Wednesday, November 4, 2009

Driving in a place with no left turns... (Nov. 4-5)

...or for that matter, any c0ncern about near misses of 2-3 millimetres. Not even a honk. Just don't drive slowly.

Mayna kindly loaned me her car to visit Dubai, a 1.5 hour drive away. I went immediately to the Palm, a strange planning phenomenon here in which a landform is sculpted in the shape of a palm frond for the sole benefit of those viewing it from space. The thing is massive beyond my expectations, and fraught with planning mistakes including cookie-cutter architecture, a highway system (on a peninsula!) and environmental impacts too many to mention.


Also checked out the Burj Dubai which is a greater success. It is a rather handsome spire with relatively good street presence (only I would visit the tallest structure in the world and look at the ground). In the nearby Dubai Mall (some superlative most certainly applies) I saw a solid malachite bathtub for sale for $200,000. Rather fetching actually.


Dubai, like Abu Dhabi, looks like a construction site. Cranes and trucks everywhere. Not to be believed.


Dinner with Mayna at a funky spot located in a furniture store. Sounds crazy but I had a fabulous lamb shank on top of a rosemary polenta that actually made me fond of polenta!

Still no pictures. But soon!

PS: in case you are wondering about the subject line, to make a left turn, you do a U-turn followed by a right turn.

2 comments:

Jeff said...

U-turn then right turn, this must have some metaphor value, though it's not immediately apparent...

Thor Abroad said...

Nope. It;s real! If you want to go left, you go past the intersection, do a U-=turn, and then return to the intersection where you can turn right!