I hope you have behaved yourself while I was away, your mother said that you were dancing quite a lot, did you have a chance to say hello to your auntie Tip?
Anyway, the trip to Dubai and Abu Dhabi was great, it was organized by Keanan Institute (in corporation with the government), 'Business Matching' was the objective, the group of us were there to propose 'Thai Franchise' opportunity to UAE's investors, not a bad effort from my point of view, but for us (me and uncle Payon) we really didn't have anything to sell... but even that, several investors were more than interested, which makes uncle Payon and myself very 'Puad Hua' ปวดหัว... :)
We landed in Dubai before going to Abu Dhabi, what an amazing place!
There are more cranes than people (that is a slight exaggeration), but you get my point! Constructions everywhere, and most of it would be finished by the time you are probably about 5 or 6, and I promise to bring you and your mother here, hopefully by then all of the public transport projects would be running, I couldn't endure another traffic jam in Dubai
This is a picture of the 'tallest building to be' (as it is still under construction), the final height is a closely guarded secret in fear that other countries will try to beat it... and this land was a desert a few years ago!
Everything will be the biggest in the world, biggest Shopping Mall (not that the current isn't big enough, with over 700 shops, I would have thought that it was already big enough), biggest Airport, Tallest Building and the list goes on and on.
This is an indoor skiing place (see right) (don't really know what to call it, it isn't a resort, just a place to go skiing in the desert!, located as part of the Mall of Emirates)
One of the most impressive construction for me wasn't the tallest building, but the man made Island in a shape of a Palm tree (and there will be 3 of them not to mention Island in the shape of the World!), I am sure you could Google Earth it once you've learnt how to use the mouse.
Abu Dhabi was lower keyed than Dubai, but there are also many, many projects that will be coming up soon. UAE has a intriguing dynamic, 7 individual states (sheikdoms) melted into one since 1971-1972 (just Wikipedia it for more info.)
I am afraid this will be a rare sight pretty soon in Abu Dhabi, if it follows Dubai's progress. Abu Dhabi is only 130+ Kms away from Dubai, and there are a lot of competitions between the two sheikdoms.
This was a wonderful sight for uncle Payon and I, to see uniform buildings on one of the main street, very different than in BKK
Presumably, this is to make way for more development All in all this was an eye opener trip, quite tiring, but worth every second of it, looking forward to take you and your mother there one day :)
Cheers
Dad