May 11th Day 1 – ArabianCourtyard Hotel
After 30 hours straight traveling, anda six hour night sleep, I have just completed my first day out onthe town in Dubai, UAE. It is hard to fully digest all that I haveseen. Most notably, today I had the priveledge of seeing the Burj AlArab – the worlds only seven star hotel, and the Burj Dubai, theworlds tallest building. Although this Emirate has had its problemsfinancially (find me one government who hasn't) It is fair to saythat the stage is set for the tourism industry in Dubai to completelyexplode within the next 5 year. The skyline here is incredible,with an enomorous amount of skyscrapers continuing in theirconstruction. Fleets of migrant workers are bussed into the citiesdaily in order to facilitate the seemingly overnight rise of thisEmirate. The streets are filled with immigrants, I am havingdifficulty deciphering the different languages and nationalities aswe here make our journey through the city. Mostly, Dubai is a mixof Indians, Thai, Indonesian, Iranian, and of course the Emirate, whomake up the smalled percentage of population here in Dubai. Thiswould econompass a number of languages including: Hindi, Farsi,Arabic, and Cantonese. Everyone here speaks mostly fluent English aswell
Most notably, today our group was ableto catch a glimpse of Sheik Rashid in his infamous, White MercedezG-Wagen. As this vehicle approached from behind our bus, I grabbed afriend and began to point and yell, the obnoxious American touristthat I am. As he passed, he gave us a friendly wave, and a friend ofmine was able to snap a picture of him saying hello. In myexcitement I was only able to catch a picture of the back of his car,which as you can see is the number 1. Our guide informed us that itis extermely rare to see the Shiek out and about. Apparently he wascoming from a meeting in the Atlantis, and was on his way to thehelipad at the Burj Al-Arab, no biggie...
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