Kickoff in Dubai

I know this is not the place to show off your holiday photos, but I have just attended the most fabulous kickoff in Dubai with my company, and I simply have to share it with you. Be prepared to be envious! :)

It was four truly hectic and very compressed days – we experienced a lot in a very short time and were all very tired when we came home. We ate great food and danced all night, we talked and hugged and everybody became good friends outside the department barriers.

At the first day we visited the new Dubai and were thereafter sailed with taxi boats to the old Dubai, where we visited a market. It was boring. I had planned to buy spices but since there was an intense smell of pee, I didn’t. There were lots of shops with spices:

And there were many shops with decorations for the home:
You cannot imagine how incredibly tasteless it was.

Thereafter, we went to the Dubai Mall, which is the largest shopping center in the world. I ran around with a colleague to buy shoes. She only bought one pair, while I controlled myself and only bought two pairs.

Later in the afternoon we visited the Burj Khalifa, which is the tallest building in the world:
Everything is bigger and bolder in Dubai, you simply cannot imagine how rich and bold everything is if you haven’t been there.

The Khalifa is 828 metres tall and has 164 floors. As a tourist you can come up to 124 floor.

And here I am:

You are really ”at the top” when you are standing on the 124 floor:

Later in the evening there was a fountain show, which also was incredibly big – I have never seen anything like it. Imagine water dancing belly dance!

The next day we attended a kickoff at the lawn of the hotel, we played beach volley at the beach and had the rest of the day on our own. I just laid at the pool and read. In the evening we should eat at Buddha Bar, but before going there our CEO announced that there was a change in the programme. We were driven to the Burj Al Arab hotel, the only seven star hotel in world and shaped like a sail! We sat and drank expensive champagne and took a thousand photos. We could freely choose a second drink from the bar card.

When we came down the bus was gone and replaced by Hummer limos:
It is an amazing company I work for!

We had the last day on our own. I needed some privacy, so I walked down a promenade, and started noticing the cars. There were no cars older than three years, and every third car was a luxury car. You kept hearing V8 and Porsche sounds all day. There were Ferraris, Lamborghinis, Camaros, Rolls, Porsches, Mustangs, Hummers and other expensive cars everywhere:

In the evening we went on a jeep saferi and boy, it was fun! We drove for about an hour and ended in the desert. Here I am standing in the middle of no where:

Eight Toyotas raced around in the sand and it was much like riding a roller coaster.

We stopped in the middle of the desert and drank champagne, sitting on pillows and carpets:

Thereafter, we were driven to a tent camp where we ate an Arabian dinner:

It will NEVER be ordinary day at work again!