Monday, January 28th - Dubai

Today we drove from Abu Dhabi to Dubai...the second wealthiest of the seven United Arab Emirates. Each Emirate is ruled by an Emir. They are all related somehow. You may know Dubai from the Burj Al Arab Hotel...seven stars, shaped like a sail. Also, from Palm Island as mentioned before.

Again, this country should be on another planet. Dubai and Abu Dhabi (both are cities in Emirates of the same name) compete with each other for the biggest and best of everything. Dubai currently has the world's tallest building, but is building another at a rate of a floor a week. No one knows for sure how tall it wil be....the top floor will be such that they can add to it to keep the record. Dubai is also home to the largest mall in the middle east.

So. We are in the Mall of the Emirates, minding our own business, watching the skiers at the 400m indoor ski hill when we heard this shreiking and saw this muslim veiled woman running after this Arab guy in the traditional dress. He -was going full steam, lifting his robe to get better speed. Of course, events such as this are rare so the entire mall is running after to see what is going on (similar to cars following fire trucks on PEI). We thought it was a purse snatching, but of course that rarely happens here so it wasn't that. Our local guide said the man was probably her husband and he may have just divorced her on the spot. If a husband says it 3 times it is done. Well she wasn't too impressed and high-tailed it after him..shreiking at the top of her lungs............meanwhile, she has left a toddler and baby in a stroller behind. All the locals don't seem to be too concerned or have left in pursuit to see what was going on. None of the locals who are left seem to be too concerned. Well, I can't have this! So, I go over and say in the best Arabic I can OK, No Problem.

Eventually security come and get the kids and there is still no sign of the wife....well, ex-wife, perhaps.

We then visited the showroom of the aforementioned Palm Island. Wait till you see the brochures! We also visited the construction site. So, since the guys from Abu Dhabi are building this Island to be bigger and better than Palm Island, the guys from Dubai are not going to let this go by so they are now building this place called Atlantis with under water villas with tropical fish outside your living room 'window'. Then there is a developement called "the World" which is a whole bunch of Islands that all come together to look like the globe. Rod Stewart bought the UK Island. The whole thing is ridiculous.

Oman will be a bit of relief to go more 'rural' and reasonable.

Dubai architecture

The world-famous, Burj Al Arab Hotel. Burj is arabic for tower.
The Burj Dubai. Still under construction, already the tallest building in the world.
Local gentleman in Dubai