I was recently on a work trip to Dubai, my first to that city. Over the course of 3 nights and 2 days, we went around the city and of course, did some work and discovered bits and pieces of this gem in the Persian Gulf. But as I landed on the plane back home, I felt compelled to write this little rant about why Singapore is better than Dubai.
1. The airport immigration at DXB sucks. We got in at peak hour about 6pm and proceeded to wait an hour to get through customs. When it was my turn, the machine wouldn't read my passport. The guy tried a few times before handing me off to another counter. Maybe it was a one-off but the wait was exasperating. And guess what, we waited 40 minutes to clear customs on the way out! Come on, twice?! The only positive I could eke out was that the queues weren't right next to each other. People might have passed out being that close to one another. Singapore airport immigration is pretty chop-chop.
2. The city's colour scheme is mostly sand and concrete. It's a little boring during the day. My Dubai agency friend felt the same, that the colours of the city were best experienced in night time neon and sparkle. The whole Palm area seems to be made of the same sand. A little variety would stop things being too generic. The building designs are great but nothing sticks out like the Burj Khalifa. The Singapore city skyline is a kaleidoscope of shape, size and colour. It dissipates a certain vibrancy. I didn't get that from Dubai. Certainly the WOW factor but not anything more to the big picture.
3. There seems to be nothing old in Dubai besides some people. In their hurry to modernise maybe the city planners didn't think about keeping some heritage prominent. There many fancy office buildings and malls but nothing quaint and historic to remind one of the past. I saw some mosques, maybe 3 or 4, with their minarets and crescent moons perched above. That's it. There's thankfully a better mix in Singapore. Maybe we were 'lucky enough' to have a colonial past and European style buildings and city planners that had paid attention to history lessons. The mix of old and new lends character to my island nation.
4. It's all malls in Dubai. They are huge and monstrous. They swallow you up and you get lost in the belly of the beast. It envelopes you and doesn't want to let go. Everyone runs to the malls here. I'm not a shopper so I wasn't too excited to check out one mall after the other. Good thing our friend guide knew and took us to some attractions within the malls - the huge aquarium in Dubai Mall and Dubai Ski at Mall Of The Emirates. I don't know if things are cheap or at a bargain. The girls might know better. The stuffed camel and other trinkets I purchased weren't exactly rock-bottom priced.
5. I don't know if this is true but I sense a great deal of hedonism in Dubai. The malls with high-end brands, the big fast cars, the fat main Sheikh Zayed Road with 7 or 8 lanes, the billboards with displays of ostentation - they just bother me. Maybe it's also because no one but the tourists pay tax. Not many seem to care about cost of water or electricity or oil. Glam is the way to go whatever the cost. I wonder if there is an environmental awareness program in place. The hotel I was in had a towel reuse sign. Maybe life isn't as hard there and folks are just milking it. In Singapore, we're reminded about our water and electricity use, and made to pay for these essentials.
6. The sand is just everywhere.
7. There isn't enough green going around. The beach area around the Westin is lush with foliage while the rest of Dubai is concrete and sand. It'll make the city more hospitable if more trees were planted where people lived and worked.
That's it I think. Here are four reasons why Dubai rocks.
1. Service culture is great. The shop and restaurant staff I encountered were friendly, accommodating, patient and in some cases funny.
2. There's a bit of an "anything is possible" attitude. It about confidence, creativity and excitement.
3. There's a traffic law where the authorities impounded the offending vehicle for a month at a cost to the owner. Punishment! Also they have SMS based parking fares that go into the driver's phone bill while in Singapore we tear appear coupons. Lame lah.
4. The breads, humus, fattoush and tabbouleh are awesome. Omnomnomnom burp! Oh, mint in lemonade is brilliant.
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