dubai / UAE

dubai in the cloud:

author (bjoern lauen) + source of this soooo great picture? here

good morning, dubai :-)

what to do in dubai when the connecting flight is 11 hours apart? well, lets go out in the city, by train / monorail is the city only 15 minutes away from the airport  .... OMG, i have seen the rising sun, the empty creek with all these waiting boats, empty bazaar, the modern city, some shopping malls, the highest building on earth (have been up there but didn't buy the offered investment items from the 'gold to go' machine because i hope have already enough ~ well, interesting they sell gold on top on the man made universe and no paper currencies, isn't it?), went to the beach, swam in the persian gulf, ate some arab fast food (chicken kebab wrap), came back to the airport and still had to wait 2 or 3 hours for my emirates flight to munich ...

the old city at the right side of the creek

the new city ~ burj khalifa, 828 meters, the highest building on earth

the beach ~ my favourite place in dubai ;o)

more pictures
well, the two most lasting impressions are first the cleanliness of the city (there were almost everywhere trash cans and people making some special areas clean (airport / shopping malls / toilets / etc.) and second its openness & diversity (the arabs are a small minority if you asked me (there are so many indian / chinese / thai / european people out there, most of them foreign workers i suppose ...)