So I went to Dubai recently. not too much to say about it other than that DUBAI IS AWESOME. ...in a very materialistic, capitalist, pro-civ kind of way. But seriously, Wow..its like Disneyland for grownups or something. So much to do its overwhelming. Its like stepping into a foreign, exotic city with about a million things to do.

I didn't spend too much time doing alot of the touristy stuff. I lucked out and got to spend time with some locals and people who were pretty familiar with the city. We spent some time going to local restaurants, shisha joints and clubs all of which whose names I cannot remember...But it was alot of fun.


This is Fares, a guy i met in Kuwait who is here on business from Tokyo. He is half Jordanian and Japanese so we have quite a few things in common, including often feeling really awkward and out of place in Kuwait.

One of the toursity things that i did do was go on a bus tour. The city is really impressive with the way it is being planned and what not. Each area has its own district and the amount of construction taking place in this country is astounding. 2/3rds of the worlds cranes are in Dubai. So literally, everywhere you look there are about a dozen Cranes working around the clock to build the infrastructure for this massive city.

This is a picture of us driving through the main artery of Dubai. Basically a huge highway with skyscrapers erected on either side of it. I imagine this is what New York City must have looked like when it was just beginning; a row or two of huge buildings..and on the other side just a regular looking town.
This is the worlds only seven star hotel. I know i should be able to tell you more about it but i unfortunately missed being able to take the tour. The place is called Burj al Arab or Tower of the Arabs. It has a helicopter landing pad, and is designed in the shape of a sail on a Dhow, an arabic sea faring vessel. Until this month it was the worlds tallest hotel.
This is Jameira Beach. The most impressive thing about this beach was that it was public, people were actually swimming in it with real bathing suits, it was very clean (actually the whole city was pretty clean from what I could tell) and the water also seemed very clean. Not to much of the same can be said about the public beaches in Kuwait.
This picture reminds me of the Matrix. that long concrete thing is the beginning of the subway system being built in Dubai to help cut down on the amount of traffic congestion in the city. at one point it took us about an hour to drive what should have taken us about 15 minutes. Which i hear is actually an improvement on how bad the traffic has been in the past.
I took this next picture of Meshari. I have no idea how this thing works but it is the machine that they use to build the subway system.



When this building is completed it will be the worlds tallest structure, somewhere around 900 meters. I hear that they have slowed down the construction of the building because they want to see how tall the next "super scraper" is going to be in the states so that they can top that but i dont know if its true.





Dubai really is quite a beautiful city but i always wonder what was there before the city and what it takes to make the city. Dubai is such an opulent city but i cant tell how "useful" it is. I hear that about 3 quarters of the city's real estate is unoccupied. So they have all of this action without really doing anything..i think. Of course you can say that about any city but this one seems even more so. It really is like a Disney Land for grownups where I am sure you can do and find just about everything. My step brother Ali explained to me how the money laundering thing works in Dubai. People have dirty money, they invest it in Dubai by lets say building a 40 million dollar building. Then, they sell the building at maybe 30 or 50 million, depending on market and viola! there money has been cleaned...or something like that. I also get the impression there is insane amounts of prostitution and drugs here BUT I also feel like its a pretty safe city..pretty crazy.