Trip Of A Lifetime....Part Six

After a good night's rest, we were ready for a new day!!  Friday is their Sabbath, so we headed off to church.  It was a very small ward and about half of the members were Filipino and the other half were expats from various countries living there.  It was a neat experience and I am always comforted to find that the church is the same, no matter where you are.

After church, we drove to the Palm.  It is a huge, man made island in the shape of a palm tree.  There were huge, gorgeous houses on the "leaves" and at the top was a huge hotel and water park.  If you watched "The Amazing Race" last year, the contestants went down the water slide at this resort. 

We drove around and looked at all of the amazing growth that is happening in Dubai.  There are so many tall buildings going up all at the same time.  It is crazy to think that this skyline didn't exist 10 years ago!

They can't just build really tall buildings and be satisfied.  It seems that they all have to "out do" each other and be crazy shapes and sizes.

I love how this one is twisty!  A twisty sky scraper! Who does that? 

Look at all of the cranes in this picture!!  They just throw up buildings left and right! 

Cool surfboard shaped building.

This is looking out over the fountains in front of the world's largest mall and the world's tallest building.  It was huge and beautiful.

We then went to the Burj Khalifa.  It is the tallest building in the world.  It was going to be named Burj Dubai, but when Dubai started having financial trouble, they changed the name. I can't describe how enormous this building is. I was so excited to go to the top.

This is one of the views from the top of the Burj Khalifa...amazing!!

Well, it actually wasn't at the very top of the building.  This is the rest of the building, looking up from the viewing deck!!

Looking down on the fountain and the world's biggest mall (with an aquarium and an ice skating rink inside).

We could see all the way to Sharjah, the next city over.  Nate told us that the visibility is never this good due to all of the sand in the air.  I guess we lucked out!

It's hard to see in this picture, but the boat in the middle of the picture is dredging up sand from the ocean floor.  The boat on the right hand side is spraying that sand to make more man made islands.  It was so cool to watch!!

They also made islands to look like the map of the world.  Unless you are on an airplane or watching from a satellite camera, you don't get to see that....check that out!!

Not the greatest picture, but you can see the Palm in the background with the Burj Al Arab to the left.

We watched the fountain show from the top!  It was wild to think how high up we were.

Just before we went back down, they did the fountain show again, this time lit up!

It is an absolutely amazing building!  While we were up there, I learned that from an aerial view, the building is shaped like a flower.

Quite the day in Dubai!!  Such an amazing place and we couldn't wait for the next day...a day at the beach!