I took this picture a month ago. It’s particularly interesting to me because baseball is not a popular sport in Dubai… it’s particularly American. And the Burj Dubai is so clearly visible in the background. My oldest daughters work the concession stand at the ballpark.
This is a very interesting report on Dubai and it’s visionary… Sheikh Mohammad. I’ve not completed both parts but it’s a great summary of what’s happening here in the city.
The CBS website won’t let me embed the part 2 video. So here’s a link to it:
Burj Dubai Update:
The Burj Dubai reached 600m and 158 floors in early January. That is the tallest and most floors of any building in the world. Here is some interesting info from a recent GulfNews article:
“Cladding work of the tower is now ongoing at an accelerated pace with 58 storeys already wearing the shimmering sheen of the high-performance cladding system,” the statement said.
“The primary materials used – reflective glazing, aluminium and textured stainless steel spandrels and vertical stainless tubular fins – accentuate the tower’s height and slenderness to the eye.”
Burj Dubai is now taller than Taipei 101 (508 metres) in Taiwan and CN Tower (553.33 metres) in Toronto, Canada.
When completed, the tower will have used 330,000 cubic metres of concrete, 39,000 metric tonnes of steel rebar and 142,000 square metres of glass – and 22 million man hours.
More than 5,000 consultants and skilled professionals workers are employed on-site at the tower.
A couple of weeks ago I took my daughters to babysit the child of some church friends. They live in one of the new, super-tall high rises in the Dubai Marina. And their view is directly overlooking Palm Island and the beachfront of the Marina. I snapped some pictures and a video as well. Leaning over the railing to get the best camera angle was a little unnerving. But worth it 
Looking down on the Ocean Beach Hotel
Zooming in on the para-sailer
The tower I was in was on the right
Again, the towers from the beach
Well, it looks like it’s really going to happen. A local tabloid is reporting that the final phase of the Creek Extension project is about to begin (December) and unfortunately it will be run by the Road and Transport Authority (RTA). This department in the government here is not too popular right now and they seem to be hitting new lows by denying significant problems with traffic especially having made promises to clear things up with a new toll system.
Also, you’ll see below the pictures in the paper representing current construction and it’s proposed route. It is not scheduled to be finished for 3 years so I don’t know when or exactly how it will affect life in my neighborhood. But I am sure it will and it won’t be pleasant.
Three major roadways will have bridges built over them to accommodate the path of the waterway. That should be absolute chaos. And it looks like my running track around the park will be cut into pieces as well.
Bummer.
Here are some facts about the extension:
* 10 kilometres of the man-made Creek have been completed at a cost of Dh484 million
* The construction of the final 2.2-km stretch of the Creek extension will begin in December
* The Creek should be completed by November 2010
* The new channel is 100 metres wide on average and 500 metres at its widest point
* The Creek will be able to host yachts up to 60 metres in length
But life is good in spite of this major inconvenience…
I went for a business lunch in the Dubai Marina area last week and I snapped these pictures as I waited for my colleague. The Marina is still growing at an astounding pace.
One thing that struck me this summer in the U.S. was how much more known Dubai is these days as compared with when we moved here 5 years ago. Back then people still didn’t know where the country was or anything about the culture or landscape. Now it’s different largely due to television exposure. Shows and newspaper articles describing the latest construction project or tourist spot have been popping up rapidly over the past couple years and this past year they seem to be everywhere.
As a resident I have mixed feelings about the notoriety. The shows give the impression that I might live in a high priced hotel or hang out at expensive tourist spots regularly. Or they give the impression that Dubai and the UAE are a first world country. It’s not true of course. The country has made enormous strides in the past decade but it’s just all that the marketing makes it out to be. But perhaps I’m just being defensive because I don’t want to be seen as a person who lives in opulent luxury all the time… driving expensive cars, spending half the day at the spa and the other half shopping at upscale stores.
As I reflect on these things it reminds me of how much the media shapes how we think about other places and peoples in the world. And unless you’ve been there yourself it’s difficult to get an idea of what places are like. But it does remind me to be careful and thoughtful as I watch or read popular media. Everything isn’t all that it seems to be when it’s coming through the television.
The Burj Dubai hit the “tallest in the world” mark this summer while we were away. And boy, it sure is looking it’s height now. It easily soars above everything else around it. We can see it from our front door or at least from our front gate. I’ll try to include a personal pic tomorrow or later today.
This report came out about a week ago and the graphic is a fun representation of what Dubai has ‘up it’s sleeve’ in terms of super-tall buildings. The building on the far right is the Burj Dubai which is currently the tower to watch and targeting 169 floors. But the one on the left will tower above it at 180 plus floors. All of these towers will be under construction in the time frame from now until 2015.
Bigger, taller, faster, newer, more unique. That’s the goal in Dubai.
p.s. Getting ready to head back to the US for a little while this summer so my blogging has been sparse. I hope to reward you a little more with more posts in the coming week or so. Stay tuned.
Dubai has been in the U.S. news in the last few days. NBC’s morning show follows their lead morning anchor around the globe asking “Where in the World is Matt Lauer?”. Well, he was in Dubai a day or two ago. Here are lots of interesting videos online at the NBC site. The above shots are screen grabs of the videos.
p.s. It might be best to use Internet Explorer on the videos… I use Firefox for internet surfing and the NBC site doesn’t play well with Firefox (NBC is owned by Microsoft, of course
