Hold your breath!

Burj Dubai, the world’s tallest tower standing at the height of 828m (2,716.5 ft) with 160 floors will be inaugurated today on January 4th 2010.

Emaar construction group will showcase this tower to the world in a majestic opening ceremony. The lights, sound show are expected to be brilliant specially after the opening done by Atlantis -The palm.

See more details see the official site at www.burjdubai.com. Due to heavy load of visitors, the site might take some time to load. After all, it is an awaited day for many people all over the world.

The ceremony will be showcased to many local people by installing large screens at Downtown Dubai. When I had visited Dubai during my vacation, the tower was in construction stage and the entire tower height had been achieved.

A preview of the worlds tallest tower under construction in Dubai. This photo is captured almost an year back and seems to be almost done from the exteriors. The interiors are the one which takes a lot of time for completion.

It is placed adjacent to the Dubai mall which is also one the biggest malls in Asia. The tendency of making things big in size is in the genes of Middle east. It is a trade hub and architectural marvel. Another one of them is the Palm Jumeirah, Palm Jebel Ali and the much talked about Dubai World which has now caught attention of all after the debts issue with the project and repayment problems.

The official website of the tallest tower is www.burjdubai.com . The website has details of the tower and its structural components. It also compares the tower with other tall buildings of the world.

Click on the image below to see a bigger version.

Dubai is a dream place for people all over the world to just come , enjoy the city and around.

In my past post of Atlantis super luxurious hotel, the focus was less on the buffet and more on the man made marvel which stood its ground in the Arabian Sea.

The place is worth a visit and the intricacies and the attention paid to finer details is plausible. A larger set of images have been placed at my travelmate section where you can see some more views of the hotel.

Palm Jumeirah is an artificially created island which has changed the topography of this region on the world map.  It was an awaited day of our trip as we had planned a lunch at Kaleidoscope restaurant in Atlantis Hotel. The hotel received a fair amount of attention when it spent around $20 million for just the inauguration ceremony. Another significant feather was the unexpected plan of erecting such a mammoth building at the tip of Palm Jumeirah island. The “Aqua” theme of the hotel makes it a visual delight for all its guests.

It took us about an hour to reach the hotel traveling through some of the most expensive commercial roads of the world. The houses can easily be described as palaces on their own. One could see diverse varieties of luxury or fantasy automobile zooming past or parked in the palaces on either side of Sheikh Zayad road and the Beach road.

Entering the Palm Jumeirah Island is a lifetime experience witnessing custom made ultra luxurious apartments and villas. A drive of around 2 miles into the island and then into a tunnel led to the Atlantis. The distinctiveness about this tunnel is that it is within the Arabian Sea. The sea is over the tunnel and vehicles need to go below it to enter the luxury hotel.

The entrance could not be any more majestic overlooking the clear blue Arabian sea with yachts sailing across. Another way to gauge the status of the hotel and its guests was the line of Bentleys, Rolls Royce, Ferraris and Porches parked around. The building architecture is also exclusive with a huge 25 plus levels gigantic fort like building with tomb shaped dome structure carved out in the top middle.

The lobby was equally imperial with a beautiful 30 feet high multi colored glass tree forming a fountain. Our table was booked at the ‘Kaleidoscope’, a restaurant in the basement level. At one end of the lobby was the stairway leading to the basement. We proceeded to see a huge aquarium where fish and small sharks were swimming with ease. That was quite a big attraction for visitors and the children were just enjoying it immensely. This was something quite unparalleled here as compared to other star rated hotels that I have experienced in the past.

We headed for the lunch finally after viewing the entire extravaganza offered by the super star hotel. The buffet was grand and well lay out in different sections. I tried to have a 5 course meal over a span of 2 hours to taste the different cuisines on offer but there were many left without tasting them.

After memorable and luxurious times spent at the Atlantis we began wrapping up our trip. On our way outside I was able to capture panoramic shots of the hotel which will be cherished by me for a long time.

On our way back home at the Jumeirah Road where we saw the world’s first and probably the only 7 star hotel, Burj Al Arab. It was a breathtaking view even though we were away at a distance from the hotel and I managed to get some shots of that structure also.
The last stop was a supermarket where some grocery items were purchased and then we went headed back to home sweet home.