Dubai - An Architect's Paradise

Dubai – An architect’s paradise

This blog will be a summary of the last 48-however many hours have lapsed since I departed Perth.

The flight out of Perth

The flight on Emirates to Dubai was pretty good! They do yummy plane food plus they had an awesome collection of movies and TV shows that you could watch on demand which is pretty good. I began to watch Sucker Punch, something I’ve wanted to watch for ages but I gave up  after 15 minutes or so because it’s stupid. Just… really stupid. Full of skinny girls prancing around basically with no explanation why there is a random wise guy giving this chick weapons to fight… random warriors…???

Anywho! I basically slept a lot on the plane and didn’t study any French :p

Arrival in Dubai

I had no dramas picking up my luggage and meeting my hotel transfer guy, and I promptly sat into the driver’s seat of the car by accident hehe. Unfortunately my suitcase busted on the plane! Luckily it was just a 15cm tear along the rim of my suitcase but still… All I could think of when I looked at it was my dad was right and it did break.

Weather-wise; Dubai was not just stinking hot but more bizarrely muggy – with an oppressive wet kind of heat. Outside my hotel my sunglasses literally fogged up because of the heat and moisture! My hotel is situated next to the beach which would explain why.

So I got to my hotel room at about 6:30 am and snoozed for a couple of hours before heading down to the lobby to eat a $30AUD brekky :S (I was soo hungers). The nice man at the restaurant suggested I go to the Dubai mall to buy a new suitcase and so I did.

The fare from my hotel to the Dubai Mall in a taxi was about $13aud and I managed to find an even BETTER suitcase with four wheels that rotated in any direction for about $130. Not bad – obviously not having to buy another stupid suitcase would be better but that’s a pretty good price for what I thought was a good suitcase. I thought my previous suitcase was good but hey…

Anyway time for some impressions of Dubai. First of all – it’s clean and spacious. I think the best way for me to sum it up is like a very upmarket, trendy and self-aware version of poorer Southeast Asia destinations such as Thailand or Bali.

Similarities: everyone drives fast and as if they own the road (i.e., driving in between two lanes, not indicating etc)

Differences: nothing is shabby! All cars are newish and clean, not falling apart.

Similarities: the shape of the signage is similar to that of Southeast Asian countries and some of the roads had this low-built curbs with the black and white painted on the side

Differences: very spacious roads and pathways!! No overcrowding! (Although I was there on a Friday which is like a Sunday to them)

The title of this blog relates to architecture. Seriously this place is just shooting up and up with gorgeous skyscrapers. It’s pretty amazing! My taxi driver must’ve pointed out like 10 hotels as we drove along – all ‘very nice’ and ‘5 star!’. In a way the cityscape resembles what I expect any large city would look like but… desert style – quintessentially Dubai. I was driving along the main freeway with the taxi driver and it struck me how… exciting the city looked. It’s the middle of summer here at the moment – about 43degrees with low-medium visibility because of the sandstorm. I looked ahead at the city and the tall, sleek skyscrapers were all partly shrouded by a yellow sandstorm and frankly it looked so exciting – mysterious and powerful. I am NOT well-educated in the Star Wars universe – but the cityscape reminds me of one of the Star Wars movies I’d seen where they’d be landing at some desert town with the buildings shrouded in yellow-y dirt. Exciting stuff! Partway through my day it really, truly struck me that I was in a part of Arabia. I had flashbacks to Aladdin as I viewed all the square blocky villas where rich people and the royal family lived. It was awesome.

I guess the only other observation I have is that Dubai is a very cosmopolitan place. I’ve heard heaps of different languages in my day here – but where basic English is a necessity for travel-related communication. There must be sooo much money being invested here – buildings and proposed construction sites everywhere.

At ~4pm yesterday I got picked up for my desert safari tour which was pretty good! We drove out of the Dubai metro area for about 45 minutes to the desert sand dunes and our driver took us on some serious 4wding. Thank GOD I took a Kwells tablet, didn’t eat too much beforehand and sat in the front of the car otherwise I would’ve barfed lol. But seriously it was pretty cool, going over all the ridges and dips in the sand – at some points as the driver went over the ridges it felt like the car was about to tip over!! So I’m not sure how long that drive was – about maybe 15-25 minutes? I was feeling SLIGHTLY sick. It’s weird to describe. I am very prone to motion sickness so the erratic swaying of the 4WD was starting to make me feel a bit bleh and my limbs all tingly BUT he was going not too fast – not faster than 2^nd gear generally so it wasn’t like being on a crazy rollercoaster. It was like a very slow rollercoaster with lots of sand :D

Unless you’re from the Pilbara (in WA’s north) you’re probably not really going to know what I’m talking about but some of the sand dunes and tufts of grass around in the desert with jutting rocky mountains reminded me of my home town Tom Price. Tom Price is a town on a mountain surrounded by shitloads of red-dirt mountains and dry-ness. The shape of the landscape in Dubai reminds me of the shape of the landscape in Tom Price – except somewhat more bleached of colour because of all the sand and lack of spindly dried out trees.

The next part of the tour involved driving out to this random desert camp site thing where there was sheesha (I tried liquorice – didn’t realise it was liquorice – I don’t like liquorice but I liked that I could taste it!), henna (when it was my turn the lady was given food by a lil boy and she had to eat it then and there because of Ramadan so I just didn’t bother going back), there was quadbiking (just going around in circles, kinda lame and you had to pay extra) and sandboarding (not very smooth – the sand didn’t let me glide!). We had our dinner there on these low tables where we sat on cushions in the sand and watched a traditional Arabian (I think) dance by this one man. There were meant to be bellydancers but because of Ramadan they didn’t perform.

So that was essentially my day in Dubai. I enjoyed it – but I don’t think I will bother coming back. There are other places in the world to visit and I’m not exactly in the luxury holiday market.

So now I’m looking forward to Paris. My language skills and general conversation will be subpar… I am wondering how I will cope when I get there! But – however – looking forward to it! My biggest concern at the moment is how I will fare with my 27kg suitcase and my heavy-arse backpack :S:S:S:S:S

A bientôt tout le monde         

Jessica (with a French accent!)