Arabian Los Angeles
And by that I mean Dubai. What makes this city look like Los Angeles? Skyscrapers, the view from the coasts (again to skyscrapers), multi-level junctions within the city, multilane highways, faceless but functional metro stations, both cities aren’t meant for pedestrians. One can’t feel comfortable on two feet, car is your crutial friend.
Almost all Arab signs, ads, boards are translated to English. Not to mention banknotes.
Green spaces. Well, desert was the citie’s past but still all trees can be counted with your fingers. It’s a city made of stone.
Multinational food, and by this I mean not only quantity, but a quality. Lots and lots of Starbucks and fast food points. By the way, in general food is delicious.
In general, everything looks quite artificial. People say that sometines in Dubai it is easier to demolish a good-quality, but boring building and build a new one instead, rather than correct the old one. City is developing vertically.
Some other qualities:
— Alcohol in Dubai is like sex in the USSR — it is not spoken about but can be found if you know where to go. Usually, hidden spots are located in > 5***** hotels. Prepare 10 euro for one glass of beer and same for 100 ml of wine.
BYOB when travel to Dubai and a corkscrew. I’ve asked a restaurant lady in my hotel about this thing and she answered: «Usually, we don’t do this. However, we open the water bottles with a corkscrew, so I’ll give it to you for 10 minutes and I am expecting to get in back in time. Your room number, please?».
— Prosperous Arab families usually have a servant. It is a lady and most likely she is from Thailand. She is taking care of babies, as seen during the walks, follows the family when they go out.
— Toilets are always nice, even when you are in a desert surrounded by camels. They are clean, filled with working bidet and maybe with a speaker box connected to a TV in the living room. Nobody likes to miss a news.
— Dubai is an expensive place. One sunbed on a public beach costs about 32 euro per day. Lunch for two without alcohol robs 55–60 euro from your pocket. Wait, there is a one cheap place though, Dubai Zoo. One will imagine a huge area with exotic animals, however, it is the poorest zoo I’ve ever seen. But it justifies the price — 0.5 euro. There is a thought that the Zoo is the cheapest place in Dubai.
— One real thing is of course hidden. It’s an “old” city with harbor and small boats.
There is also a spectacular coffeshop inside Cofe museum. Ask for Sidamo coffee, it comes from Ethiopia and coffee feels like what is called in wine area “cru”.
