Observations:
Everything is a themed mall and hotel that held some world record when it was built.

One local lady described Dubai as having two seasons “Summer and Hell”, very apt, in the middle of winter it is average of mid 20s, not exactly bracing.

The metro has seperate carriages for women and children and they all have first class carriages.

There are quite a lot of pictures of the leadership around and the same family have been heads of Dubia since the 1800s…

All the work on the city, ask the mega projects and the like, are to be completed for the 2020 expo, so for a city under less construction, go after then, although there is likely to be lots of people without jobs when all the mega projects are complete. They are basically trying to put enough money into tourism that it’ll keep them afloat when the oil runs out.

The government are trying to make sure that you are never more than 500m from a mosque, which shouldn’t be too hard as you’re currently never more than 50m from a shop.

I’ve never stayed in a muslim country before, so be aware, if you’re a light sleeper, you’ll be awoken by the pre-dawn call to prayer every morning… Luckily I’m not a light sleeper and after you first hear it, you almost forget it every other time you hear it. That and the national dress is the only culture the city really had, so enjoy.

A souk is supposed to be a market, 9 time out of 10 it’s just a mall.

Likes:

It’s very clean, even the cheap, dirty parts have no rubbish.

It seemed very safe.

People were very friendly.

The metro: incredibly cheap, regular enough, very very clean and shiny.

Dislike:

Be aware, you really have to look around to find things that are reasonably priced, but if you look hard enough you can even find some things that are quite cheap. It’s not really that bad, just be aware.

Dubai has very little to no unique culture. It’s all copied from somewhere else, all its world records are for being the biggest, very rarely the first.

Almost the entire city is just a display of wealth and very materialistic.

Highlights:

Big Bus Tours: they were all really friendly, I booked online and it cost my about $60 and that was all the tours and activities and most of the transport that I did all the way up until the last day. My highlights of those tours was the night tour.

Visiting the mosque was the most informative part.

The people I met, I met a lot of interesting people on the tours and in the hostel.

The desert trips were very fun with all the little things included.

The dancing fountains, yes they are taken from Las Vagas, but they are a lot of fun, I would recommend anyone that visits should go and see them.

Lowlights:

None.

Final Thoughts: 

I never found out what the hose in the toilets was for, maybe for washing dust off your feet… Oh Oh, maybe it’s for the ceremonial washing before prayer that muslims do! That would make sense!