Walking Distance (by Matt)

As anyone who knows me will attest to, I like to have the necessities of life within a reasonable walking distance of my home. For me, the necessities of life (outside my front door) include sidewalks, supermarkets, restaurants, cafes/bars, parks, and most importantly, community. I never imaged that I would live in the desert though, especially not a ridiculously wealthy and ostentatious desert like Dubai. This puts a strange spin on what can be within walking distance from your humble or not-so-humble abode.
I’d like to take you on a short walking tour of our goofy Dubai neighborhood.

This is our living room, in which our cozy Christmas tree is currently on display.








This is a nice shot (that Laurel took) of the building across the way, as viewed through our windows. On its first floor on this building is a new little corner store that opened a few days ago. We walked to it last night to buy two zesty lemons.








As any complete and respectable neighborhood will have, here are our local indoor ski slopes. Ski Dubai is only a couple of blocks away, and even though we haven’t yet taken advantage of the powder, it’s the idea of it that enhances our quality of life (ha, ha…).








Here’s our neighborhood mall. The Mall of the Emirates is the very first mall that I have comfortably spent an entire day in without going completely psychotic. It feels quite like a really city, just climatized!












Scaffolding and cranes as far as the eye can see. Dubai is a megalopolis being built all at once, from the ground up, and our neighborhood didn’t escape the frenzy.













Lu Lu’s Hypermarket!!! We bought a TV here. I’d consider that a necessity of life, wouldn’t you?








We have a smoggy view of the famous buildings along Sheikh Zayed Road, including the new Dubai Tower, which is the tallest building in the world. I bet you can’t guess which one it is?