Dubai

I first visited Dubai in December 2012. As I didn't have time to do everything I wanted to do, that is, to photograph every site I wanted to photograph, I went back in March 2013. Dubai is a fascinating city that defies belief. To learn more about the city I read Dubai. The Story of the World's Fastest City by Jim Krane. As Krane writes, "you have to stretch your imagination to absorb the reality."

As George Saunders wrote in 2005, in an essay about Dubai, "Don't be afraid to be confused. Try to remain permanently confused. Anything is possible. Stay open, forever, so open it hurts, and then open up some more, until the day you die, world without end, amen."

On my first trip to Dubai I was staying in a hotel in the skyscraper to the left, the one with the "R". I noticed a hotel with a rooftop bar and swimming pool on the other side of the road. So on my second trip I booked a room in that hotel to take this photo. I probably could just have gone to the rooftop bar as well without staying in the hotel, but anyway.