I had the unfortunate task of attending Dil and Snehal's wedding in absentia. However, I did get a slew of pictures and wanted to consolidate them so that I could view them again at a later date.
I received a link from Payal with the pictures that were on her camera. She's got them on Shutterfly.
Snehal sent some pictures of her preparations of the house and getting mendhi prior to her wedding. Again, I was there in absentia, but it's always fun to look at the pictures.
Her pictures are on Shutterfly, and the gallery is called: Pics from Snehal: Wedding Preps and getting mendhi
Edit: She actually sent me another link with pictures from the Mendhi Party entitled: Pictures from Snehal: Mendhi Party!! There are alot of pictures of women getting tattooed. Well kinda mid-term tattooed.
Brij skiied here when he came to Dubai in December. He said it was pretty sweet.
Anyhow, it is alreayd getting hot in Dubai. It was 81°F/27.2°C today, so yes I my brow got a little glisten-y. Yes, I'm going to burn to a crisp this summer.
Anyhow, I knew it would be hot. I'm getting scared of people telling me things like, "You have no idea how hot it really will be" and whatnot. But I stopped by the Mall of the Emirates yesterday while looking for a pair of jeans and finally saw the 4Km indoor Ski Dubai park. There are full-on ski lodges and artificially generated snow.
For the environmentally conscious, all energy is re-used 4x, so that it uses much less energy than a warehouse of equivalent size. Regardless, in this part of the world, energy conservation always takes a back seat to "bling".
It costs 130 Dirham ($35) for a two hour pass. Each additional hour is 30 Dirham ($8). Or a full-day pass is 220 Dirham ($60). It includes rentals of skis or snowboard equipment. Not a bad deal for a day of fun.
I'll have to give it a shot one day.
My flight from London - Dubai, and then a new flight from Dubai - Doha (not really a connection - two spearate itineraries) created a long travel day. This, coupled with the fact that I needed to pick up all of my things from the hotel and then move into my place at 2 am wasn't a fun task. I woke up a few hours later to the sound of roosters and then re-woke up again to realize that I hadn't unpacked the toilet paper yet.
I'm headed back to Dubai for a few days and will return on the weekend.
London was a good time though. We didn't do as many touristy things this time - instead we did Londoner weekend activities. We saw Hyde Park and Kensington Gardens; walked around the little alleys and found some tea shops; did some window shopping; ate.
That was pretty much it. We did take a few pictures of the areas we saw, but Genny took the camera with her. So it might be a while until we are able to post the pictures. I still have my two cell phone cameras, so that's all I have until I see Genny again.
I've now worked in a number of Microsoft offices for a period of time. I've been to a number of them for a day here or there as well. The Dubai office is the only one I've seen so far with palm trees and waterfalls as decoration.
I'm impressed.
The inside is stereotypical MS though.
The Burj Al-Arab is an amazing hotel. Unforunately, it's extermely pricey and you need a reservation to book it. So I went as close as I could and took a picture at night. It's in the shape of a billowing sail, and there is a parallel hotel next to it in the shape of a wave.
Tiger Woods launched some golf balls from the helicopter pad on top. Agassi and Federer played tennis there.
Most of these massive projects are started with the "if you build it, they will come" mentality. But most are built, and then some really high profile figure shows it off. When you're the Burj Al-Arab, it's easy to do.
They're making the Burj Dubai, which is supposed to be the world's tallest building. On the top floor will be a restaurant with seating for two. The restaurant is already sold out for a number of years. Construction hasn't even started on the building - amazing.
I'm trying to upload pictures to flickr.com, but apparently I've been censored by the government of UAE. While Dubai is very open, I guess the rest of the country isn't quite there. I'd like to post a picture of the blocked page when I get back to Qatar.
There are a ton of other sites here that are banned. These are very safe for work (SFW) sites in the US, but apparently don't fit the religious tones of the UAE.
edit: I finally got a second to post the picture.
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