the big fat world

There was a joke a few years back that the national bird of the Unites Arab Emirates is the sky crane. It was estimated that 16% of the world’s sky cranes were in Dubai alone. Today, the almighty sky crane still shoots into the Dubai horizon but it’s numbers have far dwindled and sadly, some [...]

Doha is not an exciting Middle eastern city. It doesn’t have the style of Dubai, the artsy eateries in Beirut, or the threat of eminent death like Kabul, but it does have a fine selection of hilarious, funny road signs. I was on a 7 hour layover and bought a $30 visa and popped out into this [...]

All my previous knowledge of Dubai stemmed from those sky-crane pictures of the building boom that circulated the internet a couple years ago. Of course, I had heard of the man made islands and Ski Dubai but after spending a couple days here, the sheer amount of things to do on budget (or off) are staggering. So, [...]

Qatar isn’t up there on my ‘must see places before I die’ list but I had a recent 7 hour layover in Doha and thought I would do some exploring. The airport is a convenient 10 minutes into the touristy souk (shopping bazaar) or 15 to the newly emerging business district. A visa for an [...]

Other than the top things to do in Dubai, you should take stock of the road signs. While Dubai doesn’t offer top quality quirky road signs it does offer them in Arabic script and for this Romanphile girl, they look rather cool. Enjoy this very small collection. by

Weird Dubai are not words I would associate together but Weird Dubai is what I got. This city has so much money oozing out its pores, there are bound to be the strange, the bizarre, and the weird Dubai.  One traveler’s strange is another travel bloggers post. Dubai’s metro has class segregation. Yes, that’s right. [...]

The Burj Khalifa currently holds the title of the tallest building in the world. It stands a staggering 2,717 feet with 160 floors. The elevator ride to the 124th floor viewing area itself takes about 60 seconds and your ears will pop. Some current records (courtesy of wikipedia): Tallest skyscraper to top of spire: 828 m [...]

In the city that glitters, not all is gold, especially when one finds themselves in Dubai’s shopping district of Al Karama. Al Karama is absolutely one of  the best places in Dubai to find high quality genuine fakes. Why pay the exorbitant prices for real Prada, Marc Jacobs, Louboutin, Jimmy Choo, Chloe, Rolex, Chanel at [...]

On my 1st day in Dubai, I decided to go to the place that most reminded me of the great American past time of shopping. Little did I know that the Dubai Mall is more than a place to buy some designer jeans, this place is an institution in Dubai and currently holds the title [...]

And so another installment of Riley, Party of 1 hits the blog. Since needing a new Turkish visa, I decided to pop over to Dubai in order to renew my visa and celebrate 2011 arab style. With only 3 days here to celebrate, I still managed to tread the tourist terrain. Here are some solo Riley shots for your viewing [...]