John Cornhill

John Cornhill
Sat 27, Sun 28 Jan 07
Hello all, Saturday was a very pleasant day relaxing on the beach including picnic lunch. We were very near to the Burj Al Arab, self-styled 7 star hotel in the shape of a sail built 321 metres high on a man made island just off the beach. Inside, if it looks like gold, it is gold, 8000 sq. metres of it. They collect you from the airport by helicopter or in one of their 14 Rolls-Royces. £1,000 – £7,000 per night plus coins for the electric meter. Also nearby was the Jumeirah Beach Hotel with 619 rooms shaped like a wave and also the 360 Degree Restaurant which is on the end of a pier, circular shaped with glass all round. You can also see from the beach the building sites of the ‘World’ and one of the ‘Palms’. Both are residential developments offshore in the Gulf in the shape of their ‘names’ for ex-pats with plenty of money. Just glorified housing estates really, I’m not jealous. Rod Stewart has bought the GB island in the ‘World’. Saturday evening – BBQ at Fred and Elizabeth’s. Met Huw an Oxford and Cambridge Graduate who turned down a place with one of the big 4 Accountancy firms to become a teacher here. Fred is a structural engineer working on an international exhibition centre and Elizabeth is the Head of a local school. A very enjoyable evening.
Sunday caught the BIG BUS tour of Dubai. Shown tallest to-be building (again) under construction. It will be an 800 – 900 meters high (nearly a kilometre) Lego design so that they can add floors if someone else builds one higher. They won’t divulge the currently planned height in case someone builds one higher. Dubai is obsessed with having the biggest/highest/mostest of everything. It will be an incredible place to visit when it’s all finished in about 5 years time, although I’m sure they won’t stop then. They are deliberately investing to create the bestest tourist destination in the world to complement then replace their oil industry when it runs out. They are building or planning Asia Asia, a 6,500 room 5star hotel, a 6 runway airport twice the size of Heathrow, Dubai Mall to be the size of 50? Football fields, Mall of Arabia 70 football fields needing 5 days to walk around, Dubailand = 2x Disneyland in Florida, 3 Palm Islands and the World mentioned above, an underwater hotel currently being constructed in Germany, and lots more including a massive Dubai Marina. The last is a huge building site (down the coast from the main city area) that the BB took us around. The Marina itself is a 3 kilometre man-made inlet surrounded by high rise blocks. One complex will contain 20 high rises, 16 of which are apartments and 4 hotels, plus everything anyone could need i.e. fully integrated. This development alone is currently employing 20,000 workers through 24 hours a day, 7 days a week. Most of the skilled and manual labourers come from India, Africa, the Isle of Wight and other non-oilrich countries desperate for work. All of the apartments, built and unbuilt have been sold (but how many to speculators I wonder).
The enormity of it all is breath-taking. Dubai currently contains two thirds of all of the cranes in the world. It’s massive.
Had an evening meal with Jillian in the nearby Mall of the Emirates (3rd largest in the world, guess where the largest is?)
All the Best, John