The Trucian coast...

is today's area of the United Arab Emirates and also included Bahrain and Oman originally, which now are of course separate countries. One of the most prominent places in the UAE is Dubai, which has developed from a sleepy fishing villages of the ‘Trucian’ times into a supersonic city. What is missing are the space gliders moving silently between the high rises along Sheikh Zayed Road...

., passing the futuristic ‘Docking Stations’ which in fact are the stops of the ultramodern Dubai Metro running from Rashidiya to Jebel Ali and some loops within the city. Even Terminal 2 and 3 of the airport are connected so there is an alternative to get into town if one does not want to use a taxi.

"Prometheus Waterfall"

As envisioned, a long weekend in Dubai was a welcome break in these hectic days which are now mostly wrapped around a useless software implementation I nicknamed ‘Dudojo’ which is sold as the latest and best and brightest since God knows. By luck someone send me an article from yester-years when we implemented the now Legacy System, and low and behold, the wording is the same then as now, same sales tactic, and for sure going to be the same result of a dysfunctional software money grave that will be sold to the public as a wonderful cost saving to be achieved to cut post, meaning kicking staff out.

"Dubai Creek - QD's Bar & Restaurant"

Anyway soon this is hopefully going be over, I can turn my back at this and follow what I want to do, which for the first months for sure is going to be a detox of all the pain and nonsense of the last decades. So well, Dubai, nice, I did like it a lot but as usual to short. The flight from Beirut is longer these days, no more 2 hours and a bit, a solid 4 hours and ten minutes with a detour over Turkey and then running down the length of Iran into the Gulf and finally Dubai. The Airport was not too full and Immigration was passed relatively quick. The weather was nice, not hot and humid anymore and very pleasant in the evenings.

It was nice to sit out at Dubai Creek and have a Gin and Tonic as well as a Shisha and some nice food with friends. Of course there are the Malls with all the Mega shops known from the US, prices are average, I mean not especially cheap and on a close level with Beirut. The advantage is that everything is available and I visited Dubai Mall twice. I am drawn to the Waterfall with the figures of divers which remind me so much of the opening scene of the film ‘Prometheus’ a few years back. Also nice is the Aquarium. I will see if I get some inspiring black and whites from the waterfall divers as enlargements.

Also worth a visit, and if it is only for the people watching was the Atlantis Hotel at the end of the ‘Palm’. I went there at night, watching the people coming and going and boy there were some interesting sights. The food was excellent, but again it ain’t was a bargain. Never mind I enjoyed it and had, since a long time, a Mai Tai long-drink. This hotel also has a fabulous aquarium with a restaurant adjacent and underneath it, and the theme shows the sunken city of ‘Atlantis’, with myriads of all kinds of fish swimming around. Really impressive, but access is normally only for guest staying at the hotel, never mind, I managed to get by and look and of course take some photos. Must say this time I enjoyed Dubai more than last time. I also went to the Ras Khor Wildlife reserve just on the edge of the city where one can go on into the deserts of Arabia. Here with some of the mudflats and brackish waters of the creek, combined with some woodland, there are Flamingos that inhabit the reserve and most likely other bird and wildlife. I read about it in one of the travel guides online and it was recommended and I must say it was worth it. The hide was a bit crowded at first but managed to get a spot to take some photos of the birds.

"The Blue Hole"

I took with me the OMD and the 100s, which was good. I finally lost the eyecup of the OMD after coming loose so many times but usually I was always able to catch it before it was gone. Not this time, so will have to order a new one. As always, I was happy with the performance of both cameras, and I also used the 100s on manual focusing which worked surprisingly well in dark places with the focus peaking being a big help. I used both JPEG and RAW, although the software I currently use is outdated and I can not open the RAW files of either camera without downloading a RAW converter, but it will be difficult to find one for OS 10.5.8, which is rather outdated now, but still doing it’s job. Overall I took about 700 photos (both JPEG and RAW), which was less than I initially thought I would photograph. I walked a lot due to the good weather and also visited the souks and the old quarter which was very nice and worth the while and definitely would make me come back.

I am pretty sure that I can stand the place only in winter, i.e. November to may be March, but if I remember last year in August for the two days, it was so hot and humid that it was not fun to be outside. It was a nice visit and I will do it again for a long weekend in the winter months. On top of it I had a good time. In this sense, until the next time and good bye.