At the beginning of December I attended a Cisco Learning Partner Meeting in Dubai. It’s a fascinating place, especially given it’s huge evolution during the past 20 years. This is even more disturbing for us Romanians, given where we were 20 years ago (at the beginning of ‘the transition’), and where we are now (not exactly sure where that is, but nobody likes it!)

I went there in a time span that included their 39th national day (Romania’s day is December 1, UAE’s day is December 2). You will understand soon why I mentioned that  🙂

The Dubai series starts today with the nightscapes:

These first photos were all taken during a boat ride on the Dubai Creek . When that finished, we headed straight for Downtown Dubai, home to the world’s tallest building (half a mile height!), and the world’s largest shopping mall (55 hectares):

The mall is the green building to the left. To put things in perspective, the “small” building in the center is the Address Downtown hotel, which is the same height with the Eiffel Tour or the Chrysler Building 😉

If you notice,  the view is similar to the ones you get in airplanes… Mind you, the observatory is only located at the 124th floor, which is only at 3/4 of the habitable height of the building:

What’s funny about this building is that there is nothing close to it to compare it to, so looking at it, one does not comprehend the sheer height. Everything in Dubai is BIG !

If this post caught your attention, I’m glad to announce that there are more posts from this trip coming up, so stay tuned! I suggest you take advantage of the automation tools available and have the new posts sent to you automatically (via RSS or email ). Before leaving, have a look at other beautiful destinations depicted around here .