Emirates, voted as the best Entertainment system in the air by: http://www.worldairlineawards.com/Awards-2006/IFE.htm 

Winner, on Shutter Inc. Podcast

I was so thrilled today to hear that as was one of the winners of the competition on one of my favorite Podcast shows: Shutter Inc. Listen to episode 51 at around 12:50sec. The URL for the podcast is: http://www.audio2u.com/shuttersinc.htmYou can also on Yahoo Podcast at: http://podcasts.yahoo.com/series?s=1709c31069499cc2b8af17da88d6a3df or go to the XML directly at: http://www.audio2u.com/xml/si.xml

And now they are building the Hydropolis - Dubai (see http://www.designbuild-network.com/projects/Hydropolis/index.html#Hydropolis4 and also http://www.crescent-hydropolis.com/) 

So far, this piece looks like a bone to me... Anyway, it was very cool to see them building this from the plane window. 

This is how they are creating all these islands... Sand is easy to find in a desert ! 

They have this in Mauritius too, but I didn't know it originated from the Middle East. 

Nice selection of nuts... 

Yves, thrilled at the choice of sweets ! 

Downtown Dubai... (During Ramadan) 

Dubai's the Palm

Dubai's The World

 

Burj Dubai - World's tallest building

The world's tallest skyscrapper being built (800+ meters tall). See http://www.burjdubai.com/content/thetower.asp for details & progress... "No stranger to Middle Eastern design, Adrian Smith (the Architect) incorporated patterns from traditional Islamic architecture into Burj Dubai. But above all, he drew inspiration from a flower. The Hymenocallis is a plant that is widely cultivated in Dubai, in India and throughout this region. The flower’s harmonious structure is one of the organizing principles in the tower’s design."

Signposts in Arabic & English. Doesn't the Stop sign look like a snail that is looking back at it's shell, intreagued ?

Ginormous Mosque in construction... 

Wouldn't you like to go up the antenna ? Go to http://picasaweb.google.com/gungadoo/DhabayyaTXSite for more pictures...

Under the rotatable... looking at the feed line going back to the transmitter building... 

One of the 2 impressive rotatable antennas (at a fair distance) 

Main control room of the Dhabayya site... 

Program schedule for the Dhabayya Shortwave Transmitter site... AWR, RFI, NHK, VOA, among many other broadcasts... 

(no, I didn't take that picture of the Burj-al-arab) 

Burj-al-arab exclusive hotel (see http://www.burj-al-arab.com/) 

Many extravagant hotels in the UAE... I'm looking forward to seeing the "World Islands" be completed.

As soon as we landed, we headed to Abu Dhabi...

Dubai in early morning fog... 

It still taisted the same, but soft drinks and even water are still more expensive in the UAE than Petrol. 

Flight Nairobi -> Dubai 

Flight Arua -> Entebbe / Kampala -> Nairobi (Kenya)