outside rim in a circle and the bowl gives off a hypnotic, humming sound. These bowls are now also found in spas to help you heal from stress.

Actually, we do not need a meditation singing bowl as each one of us has his or her own meditation screen that we stare at for hours. Every evening we sit in the living room with these screens and plug ourselves into them.

We do not buy these screens from the Global Village, but from an American company called Apple. It is said the name of the company denotes the forbidden fruit that grows on the tree of knowledge, and evil.

I wanted to pick up a pair of imposing, stick-thin, tall, Masai couple, to place at our flat entrance, but my wife nixed the idea and she bought a huge African wooden mask instead for one of the walls in our home.

Keep getting lost

The concept of an open-air shopping experience such as the Global Village is interesting, but over the years, we have noticed that though new pavilions open (there are 37 pavilions today), they mostly offer the same things: Discounted perfumes or junky stuff that are found in all other stalls.

Like the last time we had been to the Global Village, I got lost again. For those of you who keep getting lost, take exit 37 off Shaikh Mohammad Bin Zayed Road, that is near Arabian Ranches.

There should also be proper signs to the Village. We followed a sign on Shaikh Zayed Road and after that there was nothing, so I took a turn that brought me into the heart of Dubai.

There is also need to be more interesting handicrafts on sale. It was reported that I could find Canadian handicrafts made by the First Nations ethnic groups. I was looking for a Dream Catcher, a magical web that filters out the bad dreams and allows only good thoughts to enter our minds, but failed to find it.

My wife was also disappointed with the food stalls as the haleem she was looking forward to came looking very much like a lentil dish without the ground meat and heavily spiced with red chillies, killing all the taste.