Abu Dhabi, UAE (United Arab Emirates)

We left Taipei around dinner time and flew all night with a transfer in Incheon (Seoul), South Korea.  I can add another country that we were in if not truly visited. With time gains, it was a long night and we arrived in Abu Dhabi at 5:30 AM. We retrieved our luggage, got a taxi, and headed to our hotel. The hotel turned out to be much nicer than we had anticipated, given we booked "medium" priced hotels for this trip. We opted to spend our money to upgrade to business class on the long flights (like from Taipei to Abu Dhabi) that flew all night which was well worth it. I don't sleep well on planes and still didn't sleep a lot but being able to stretch out was worth the price. The hotel let us leave our things and we headed out to sight-see.


Abu Dhabi is the capital of the UAE. It isn't quite as flamboyant as Dubai but both cities were pretty much desert communities until the UAE was created and Sheikh Zayed decided to put their oil money into their country. You can see constant construction and catering to big money seems to be the goal. Everything is geared toward big business and rich people. That seems to be the impression. Buildings are big, malls plentiful, stores high-end, hotels everywhere, and big, new, and shiny describes most everything. That is harsh and not entirely true but this is a very new country and everything just slaps you in the face with NEW. It's also pretty green. 97% of their water usage (which is very high) comes from the desalinization of ocean water.

On the other side, Sheikh Zayed valued his country and people and he started a path for the country that takes care of it's future. Education is very important here and encouraged. The malls have pubic library branches in them and we saw many school groups while we were here. The future of their children is important to them. Kindergarten starts at 3 and schooling is free through higher education if any want it. There is full employment and health care for all. (Because of all the expansion, there are also a lot of people working here from other countries. We were told that some can make 4 times what they could at home so many are here for the higher wages. Others are here related to all the global business.) The government and the Sheikh's family may be one and the same (mostly) but they aren't hoarding the oil money and leaving their country and people behind. At least that is my impression from what we've seen, heard, and what people we've talked to say. Tourism is big and the country wants to be a major player on the financial and business platform, thus the big, shiny, and unique quality to everything.

That big, shiny, and unique quality also speaks to their ingenuity. They have some of the most uniquely engineered buildings that I have ever seen. This is Hyatt's Capital Gate hotel and skyscraper.  It is adjacent to the Abu Dhabi National Exhibition Centre and it leans 18 degrees which is farther than the Tower of Pisa which "only" leans 11 degrees. It is 35 stories and one of the tallest buildings in the city.




This is the Aldar HQ building (big developer) and was completed in 2010. It is the first circular building of it's kind in the Middle East and 23 stories high. It is also right next to the property of the hotel we are staying in.


There are countless unique buildings here and the city, like Dubai, has a very unique skyline.

trees growing within the bldg

And it they don't have enough room for those high-rises, they just make more land.

One thing I noticed, though, is that Abu Dhabi has not left beauty behind. They have incorporated art with engineering. Their buildings are unique but beautiful. They also have put practicality with art. These structures are along the road/walking path and are places where people can sit to rest out of the heat.




They also have artwork around to add variety to the cityscape.











Their buildings incorporate color. You can see a group of buildings that are green, another blue, some reddish or pink, gold/brown is prominent, and you can sometimes find all of them within the same block.

Religion is obviously important and mixed in all the high-rise buildings, you find mosques. The most important one is the Abu Dhabi Sheikh Zayed Mosque which I described in an earlier blog post.

We were surprised to find out that there are several amusement parks here. There is a large water park and Warner Brothers is expected to open a big park this summer. There are also ones for gamers and simulations. We went to Ferrari World where Doug rode the world's fastest roller coaster. It reaches 240 km/h which Doug converted to a hair under 150 mph. He came off it and when I asked him how it was, all he said was "it was fast".

The UAE really is a very interesting country. It is a favorite holiday site as well as business site and as we moved about the city sightseeing, we could hear multiple languages being spoken.