Outside Dubai...

It's been a while since my last post. After Ramadan I've been away for my second honeymoon in Europe. Everything was arranged by Emirates Holidays. It was really nice and I enjoyed every single moment of it... umm actually ALMOST every moment of it because the flight was perfectly designed to be uncomfortable. I mean everything else the Emirates Holidays arranged was perfect, but the plane seats were really uncomfortable and tight, now imagine feeling like that for a 5 to 6 hours trip?! yeah! it was a bit too much for me.

Anyway this isn't what i'm blogging about today...

After coming back to Dubai I paid a visit to a friend of mine who lives in Umm Al Quwein, the trip there took almost 1 hour driving, in during which I could see a huge difference in every kilometer I passed.

Starting from Dubai, you could see prestigious buildings, sky scrapers, fancy hotels, a variety of malls and supermarkets, trains, etc. You can see a beautiful city right before your eyes.

After leaving Dubai, a while after passing by the Airport, you can see the city being more humble... and the explanation for that is because you have just entered Al-Sharjah. It's a nice city as well, with lots of buildings and supermarkets, but you can't see the futuristic spirit of Dubai in it.

The more I drove, the less buildings were fancy, also the less the amount of buildings there was. which got me into thinking about reasons. It's obvious that each emirate reflects its wealth in its infrastructure, few large malls were spread between Ajman and Um Al-Quwein, buildings were humble and simple.

Arriving at my friend's place, I had to look for the building name, no landmark was close or streets signs, the GPS helped a little, but i had to use the phone to get exact directions.

People who live there need to drive all the way to Dubai for dinner or to have a good time, and whenever you visit anyone there, it has to be a sit at home visit, no hanging out or a small night drive.

I think it's amazing how money can affect the look and feel of a city, more money; more business, more social life!