Dubai
Only in Dubai briefly, as a transit point. However can’t complain about the view from the hotel!
Had a great time at the Dubai Mall which is the world’s largest with 1200 shops. It costs US$20 billion and is the size of 50 soccer fields. It only opened last year. Have lots of photos from the mall which I will blog later,
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Tags: DPF, Dubai, Middle East
November 21st, 2009 at 4:27 pm
Read this:
http://www.independent.co.uk/opinion/commentators/johann-hari/the-dark-side-of-dubai-1664368.html
November 21st, 2009 at 4:47 pm
Dubai is an awful place, hopefully it will one day disappear back into the dunes.
November 21st, 2009 at 4:59 pm
as wreck says, it is awful and interesting at the same time…… Great forward thinking to be prepared for when the oil runs out, if in fact it does….. But sheesh, still will not make the place the 8th wonder of the world…
That mall is huge for sure….
November 21st, 2009 at 5:40 pm
Dubai has hardly any oil, hence it’s plan to become the Singapore of the Middle East. It is in many ways an utterly bizarre place, and treats its imported workers in the way the old SA treated blacks and coloureds.
If you can, try and have dinner at the Dubai Yacht Club. It’s a lovely spot.
November 21st, 2009 at 6:45 pm
Capitalism version of the Soviet meltdown.
What NZ would have been like it we hadnt ‘wasted’ the last 9 years under Labour. The Irish are in much the same pickle
Of course it helps having a rich uncle with neighbour Abu Dhabi
November 21st, 2009 at 9:30 pm
Mike S – let me re word my oil comment, was generalizing re the whole area so to speak….
November 21st, 2009 at 10:55 pm
I bet they are shitting their pants. For fucks sake, there is no oil shortage. There is oil in unlimited amounts in New Zealand but the need for oil is now irrelevant because there are now technologies that make petroleum redundant. And yes I would bet the farm on it. Why do you think oil stays at a stable price? because those that depend on oil as a export are pooing their pants, it only has value because the world is built on a system and technologies that have to utilizing it.
November 22nd, 2009 at 3:12 am
Heh. If only we could rewind back to the economic conditions and balance sheet that Labour started with, and forget what they left us with…
Dubai like Ireland? WTF?
November 22nd, 2009 at 5:53 am
“What NZ would have been like it we hadnt ‘wasted’ the last 9 years under Labour.”
Well, our country would be immensely better off. History will prove that the deadly duo of Clark and Cullen sabotaged the economy and squandered the boom years in a futile exercise to socialise New Zealand even more.
They used our money to advance their wealth redistribution policies, and instilled in the population a greater sense of entitlement.
Labour’s legacy of the last nine years is very damaging, indeed.
November 22nd, 2009 at 9:01 am
Dubai is a horrible place. Souless.
November 23rd, 2009 at 7:00 am
The $20 billion price tag is for the whole Downtown Burj Dubai area, including the Burj Dubai tower, apartment buildings, hotel, infrastructure. The Dubai Mall is large, granted, but even by Dubai standards, $20 billion is a fairly outrageous price tag just for a shopping mall.
The Johann Hari article on Dubai referred to in the first comment was shoddy journalism. Fabricating lines that imply there are tent villages full of expats stranded in the desert with Range Rovers parked outside dilutes the impact of any of the more relevant and real issues facing the UAE. You would have expected better from someone with the reputation Mr Hari has (or had): “All over the city, there are maxed-out expats sleeping secretly in the sand-dunes or the airport or in their cars” is laughably inaccurate.