Dubai (UAE)

Today we played tourist. We hired both a driver and a licensed tour guide to help us understand Dubai. We spent a thoroughly enjoyable day in the city, and its outskirts, but instead of detailing our every move - we saw and learned a lot - I'll limit my descriptions to the highlights. Dubai is modern, wealthy, and spotless, much like Singapore, but it comes at a price. Cameras are everywhere and, we learned, punishments range "from high fees to death, and are enforced." Another interesting cultural note is that landscaping is used to engineer pedestrian movement. For example, median strips of boulevards are lined with miles of beautiful plants, all hooked up to efficient drip-system irrigation, and the city is slowly adding high see-through fences along the routes which has the effect of forcing everyone to cross in a crosswalk or be stuck in the middle of the boulevard with no way to get to the other side. Anyway, there's so much more to Dubai than the world's largest shopping mall (yes, it's spectacular and, yes, it really does have ski slopes, waterfalls, and a zoo) and the world's tallest building (yes, again, to "spectacular"). Dubai Creek (actually a river) flows by gold and spice markets and has an efficient water taxi system similar to Baltimore's Inner Harbor. The Heritage Village and Diving Village, similar to Detroit's Greenfield Village, are lifted straight from a different era. The Jumeirah Mosque is spectacular, as is the nearby beach (populated today, a Friday and first day of the weekend, by Westerners wearing Western bathing suits). From the beach the Burj Al Arab (a hotel in the shape of a sail set on a private island) is visible. Just as in Las Vegas, visiting the different hotels yields interesting sights. For example, the Al Qasr has a huge garden in front filled with life size horse statutes - made of 18 karat gold - and the only parking lot I've seen where the Bentleys look cheap by comparison to the other autos. One of the more interesting things we toured was Palm Island, actually a series of man-made islands built in the shape of, yes, a palm tree. The tree trunk had condos and the 16 fronds (separate islands) had private mansions (each with its own private beach) priced around $5 million USD. At the apex of the island stands the Atlantis Hotel with one of the world's largest indoor aquariums. Again, the day was long and there's no need to bore you with more details, but I must add seeing the outside of the palace of His Highness Sheikh Mohammad bin Rashid Al Maktoum, and his brother's palace across the street, was nothing short of amazing (each the size of a city in its own right). But the best part? The traffic circle between the two palaces. The traffic circle - and that was its only function - had huge vases and urns --- made of gold! The urns were surrounded by flowers and plants. And that's what a traffic circle looks like in Dubai.