This Blog Entry was imported via email so it has lost punctuation and some of the Graphics are missing and all of them are at the bottom of the page, not where they were originally.  Thanks, – Joe Jeter

After I got my bearings I headed out of the main part of Dubai City into the suburbs. They have a Metro System here that is quickly being built to move people in and out of the City. I haven’t seen much of it yet, but the traffic is meant to be quite bad. I came in very early but we will be out at rush hour today so perhaps I’ll see the real deal. But I digress. I took the Metro out to where there was supposed to be Rug Merchants. What I didn’t know until I got off the Subway was that this entire area is some kind of wholesale carnival where you can buy anything from automobile taillights to hair care products. I’ve seen some dodgy markets in Asia and Mexico, but I’ve never seen anything quite like this. You step out of a gleaming brand new underground system and are assaulted by 100+ degree temperatures, humidity, and narrow hot streets with thousands of shops, each block being a center for something different. I found everything except the rugs and finally, after sweating completely through my shirt, I had to give up and head back. The disparity between what I found in the suburbs and what is all around me here in the center of the City makes me wonder exactly what is going on here. Is this just some gigantic self-feeding retail monster or does this crap get shipped out? Dubai is a port but I’ve never heard of anything coming “from” the Middle East; at least not the Ethnic Hair Care Products or Barbie BackPacks that I found in abundance. Do they supply the rest of this part of the world? I have no idea but after 2 hours in this I gave up and headed back to the fantasy they call Dubai City. I head out in two hours and will finally get some perspective on what is really happening here. As you can tell from the pics above, I have discovered a mysterious combination of unimaginable wealth mixed in with relative poverty and contained within a beaker of religion and secrecy and rigid customs. The Metro has special cars just for women and children and for a few dollars more you can get a “Gold” ticket (thank God I did because the trains were packed) and ride in a special car that never gets crowded. It has been my observation that when a couple of dollars makes that much difference then the balance point is well off in the distance. More on all of this later once I hopefully figure it out. Joe (Below) The Dubai Fountain. A couple of shows during the day then a 5 minute show every 30 minutes from 6pm to 11pm. Click on link below to watch one of last nights shows. This is a large file so unless you have reasonably fast internet you might want to go get a cup of coffee while it downloads. It’s worth watching though. Click on this Link or cut and paste it into your Browser to watch the Dubai Fountain: https://www.dropbox.com/s/wn93ysn7phzgydc/MAH00506.MP4 The following is Tim’s Itinerary. So far he has flown from San Diego to Vancouver, Vancouver to Sydney (through Auckland) Sydney to Seoul and now Seoul to Johannesburg via Dubai. We fly together from J-Berg to Cape Town (not shown) then fly on separate Itineraries on the way home. I go J-Berg to Atlanta to LAX and Tim goes J-Berg to London and then LAX. We will have both pretty much circled the Globe by the time this is complete.