I've been in Dubai a week now and the most striking thing about it is how it's traditional and modern, western and middle-eastern, barren and cosmopolitan all at the same time. It's got these mammoth malls with every designer-make you can imagine, right alongside old crumbling markets that sell spices and gold. Sometimes when I'm in the car, we'll pass a herd of camels and a second later a young arab kid will zoom by in his porsche. And unlike other middle-eastern countries, women here have the freedom to dress however they like. Some dress in short skirts, while others are all covered up with black veils. It seems anything goes in this city...you can find whatever you're looking for. In the photo above, notice the stock-exchange ticker running under the big "Dubai-City of Gold" board.
People joke that Dubai's national bird is the crain, like the machine, because there's always some new building under construction here. In fact, as I type, the city's in the process of building what will be the world's tallest skyscraper (it's now 100 floors high, and they're still going higher). In the photo below you can see Dubai's modern skyline in the background, as a lady in a traditional "burkha" waits for an old-school, gondola-like water taxi called an "abra." Many Dubai locals use abras as transportation, even today.
That's the thing about Dubai. Sometimes when I'm sipping coffee at the Starbucks, I'll feel like I'm in the U.S. and then suddenly I'll be reminded that I'm not. For instance, weekdays run different here. They go from Sunday to Thursday, with Friday and Saturday off. Or, I'll see all these ritzy buildings but also at every corner beautiful ancient mosques...
I took this photo when we went for dinner to my parent's friends' house. Imagine a row of houses like you'd find in suburban New Jersey, and literally across the street was this sight! The boat shaped hotel right next to the mosque is a world-famous 7-star hotel called "The Burj"--it's shaped after Dubai's olden-day shipping vessels. You can't enter this hotel unless you're a guest, or you've paid a hefty entry fee, or you've been specially invited by the Sheikh of Dubai. They say the taps are made of solid gold and the walls are papered with pure gold sheets. So odd.
And speaking of odd, I saw this funny window display while out shopping with my mom.
1 comment:
Dubai... the city where it's men in white and women in black, where Thursdays and Fridays are the weekends, where the poor people are imported, and where it's home to the world's largest indoor ski slope and the one and only 7-star hotel. Above all though, Dubai property plays an important role in the world.
Dubai is the city of wonders, this city came from no were to be one of the most important cities in the word. Dubai has many projects that seems unreal, but they made it real.
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