The indoor ski area is in the Mall of the Emirates, and features a 400m ski slope, sledding, snowball/snowman area, snowboarding, etc. The building in the middle is a coffee/cocoa shop. The place was absolutely packed, I didn't get a pic of the mass crowd that was spectating the first time I went by.
They are building another indoor ski area that will feature a 1200m ski run with 4 difficulties - up to single black diamond(!). That ski area will be completely detached from anything except, perhaps, hotels, and such will be a little more dedicated to winter sports.
Dubai is building so many towers that it has caused a regional - and perhaps even hemispherical - shortage of cement. Builders are importing cement from as far as South Africa to keep construction going. The downside is that many of the buildings wouldn't meet code in the US or Europe, so I'm not entirely sure I'd want to live in one. They also have something like 40% of all the cranes in the world.
What's scary is that while Dubai has a lot of rich people, Abu Dhabi (the capital of the UAE) dwarfs it. Abu Dhabi is about to go gang-busters in growth, and hopefully they will take the Dubai lessons learned and make an even nicer city - particularly related to traffic and design.
London is a world city, at first blush it's no different from another other such city - NYC, Paris, Frankfurt, whathaveyou. It's when you take the time to look at it closely that you see the personality. I'll post my pictures from Bath, UK from back in '03 and you can see what the *real* UK is like. I think that will help you realize just how different the UK really is.
I'm not sure what the spiralling building is, I was/am intending to find out but I suspect it's just one of the many architectural wonders you find in modern cities - and is simply an office building.
Frankly, I had the same reaction to Nigeria at first as you, dholly. I've been to the MidEast and Europe, at first glance Nigeria seemed very similar. It's when you immerse yourself that the complete foreignness gets you. I am still reelling from the cultural differences you find in Nigeria to the rest of the world. Take the most foriegn place you've been, and multiply it by 10 - that's Africa.
Nigeria is a former UK colony, and you can see the British influence - especially if you look closely and compare it to other colonies. But, the local culture still comes through and completely blindsides you if you're not prepared. You could replace the people with MidEast-descent and it would look like Oman or Jordan.
I laughed when I saw the Santa postings in Dubai - talk about an interesting juxtaposition. I'm in an Islamic country with strict - if the most liberal in the region - islamic rules, and yet Santa will be in every mall in Dubai this season. Dubai has a ratio of probably 3-1 or 4-1 expat to local/Emirati, and Dubai (and the UAE as a whole) prides itself in being very hospitable and friendly to people of all types, so in the end it's not much of a shock.
So far as the plane pic, that's a Swiss Air flight I could see out the window of my American flight. This wasn't taken over the MidEast, it was actually over the North Atlantic about 300 miles off the Canadian Labrador coast headed westbound. Aircraft can get within 1000 vertical and 1000 lateral feet of each other over the Atlantic as they generally don't cross each other's path. When you get over land the distances are increased due to the quantity of cross traffic. Regardless, this is a common occurrence, but I still thought it was cool.
Glad everyone is enjoying them!
Kal.
Pictures are online!
