Developers of Dubai had a brilliant idea, “Let’s increase the amount of beach front property by creating a series of islands! We’ll make two of them Palm trees with extensions that represent the palm frawns. This will maximize beachfront space!.”
People bought properties on the frawns, thinking that they’d have a lot of space, and their own little paradise, but then the project started going over budget. The developers began selling more than double the occupancies they’d originally planned. Now, almost complete, the first palm is horribly congested. Buildings are practically on top of other buildings.
At the far end of the Palm is a giant hotel and water park called Atlantis. I decided to go out there and check it out yesterday.
The second palm is still under construction and closed to the public. The Palm Jumeirah is the one I visited.
(View of the Palm from the window of my hostel’s common room.)
I saw that there was a monorail connection from the tram that would take me out there. So I bought a day pass for the tram. What I didn’t know was that a tram day pass was 22 AED, but the monorail on the palm was a separate entity! The monorail round trip ticket cost 30 AED by itself!
(Atlantis! Conspiracy theorists, turns out it’s in Dubai. Mystery solved.)
I figured, I’m here (The ol’ when will I get to do this again trap) so I sprang for it and went out there. It was a waste of time.
Once I got to Atlantis, I discovered that there was a small mall connected to the massive hotel and water park, but that was it. If you’re not a guest of the hotel you can’t even get up to the lobby to see it. And if you could get on the beach there, I couldn’t figure out how, and didn’t care enough by that point to investigate further.
(View of the shoreline from the monorail. My hostel is on the 66th floor of one of those buildings in the cluster.)
I could barely see the frawns from the monorail, but there wasn’t much to see but tightly clustered vacation homes and hotels. Looked like a good place to live (or have another home) if you’re rich and own a big yacht. There is so much money in this city!
(This is toward the outer end of the palm tree, near Atlantis. It’s not developed yet.)
(View of Atlantis from the monorail.)
(Peak at the water park from the Monorail station. The entrance fee is $95.00. ...I didn’t go in. Instead, I sat in the Starbucks next to it and charged my phone while drinking a four dollar drip coffee.)
I met some great people during my stay in Dubai. There was Usama, the Data Analyst from Pakistan, at the safari. There was Maggie on my first morning of my stay at the At The Top Hostel. She’s a digital nomad and gave me lots of great advice and money making opportunities to look into. And there was Elizabeth who travels the world buying and selling clothes. She’s very cool, gave me a lot of insights, we hung out last night, shared some burgers, drinks, and watched the fountain shows in front of the Burj Khalifa. A great night.
Tonight I start a new leg of my journey. I fly to London and will be exploring Europe until late July. Gonna be more expensive, gonna be different, looking forward to it, procrastinating researching what to do at the moment by writing this post.
(View from the balcony of my dorm room at the hostel.)
(Another view from balcony. Cool, huh.)
(Another angle from balcony)
I’ve got a lot on my mind. Thinking about life direction, building, finding a meaningful relationship, choosing a career, a landing point. As of last night I’m considering looking into teaching in China for six months... I don’t know. Life’s an open road right now with few road signs, or too many.
That’s the problem with seeing the world. You see how much is out there, how many possibilities there are to be happy, to miss out on happier-ness. I’m a rolling stone gathering no moss. ...A desperado ...Been out riding fences for too long now. ...A joker, a smoker, a midnight- ...a cheese ball
(This is the common room at breakfast this morning. Best hostel in Dubai.)
!steemitworldmap 25.0884 lat 55.1476 long The Palm Jumeirah and contemplating Happer-ness in Dubai , d3scr