The Atlantis

I was invited to food tasting at the Atlantis Hotel Resort (see it here) out at the end of the Crescent that encircles the Palm Jumierah. It was a really good time. It is basically a Casio Resort with no casino. There is a Cold Stone Creamery 100 feet away from a Tiffany and Co.
The Palm is open now and I could just drive right onto and all the way to the end. There is a tunnel that you go through and under the water and pops you out on the crescent. There was a fire in the lobby of the place and so they are doing hard core re-fabrication to get it ready for the launch on the 26th.

My co-worker named Wei Eng has a husband who is a Manager at the place in the food and beverage portion of the Resort. There are maybe a dozen restaurants, I ate at Saffron. It is like a massive buffet with international stations. Good food and we just slowly at for 4 hours. Being Ramadan I hadn’t eaten very much up that that point. Dessert was awesome. We filled out a report at the end to give them comments. There are a number of local families staying for free to help the staff work out kinks.

As you drive in on the road toward the resort you can see on the back side of the Crescent out in the water dredgers and on the inner circle is a beautiful beach all the way around. I was there at night and I will go back in the day. If anything just to go to lunch.

The high light of the night was the giant aquarium near the check in desk. (See Youtube links below) I had no idea I was walking up onto it and as I turned a corner there were windows as big as double doors looking into an aquarium and then boom, there is a huge wall that is 40 feet high and it is full of fish, it is hypnotic. I had dinner with two architects, Dave and Mea who are working at the Dubai Mall and there, there will be an aquarium that is 50 meter long and will have a tunnel to walk through. I saw some video of it on a mobile phone. Big sharks swimming right over your head like the shark expedition at Sea World. You complete forget everything around you is built on reclamated land. All the land is manmade. It is hard to really understand. I did not see it being made, that would have helped. The whole palm I think is not necessarily a great place to live, but it is totally impressive.

The weather lately has been horrific. Tons of dust and sand in the air. The lowest visibility I have seen since being here. Mix that in with humidity from 50 to 70 per cent and it is crap outside. But it is getting cooler. Autumn has arrived or is very near. It is like AZ in that the winter and spring are the golden seasons.

In about two hours I am driving to the airport to meet Anthony Allman. He is a recruiter from Hill Intl. HQ in Marlton NJ. He will be here, but mostly Abu Dhabi for 3 weeks or so. I know what it feels like to get off that plane and see the craziness of that airport. It should be fun.
BrotherBill