I visited Dubai in 2007 while on deployment.  The city was one of the most amazing sights I had ever seen.  We pulled in three times in as many months and, I swear, you could literally track the cities growth with each trip.  Whereas you drive around in an city in the United States and you will see one or two construction cranes here or there, in Dubai, you would drive along the highway leading in to the city and pass 10 or more buildings under construction on ONE side.  When I visited, the Burj Khalifa had not been built, was only 3 years in to that project, and Palm Jumeirah island was just being formed, so the “big deal” building was the hotel the Burj Al Arab, off Jumeirah Beach.

The Burj Al Arab is still one of the tallest hotels in the world. It is designed to resemble the sail of a ship with a tall straight edge as the mast and a sweeping curved edge resembling a sail catching the wind.  I was never able to enter it; the story amongst us sailors was that you had to have a suit and tie (men) just to enter the lobby because it was such an elite luxury destination.  And, in my mind, the exterior of the building alone was enough to give credence to that fact.  At the time, and even still today, I am not overly acquainted with the most astounding architectural feats, but this one struck me as purely amazing.  If its purpose is to convey a sense of exclusivity and unattainability, it succeed.  I still hold this hotel as one of my dream, when I win the lottery, destinations.  Almost to add to its inaccessibility, all the personal pictures that I had of it, with or without me in the shot, were destroyed by a computer virus; it’s too good for me to even keep an image of.