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Published: July 12th 2008
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No Vacancy?
Tuesday, July 8, 2008 Our Boeing 777-300 arrived promptly at 5:20AM. We were now 12 hours ahead of Pacific Standard Time. We deplaned and made our way quickly through customs and after 10 or so minutes, our ride picked us up. Aziz, our driver, who we thought was names Mohammed, didn’t speak a lick of English. Well, maybe a lick. We saw the Burj Al Arab, a very tall freestanding building built directly in the ocean and opened as the world’s only seven star hotel. Security did not allow us entrance as we didn’t have a reservation for a $100 tea tasting, so we got a good glimpse from the outside and a small post-it from security with the phone number to make a reservation. We were starved and headed to 3 different breakfast joints - all closed. Finally, we went to Jumeriah Hotel and had a nice buffet that overlooked the Burj Al Dubai. We were fairly tired and dozed off for a second on the way to our next site, the Burj Al Dubai. Currently at over 700 meters tall, it is expected to be the tallest building in the world. It
has 160 floors completed, and final completion height is a secret. Around the Burj Al Dubai (Bruj stands for “Tower”), there are 3-five star hotels, shopping, and business parks. It was a sight to see and the building cranes are actually built into the building at the top for completion. Appaerently the race to build to tallest building is raging with several countries currently competing for this title. No doubt the Burj Al Dubai will win this title, at least for a while, stealing it from the CN Tower in Toronto (who currently does have this notoriety, but debatable as there is only one observation deck and note many floors).
Pressing on we saw the Jumeriah Palm , a huge man made island that resembled a palm tree from the air. This is one three in development. Accompanying the palm tree communities are homes, condos, and business parks. The “World”, an assortment of man-made islands that looks like a VERY abstract picture of the world, is also underway near the Burj Al Arab in the middle of the ocean. Finally, we made it to our helicopter adventure at 10:00AM. Our pilots name was Elizabeth and from San Diego. We
took off with two English and one Irish passenger and got a birds eye view of Dubai. A sandstorm had blown in from Iraq the day before so it was a bit hazy.. Cranes and construction littered the skyline and we managed an incredible view of the things we had already seen as well as some other incredible views - gold courses, residences, yachts, construction projects, Flamingos, and the Beverly Hills of Dubai - the Dubai Hills (without hills). It did strike us as odd that the neighborhoods seemed deserted. Elizabeth said there was no vacancy as all the homes had been purchased but not many are inhabited.
Touching down we were sweating from the 30 minute ride. The chopper had air conditioning, but wasn’t strong enough to fight the 110 degree ground temperature. We made our way to Mall of Emirates that is also home to Ski Dubai. Ski Dubai is a building that is the local ski destination built into the mall. The “Mountain”, labeled a snowdrome, is 73,000 square feet and is a winter wonderland inside. We opted not to Ski and had limited time to hang in the 31 degree cooled, fuselage looking and Disneyland
feeling fun park. We continued to the Mall of Emirates, the World’s third largest mall and made a quick stop by McDonalds for some comfort food. While we were at the mall, prayer began a few times although no action in the mall ever ceased, was a first for both of us Finally we met our driver and he took us to the ruler of Dubai’s palace. Unbelievable grounds and an incredible sight. We needed Husam to get in!
Back at the airport we grabbed a bite to eat and boarded our 5PM flight through Sri Lanka to Male. We landed briefly in Columbo and finally landed in Male at 1:30AM. After an exhausting day - probably two - with little sleep, we arrived at our transit hotel only a stone’s throw away from the airport, ordered some Minestrone soup, took a shower, and crashed.
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