10 travel memories: part I

1) le tour eiffel
paris, france - spring 2007

j'aime paris - i love paris. who wouldn't? large glorious boulevards, small quaint alleyways, art popping up where you least expect it... it's just so different from anything in the anglo-saxon world

but the coup de grâce for me has got to be the visibility of the eiffel tower from practically every arrondissement, every other avenue and boulevard. we were in the quartier latin, heading towards the panthéon, when i happened to swing around and catch yet another glimpse (and hence capture another photo) of the tallest structure in paris.

the eiffel tower has a special place in my heart - it was one of the highlights of my first-ever trip to paris/france; when i'd climbed (many flights of stairs!) up the tower and gazed down at the environs, at the picture-perfect bird's eye view offered of the trocadero platform, the structural pastures of the champs de mars, and further afield, the cubic grande arche of la défense and the shining basilique du sacré coeur... even the HLMs of the parisian suburbs were visible and stood out awkwardly on the periphery of the city

i fell in love with paris there and then; 5 years of french language apprentissage in school culminated in a moment of recognition, a sense of "mission accomplished" - i was finally where i'd always dreamt of being, and it felt good

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2) an explosion of construction
dubai, united arab emirates - winter 2005

when people find out i've been to dubai, they invariably ask me "so how's it like?"

my usual response varies from "oh, it was ok" to "it's an interesting city" to "i did little else while in dubai apart from sleeping and going to shopping malls"

actually, what i've always want to say about dubai, but usually don't (because doesn't really mean anything until you've seen it first-hand), is this:

it's exploding in construction. buildings are rising from barren land, growing in a seemingly organic fashion - i say seemingly, because the sheer scale of the construction is so overwhelming, cranes and workers blend into the construction landscape unnoticeably

you think the burj al-arab is something? wait till you witness the construction of the palm jumeirah and especially the "tallest building in the world" burj dubai (estimated duration of construction: ~5 years. only 5 years!!), around which an entire city centre is being built from scratch, more or less

it is awe-inspiring, the construction boom. there are a lot of background controversies, as expected - notably, the use of immigrant labour from the south asian subcontinent (india, bangladesh, pakistan) and the resultant societal implications

but i had only one thought when one night, on the highway, we cruised past yet another massive construction site. i peered out of the car window and gazed at the mammoth structures, white lights still shining from every (completed) storey, a temporarily abandoned ghost town of concrete skyscrapers, awaiting further work come morning. one thought in two words: the matrix!

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