Omar Borkan Al Gala, a journalist from Dubai, had to leave Saudi Arabia because he was too handsome. Authorities were concerned because they believed this handsome UAE reporter had the potential to corrupt naïve and impressionable women at the annual Janadriyah Festival, a cultural festival that lasts two weeks every year in Saudi Arabia.
The handsome Al Gala had been a successful male model and as he made efforts to perform his job as a reporter at the festival, more and more girls began to recognize him. The female admirers asked for Al Gala’s autograph and photo. Things started off slowly but quickly escalated until female fans completely surrounded Al Gala. The authorities noticed and intervened, asking Al Gala not only to leave the festival but also not to return to Dubai altogether.
Largest Theme Park on Earth
Currently, a major theme park project is under construction in Dubai. Dubailand is an amusement park to top of all amusement parks. It is twice the size of Disney World and is projected to be the largest tourist attraction on Earth. 200,000 visitors are expected to visit Dubailand every day.
The project was announced in 2003 and is constantly being improved and changed as construction continues. About $55 billion has been spent so far on Dubailand construction. Currently, there are 22 projects under construction.
Tourism Causes Culture Clash
Muslim culture in the Middle East encourages women to dress modestly and cover most of their bodies in public. Dubai is ruled under Muslim law and many women do practice a modest way of dressing there. However, due to the heavy amount of tourism in Dubai, there is a certain amount of tolerance for foreign cultures and less modest ways of dressing.
If you do visit Dubai though, it is strongly recommended that you dress modestly. It is important to show respect to the places you are visiting and to try not to cause anyone to become offended or uncomfortable. Though the city tolerates foreigners who dress less conservatively than natives, it helps to be considerate. The city of Dubai is a melding of Western modalities and conservative Islamic beliefs. This melding will likely continue as Dubai builds more and more tourist attractions every year.
Luxury Jams
With so many people come more vehicles and with a lot of vehicles come a lot of traffic jams. Though not every resident of Dubai has a fancy automobile, many people do have quite luxurious rides. These amazing cars pile up every day as they honk and yell in an effort to get the jam to move forward. The picture below is worth a thousand words. You probably have seen traffic jams before, but have you ever seen one that looked quite so luxurious?
With the rapid growth and constant construction of Dubai as well as the ever-rising population size in the city, traffic is predictable and will probably only continue to get worse. While the city is making efforts to lessen the traffic issues they currently are experiencing, it seems the billions of dollars they’re spending to improve transportation infrastructure aren’t doing that much. However, in 2009 the Dubai Metro opened and helped to increase public transportation usage in lieu of vehicle usage. These solutions come at a cost, though. Dubai spends about $790 million every year on transportation infrastructure.
Growing Growing Growing
Dubai is on a rapid growth spree with no signs of letting up any time soon. Construction seems to be in a permanent state of work as the city enlarges its infrastructure every day. With all that construction occurring comes the need for a lot of tools. Dubai is home to more construction cranes than any place on Earth. In fact, Dubai holds 25% of the world’s construction cranes. Now that’s a lot of cranes!
Next on the list of cities with the most construction cranes is Sydney, Australia. You might be wondering what American city has the most construction cranes. Believe it or not, it’s Seattle, Washington! That’s right, Seattle is the U.S. city with the highest number of construction cranes—not New York City or Los Angeles, which is what you might’ve been thinking. With construction continuing to be on an upward trend in Dubai, it looks like they’ll stay number one on the construction crane front for quite some time.