Arriving in Dubai

For those that have not visited Dubai.... Buy a ticket ASAP and expirence one of the most modern cities in the world. Dubai is an incredible place and everything you would imagine of a middle eastern country that is mainly made up of desert.

Upon arrival after a 15 hour flight via Singapore we were greeted by 35 degrees at 6am and the day has of course only got warmer, a max of 46 is expected today.

Once checking through immigration myself and Nick Frayne (ICC Regional Projects Officer)took a 30 minute taxi ride to Jumeriah which is a coastal area of Dubai and checked into our Hilton hotel. The hotel is incredible in itself, with its own beach and amazing pool this is certainly a great place to relax away from the day to day conference and meetings we have over the next 4 days.

Nothing is small in Dubai, it's like everyone is trying to out do each other with bigger buildings or fancier designs. Fact is 70% of the worlds cranes are in the city of Dubai and I can testify to that, everywhere you look there are cranes in this every growing city.

Our beach at the hotel is very calm and clear, though it is like hoping into a warm bath so not as refreshing as you would hope for after hours in the heat and humidity. The pool on the other hand is great and even has a swim up bar to enjoy a lemonade or two.

Today has been our own day to ourselves to look around and not be restricted by time and work commitments. We spent majority of the day looking around town and visited the Mall of the Emirates, imagine the Galleria times five and filled with the likes of Prade, D&G and many other deisgner outlets. The shops have a certain European flavour to them and have the likes of Boots and Debenhams which are very big department stores in the UK.

The people are friendly and the city has so many different cultures, in the hotel here thier would be almost someone representing every country in the globe.

Well best go and get some dinner and get ready for a busy four days ahead.