the sound system announced that we were descending into abu dhabi. yet looking out of the window, i saw a great vast expanse of the desert. tens of thousands of kilometers of it. it was simply endless. from the sky, it looked no different from a distant planet from afar in some sci-fi movies. everything looked so clean. they looked so abstract. and they certainly made me feel rather thirsty! and then i started seeing square green patches. the square patches were arranged side-by-side in very orderly fashion. there were perhaps hundreds of these green patches! and each single patch measured possibly a few kilometers by a few kilometers. and when i thought about it, i was speechless. just imagined the amount of efforts the abu dhabi government had put into greening the desert! it was almost a wonder by itself. welcome to abu dhabi. the land where people made taming the desert part of their life. for that matter, abu dhabi itself rose from the desert over the past 2 centuries.
over the next 2 days, i travelled over land to the different sites where my staff were deployed. there were construction all over. yes, abu dhabi was a huge construction site! it reminded me so much of shanghai in the 90s. everywhere you see, you have constructions going on. and the buildings they are building are huge! and very beautiful. lots of curves. there is even one award winning building that is shaped like a magnifying glass standing up! and looking at it, i do wonder how they are going to clean the building exterior! and of course, i was told that compared to dubai, abu dhabi has so much more greeneries (and i later confirmed). and of course, speaking of beautiful buildings, it is difficult not to miss the sheikh zayed grand mosque (picture). didn't have the chance to visit. but from afar, it certainly was superbly grand!
:-)
No comments:
Post a Comment