Dubai, UAE

As one would expect, Dubai is an exciting place to be. Not otherworldly, but still cool. I'll try to explain what it looks like. Deira is supposedly the town ghetto but is anything but. It looks like the business district of LA or any other major city, but a little more fun and Vegas-y, if that makes sense. Jumeirah, where all the beach resorts and villas are, looks like a giant Huntington Beach. And I mean that, it really looks a lot like Huntington. Here is my review of the major Dubai sites.
Palm Jumeirah: It's big - really big. Very nice, but kind of anticlimactic. You feel just like you're in any other part of the city, rather than being aware that you're standing on a ridiculous artificial palm tree visible from space. The Atlantis here is almost an exact replica of the one in the Bahamas, except for the prayer rooms facing Mecca. There's a Cold Stone here. I'm not sure how much Cold Stone has expanded internationally, but they're in Dubai with the same menu and songs. Mainland Dubai is very overcrowded and the demand for all the luxury hotels is there and growing, so I think that this development actually was a good idea. However, I'm still unsure about the practicality of the Palm Deira, which will be ten times the size of this one and larger than Paris.
Burj Al Arab: They don't let you go inside if you're not staying there, but there is a place where all the Japanese tourists stand to take a million pictures of it. The architecture is really cool, but it's a hell of a lot smaller than you would imagine and it's anchored very close to the mainland.
Mall of the Emirates: Good, but The Avenues in Kuwait is still my favorite megamall of the Gulf. Then again, you can ski inside this mall.
The cheapest place to stay in Dubai is the youth hostel, which supposedly is very good and has a swimming pool, gym and tennis courts. Unfortunately, the cab driver had no idea where it was. He tried and tried, but could not find it. Since I knew it was located in the middle of nowhere and transport there was a problem, I decided to just stay in town. Deira has the cheapest hotels, and I think I may have actually succeeded in finding the cheapest of them all. It's not that bad, but sleazy beyond your wildest dreams. It's called the Dreamland Hotel. That name really creeps me out, and I've been to the real Dreamland in Nevada. Anyways, the bell boys have offered me a lady several times. The price quoted to me was 300 dirhams, about US$85. I haven't seen any of the ladies yet, but something tells me that around here 85 bucks isn't gonna get you high quality former Soviet Union poontang.