This week, my friends, I'm in Dubai - part of the United Arab Emirates (see previous post here).
Today is my second day in the country. I spent most of the day at the Dubai World Game Expo, where I delivered a presentation entitled "The Future of PC Gaming". To be honest, it was mostly a sales pitch for upcoming AMD hardware. However, I did spend some time talking about future game business models and gamer behavior...so there.
I also conducted several press interviews. Mostly with technology websites and magazines. I had one interview with a "gadget" magazine that proved to be quite fun. The interviews went until 7pm. Determined to see something of Dubai, I then headed straight for the tallest building on the Earth - the Burj Khalifa:
Obviously not my picture...
This is the view from the top of the building. Notice how incredibly large that man-made lake is:
To give you a sense of how big this building is, here's a comparison chart with other giant buildings across the globe:
I'm happy to report that I've been to the top of each of these...except the Petronas Towers ; ) They didn't even list the Ming Jao Tower in Shanghai. The Burj Khalifa is about 2,700 ft. tall (828m). There are over 200 floors to the building! The observation deck is only on the 142nd floor ; ) For those afraid of heights, this is not the best place to visit. The elevators are the highest in the world - traveling up to 30 ft/second (10m/second). Your ears will pop really fast ; )
The view from the observation deck is amazing - as you would imagine. I was only able to go at night, so the pictures aren't as impressive as some daylight photos. However, the visibility in Dubai is not always the best. It used to be due to all the construction, but now it's the sand blowing in from the desert. So, I present some of the view from the 142nd floor:
[Having trouble uploading video to Blogger, so I will include links to YouTube]
Going back to that man-made lake for a moment...those giant rings that you see in the middle of the lake are jets for a water fountain. If you've ever been to the Bellagio hotel in Las Vegas, you might have seen the "dancing" fountains that sync to music (you might have also see them at the end of "Ocean's Eleven"). The fountains at Burj Khalifa put those to shame:
Here's a video of the fountains - with musical accompaniment compliments of the one and only Whitney Houston:
[Having trouble uploading video to Blogger, so I will include links to YouTube]
Surreal and beautiful, all at the same time. Did you notice the blinking lights on the Burj? ; )
Adjacent to the Burj Khalifa is the Dubai Mall. Malls are very popular in Dubai. Aside from the money, hungry for brand names and opulence, there is actually a real need to have someplace to go when it's 130 degrees outside ; )
I'm going to do my best to describe this mall - but it seriously defies description. This is reportedly the largest mall in the world. It houses over 1,200 stores (all the women in our family would die to shop here). I was running around and only saw a fraction of all the shops. A quick shot of the interior:
Every time I would turn a corner, something amazing came into view. Here's an example - I was heading towards (surprise) a candy shop. One of the most amazing I've ever seen, including Times Square in New York. Here's a video of the candy shop. Check out what's right next to Candylicious:
[Having trouble uploading video to Blogger, so I will include links to YouTube]
Crazy, right?? Just to prove I was there, I asked someone to take a picture of me in front of the indoor aquarium...
After getting over the shock of the aquarium (by the way - largest indoor aquarium in the world), I had to check out Candylicious. They didn't allow photography in the store, so I used my camera phone ; )
Obviously, there are several of my family members that would probably spend the day in this store. I moved on, and turned another corner, where I ran into this:
[Having trouble uploading video to Blogger, so I will include links to YouTube]
Did you see the size of that video screen?!?! After that shock, I found - surprise - a toy store. I didn't buy anything, because I've been warned by my family that I'm not allowed to purchase any more toys until Christmas. The name of the store is Hamley's - it's my favorite toy store in London:
the toys weren't really different than the London-based Hamley's, with one exception. Of course this store had an entire Ferrari collection for kids:
It seems like the spectacle of this mall would never end. I only had a few minutes until the mall close, so I moved on. I turned another corner and found this at the mall:
3 comments:
Dubai looks like such a nice, quiet, simple place. :) What a fun place to visit!
Did you see those people waving to you when you were doing the video of the aquarium?
Umm, I pretty much never want to go here. Way too hot and way too focused on extravagance and materialism.
I don't know ANYONE who would spend the day at Candylicious!!!! BTW, they don't allow photography so you used your cell phone?????
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