Dubai, Kuwaiti Stock Exchange, TV Appearances, and the Kuwaiti Parliament

Dubai, Kuwaiti Stock Exchange, "The Avenues" Mall, Media Appearances, and the Kuwaiti Parliament

Burj Al-Khalifa tower, Dubai, UAE. World's tallest tower at 2,722 ft.

This past weekend, we went on our third and final "side trip," this time to Dubai, United Arab Emirates. UAE is a more typical gulf state: little to no democracy, no legislature, heavily censored press, and deeply oppressed ex-pat workers. Perhaps due to the assertiveness of the rulers of UAE and Dubai, this emirate has seen massive development from a desert city no less than 15 years ago, to a sprawling economic that attracts high amounts of foreign investments. But unlike most such cities in the region, Dubai doesn't get it's spending money from oil, but rather from the institutionalizing of a carefully diversified industries, especially concerning it's international banking sector. Culturally, it is very different and considerabl more culturally liberal than Kuwait, with many more western tourists and workers, and many women who choose instead to wear Western clothing. The city is almost completely spotless, impeccably organized, has an amazing new public transportation system, and is a leading candidate for the 2022 World Exposition. Since they have a post-oil economic future unlike Doha and its UAE counterpart Abu Dhabi, it is shaping up to be one of the world's strongest cities in the 21st century.

While in Dubai, we went to the top of the world's tallest building, the "Burj Al-Khalifa," skiied at one of the world's only indoor skiing facilities at one of Dubai's man incredible malls, did a desert "dunebashing" tour, and spent time out on the very beautiful beaches. Dubai is an awesome place with a lot of energy, and I suggest that everyone go there if they have a chance and want a taste of the Middle East.

Twice-an-hour water show outside of Dubai Mall, coupled with music.

Skyline picture of Dubai, from top of Burj Al-Khalifa
 

"Dunebashing" jeeps in the desert. We drove around up and down the dunes, with big turns and jumps.

Overview of desert outside of Dubai
 

Myself and my friend Michael on a camel after dunebashing

Desert sunset near Dubai

Skiing in the desert - at "SkiDubai" in the Mall of the Emirates. Awesome and surreal experience;
never thought I'd be snow-skiing in June this year. Photo Credit: Wilco Carey

Site of Jumeira beach, the only public beach in Dubai. Water was very warm with big waves,
 so we were there for a while.

Good snapshot of old and new Dubai: a veiled woman on a beach in 110 degree + heat,
with brand-new skyscrapers and palm trees in background

Back in Kuwait....

Since we got back to Kuwait on Monday, we visited the Kuwaiti stock exchange (seen below), went to the Avenues mall,  and were interviewed by "KuwaitOne" TV.

The Kuwaiti stock exchange. Completely male trader on the bottom floor, and the women traders simply get a "trading room" upstairs which is about the size of a small conference room. Notice the photographs of the Emir in the background, a staple of any Kuwaiti institution. Although nominally supposed to be doing the same functions as NYSE traders, most of the traders in Kuwait were calmly sitting down, and it was very quite, unlike the chaotic frenzy of the NYSE.
 

The largest mall in Kuwait and one of the largest in the world,
 the "Avenues" mall is literally a series of indoor avenues, as seen above. 

Finally, we've been getting a rash of media appearances. Apparently not many American student groups come here.

Since yesterday and until we leave on Sunday, we've been followed around by a camera from the Ministry of Information (who we met with last week), who is sponsoring a documentary of us on KuwaitOne, a state-run (but not censored) news station. To supplement this, a few of us (not me) are getting interviewed tonight.

As promised earlier, from our meeting with comic book "The 99" creator Naif Al-Mutwah, CNN finally aired the story. I'm shown at 3:02 making some flailing arm movements, but my other classmates' quotes were used for the story. See video here: CNN Video

This one I AM in. This morning (6/12), we went on Kuwait's equivalent of "Good Morning America." I was one of the four students selected to be interviewed, and we discussed our studies in Kuwait, what we enjoy about Kuwaiti culture, and what we've done since our arrival. After the interview, we did a very "Today Show"-like move as we watched the guest chef cook, then we tried her food and commented on it. There's no video yet (it's airing tomorrow), so I have a pre-taping photo below. It was pretty nerve-wracking to be on the show, but it was a very fun thing to do and I was lucky to get picked to go on.

KuwaitOne set this morning, before taping

After KuwaitOne this morning, we went to the Kuwaiti parliament, a very place very different than what I've seen of the legislature in Washington. We were able to sit in on a debate session of parliament, where the topic was, at it often is, corruption in government jobs. The debate got very heated, and unlike the US, there is both direct addressing of other members of parliament (in the US you have to address your speech to "Mr. Speaker"), and there was very little decorum nor control over who was talking at any time. To culminate it well, it was ended when the speaker unilaterally decided to end session for the day, walking out after slamming the gavel down among yells of protest against the adjournment. 

Only a handful of days left in Kuwait, heading back on Sunday.