Ahhhh sleeping in. Well, for Dubai time. Apparently we’ve had to travel 3000 miles just to start living on Edinburgh time (I would like to point out as an aside that I’ve been getting up at 9 am everyday since we got back, which is about 3 hours earlier than previously noted). To make up for some lost shut-eye, we stay in until noonish, and upon opening the door not only do we get a fun, English-language newspaper, but lots of upset little notes from housekeeping asking us why they couldn’t clean our room and would we PLEASE vacate so that they could. 5-star treatment. We hit up an Italian restaurant in the hotel for convenience, which turns out quite nice, and charge it to our room (I know, right?). The hotel at 14 restaurants and lounges; who does that? There isn’t much else around the area, especially that will serve a beer with dinner (as its consumption is forbidden by the Qur’an). We then hop in a taxi and make our way to the Persian Gulf. The hope is to stick my foot in another waterway. Plus, living in Scotland, you don’t much chance for sun and I planned to take advantage of every minute.

“Sun” however is a relative word at the moment. “Yellow Daylight Smog” may be more appropriate. It’s been thick here since we arrived; on our taxi ride from the airport, you could hardly see from one building to the next, and today is little better. We drive right by the new tallest building in the world, the Burj Dubai, and don’t even notice it until we pass right under it. It’s huge, standing leagues taller than anything around it, and yet it disappears into dream-like swirls of pollution when you’re more than 100 meters away. (Which completely brings me to totally tangential story I read about China’s pollution problem. Apparently one of their lakes or rivers or what-have-you has become so polluted due to industries dumping sewage into it that everything is dead. So the Chinese government’s solution is not to tell the industries to clean up and stop dumping, but to introduce a non-native and potential harmful species of fish that will eat up all the scum—a good thing—but will then have completely unknown future consequences that could be potentially just as harmful to the ecosystem as sludge—a bad thing, in case you hadn’t guessed that. Oh, and they plan to let people fish and serve these critters who just ate up chemical waste in fancy restaurants. I just found that an entirely odd thing to do, definitely not in the spirit of the Kyoto Protocol, which I guess works because they are exempt from it anyway). Moving on. Our taxi driver is from Pakistan and has been here 4 years, and 1 year in Abu Dhabi. “Abu Dhabi is much better for living,” he replies, when I ask him how he likes it. “Dubai is better for business, but all I do is drive a taxi. I liked Abu Dhabi better.” I forgot to ask why, but its clear that whatever he has found here is better than he was afforded in Pakistan, which is just as well seeing as Mushareff is, predictably, refusing to let go of his throne, as it were, despite opposition insistence. Of course, the US is totally behind the old general, despite the fact that popular vote wants him out. Score one for democracy. Sorry, again, that was tangential.

So we finally reach Jumeirah Beach Club, a public beach just down the road from the famous ******* hotel Burj al-Arab. Traffic is pretty bad in the city, as we are reminded time and time again by cabbies, but no worse than it would be in any big city in the States. The driver wanted to take us somewhere else, and didn’t believe me when I said there was something in the neighborhood of this particular beach that I wanted to check out (and archaeological site), but took us there anyway, despite the traffic. We arrived and suddenly found ourselves in an enclave of white ex-pats. Skimpily-clad pasty people everywhere! Lots of families, though, all out to enjoy the nice weather. Mostly what looked like grandparents and grandchildren bonding while mum and dad were at work (it was Sunday, but in the UAE, as in many Muslim countries, the weekend is Friday and Saturday, as their holy day of rest is Friday). Some tourists also, as well as young people working for “Western” companies out enjoying the Sunday off. We picked out a spot in the sun, taking time to snap a shot of what we could see of the Burj al-Arab through the haze, and relaxed. Driving in a taxi is quite… taxing, no pun intended. The water in the Persian Gulf is extremely cold, and it was not hot that day, so real swimming was abandoned for some light, fun wading. A local football (soccer) club runs by, training for an upcoming game. I wonder idly what the Emiratis think about having such places in their country, areas reserved more or less for ex-pats wanted to let their hair down, if you will. The way it is presented to us as visitors is that as long as the bikinis stay on the beach, nobody really cares. It was much the same in Morocco, reportedly, though while I lived there it was much too cold to try it. But I do know that in some countries, such enclaves are still hated, even if the bikinis don’t leak out of the fences, as it is feared that sooner or later they will, followed by non-Muslim values, McDonald’s, drunkenness, homosexuality (as many like to pretend it isn’t a problem in Muslim countries) and everything evil. All the Emirati citizens I’ve spoken to don’t seem to mind the Westernness, as many of them practice the subtle art of drinking and non-Muslim acts anyway; the general consensus is that the richer you are, the less you seem to care about religion and tradition, and the more you seem to care about the catwalks of Milan and daily yoga.

Anyway, we spend some time at the beach just hanging out, before deciding to make our way to the Jumeirah Archaeological Site. It has kind of a nondescript and vague location, so we are content to wander around the rich suburban neighborhood until we find it. It’s nice to know that rich people are the same everywhere. We see numerous brand new BMWs and Mercedes and Range Rovers and Hummer parked outside gates homes that look more like the Old Town in Key West of Kingston, Jamaica than in an Arab country. And everybody, as it is the end of the day, is out walking a variety of purebred and inevitably expensive big dogs. At least they go for German shepherds and Labradors instead of Chihuahuas and Pomeranians. Oh, and with big sunglasses on, too. Very important. Very LA. We also see numerous buses full of workers in various colored jumpsuits. There is a lot of construction going on throughout Dubai, and foreign workers doing it all. Jonmikel said that last time he was in Dubai, he was told that the colors of the jumpsuits are based on one’s ethnicity. Different ethnic groups get different colors, and they tend to stay pretty segregated on their various jobs. Though we do see some mixed colors, buses tend to be all blues or oranges or reds or greens, and they do all seem to be ethnic based, though it’s hard to tell whether they actually are all from one group or whether we see them that way because we’re told to. The groups wait at airports or docking areas every morning in hopes of being hired for the day, much as the stereotypical scene displays Mexicans in California. Immigrants everywhere face the same issues, I suppose.

The site itself is closed by the time we find it, though we do get to walk around and peer inside at the remains of various buildings. It’s amazing that in a place where land is an expensive commodity, the government leaves such a large square undeveloped. Instead, it houses a number of structures dating back to the 6th century AD, what’s left of the fishing and pearling port of pre-Dubai. Plus, some of the haze has burned off in the late-afternoon sun, and we get a nice view of the Burj Dubai in the distance, still and by far the tallest building around. Check out pictures of it at http://flickr.com/photos/ysnp/. Most of the artifacts found there are now in the Dubai Museum, which I plan to visit tomorrow, but small stone buildings say a great deal by themselves. People think of Arabia as being inhabited only by Bedouins and other nomads, living “uncivilized” lives in the wild desert, but the permanent style of these structures attests to the settled nature of pre-Islam Arabia, which in turn indicates some level of economic complexity and specialization. I’m a big archaeology buff, so we spend some time just looking and contemplating before heading back to the main street to find a taxi back to our side of the Creek. One the way we pass a giant oilrig, the likes of which I have never seen so close. An entire community unto itself, apparently it was in for repairs. I was quite impressed at the sheer immensity of the thing.

Instead of heading directly to the hotel, we make a stop off at Deira City Centre, one of the biggest and most popular malls in Dubai. The place is HUGE. Floor upon floor upon floor of shopping. Anything you could possibly want is in that mall. From the United Colors of Benetton to Lucky Jeans to more localized shopping locations selling abayas and hijabs. The line for the taxi stand went down the length of the mall and around the corner (good thing we were walking back!). Probably close to 100 restaurants of all shapes and sizes and ethnicities (all 100% alcohol free, I might add). We stopped in because I forgot to pack another pair of pants. 1 pair for an entire week is a little iffy, even for me. I saw a pair of jeans upwards of $300 and a polo shirt for about $380. Talk about conspicuous consumption. I did manage to find a reasonably priced (at about $35) pair of gray skinny jeans, which turned out to be a great investment because they look fabulous on me! I needed new jeans anyway. But we hit up as many stores as possible, just to see what the most expensive thing we could find was. The place was packed, and we had to continuous fight our way around Gucci-clad Emirati men and silk-and-gold abaya-clad Emirati women. As is the style, women will wear only the most expensive clothing under their already expensive robes, topped off with only the most expensive make-up and jewelry. One of the things I enjoy about the Emirates is that the women seem to dress as such because it’s the style, with no claim to “modest” dress, as many women in other parts of the world do. There’s nothing modest about diamonds, gold, and thick, exotic and over-done make-up.

Anyway, Jonmikel had work to do to set up for the conference the next day, so we headed back to find some food (at the Hofbrauhaus, no less) and cut up and alphabetize name badges. Not the most exciting of evenings, but business is business. Oh, and because we left the “Do Not Disturb” sign on the doors (our luggage had more or less exploded in an attempt to find clean underwear and bathing suits), housekeeping left another note imploring (begging, even) us to go away so they could change our towels.