Dubai - Part I

On Monday 27th of June Pakistan’s sole internet backbone link went down and for twp days we remained offline. Since most of our office work is solely dependent on net so we were in quite a miserable situation. On Tuesday management asked for our passports and on Wednesday at 5 PM I was informed that I will be flying to Dubai that night at 10:30 PM. It was so urgent that I even couldn’t go home, get my stuff and meet mom. Said goodbyes on phone and went to the airport around 9ish PM. It was my second trip to Dubai first was being in Dec 2000 when I went there to appear in a job hiring Interview for Microsoft, couldn’t make it though :( and still curse myself for missing that opportunity (but that discussion is for some other day). This time it was more of an official trip and I had a company of my Department head or shud we say it was other way around, he had me as a company.

For some obvious reasons it was my job to communicate with everyone, so right when we landed at Dubai international airport till we landed back To Jinnah Terminal I was the “interpreter” :P. anyways we were booked in Hotel JW Marriot, it was a five star hotel and sure lived up to its ratings. Most importantly it had a very speedy internet connection and made our lives easy. I don’t think I should write about what I did each day that will make it a boring post, shud had done that from there but that wasn’t possible. So will it a general description.

Since we had serious shortage of cloths so right on the night we landed, we headed for this departmental store which was supposed to have good discounts and stays open quite late, got the basic stuff from there. Headed back to the hotel, got the internet up and running, after couples of hours of work headed for dinner. Next day went to this newly built huge mall in Jumeirah named after the great explorer Ibn-e-Batuta. Actually it is divided into six halls each hall carrying a theme of one country, like there is this Chinese hall completely based on Chinese architecture, then there is Indian hall and rest are Egyptian, Spanish, Persian and Tunisian, They say it takes about 2 hours or more to roam about in all the halls. It took us an hour to finish Egyptian, India and Chinese one. From inside the architecture was amazing too, walls carrying the theme from outside, sculptures at places, artificial sky line and well planned shops placement, just too perfect. But the shops were damn expensive all braaaanded suff. Anyhow I wished I had a camera with me but sigh couldn’t get it from home, my boss wasn’t in favor of buying one and I really don’t call my cell phone cam as a camera.

Next there days were spent visiting cinemas and watching three back to back movies that included Pehali, Batman Begins(On Imax technology) and Dus. And of 3 only Batman was any worthwhile watching especially the effects on Imax were awesome. Read about Imax on the link given before, I would just say it gives a sense of depth to the scene and it is mostly used for educational purposes, in Dubai they just have one huge screen using this technology and I was there experiencing it all :D. There is still lots to write about and I shall continue it later(very soon don’t worry fellas), till then bye bye take care and May God bless you and your families.