Disneyworld + Las Vegas + Rodeo Drive = Dubai

Seriously---it’s no so much a city than it is a shopping theme park. Close to something like 50 malls, I think Ryan learned. And our awesome local client contact Farhan mentioned this afternoon that it’s coming to the end of the monthlong Dubai Shopping Festival. About the festival (from the world wide surfnet interwebby wire thing that Al Gore invented):

“Dubai is trying hard to rival Hong Kong and Singapore as a shop-til-you-drop destination. They've made shopping largely tax free and allowed merchants to import products from other countries with very few duties or tariffs. The result is that everything from gold chains to Ipods, Gucci purses to Persian rugs can be found in the malls and suoqs of Dubai at rock bottom prices. Whether you're looking for a new Ferrari or a new fly rod, chances are good that it's cheaper in Dubai.”

Anyway, Ryan got out and experienced some of this while I toiled on an edit in my hotel room for the day. I’m hoping he’ll do a guest-blog on his experiences today…his photos were amazing; from the older local men sitting on the sidewalk fixing their shoes to the interior and exterior pics of Ski Dubai, the world’s largest indoor ski resort (400 meter ski runs, 6000 tons of snow, housed within the Mall of the Emirates), to the Burj Al Arab hotel—the one that suggests a 300+ meter tall version of a dhow (local sailboat), and more.

Speaking of crazy buildings and the building frenzy here, a factoid from Ryan: 17% of the world's cranes are in this emirate, which is all of 1.6 million people contained in an area a bit more than half the size of Greater Chicago.

We shot some good interviews early Saturday evening, then hit Al Tannour, a nice Lebanese restaurant in our hotel, where there’s a woman seated over a sajj making lebanese bread for our meals. We had the traditional meal, which was like 20 courses of cold and hot foods; foods with which Ryan and I are both familiar, but amazingly fresh and tasty versions…like, someone’s grandma is back there keeping an eye out to make sure those cooking it keep it real. A band was onstage getting busy with somewhat traditional Lebanese music—Mahmoud Ray Vaughn on lead guitar—then the bellydancer materialized and began doing here thing, and our food got cold (go figure!). This woman was amazing. Even from our table we could see that she had unreal tummy muscle-flexing abilities. At some point an important looking, traditionally-dressed older man (in his Dishdashah and shumagg...oh, just go and google it!) cruised in and hunkered down in the back with a big hookah and got an eyeful of the dancer. Meanwhile Ryan and I, we think, unintentionally insulted the restaurant by eating maybe half of the food we had been presented. I tried to explain that, though it was all excellent, it was much more than we had anticipated, and I think (I hope) by the end the waiter wasn’t gnashing his teeth behind that Here’s Your Check smile.

Now it’s midnight and I’m back in my room backing up the interview footage while Ryan’s out capturing shots of buildings flooded with colored lights in honor of the Shopping Festival.

Tomorrow, Sunday, is the official start of the work week here, so we’ll be off to the Burj Dubai to do a customer interview and hopefully to go up to the top of the building and get some footage. If the Burj Dubai sounds familiar it’s because it’s the tallest building in the world (currently at just over 1900 feet, with 159 floors completed—that’s already over 1/3 of a mile, and they ain’t done yet!; the express lifts to the top will go 40 mph. I call it "vroom with a view").