I am using my iPhone to post this...
Entering dubai looking out of the airplane I saw a typical middle eastern city outskirts, with a lot of desert and sand. I couldn't even see the ocean or the palm islands because I'm assuming we flew in from the wrong angle or I was on the wrong window. The first thing I noticed at the airport was that everything said emirates. The name didn't extend out of the airport, I did not see emirates much after I left however the monopolistic type dominance is very clear. Jumeriah is everywhere and they said it means its owned by the royal family.
I was impressed by the airport. Parts of it were really pretty. I suppose I am easily impressed but it was very nice and well done. The little details like the walkways or the maps , elevators etc all were noticeably nice (smooth, clean, operating very well). They even had a little artificial creek with real dirt, plants and sprinklers in the airport between the walkways with a spot in the middle to sit and enjoy actual nature.
Once I had a beer with my flight compadre and said my farewell, I quickly headed to the first exit and waited in long lines to get through passport control. It took about an hour to completely leave the airport (you don't need a visa with a US passport). Once outside I got an immediate cab... Lexus with leather seats. I asked "is this more expensive?". Thinking they were taking advantage of a well dressed tourist... He replied only a few dollars... Trusting my intuition off of how he said it I jumped in. We arrived at my hotel 20-30 minutes later and it was indeed barely more expensive than what my friend said it would cost. I had to enter through the back of the hotel because of construction and to find the check in I had to follow sign after sign like going through a maze. Once checked in I used the Internet and called a friend for some prearranged site seeing (this was awesome!). I had bought a bottle of wine as a gift from the airport because I knew it was illegal to buy alcohol anywhere else without a license. You are allowed a personal limit of 4 liters of alcohol.
The site seeing went well we had a water at 360 which had great views of the burj al Arab and jumeriah beach hotel. The burj is the 7 star hotel - some few thousand dollars a night. I booked three nights. Jk. Then we headed off to dinner at "the meat co" - a great spot where we sat outside and enjoyed our food with a beautiful waterfront river way type thing that felt like what I thought Venice would be like. There were very few bugs by the way and it was just so nice and great weather. It felt like a perfect setting - peaceful and elegant. (Also want to make a point to say America had a very very obvious influence on this city. You see huge billboards of American products and celebrities everywhere).
After dinner we headed to Atlantis on the furthest point of the jumeriah palm islands (man made palm tree looking island which can be seen from space). The palm tree does not directly connect to the outer ring surrounding it, you have to go under the water in a normal underwater tunnel.
After that I went to a pub a friend recommended -alone, (my friend had work). It was a great evening. I asked the guy at the entrance for a spot at the bar and he smiled, walked around the whole bar and found a spot next to a couple of ladies and brought me a chair to sit next to them, I think he was trying to set me up. I kept to myself for the most part and watched many men hit on these girls but didn't have any intention on doing it as well. It ended up we were going to the same place anyway and we shared a taxi. The whole crowd was a lot of fun the entire night - everyone was there to have fun. I don't know who was telling the truth and who was making up stories but everyone seemed to be a foreigner. I met people from all over the place - a lot of the people worked for the emirate airline. As the night went on I grew extremely tired, left the scene, went to my room and passed out.
I woke up early and walked downstairs for a cheap massage. Lounged by the pool at the hotel which was just what the doctor ordered... I was again amazed by the construction and skyline in dubai. It's a feast for the eyes. There are probably three main areas of skyscrapers in dubai spread out a good distance apart from each other. Marina, Khalifa, and one other district that I am not familiar with which are all connected by a really nice metro system. I ended up taking this metro system to the Khalifa - the tallest building in the world. To build this building they needed to make a foundation way bigger than the building taking up a lot of acres. They basically made a city around the Khalifa which includes the dubai mall.
The dubai mall was intense. I can't even decompress what I saw there into words ... Typical really nice mall, like the mall of America, but felt like more. Really expensive looking touches everywhere you turn including ice rinks aquariums waterfalls and fountains made from the same people that made the fountains at bellagio in Vegas. And everything was free to roam and look at.
After a nice and cheap lunch of lamb chicken and rice I went to sit outside the tallest building in the world and sat by the fountains which were set to go off at 6pm (it was 430pm). I just sat and looked around. It was really nice. I was told several times this is perfect weather, soon it will be too hot. I thought to myself... "This is people watching..." I saw types of people I don't think I've seen before. There were no dominant races ... Maybe a few more Thai and Arabic but mostly an even mix of every walk of life and every language. The night prior, I remember my friend telling me where they were from by their language. Russia, Germany, brazil, china, India, Iran, Canada, Africa, diverse...
I wanted to keep these posts short, and it looks really lengthy on this small iPhone screen so I'm just going to close and get back to my dinner here at crown plaza. In a couple hours ill take a taxi or metro to the airport and head to the next stop. I hope this gave a good insight to my time in dubai, it was very nice. I knew it was going to be nice but I didn't think it would be as enjoyable and nice as it was, I got lucky with the timing - pleasant surprise.
Update... Shortly after writing this I saw in the news, am watching now, the bombings in Boston...
Entering dubai looking out of the airplane I saw a typical middle eastern city outskirts, with a lot of desert and sand. I couldn't even see the ocean or the palm islands because I'm assuming we flew in from the wrong angle or I was on the wrong window. The first thing I noticed at the airport was that everything said emirates. The name didn't extend out of the airport, I did not see emirates much after I left however the monopolistic type dominance is very clear. Jumeriah is everywhere and they said it means its owned by the royal family.
I was impressed by the airport. Parts of it were really pretty. I suppose I am easily impressed but it was very nice and well done. The little details like the walkways or the maps , elevators etc all were noticeably nice (smooth, clean, operating very well). They even had a little artificial creek with real dirt, plants and sprinklers in the airport between the walkways with a spot in the middle to sit and enjoy actual nature.
Once I had a beer with my flight compadre and said my farewell, I quickly headed to the first exit and waited in long lines to get through passport control. It took about an hour to completely leave the airport (you don't need a visa with a US passport). Once outside I got an immediate cab... Lexus with leather seats. I asked "is this more expensive?". Thinking they were taking advantage of a well dressed tourist... He replied only a few dollars... Trusting my intuition off of how he said it I jumped in. We arrived at my hotel 20-30 minutes later and it was indeed barely more expensive than what my friend said it would cost. I had to enter through the back of the hotel because of construction and to find the check in I had to follow sign after sign like going through a maze. Once checked in I used the Internet and called a friend for some prearranged site seeing (this was awesome!). I had bought a bottle of wine as a gift from the airport because I knew it was illegal to buy alcohol anywhere else without a license. You are allowed a personal limit of 4 liters of alcohol.
The site seeing went well we had a water at 360 which had great views of the burj al Arab and jumeriah beach hotel. The burj is the 7 star hotel - some few thousand dollars a night. I booked three nights. Jk. Then we headed off to dinner at "the meat co" - a great spot where we sat outside and enjoyed our food with a beautiful waterfront river way type thing that felt like what I thought Venice would be like. There were very few bugs by the way and it was just so nice and great weather. It felt like a perfect setting - peaceful and elegant. (Also want to make a point to say America had a very very obvious influence on this city. You see huge billboards of American products and celebrities everywhere).
After dinner we headed to Atlantis on the furthest point of the jumeriah palm islands (man made palm tree looking island which can be seen from space). The palm tree does not directly connect to the outer ring surrounding it, you have to go under the water in a normal underwater tunnel.
After that I went to a pub a friend recommended -alone, (my friend had work). It was a great evening. I asked the guy at the entrance for a spot at the bar and he smiled, walked around the whole bar and found a spot next to a couple of ladies and brought me a chair to sit next to them, I think he was trying to set me up. I kept to myself for the most part and watched many men hit on these girls but didn't have any intention on doing it as well. It ended up we were going to the same place anyway and we shared a taxi. The whole crowd was a lot of fun the entire night - everyone was there to have fun. I don't know who was telling the truth and who was making up stories but everyone seemed to be a foreigner. I met people from all over the place - a lot of the people worked for the emirate airline. As the night went on I grew extremely tired, left the scene, went to my room and passed out.
I woke up early and walked downstairs for a cheap massage. Lounged by the pool at the hotel which was just what the doctor ordered... I was again amazed by the construction and skyline in dubai. It's a feast for the eyes. There are probably three main areas of skyscrapers in dubai spread out a good distance apart from each other. Marina, Khalifa, and one other district that I am not familiar with which are all connected by a really nice metro system. I ended up taking this metro system to the Khalifa - the tallest building in the world. To build this building they needed to make a foundation way bigger than the building taking up a lot of acres. They basically made a city around the Khalifa which includes the dubai mall.
The dubai mall was intense. I can't even decompress what I saw there into words ... Typical really nice mall, like the mall of America, but felt like more. Really expensive looking touches everywhere you turn including ice rinks aquariums waterfalls and fountains made from the same people that made the fountains at bellagio in Vegas. And everything was free to roam and look at.
After a nice and cheap lunch of lamb chicken and rice I went to sit outside the tallest building in the world and sat by the fountains which were set to go off at 6pm (it was 430pm). I just sat and looked around. It was really nice. I was told several times this is perfect weather, soon it will be too hot. I thought to myself... "This is people watching..." I saw types of people I don't think I've seen before. There were no dominant races ... Maybe a few more Thai and Arabic but mostly an even mix of every walk of life and every language. The night prior, I remember my friend telling me where they were from by their language. Russia, Germany, brazil, china, India, Iran, Canada, Africa, diverse...
I wanted to keep these posts short, and it looks really lengthy on this small iPhone screen so I'm just going to close and get back to my dinner here at crown plaza. In a couple hours ill take a taxi or metro to the airport and head to the next stop. I hope this gave a good insight to my time in dubai, it was very nice. I knew it was going to be nice but I didn't think it would be as enjoyable and nice as it was, I got lucky with the timing - pleasant surprise.
Update... Shortly after writing this I saw in the news, am watching now, the bombings in Boston...
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