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Dubai Airport appears to have taken opulence to a whole new level. It's the size of a small city - we need to catch a train just to get to the baggage carousels.
It's very hazy here. Our taxi takes us past the Burj Khalifa; at least we think it's the Burj Khalifa; we can just see the top of it through the haze. We've booked to go up it in a couple of days, and if the haze hangs around we'll be lucky to see the ground at the base from the top, let alone anything a bit further away. All the grass here seems to be very green and perfectly maintained, and I'm glad it's not us who has to mow it or pay the water bills to keep it that way. If the number of expensive car dealerships on display is anything to go by, we suspect the locals aren't short of a dollar. There also appears to be no shortage of hospitals, which leaves me wondering if a lot of people in Dubai get sick, and if so why. I think I might be wondering about this a bit too much. There's also no shortage of
Dubai sunset
The four legged structure on the left is the beginnings of The Dubai Eye. construction activity, and cranes dominate the skyline. Mobile phone towers however don't dominate the skyline; they're all carefully disguised as plastic palm trees.
We see lots of signs to 2nd December Street, which grab my attention because 2nd December is my birthday. I must remember to Google why 2nd December is significant in Dubai, although I suspect it probably doesn't have a lot to do with yours truly.
It seems to be taking us a long time to get to the hotel. We drive along the waterfront for several kilometres, then do a U-turn and drive back along the same waterfront again to where we started. We then drive along a few more kilometres of a different bit of waterfront, and then do another U-turn and end up back where we started yet again. We go on to repeat this same exercise twice more. I think it might be our driver's first day on the job. He's on his phone most of the time, and we suspect he's probably trying to get directions. He clearly has no idea where he's going. I could understand this if we were staying at some small obscure hotel that no one's ever heard of, but we're booked at the Hilton. I'm glad we're not in a hurry, and the upside is that we're getting a lot of free sightseeing.
We feel like zombies when we do finally reach the hotel, and we both fall asleep, which I suspect is exactly what we're not supposed to do if we want to avoid the dreaded jet lag. We wake up as the sun is about to go down, and it looks stunning through the haze. We decide to go for a walk along the beach. It's still about 35 degrees and ridiculously humid. I dip my toes in the water to try to cool down a bit, and get a rude shock. We don't run our spa as hot as this; it must be somewhere in the high 30s. There are lots of people swimming, although we're not too sure why. It certainly isn't to cool down. I suspect you could go fishing here and your catch would come out pre-cooked.
I Google "2nd December in Dubai". It seems that it's a public holiday for the United Arab Emirates National Day, and perhaps unsurprisingly doesn't have a lot to do with my birthday.
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