Tuesday, September 23, 2008

Dubai #1!

The scale of building here truly is awe-inspiring. The entire city appears to be under construction all at once. I kept running into different pockets that on their own looked like the urban core of a major city. The towers shown above are in Dubai Marina, which is a completely new development away from the original downtown area. My hotel is on Sheikh Zayed Road, which is a highway lined with an unbelievable number of cool looking towers. Looming in the distance is the Burj Dubai (Dubai Tower) which is already the world's tallest building and isn't even done yet. The Burj won't reveal its final height until the last minute so other buildings can't scoop it. It makes a pretty good symbol for all of Dubai - obsessed with being #1 (and still under construction).

Dubai's planning a bunch of coming soon #1s including: the world's biggest mall, airport, theme park, manmade island and camel race track (okay not sure if that last one is the biggest but they do have one). And the world's first underwater 5-star hotel. 5-star hotels are like Starbucks over here - they are everywhere. And of course they have the world's only 7-star hotel, the Burj Al-Arab, the famous sail-shaped building. You've gotta wonder if there is any capacity planning going on here or if things are going to end up wildly overbuilt.
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