We spent a couple of days in the very photogenic city of Dubai, so I decided to split up these posts because I just took so many photos!
We had both a driver and a guide for our day tour of Dubai. Our guide was Shah, who was an immigrant from Afghanistan. He explained to us that even though he had been born in UAE, he was not a "local" - which is what they call their citizens. Being born in the UAE does not guarantee citizenship. Citizenship is really only granted to those with family living there for many generations, although you can apply for citizenship if you have lived in the UAE for 30 plus years, have a steady source of employment, you speak Arabic and you're of good character (Shah joked that this is why he would never be granted citizenship!) In fact, marrying a local doesn't even guarantee you citizenship unless you've been married for at least 10 years! Of the entire population of UAE, only about 10% are considered locals or Emiratis.
We aren't even playing around here... our first stop was one of the biggest superlatives in the world, literally. The Burj Khalifa is both the TALLEST building in the world and the TALLEST man-made structure in the world. Guinness has certified BOTH! Superlative, check!
We walked through the Dubai Mall to get to the Burj Khalifa because it sits at the base of the world's tallest building. In the entrance of the Dubai Mall, they have a model of the NEW tallest building in the world that will be built nearby - the Dubai Creek Tower. When completed, it will be 3,045 feet - which is 322 feet TALLER than the Burj Khalifa. Guess I'm gonna have to come back for that superlative!
Meanwhile, the Dubai Mall is the largest mall in the world by total land area (superlative, check!) and it even boasts a huge aquarium. And THAT aquarium is the largest suspended indoor aquarium in the world! (Superlative, check!)
It's kind of hard to capture a good picture of the aquarium from the mall as there is a TON of reflection from the lighted storefronts behind you as you try to take a picture.
The Dubai Mall even has a 155 million year old Diploducus skeleton - the most preserved of it's kind as 80% of the bones are original. He was discovered in 2008 in Wyoming! He currently sits in the Souk area of the mall.
The Dubai Mall even has an Olympic sized ice skating rink inside of it! You can do free skate, take lessons, or even take in an Emirates Hockey League game!
This beautiful (and fake) Japanese maple sits in front of the Human Waterfalls in the Dubai Mall.
The Human Waterfall is really a sight to see. It consists of ceiling-to-floor fiberglass divers riding alongside a straight line waterfall.
The whole thing is about 75 feet high and they're all diving for pearls, which used to be a major source of income for Dubai and all areas along the coast before they discovered offshore oil in the 1960s.
Or maybe in this case, they're diving for little yellow rubber duckies.
Get there at the right time of day, and you can really capture some great photos of the Human Waterfall with it's amazing shadows.
Mom and I love the Human Waterfalls! And air conditioned malls!
The stunning shadows of the pearl divers of Dubai.
"Love Me" is a sculpture by Richard Hudson that is reminiscent of The Bean in Chicago. It sits outside of the Dubai Mall. Please note: me, my mom and Shah in the reflection.
The Burj Khalifa Lake sits in the shadow of the Burj Khalifa. Every evening at 6 pm (and then every half hour until 10 or 11 pm), there is a fountain light show that emerges from the lake. The same group that designed and built the Bellagio fountains in Las Vegas also designed and built these fountains.
Not only is it super tall, it's also super shiny!
Oh my goodness, take me to the top of the Burj Khalifa! (Side note: We did not go to the top. We weren't even offered it, even though I would have paid to go higher. But apparently it's a lot more expensive to go to the highest observation deck at the 148th floor.)
They had a really neat video about the timeline of construction of the Burj Khalifa, in which excavation started in January of 2004. It was completed five years later in January of 2009. Impressive!
If you go to Dubai, make sure you check the weather before you go to the top of the Burj Khalifa. While this wasn't the best day, it was actually the best weather day of all of the days we were in the UAE. On this day, we could see the Burj Khalifa from our hotel (not pictured above.) But we couldn't see it every other day, despite being only 15 miles away. The humidity and smog and sand are just too much sometimes. But on this day, we could see the World Islands!
I probably should have been very clear that I love superlatives. Because we only got to floors 124/125, but there is still an observation deck at floor 148. It's the highest observation deck in the world, and well... I didn't get to go. In the above picture, you can see the Burj al Arab in the distance. Our hotel was between the two Burj buildings. In Arabic, Burj means "Tower."
None the less, the view from the Burj Khalifa is incredible. We happened to be here on a halfway decent day - which is really amazing in and of itself.
In the gift shop area, they have this glass flooring which shows the ground below you and as you walk across it, it starts to crack just to scare you!
Downtown Dubai is a mixed use development that is home to about 13,000 people today. It *only* cost about $20 billion to build (and $1.5 billion of that was the Burj Khalifa!)
The Burj Khalifa isn't just the tallest building in the world and the tallest man-made structure. Oh no! This super building is also the tallest free-standing building in the world, it has the highest number of stories in the world, it has the highest occupied floor in the world, the highest outdoor observation deck in the world (that's the one at floor 148 unfortunately... this one in the photo above at floor 124 *only* ranks 8th in the world), it has the tallest service elevator in the world AND it has the elevator that has to travel the farthest distance in the world! That's a ton of superlatives!
On this day, you could see the Burj al Arab (right of center in the distance) from the Burj Khalifa. Our hotel was on the far left side of the picture (in the distance.)
It was a halfway decent day, but the smog was almost too much to see the Burj al Arab, even though it's only about 10 miles away as the crow flies.
The 30 acre man made lake below the Burj Khalifa boasts a killer fountain system that cost $218 million dollars to build and contains around 6,600 lights for it's evening musical show that shoots water 500 feet into the air!
Is it me or does the Dubai Mall look like something out of Star Wars from this high up?
When we went down in the (very warm) elevator that has to travel the farthest distance in the world (for an elevator), they keep you entertained by showing you what the Burj Khalifa looks like when fireworks are going off at night. It's just displayed on the walls and ceiling of the elevator.
I kind of laughed at this because it's my worst nightmare to clean windows on the Burj Khalifa, but they were probably only about 10 feet off the ground ha ha. For the windows MUCH higher up, there is an $8 million system in place that consists of rigs that move along tracks around the building (and then fold up and tuck neatly into the building when not in use.) They stay in the shade the entire time so that men who are on it can do the window washing without melting. A total of 36 washers on 12 machines STILL take around 3 months to wash the whole building!
The courtyard also gives a good example of an Arish, or a traditional summer home. Here, you could even sleep outside in the summer. It is made of palm branches and fronds. You actually wouldn't live in the Arish in the winter - but instead would move to a tent or a kaimah.
Inside the Arish is small and includes a small living room, bedroom and kitchen.
The Arish also features a wind tower which provides natural ventilation - or as we were told "air conditioning" and that was hilarious since it was still super warm in there. Since hot air rises, the hot air within the Arish would escape through this ventilated tower.
There are several towers within the fort/museum and this one in particular is the oldest part of Al Fahidi Fort that was built in 1787.
I thought this was funny for two reasons - 1, I haven't thought of the term "backwater" in ages. And 2, I like that they spelled the city, "Debai." There's a lot of great information in this museum about how water has been a big influence on the area. The Dubai Creek is dredged and mostly man made - it was dredged in the 1950s due to silting in the center of the creek. This opened up Dubai in terms of economic development as more ships were able to get in from India and East Africa.
Weighing and measuring and selling, above. This man is wearing a ghutra, the traditional white headdress that is held in place by a black agal (there are variations of the spellings of both of these words.) Our guide Shah said that if you see the traditional white ghutra, the person was likely from the UAE, whereas if you saw the red and white checkered ghutra, they were probably from Saudi Arabia.
I made a new friend (a fake camel!) in the Dubai Museum. The camel is still the most important animal in the entire region. Not only was it used for meat, transportation, milk and hair (for household goods), but it has also been used for dowries for marriages. Camels can go without water for two weeks!
There were lots of dioramas in this museum which really made you feel like you were walking through Dubai a hundred years ago or more. And I mean literally. There was even sand inside! They have a really nice section about the "Desert at Night" (hence why our feet look so dark here) that talks about the Bedouin people and how night time is a time for being social. They sit around the camp fires, eating dates and drinking coffee while telling stories and reciting poems. They also invite lost travelers to their parties. In addition, they do a lot of hunting as the animals are out to feed at night since they've been sleeping through much of the hot day.
They have a whole section dedicated to marine life and the impact of the sea on life in this region. It features the bottom of a big dhow on the ceiling so that you think you are under the sea! There are 600 km of shoreline on the Persian Gulf and over 100 km on the Gulf of Oman. Sorry this picture looks a little weird and blurry... it was really dark in there!
Fishing has always been a way of life for those who lived in this region. The Bedouin people (who were nomadic camel herders and fishermen) lived in this area for centuries - mostly in family oriented tents in the desert. However, with the oil boom, the Bedouin people of UAE have mostly moved to Bedouin communities in the cities.
After visiting the Dubai Museum, we walked through the streets of the Al Souk Al Kabeer neighborhood.
In this neighborhood, we stopped by the famous Bur Dubai Souk market.
Here you can buy textiles, lamps, souvenirs, ceramics and perfumes.
I want ALL of these lamps. Like all of them, all in one room, just like this.
Or perhaps I'll take an entire dinnerware pattern of this!!!!!
Our next stop was to a small dock where we boarded an abra (a small boat) that ferries people across Dubai Creek.
Shah bought us some tickets for the abra which takes you across the Dubai Creek without any sides to the boat. No worries. You won't fall in.
You basically just hop on the abra and pray you don't crash into any of the other nearby boats. Which we did but meh... whatever!
And soon it was smooth sailing on the Dubai Creek as we headed for the Deira Old Souk Abra station.
I use the word juxtaposition a lot, but I see it a lot more on this side of the pond than I do in America. Mostly because America is fairly young, and this side of the ocean is very old. But it's funny to see the juxtaposition of these old way of life on the abra boats against the tall modern buildings of Dubai.
I was pretty much born on a boat, so this quick little jaunt across the Dubai Creek was awesome.
You encounter (and wave to) other abras along the way to your stop.
If you see these blue boats along the Dubai Creek, you will notice (based on the flag on the back of the boats) that they are almost exclusively from Iran. Iran and the UAE (or the individual Emirates before that) have been trading for centuries, but pressure has been mounting from the western countries on the UAE to discontinue trade with Iran (and vice versa.) We were told that the Iranians (among others) on the ships could not leave the ships. They were not allowed to get off the boats to do their trades... people who wanted their goods had to come to them.
Our next adventure took us to the Dubai Spice Souk Market. If you want spices, this is definitely the place to come!
Everything was so beautiful and I wanted to buy a little bit of all of it!
We aren't even playing around here... our first stop was one of the biggest superlatives in the world, literally. The Burj Khalifa is both the TALLEST building in the world and the TALLEST man-made structure in the world. Guinness has certified BOTH! Superlative, check!
We walked through the Dubai Mall to get to the Burj Khalifa because it sits at the base of the world's tallest building. In the entrance of the Dubai Mall, they have a model of the NEW tallest building in the world that will be built nearby - the Dubai Creek Tower. When completed, it will be 3,045 feet - which is 322 feet TALLER than the Burj Khalifa. Guess I'm gonna have to come back for that superlative!
Meanwhile, the Dubai Mall is the largest mall in the world by total land area (superlative, check!) and it even boasts a huge aquarium. And THAT aquarium is the largest suspended indoor aquarium in the world! (Superlative, check!)
It's kind of hard to capture a good picture of the aquarium from the mall as there is a TON of reflection from the lighted storefronts behind you as you try to take a picture.
But look at all of those sharks and fishies and sting rays! If I ever come back, I definitely want to come back to visit this place!
This is the Souk area of the mall - and the word Souk means bazaar or marketplace, but generally with an Arabic feel to it.
The Dubai Mall even has a 155 million year old Diploducus skeleton - the most preserved of it's kind as 80% of the bones are original. He was discovered in 2008 in Wyoming! He currently sits in the Souk area of the mall.
The Dubai Mall even has an Olympic sized ice skating rink inside of it! You can do free skate, take lessons, or even take in an Emirates Hockey League game!
This beautiful (and fake) Japanese maple sits in front of the Human Waterfalls in the Dubai Mall.
The Human Waterfall is really a sight to see. It consists of ceiling-to-floor fiberglass divers riding alongside a straight line waterfall.
The whole thing is about 75 feet high and they're all diving for pearls, which used to be a major source of income for Dubai and all areas along the coast before they discovered offshore oil in the 1960s.
Or maybe in this case, they're diving for little yellow rubber duckies.
Get there at the right time of day, and you can really capture some great photos of the Human Waterfall with it's amazing shadows.
Mom and I love the Human Waterfalls! And air conditioned malls!
The stunning shadows of the pearl divers of Dubai.
Just outside of (but pretty much still connected to) the Dubai Mall is the Burj Khalifa. I can't express to you how big this building is. I'm not sure whether it just seems so tall because everything around it is half the size or smaller... but in any case, this building is HUMONGOUS. To put it in perspective, at 2,717 feet, it is 644 feet taller than the next tallest building, the Shanghai Tower. And you know how tall One World Trade Center is in NYC - at 1,776 feet, it's almost 1,000 feet smaller than the Burj Khalifa.
Me and my Mama... getting ready to go to the tallest building in the world! I'm giddy with excitement!
We love superlatives and each other! (Note: Always wear white in the UAE as it's reflective!)
"Love Me" is a sculpture by Richard Hudson that is reminiscent of The Bean in Chicago. It sits outside of the Dubai Mall. Please note: me, my mom and Shah in the reflection.
The Burj Khalifa Lake sits in the shadow of the Burj Khalifa. Every evening at 6 pm (and then every half hour until 10 or 11 pm), there is a fountain light show that emerges from the lake. The same group that designed and built the Bellagio fountains in Las Vegas also designed and built these fountains.
Not only is it super tall, it's also super shiny!
Oh my goodness, take me to the top of the Burj Khalifa! (Side note: We did not go to the top. We weren't even offered it, even though I would have paid to go higher. But apparently it's a lot more expensive to go to the highest observation deck at the 148th floor.)
They had a really neat video about the timeline of construction of the Burj Khalifa, in which excavation started in January of 2004. It was completed five years later in January of 2009. Impressive!
If you go to Dubai, make sure you check the weather before you go to the top of the Burj Khalifa. While this wasn't the best day, it was actually the best weather day of all of the days we were in the UAE. On this day, we could see the Burj Khalifa from our hotel (not pictured above.) But we couldn't see it every other day, despite being only 15 miles away. The humidity and smog and sand are just too much sometimes. But on this day, we could see the World Islands!
I probably should have been very clear that I love superlatives. Because we only got to floors 124/125, but there is still an observation deck at floor 148. It's the highest observation deck in the world, and well... I didn't get to go. In the above picture, you can see the Burj al Arab in the distance. Our hotel was between the two Burj buildings. In Arabic, Burj means "Tower."
None the less, the view from the Burj Khalifa is incredible. We happened to be here on a halfway decent day - which is really amazing in and of itself.
In the gift shop area, they have this glass flooring which shows the ground below you and as you walk across it, it starts to crack just to scare you!
Downtown Dubai is a mixed use development that is home to about 13,000 people today. It *only* cost about $20 billion to build (and $1.5 billion of that was the Burj Khalifa!)
The Burj Khalifa isn't just the tallest building in the world and the tallest man-made structure. Oh no! This super building is also the tallest free-standing building in the world, it has the highest number of stories in the world, it has the highest occupied floor in the world, the highest outdoor observation deck in the world (that's the one at floor 148 unfortunately... this one in the photo above at floor 124 *only* ranks 8th in the world), it has the tallest service elevator in the world AND it has the elevator that has to travel the farthest distance in the world! That's a ton of superlatives!
Surprisingly, I didn't get very dizzy looking down at all of this. It almost seems fake from so high up.
On this day, you could see the Burj al Arab (right of center in the distance) from the Burj Khalifa. Our hotel was on the far left side of the picture (in the distance.)
It was a halfway decent day, but the smog was almost too much to see the Burj al Arab, even though it's only about 10 miles away as the crow flies.
The 30 acre man made lake below the Burj Khalifa boasts a killer fountain system that cost $218 million dollars to build and contains around 6,600 lights for it's evening musical show that shoots water 500 feet into the air!
Is it me or does the Dubai Mall look like something out of Star Wars from this high up?
When we went down in the (very warm) elevator that has to travel the farthest distance in the world (for an elevator), they keep you entertained by showing you what the Burj Khalifa looks like when fireworks are going off at night. It's just displayed on the walls and ceiling of the elevator.
I kind of laughed at this because it's my worst nightmare to clean windows on the Burj Khalifa, but they were probably only about 10 feet off the ground ha ha. For the windows MUCH higher up, there is an $8 million system in place that consists of rigs that move along tracks around the building (and then fold up and tuck neatly into the building when not in use.) They stay in the shade the entire time so that men who are on it can do the window washing without melting. A total of 36 washers on 12 machines STILL take around 3 months to wash the whole building!
Shah met us at the bottom in the Dubai Mall and we made our way to the exit. MAN I wanted to stop here for my favorite cupcakes on the planet! But... moving on...
Our next stop was the Dubai Museum, which is a must see if you would like to become familiar with the history of Dubai and the traditional way of life of the early Dubai Emirate. The outside features a big dhow, or boat. In the early 1900s, the Emirate of Dubai was producing about 50 of these every year.
The Dubai Museum is located in the Al Fahidi Fort, which is the oldest building in all of Dubai - even though it was only built in 1787!
The fort itself is mostly made of sea rocks and gyspum, which includes a lot of coral to strengthen the walls.
There are many dioramas in the Dubai Museum, such as this blacksmith with his assistant making a sword. I always love dioramas, especially creepy looking ones. It does give you a better visual about how life was many years ago.
Al Baggarah was a type of boat that was used for pearling, and a couple of them sit in the courtyard of the Dubai Museum. Oil was only discovered in the mid 1960s off of the coastline - prior to this, pearls were the main money maker in Dubai. Unfortunately, the Great Depression led to a decline in the demand for pearls, but the gold market became a big source of profit for Dubai through the 1960s.
The courtyard also gives a good example of an Arish, or a traditional summer home. Here, you could even sleep outside in the summer. It is made of palm branches and fronds. You actually wouldn't live in the Arish in the winter - but instead would move to a tent or a kaimah.
Inside the Arish is small and includes a small living room, bedroom and kitchen.
The Arish also features a wind tower which provides natural ventilation - or as we were told "air conditioning" and that was hilarious since it was still super warm in there. Since hot air rises, the hot air within the Arish would escape through this ventilated tower.
Examples of abra's (wooden boats) are also in the courtyard.
There are several towers within the fort/museum and this one in particular is the oldest part of Al Fahidi Fort that was built in 1787.
I thought this was funny for two reasons - 1, I haven't thought of the term "backwater" in ages. And 2, I like that they spelled the city, "Debai." There's a lot of great information in this museum about how water has been a big influence on the area. The Dubai Creek is dredged and mostly man made - it was dredged in the 1950s due to silting in the center of the creek. This opened up Dubai in terms of economic development as more ships were able to get in from India and East Africa.
Weighing and measuring and selling, above. This man is wearing a ghutra, the traditional white headdress that is held in place by a black agal (there are variations of the spellings of both of these words.) Our guide Shah said that if you see the traditional white ghutra, the person was likely from the UAE, whereas if you saw the red and white checkered ghutra, they were probably from Saudi Arabia.
I made a new friend (a fake camel!) in the Dubai Museum. The camel is still the most important animal in the entire region. Not only was it used for meat, transportation, milk and hair (for household goods), but it has also been used for dowries for marriages. Camels can go without water for two weeks!
There were lots of dioramas in this museum which really made you feel like you were walking through Dubai a hundred years ago or more. And I mean literally. There was even sand inside! They have a really nice section about the "Desert at Night" (hence why our feet look so dark here) that talks about the Bedouin people and how night time is a time for being social. They sit around the camp fires, eating dates and drinking coffee while telling stories and reciting poems. They also invite lost travelers to their parties. In addition, they do a lot of hunting as the animals are out to feed at night since they've been sleeping through much of the hot day.
They have a whole section dedicated to marine life and the impact of the sea on life in this region. It features the bottom of a big dhow on the ceiling so that you think you are under the sea! There are 600 km of shoreline on the Persian Gulf and over 100 km on the Gulf of Oman. Sorry this picture looks a little weird and blurry... it was really dark in there!
Fishing has always been a way of life for those who lived in this region. The Bedouin people (who were nomadic camel herders and fishermen) lived in this area for centuries - mostly in family oriented tents in the desert. However, with the oil boom, the Bedouin people of UAE have mostly moved to Bedouin communities in the cities.
After visiting the Dubai Museum, we walked through the streets of the Al Souk Al Kabeer neighborhood.
In this neighborhood, we stopped by the famous Bur Dubai Souk market.
Here you can buy textiles, lamps, souvenirs, ceramics and perfumes.
I want ALL of these lamps. Like all of them, all in one room, just like this.
Or perhaps I'll take an entire dinnerware pattern of this!!!!!
Our next stop was to a small dock where we boarded an abra (a small boat) that ferries people across Dubai Creek.
The UAE flag, which stands for strength and courage (red), hope and prosperity (green), white (peace) and black (strong in battles) is featured prominently throughout the city.
Shah bought us some tickets for the abra which takes you across the Dubai Creek without any sides to the boat. No worries. You won't fall in.
You basically just hop on the abra and pray you don't crash into any of the other nearby boats. Which we did but meh... whatever!
And soon it was smooth sailing on the Dubai Creek as we headed for the Deira Old Souk Abra station.
I use the word juxtaposition a lot, but I see it a lot more on this side of the pond than I do in America. Mostly because America is fairly young, and this side of the ocean is very old. But it's funny to see the juxtaposition of these old way of life on the abra boats against the tall modern buildings of Dubai.
I was pretty much born on a boat, so this quick little jaunt across the Dubai Creek was awesome.
You encounter (and wave to) other abras along the way to your stop.
If you see these blue boats along the Dubai Creek, you will notice (based on the flag on the back of the boats) that they are almost exclusively from Iran. Iran and the UAE (or the individual Emirates before that) have been trading for centuries, but pressure has been mounting from the western countries on the UAE to discontinue trade with Iran (and vice versa.) We were told that the Iranians (among others) on the ships could not leave the ships. They were not allowed to get off the boats to do their trades... people who wanted their goods had to come to them.
Our next adventure took us to the Dubai Spice Souk Market. If you want spices, this is definitely the place to come!
Everything was so beautiful and I wanted to buy a little bit of all of it!
I liked the uncrowded parts of the market. Look at those pretty upside down umbrellas on the ceiling!
And THEN we went into the Dubai Gold Souk! This souk was very impressive - even the cats love the sparkly gold.
Shah thought this was very funny and had to point it out to us... a gold bikini! I said, "I wonder how Todd would feel if I purchased this!" Can you even swim in this? Kind of seems like a waste on many levels!
Since this all seems very excessive to us westerners (although really? Aren't we kind of known for excess?) - I asked Shah when someone would wear such extravagant jewelry. He said, "To weddings, mostly!"
The Gold Souk wasn't as crowded and was a nice place to take a break and people watch.
I found the PERFECT Christmas gift for Todd! What? You don't agree?
After we were done with all of the shopping at the Souks, we headed out to grab some lunch. On the way, we passed the Queen Elizabeth II - which is permanently docked in Dubai after it was retired in 2008 and was purchased privately. They made it into a hotel (but you can go on a tour of it even if you aren't staying there.) I'll definitely do this next time!
Then it was finally time for some lunch! We headed over near the downtown Dubai area for a nice buffet lunch.
When we finished lunch to head down to the Burj al Arab, the clouds started to encroach and things were looking dark at the Burj Khalifa.
Seriously, the Burj Khalifa makes everything else look stupid small.
Wait. Could it be? Might it rain soon? But it NEVER rains in Dubai!
Oh yes. It rained in Dubai. The average annual rainfall in Dubai is 4 inches and I'm fairly certain they got at least 1/8 of that on this day. Even Shah was so excited, he was taking video of the rain! He said that most of the drivers in Dubai don't even know how to use their windshield wipers so they have to be extra careful when driving in the rain! They especially don't see a lot of rain in October - average rainfall in this month is 0.4 inches (or 1.1 mm) of rain. The rainiest months are usually February and March where they get about 1-1.5" of rain each of those months, on average.
Despite the rain, we still headed out for a nice view of the Burj al Arab. I was happy to get this because we had only been IN the Burj thus far. We didn't get a chance to see the building from far enough to get some good pictures. Until now!
Our next stop was the Souk Madinat Jumeirah. It was a beautiful mall that they say is a replica of an ancient market.
The term oasis usually means a green space in an otherwise dry, desert area. But the term oasis can also mean a quiet spot in an otherwise chaotic space. The area within the Madinat Jumeirah resort definitely feels like this.
You can still see a few raindrops on the man-made waterways of the Madinat Jumeirah area.
My Mama and I in the pretty Madinat Jumeirah resort, with our favorite Burj al Arab behind us.
Like being an Auburn fan, being a Patriots fan will find you yelling out, "GO PATS" in the most random of places, all around the world. Like in a parking garage in Dubai.
That's some serious street flooding, even though they could not have gotten more than a quarter of an inch of rain.
Our last, and maybe most relaxing spot to visit was the Palm Jumeirah. You know all about this - it's the original, man-made, palm tree-shaped resort area that they built just off the coast of (and attached to) Dubai. It even has the first ever monorail system in the Middle East. Those of us who grew up near Disney World think this is VERY funny.
Before it was fully developed, the Palm Jumeirah looked like this. Now it looks like that... only developed.
I don't know why, but I kind of laugh at Dubai and how they (sometimes) can't seem to do anything original. There are, of course, exceptions. And very GREAT exceptions. The Palm Jumeirah and the expansion of the coastline including the World Islands, along with the Burj Khalifa are the exceptions I'm thinking of. But above, you see the "Atlantis, the Palm" hotel, which is modeled after the Atlantis in the Bahamas. They also have the Downtown Dubai fountain show which mimics the Bellagio fountains in Las Vegas. There's several examples of this in Dubai, which is kind of funny to me.
Shah said we should get up close and put our feet in the water. I'll never balk at putting my feet in warm water. It was delightful, especially since no one was out there because of the "rain."
This is the Royal Atlantis Resort and Residences, which is scheduled to open next year at a cost of $1.4 billion. I'd be surprised if this doesn't go under in the first year. I know there's a lot of money in the world, but not this much. That's pretty much why the World Islands have failed thus far. It's apparently going to partner with it's neighbor, the Atlantis, the Palm. It looks pretty neat though!
WARM water and soft sand. Do we have to leave this moment?
Our long day in Dubai finally ended - and Shah was really one of the best guides I've ever had for any tour ever! I was hoping we would get him again, but we didn't because he was very open to talking about anything and everything. We went back to the hotel and found a new friend in our room - my mom declared this was a monkey and I declared it was an uncooked chicken.
We went up to the spa/roof for happy hour and some snacks and we got our very BEST view of the downtown Dubai area from our hotel.
We never saw the Burj Khalifa like this again (after this evening.) The rain really helped us to see the skyline. Can you BELIEVE how tall that building is? I just can't get over it! I think it's my most favorite superlative ever!
The Burj al Arab also looked so pretty under a whimsical sky.
We were told by Shah today that "NOTHING" was ever made in the UAE. Everything was imported. But I totally found something that was made in the UAE! It was the table where my beer sat all evening at the hotel!
The rains afforded us some gorgeous views of Dubai this evening. The Burj al Arab was all lit up and giving us quite the light show. Dubai really has an interesting, albeit short history. It's such a rich country now, but still one that doesn't really have a middle class. There's the very poor immigrant group who does a huge percentage of the work in Dubai - many who live, for example, in the Sonapur area. These areas are considered labor camps, where people work in harsh conditions for under $200 a month, most of which they send back to their families in Bangladesh, India, Pakistan or China. And then you drive around and see Lamborghini's and Bentley's, all over the place. I'll go back to that word... juxtaposition. It's a place that really runs hot and cold.
Until next time, Dubai! (Oh wait, I'm staying here, so I'll see you all week!)
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