Big, Bigger, Biggest: Burj Khalifa

Dubai has the world’s tallest building, the Burj Khalifa. It weighs in at 828 metres, 2,717 feet, overtopping the next tallest in Shanghai by nearly 650 feet. Oddly, my best photo of it was from the metro on the way because close-up it’s too bulky and looks like a space rocket. You’ll see what I mean from these next two pictures.

We have already booked for the viewing platform on floor 124 at 452 metres (1,483 ft) as they do timed entry, although you can stay as long as you like once you’re up there. It almost goes without saying that the views are stupendous, although it is again misty as it was on the summit of Jebel Hafeet near Al Ain. It is more like being in a plane as you look down on the tops of the other skyscrapers.

You also observe details you can’t normally see but know are there, like the modern, but intricate, road system. This interchange is a real spaghetti junction; some of the highways are 7 or 8 lanes wide on each carriageway.

Other features not so apparent at ground level are how they create artificial islands. We’re able to look down from here on the sand dredging and mounding operation that will eventually be developed into hotels and residential buildings. 

The largest of these artificial islands is already completed and is located not far from our hotel. It’s laid out in the shape of a palm- in fact it’s called “The Palm”- and is 5 miles in diameter. It’s barely visible in the next photo because of the setting sun and the distance, but it’s the horizontal strip in the sea in the top right hand part of the picture. The main point of the photo though is its misty atmospherics caused by the sun on the glass that I feel is best appreciated by a black and white treatment.

After sunset there’s a fountain and lights display at the foot of the Burj Khalifa that we are staying to see. We while away an hour in the vast shopping centre adjacent (another biggest in the world, as is The Palm artificial island), but shopping malls are almost the same wherever you go and this one had the same stores as you’d find anywhere in the UK: they're just all together and with higher prices!

Just before dark we meet up with Rob who’s come from work, and have coffee.  When it’s dark we head for the display. The illuminated fountains fire up, all very nice, with the added glow from the camera phones and tablets waving in the air that looks like part of some wild ritual dance.

Perhaps I didn’t sound too overwhelmed? It was really quite good, but absolutely dwarfed by the following light spectacle from the Burj Khalifa itself. The whole height of the tower pulsated in rapidly changing light patterns, like a New Year firework display. The next three photos are examples of the many amazing images produced.

Today was a unique experience of things on a scale almost too extensive to take in, but one definitely not to be missed.