***The following was an email sent to friends and family yesterday****
Ganesh, the waiter on the rooftop bar at the Four Points Sheraton on Sheik Zayed Road tells me that construction on the 70 storey skyscraper directly in front of us has stopped for over two months now. Peering down the side of the building, I see that the reflective golden window panels that look like they belong on the wings of the Hubble telescope have only been laid about a third of the way up. Scaffolding brackets the building, and I swear I spy hand-held construction tools laying in the open air on the dark grey concrete. As I sip on a cold beer and look down Sheik Zayed, the main road that stitches together all of this emerite, the familiar caucophony of construction sounds of a city experiencing hyper-growth is now replaced by a only defeaning silence of freeway traffic whooshing by 500 feet below.
News articles for the past couple of months have been talking of the downward spiral that is Dubai's economy. "The Dubai airport parking lot is filled with cars that foreign nationals leave behind because they cannot repay their debt." "Half of all expatriates considering relocation." "Worst case scenario, Dubai turns into a ghost town." While I don't think the worst case scenario will actually occur, there is no doubt that the city once viewed as a model of development will have to undergo a painful and perhaps long period of stagnation and decline. What does all this mean on a personal level? Not a lot. The taxis still run, the bars are still open and the expat scene is still generally vibrant. I even went to the John Legend concert on Thursday night here. (I know!)
Still, it's with this odd sense of timing and cold economic backdrop that I've temporarily relocated to Dubai for my next project. After seven months living and working in The Kingdom, I was given the opportunity to take a healthcare project in Abu Dhabi. And so I'll be spending the next three months living and working in Dubai and Abu Dhabi. While I knew about the Abu Dhabi opportunity for some time, the final confirmation did not come until last Tuesday evening. I boarded the plane for Dubai on Wednesday.
It will be futile to actually try and summarize all of the experiences I've had since the last time I wrote to you all, so I will only provide just a few tid bits. Sprinklings, if you will.
1. Wearing a thobe in the streets of San'a will get you (more) stares if you're a 6'3" Chinese person
2. Land crossings into Israel from Jordan are much less sketchy than they sounds.
3. I will go to Boracay , The Philippines with anyone, anytime
4. Riyadh floods when it rains
5. Lots of nurses attend the US embassy parties in Riyadh
6. One can be fishing in the Mediterranean in the morning and skiing in the afternoon in Beirut
7. New Years is best experienced with friends old and new, open bar and a brisk night in Kowloon overlooking the fireworks in Victoria Harbor, Hong Kong
8. The West Wing is the best show ever
9. Being in DC with 3 million Americans walking the streets= the most amazing January 20th I'll probably ever have in my life
10. Oceans and continents can't stand in the way of a friend's bachelor party in Miami
As always, I look forward to hearing from you should you find a quick moment. I miss you all and send along many good vibrations.
- Panpan
