Crap Tour Is Really Just A Big Sell

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Did the other tour today, can’t remember what it was called? I was a bit disappointed in it as it appeared to be more a sales pitch to the oldies that made up everyone else on the tour. But I hadn’t been able to get onto a Sundower safari tour where they go 4WDing over the dunes and things, and have a banquet out in the desert with belly dancing and things, so I had to do something.

First stop was the Burj Dubai (‘burj’ means tower in Arabic). The thing is ridiculous. 2 square kilometers, 3000 people working 8 hour shifts means work continues around the clock. Budget is somewhere in the area of US$20 billion. Not only will it be the world’s tallest building, it will also have the world’s largest shopping centre, 2 hotels, another residential ‘village’ based more on a traditional house, parking for 15,000+ cars, etc.

The little hottie tour guide said you wouldn’t have to leave the complex once you arrived…. But why? Makes even less sense than a cruise ship!! That’s one thing I can't get my head around - how is all this building sustainable? Everywhere you look (well not in Deira, the older part, but in Jameria) you see buildings going up, more construction cranes. Huge boom in building but for what? What are these people going to do afterwards?

On the way back from the Al-Arab the taxi driver was complaining about the traffic that was flowing fairly smoothly across 7 lanes. I told him to try Sydney, and he replied that they are doubling the road by putting another level over the top - 14 lanes each way! Every bastard has a car over here - no trains, I’ve seen people lining up at bus stops but never actually seen a public bus - only tour coaches.

Anyway we drove around the construction site a bit (no set path, we just drove around randomly until we couldn’t go any further) then to the exhibition, which was all just a big sell really and pretty boring. Not to mention it pissed me off a fair bit…. “look at this example of what the apartments will look like”, etc. Fuck me, its like getting pay TV to watch infomercials. I was more interested in the cars in parking lot, lots of big BMWs, Mercs, etc.

After this it was pretty much the same thing with the islands they are making in the Gulf - the Palm, Jameria & the World, Jameria. By now I was getting a bit shitty and the tour guide noticed. She just shrugged and giggled to herself as she did at her own jokes when on the bus. I wanted to fuck her stupid but she already was. A blowjob would’ve done.

Next up we had to spend an hour wandering around a stupid souk like we were wanting to buy something. It was fucken expensive and made me wander just how much kick-back Arabian Adventures got from the centre. Pissed me off even more. Then we finally got to what everyone had joined the tour for, the Burj Al-Arab. Outside the front door told the story - its courtesy cars for picking people up from the airport are Rolls and Bentleys. There was a few other cars parked there that I assumed were customers cars - Porchse 911 Turbo, Lamborghini Gallardo, Ferrari F430… seeing these was the highlight of the tour.

The inside was pretty impressive, gold used everywhere even for the mirrors. To the point where I had to turn the flash off as it was being reflected too much. The middle of the building goes right up to the top room floor (24), it’s a huge foyer. I tried to get into the restaurant up the top but the clowns at the desk caught me with one leg over the rope.
Desk Bitch: :

Hello sir, can I help you?

Me: :

Umm, just looking for my friends, I think they were coming in here

Desk Bitch: :

What are their names? I will find out

Me: :

Errrrr….

Desk Bitch: :

You can't get in without a reservation sir

Me: (realizing the game was up) :

Oh they won't be in there then, they didn’t have a reservation

Wandered around the place a bit more, saw a necklace in the shop with price tag of 3.85 million dirham. Then on the way home saw a billboard for a Caprice for 69500. Take into consideration the conversion rate is about AU$1 = 2 dirham, its pretty much half price. For comparison, a Big Mac meal costs 18.

Observation - there are quite a few hot Arab women. Don’t see many women around here and most of them are Asian, but of the Arab ones you see most of them are quite attractive. They must just ship the ugly ones out to Australia I guess. And they all have breasts, even the skinny ones can't get down below a B cup, the average build ones are around a C/D and overweight ones DD and up. Fantastic.

Observation - at the end of music videos they run the credits, with director, makeup, etc.

Observation - no kissing on TV, the closest they get is looking deep into each others eye.

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Either the music is extremely loud in the ‘Arabian nightclub’ downstairs or this building is very thin. Sounds like the fuckers are in the room next door, some steady beat with Arabic chanting over the top. Oh yah this goes until 3am.

Dinner was a joke. Thought I’d try the hotel restaurant and their ‘mixed grill’ - several types of meat done Arabic-style, veges, rice. Took about 50 mins for them to make it and its not like they were busy or anything, it was fairly early and the place was pretty empty. The meat wasn’t too bad (but nothing special) but I had one bean and holy shit I thought it was going to burn my head off, fuck it was hot. And it looked like an ordinary green bean, maybe they had been marinating it in something (and hence the 50 min wait)? Then I jumped on the net then went for a wander around a few streets, amazing the amount of people sitting around at 10pm doing nothing.

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