*Balla Presents* DUBAI - PARADISE like none other! **PICS**

[BALALALA]

Hi,

My pictorial threads are BLOCKBUSTERS on other forums and I expect the same here, so enjoy!

From the latest edition of National Geographic - feauturing DUBAI

There once was a sheikh who dreamed big. His realm, on the shores of the Persian Gulf, was a sleepy, sun-scorched village occupied by pearl divers, fishermen, and traders who docked their ramshackle dhows and fishing boats along a narrow creek that snaked through town. But where others saw only a brackish creek, this sheikh, Rashid bin Saeed al Maktoum, saw a highway to the world.

One day in 1959, he borrowed many millions of dollars from his oil-rich neighbor, Kuwait, to dredge the creek until it was wide and deep enough for ships. He built wharves and warehouses and planned for roads and schools and homes. Some thought he was mad, others just mistaken, but Sheikh Rashid believed in the power of new beginnings. Sometimes at dawn, with his young son, Mohammed, by his side, he'd walk the empty waterfront and paint his dream in the air with words and gestures. And it was, in the end, as he said. He built it, and they came.

His son, Sheikh Mohammed bin Rashid al Maktoum, now rules Dubai, and around that creek has built towering dreams of his own, transforming the sunrise vision of his father into a floodlit, air-conditioned, skyscrapered fantasy world of a million people. With its Manhattan-style skyline, world-class port, and colossal, duty-free shopping malls, little Dubai now attracts more tourists than the whole of India, more shipping vessels than Singapore, and more foreign capital than many European countries. The people of 150 nations have moved here to live and work. Dubai has even built man-made islands—some in the shape of palm trees—to accommodate the wealthiest of them. Its economic growth rate, 16 percent, is nearly double that of China. Construction cranes punctuate the skyline like exclamation points.

Dubai is also a rare success story in the Middle East, a region with a history of failure and stagnation. Whether Dubai represents a glitzy anomaly or a model to be copied by other Arab nations is a question worth asking these days, as the Islamic world struggles to cope with modernization. Abdulrahman al Rashid, a Saudi journalist and director of the Al Arabiya news channel, put it this way: "Dubai is putting pressure on the rest of the Arab and Muslim world. People are beginning to ask their governments: If Dubai can do it, why can't we?"

Dubai, it must be said, is like no other place on Earth. This is the world capital of living large; the air practically crackles with a volatile mix of excess and opportunity. It's the kind of place where tennis stars Andre Agassi and Roger Federer play an exhibition match on the rooftop helipad of the opulent Burj al Arab megahotel; where diamond-encrusted cell phones do a brisk business at $10,000 apiece; where millions of people a year fly in just to go shopping.

It was great meeting Emiratis, which is hard to do since they are a tiny minority in their own country. I ended up spending a lot of time with Muslim women, and I appreciated how open they were to me. It was a great opportunity to learn about Islam from a woman's point of view, which we don't get to hear so much about because, in Islam, men are the more public figures. It was exciting to hear about their lives and their choices. They have many more options—at least in the Emirates—than I thought. They can be very traditional, and they can be very modern.

When you're in Dubai, it's so easy to forget you're in the Middle East or the gulf region. There's such a stretch between the Emirati traditional culture and this modern "anything goes" feeling. I kept thinking that I was in California or Texas or Miami or anyplace but where I was. It was challenging to have to keep up, which was important for the story. I didn't want to become visually lazy because I had already seen something somewhere else. Dubai's overnight development was the main point of the story.

I loved being in a place where there is a call to prayer every few hours. It's bustling and noisy in Dubai, and everyone is running around making money and doing business like in New York. Suddenly, this lovely melodic call to prayer wafts through the air. Even if you're not Muslim, there's something very calming and soothing about it, something I found very comforting. I always tried to stop and take a moment to meditate a little. I loved it so much that I even bought tapes of various calls to prayer so I could listen to them at home.

1993


~2006


Dubai is a place like none other on Earth. It is clean, safe, visually aesthetic, serene and surreal - you name it! Cultures from all over the world have mixed together to create the culture of the future! Dubai is almost like a utopia on Earth; where the unimaginable suddenly appears right before your eyes. It is home to the world's first and only 7-star hotel, the Burj Al Arab. It is home to the world's fastest growing and most luxurious commercial airline, Emirates. How about skiing in the desert? The world's tallest building (under construction). Man made islands shaped like palm trees and the world. A project entitled Dubailand, expected to be 3x the size of Manhattan!! A project called Al Bawadi will reform the Las Vegas strip with hotels left and right! So many others I can't even think off the top of my head.

I suggest each capable soul here to take a vacation and experience for yourself what heaven on Earth is like.





Now onto the pics...

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PALM and WORLD ISLANDS






DUBAI MARINA



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Dubai MARINA cont.

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Marina cont.







DUBAILAND (MASSIVE!!)

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Dubailand is divided into six enormous themed areas, referred to as "worlds" and will offer experiences to both children and adults:

1. Attractions and Experience World (will cover approx. 145 million square feet)
2. Sports and Outdoor World (approx. 206m sq. ft)
3. Eco-Tourism World (approx. 806m sq. ft)
4. Downtown (approx. 6m sq. ft)
5. Themed Leisure and Vacation World (approx. 311m sq. ft.)
6. Retail and Entertainment World (approx. 46m sq. ft)

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AL BAWADI

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BURJ DUBAI (World's tallest building under construction expected to be almost twice the size of the current tallest building Taipei 101 )

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picture credits to Brian Mcmorrow

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BURJ AL ARAB

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[superllamapoop]

you should probably go back to the other forums.

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EMIRATES PALACE HOTEL (in Abu Dhabi)

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SURREAL AND HEAVENLY!

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RANDOM

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[Mom's Special Helper]

right on