Introduction
A hotel shuttle brought us to the center of Abu Dhabi. With us I mean another guy from Pakistan, who was a pilot of Pakistan International Airlines (PIA). It was quite a distance between the hotel at the airport and the city center with around 40km. Last stop was the huge Marina Mall. Since the shuttle would go back to the hotel right away on his last trip, we decided to take a taxi later on. My pilot had some business to do and I went on a sight-seeing tour by foot.
We met again at 7 p.m. at the same spot we were dropped and ordered a taxi for going back to the hotel. Before I had withdrawn some Dirham to be able to pay the taxi, but this was actually not necessary. Why? Because the taxi driver was a Pakistani too, who does not charge another Pakistani. What a nice custom. But maybe only in the diaspora. So I saved my 40 Dirham (around 8.00 Euro) together with the additional 40 Dirham for some souvenirs.
Now you may join me on my sight-seeing walk, which actually was not as nice as I have expected. It seemed to me that city planning was a mess. Many ugly empty spots. No life but cars in the streets. All the shops and restaurants were in the Mall, but also pretty empty. Also the weather was hot and the air was damp. No blue sky over the desert and concrete land. So not ideal for shooting photos.
Ok, maybe I am wrong. I should have stayed a couple of days to see more to get a better opinion. I also didn't delve into politics to learn more about the members of the royal family of whom I did see some portraits on billboards. I asked myself: Why? They do not need election posters, because they are already ruling the country, and that seemed to be forever. I hope forever, because they seem to do more for their own people than some democratically elected politicians. No Arab country has any real democracy anyway. Who tried, ran into chaos. Let's stop now: it's getting too far.
Click the small picture to get it enlarged.
But if you want to see them all enlarged now then hit
Gallery
| Passing by a fountain
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| Arriving at the entrance of the Mall
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| Inside the Mall
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| Model of the Mall
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| Inside of the Mall again
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| Inside of the Mall
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| Inside of the Mall again
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| Outside a memorial of the Emir of Abu Dhabi
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| Royal family members
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| Who are these guys?
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| From the ancient times
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| jumping to the modern times
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| Sky scrapers are growing
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| like mushrooms
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| This looks a little like modern Shanghai (with the "bottle opener")
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| mixed with oriental buildings
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| Many condominiums for the middle class?
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| And a palace definitely for the rich
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| A car for the middle class
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| And a car of the rich
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| A regular public bus
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| A common tourist bus
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If you want to see all photos enlarged now then hit
Gallery.
Ok, that was my short visit to the city of Abu Dhabi. If you want to know more about it then look up any guide book or the internet.
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