this is africa: Dubai

I connected my flight in Dubai when I first came to Nairobi from Beijing. So I decided to go out of the airport and make a day-trip in the city.

A big downside of being a PRC passport holder is that you need visa for going almost everywhere in the world. Dubai is no exception. I did some research and found out that I can actually apply for a visa-on-arrival valid for 96 hours. But there are two pre-requisites: a) your flight connection has to be longer than 8 hours b) you must have a local hotel reservation. It doesn't make any sense to book a hotel when you are going to stay in the city for only 10 hours or so in the day time! So I booked a room in Sheraton Dubai, printed the confirmation, and canceled the booking right away. No cancellation charges. The visa application worked out well.

We went out straight to the renowned Burj Al Arab, the only 7-star hotel in the world. It is a very exclusive place. There is a security gate 100 meters away from the hotel building and most people are banned there. We are not allowed to enter it unless we have either a hotel booking or a breakfast/lunch reservation, not even a visit to the lobby! It's just ridiculous. We talked to the reservation service manager on the phone, trying to secure a breakfast reservation on-site, but to no avail.

So we just wandered around the beach near the hotel a little bit and headed out to the town center for breakfast. There are quite a few international fast food chains – McDonald's, Pizza Huts, etc. We chose a nice boutique café and had continental breakfast. The fresh strawberry juice I had was very good, refreshing me up for the day.

After breakfast, we did a taxi tour around the city. Basically, the city of Dubai is just a narrow stripe of land along the gulf. You need very little orientation driving in the city – everything seems straightforward. Roads are broad and new. Signs are clear. Countless skyscrapers and skyscrapers-to-be. It is just like a mass construction in progress.

People on the street are from everywhere. To my surprise, Chinese looking people have a large representation of the population here. They look like from South Eastern Asia.

We finished our whole tour in about 5 hours and spent the rest of the time waiting in the airport. There, I did my usual ritual of sending a postcard home, punctuating my first trip in the Middle Eastern New York!