Please stay tuned....

I've got an update and more pictures from dubai, as well as a lot of awesome pictures from faro portugal cominbg soon. It seems in europe this whole internet thing hasn't yet caught on!!! As soon as I found the on-ramp to the information super highway ill make some posts!


-c
via blackberry

You say dubai, and i say hello

hello hello, i dont know why you say dubai, i say hello!

 

I’ve been in dubai since friday evening. We flew in on Cathay Pacific airlines - “We suck more than the bastard child of southwest and greyhoud bus” is their motto.

the hotel on the other hand is great, its a 5 star joint part of a chain called Rotana.:

 

Its swanky, expensive but most importantly the beds are comfy. real comfy. i’ve slept through the night here more in the last 3 days then the last 3 years… maybe the exhaustion and excessive jetlag helps as well…

 

things have gotten off to a rolling start with work, but we’ve also had more opportunity to actually see some things (from the window of the car as we are driven prison bus style to see customers) like the burj dubai, the worlds tallest building (and its not even done yet):

Holding down the tower at night:

or the worlds first indoor ski slope:

 

the State bird is construction cranes (they have more than anywhere else in the world…)

we’ve gotten to see a poo load of cool buildings and architecture as well. Last night we went to see the Al Arab hotel (the worlds first 7 star hotel, freakin cool):

 

they even have an outdoor tennis court:

 

Some other anonymous cool buildings and stuff we saw:

Ace Hardware (really, look on  the bottom right):

Preparing to Visit Customers:

 

We also drove out on palm jumeirah (jew mare uh). one of the two palm islands, the largest construction project in the world:

here they are viewed from space: (we went to the one on the right)

 

its hard for me to describe the enormity of these. so let me put it into simpler terms: we drove up the "trunk” of the tree to the tip, under the water to the outer ring where there is an Atlantis resort and parked dead and the end. This drive was 20 minutes. TWENTY…. at highway speeds.

 

its big.

 

We even went for a traditionally arabic dinner of grilled meats, hummus etc. oh so tasty. after dinner we enjoyed a traditional tobacco smoking thing called a shisha. Its essentially a water hookah, with coals on top and strongly flavored tobacco (like cherry, grape etc, real tough guy stuff). they even hook you up with a sexy little jacket, this is my impression of the caterpillar from alice in wonderland: (i tried it but i didnt inhale)

action shot:

The Shisha:

And lastly Camel Racing (for clayton):

 

 

So far i’ve really enjoyed the trip to Dubai, its a neat place, and the people are friendly, outgoing, they like Americans, they are very proud of their culture. All in all its really an amazing place to visit. Plus with only 6% of their income coming from Oil you don't feel so dirty coming for a visit and enjoying these amazing spectacles.

We are going on a boat trip around the palm islands this evening, so be sure to check back for lots of pictures from that!

 

word.

Live from the world

 

for those of you not in the know (because im too lazy a friend to tell you) I am fresh at the start of a 22 day world tour for work. We will be visiting customers and dealers all around the world during this period with stops in 3 major ports.

 

A brief itinerary:

This week: Macau China. (with stops in hong kong)

week of the 19th: Dubai UAE (with stops in abu dhabi)

week of feb 2nd: Faro Portugal (in the algarve)

 

Unfortunately there isnt much scenery in macau (imagine las vegas with SO MUCH SMOG that you can’t see a street sign from across the street). I have a few nice indoor shots but nothing worth sharing really. I did get violently ill in the middle of the night last night, so i got that going for me.

 

I thought i’d show a couple pictures of work this time, and save the beauty shots for dubai (you know where there’s actually nice stuff to look at)

here are a couple work shots:

a room full of asians:

All of our gear:

A moment of peace for tiny (thats not his nickname, he’s just very very short):

no rest for the wicked:

 

and lastly whenever we travel between macau (an island) and Hong Kong we have to take a ferry. Its this crazy high speed hydrofoil (there was a special on these things on discovery channel…). You can pay an extra 100 MOPs (about 15 bucks) for “superclass” which nets you a bigger seat, less coughing asians (its a frigging national pastime here) and a delightful meal. breakfast was a hot with dried ketchup on a wierd flat bun, bubble tea gelatin and some sort of cream cheese type stuff with green and brown dots (mmmm green and brown dots). Strangely enough the coffee was excellent.

 

please to enjoy a picture of the delightful meal:

 

That’s all from macau, we head out through hong kong to dubai tomorrow. we get a precious few hours of free time in the morning and then a 9 hour flight direct to dubai.

 

PS here are some maps to find macau and dubai:

macau:

dubai: