My first impression was the airport. The airport was huge and extremely posh, I am not quite sure where to start, but my favorite aspects were the tall glittery pillars that made you feel like you were in a palace while going through customs; either that OR the life size holograms of people who change from one ethnicity & language to another to direct you to where you are going. The airport was very multicultural and in many respects a microcosm to the rest of Dubai.
The pictures below illustrate how everything after the airport was really posh too!
It turns out that around ~80% of Dubai's population are foreigners on work visas. The government wanted Dubai to become a world leader, so they opened the doors to all the brightest minds in the world and said, set up your businesses here and you can work tax free. This grew Dubai's economy quite quickly. And allowed the government to support its people (the remaining 20%) with free education, socialized medicine and even free housing.
Because 80% of the population has to pay out of pocket for schools, medicine and housing, the profit the government makes off the foreigners is enough to support the locals. The government, which is effectively a monarchy, owns everything.
The laws are very strict in Dubai. With all the foreigners coming in, Dubai needs to make sure they are not attracting a bunch of criminals. So they keep it easy--basically, if you are accused of something, your visa is taken away and you have 24 hours to evacuate the country. This does not leave much time to pack up your belongings or sell your car...which would explain the stories of the parking lot at the airport full of abandoned vehicles (In fact, we saw the lot where repossessed vehicles are sold). If you are accused of something major, then you will go to jail to wait for an indefinite period for your trial. Once your visa has been taken away you will not be allowed to come back to Dubai to work. So people are pretty good most of the time.
You can get accused of anything so you do need to be careful. I wouldn't exactly say the justice system is "fair." My friend (who's house we were staying at) got a speeding ticket in the mail for a part of town she has never been in. Regardless of the fact that she can prove she was at her daughters piano lesson, she had to pay the fine and take the points. Her ticket is no problem compared to other stories we heard while we were there. Like the British couple who got put in jail for 3 months for making-out on a public beach, or the European tourist who got raped and when she turned in her offender, was put in jail for adultery because she was married (she needed 4 male witnesses and the suspect to admit he committed rape in order to win the case). Anyway, It was stories like this that made me freak out when Stan got pulled aside by security (they took his plane ticket, and took him to a different room to pat him down (with no other witnesses)) I was so happy when he joined us back on the flight!
Dubai was amazing while we were there and I am sad I didn't get to see some of the famous mosques nearby. I do think I will be very familiar with the Dubai airport as it is now a routine stop-off from Australia to just about anywhere else in Europe, India, America etc... Anyway, enough about my ramblings- here are some pictures of what we did!
Our first day we went to Atlantis. It's a hotel, built on this little peninsula surrounded by water. Attached is a water park. When you go down the water-slides they go through an aquarium so you can see fish and sharks swimming around you. It was hands down the "poshest" water-park I have every been too and about triple the size of anything I had ever done in the USA. The weird thing was it was really really empty.
I took these two pictures off the Internet, but they do not even come close to doing the place justice.
While at the park we got to spend some time with some dolphins. We got about an hour, playing, petting, dancing and learning about dolphins. The kids loved it and we got a few cool pictures.
After a day in the sun Stan and I went out for dinner at ---?-----. It was great and I was excited to taste authentic food from the middle east. To be honest, I liked how bland everything was, and the hummus, was the best I have ever tasted!
The next day we went out to see the tallest building in the world, the Burj Khalifa, we rode the elevator to the top and looked around. it was amazing, Dubai is in the middle of nothing, just dessert, and all over they are making the worlds "tallest building" biggest aquarium, biggest indoor ski- resort, biggest mall in the world etc...
Here we are at the top
Dying of heat at the top! I was SO hot up here with all the mirrors!
The view from the top....mostly dessert, some roads...but nothing like NYC!
Can't really see them but they are doing a fountain show behind me.
Once at the bottom we walked across the street to look at the local markets.
Some apartments and shops
Everything looks so cool!
Later that evening we went on a desert tour in these crazy SUV's. I should have known something was up when we stopped off at a store to get barf bags before hitting the dunes. I got soooo car sick and I was terrified when the driver would slide down the sand with the car sideways. There was a roll bar sodded into the inside of the car, which made me think the driver was set up for anything.
Finally we got to our final destination which was place where we could camel ride, get henna tattoo's, 4-wheel drive, and eat/ watch belly dancers.
The tents
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I had to ask to take a picture as most Muslims do not take photographs due to their religion. It is up to the individual.
these henna tattoo's don't come off for a couple of weeks.
It was so HOT!
The dancers
This guy did a spinning dance in a glowing skirt for 20 minutes straight. I was dizzy just watching.
Belly Dancers
Mary getting up close and personal with a camel
Our dinner!
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