Magnet #291 - Burj Al Arab, Dubai, UAEScore! My new favorite magnet - the Burj Al Arab hotel in Dubai. It's the only 7-star hotel in the world - dudes, they only officially award 5 stars. Whoa.
I'd need to get a client to give me a reason to fly/lodge me out there, methinks. Honestly, I've no real desire to actually stay at the hotel - even though the suites are supposedly 2 stories each, and the atrium is something like 600 feet tall. I just checked online, and for a King suite, it's only about $1,600 if you check in on the 20th and check out the 21st. Hmmm, I bet I wouldn't even be comfy at all in trillion thread count sheets lined with gold. (Ok, I made that last bit up. But still.)
Nope. I'd go just to see the building itself. While I've seen a ton of cable docus and read a million blurbs on it, it just feels like one of those buildings you have to see in person.
Man, what a supercool building - the owners had asked Tom Wright for a building that would be iconic of Dubai. Like we have our Empire State, Paris has the Eiffel Tower, and London has Big Ben. And, I'd say they got it what they wanted - besides those Palms (Jebel Ali, Jumeirah and Deira), the Burj Al Arab is definitely is what the rest of the world knows Dubai for.
It's supposed to look like a sail on a boat - drawing on Dubai's nautical heritage. (I know! I didn't realize there was a nautical heritage...at least not until Discovery told me.) The structure was built just off the coast, on a man-made island of sand, and it stands 1,053 feet - that's roughly 10 feet taller than the Chrysler building, and it's certainly the tallest building to be used exclusively as a hotel.
Supposedly you can only get to it by causeway or by heli - and even then, only if you have reservations, and they drive you across the causeway in one of their hotel Rolls.
Right. I need to get on that.
No, no, I'm not planning on visiting Dubai for another several years or so, but eventually I'll need to go. After all, Burj Al Arab is on the 1001 buildings to see before you die list! Of course, by then, the even more stupefying Burj Dubai skyscraper - anticipated to be the tallest in the world when it's completed late next year - will be done, and I can go see that one, too. Oh! Or maybe I should hold out for when the proposed "Dynamic Tower" - the thing that undulates like a crazy will-o-wisp in the air - is complete.
Yep. Dubai in the next 5-10 years or so is gonna be totally awesome.
Of course, not as awesome as the friend who brought this back from her own supercool trip to Dubai.
Thanks so much, Desiree!
4 comments:
ok... now see? isn't it nice to give a shout out to the magnet giver?? i'm sure desiree will be very happy for the shout out! though i think you should totally have a competition for the farthest away magnet. just like to say, nepal will be a good contender!
also, you can fly on etihad airlines through dubai to get to nepal. just saying. who doesn't want a layover in abu dhabi? i met an irishman on my trek who was living in abu dhabi. maybe you could marry him, but his other irish friend was WAY cuter, but lives in belfast or dublin or something.
I do give magnet shout-outs to the magnet-givers, julie anne. I'm not planning on doing it for all the magnets, this was a special case cuz my boss put her up to it.
And no competition for farthest away magnet. With my company and my clients being global, I could end up with too many magnets!
Besides, we all know I'm waiting for Antarctica. Unless the moon has a little shop.
"With my company and my clients being global, I could end up with too many magnets!"
Who are you, and what have you done with Joy?
The funny thing is that in my very first post, I calculated that I had roughly enough magnets to keep me going for at least a couple of years, so that there would be an end in sight.
While I knew my own buying of magnets wouldn't sway, I didn't anticipate the random magnet giving (and/or asking). So, yeah, who knows how long joy magnetism will go on...
Post a Comment