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Dubai day 1

Automotive Travel

Dubai day 1

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I’m traveling with car photographer and enthusiast Dennis so where are the cars? Without revealing too much just yet, we’ll pick up our daily driver the day after tomorrow. I’m using the term daily driver loosely here, since it’ll get upgraded in a matter of days if everything goes according to plan.

That’s what we didn’t do, so what did we do? Gazing at skyscrapers, supercars and obscene luxury mostly. Using Dubai’s superb metro system, we’ve visited both the Dubai mall and the Mall of the Emirates. We even managed to do so without buying a single thing. Well, except food of course, which is unsurprisingly difficult to find during the day while Ramadan is taking place.

No photos were taken today, but we did arrange two photo shoots with some very friendly locals. Two very friendly locals with an allegedly very impressive car collection. We’ll get back to that in a couple of days.

Tomorrow we’ll take it easy still, perhaps stroll around and get a few good shots of the city or then we’ll look around for some promising locations and come back later. The temperatures are not exactly pleasant and we can’t wait to continue exploring from the comfort of an air conditioned car.

As for me personally, I arrived at 5.30 in the morning and 4 hours of shuteye, a skipped breakfast and lack of caffeine – no coffee place was open – certainly took it’s toll. After I finish writing this I’ll certainly be heading straight to bed.

My first impressions of this city – I arrived by taxi with the sunrise creating an impressive silhouette of the city skyline – are mostly that of surrealism and mixed feelings about the wealth on display. I certainly couldn’t stop gazing at all the steel and glass that dominates the view. Everything here is cleaned and polished impeccably. The malls, which were largely devoid of visitors, came across as very western to me and were a pure show of luxury. Whether this was done tastefully or not.. Well, I’ll leave that in the middle for now.

Arriving so early in the morning did show me another side of the city as well and one that I find hard to ignore. Seated in the taxi I saw rows of old white buses packed with workers on their way to the numerous construction sites in and around the city. The buses almost had a prison bus feel to them. in the city itself workers seemed to be on continuous standby to polish and clean wherever needed. Sure, they have a job but they did not exactly seem to be enjoying themselves.

I just find it hard to appreciate the luxury and accomplishments of Dubai when I keep wondering what it has been build upon. Alas, it’s certainly an experience that has made me think.  

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