Over the years, I have visited many cities, but I've never had the experience I had when recently visiting Dubai. The experience was the unexpected. When you go to London, there is Buckingham Palace, in Paris the Eiffel Tower, and Rome the coliseum. I was totally caught off guard with what I saw and experienced in Dubai.
I've put together a photo montage. I hope it conveys to you the essence of what we saw and felt during our visit.
This city is hot-hot (in July and August) but also quite new and modern. If you walk outside in mid-day for 10 or more minutes, you probably need to take another shower. After being Dubai I will never again complain about the weather in Houston.
Dubai is unquestionably a mid-east desert city. They have carved out a patch of land about and have created a very modern cosmopolitan city. I believe they have 3 things going for them that made this possible: lots of money from oil revenue, the improvements are quite new, and they have lots of cheap labor. We have seen in our own lives that the new cell phones and new TVs built with the latest technology are "better" than the older ones. Examples of their new construction is The Burj Al Arab completed in 1999, Mall of Emirates 2005, The Dubai Mall in 2008, the Metro in 2009, and the Burj Kalifia in 2010. And Dubai is not finished, they still have a tremendous amount of ongoing construction with building going up everywhere.
The city is part of the United Arab Emirates and has a population of around 2 million. Only 17 percent are Arab. Indian's comprise 53%, Pakistan's 13.3%, Bangladeshis 7.5%, Filipino 2.5%, Sri Lankan 1.5% and American 0.3%. There's also 30,000 Somalis and 100,000 British. The city is roughly 25 miles wide by 60 miles long located in the Arabian Desert. Due to the large construction effort in the city there are 4 times the number of males as females. Also a product of the construction is the median age is 27 years old. The summer temperatures are over 100 degrees but in the winter it gets down to the low 70s.
The city's unofficial second language is English. All the signs, including road, are all in dual Arabic and English. We had no problem, everyone we came in contact with spoke English. Also, the American dollar was accepted most everywhere. But we did mostly use the local currency (dirhams)to avoid conversion rate issues. They do not have sales tax so it was nice to know that the price on items is the price you pay instead of having to deal with the added taxes. While a Muslim country, Dubai is religiously tolerant and Christians and others worship freely in the city.
The city is moving away from dependence on oil (which was discovered in 1966) to business and tourism and their major tourist dollars come from shopping, which they have plenty of. Dubai is the shopping capital of the mid-east. The also have a large business structure. Many large multi-national companies have offices in Dubai.