The country of United Arab Emirates and the city of Dubai became very rich because of all of the oil in the Persian Gulf area. This is true for other countries in the Persian Gulf too, such as Qatar and Saudi Arabia. Although not everyone there is rich, there are a lot of people there who have a lot of money. Some of them made money from the oil, some from building things and others from selling things.

The Prince of Dubai wanted to make his city more appealing to tourists. He also wanted to add more beachfront to the city. His idea was to build some islands in the shape of palm trees. Can you believe that someone could build an island? The island I saw is called Palm Jumeirah.

The island was build on reclaimed land. There is also a lot of reclaimed land in Hong Kong. In fact, the airport and Honk Kong Disneyland are both built on reclaimed land. That is because they needed more land area than they already had.

Land reclamation means making new land from the ocean. They fill in the sea floor with large rocks or cement with steel. Then the area is covered using clay or dirt until it is high enough for what they need. Jumeirah Palm was built entirely from sand and rocks. No concrete or steel was used to build the island. That was how the prince wanted it. It takes a long time to reclaim land and it costs a lot of money.

Palm Jumeirah has apartments and villas, restaurants and hotels. The Atlantis Hotel is on the crown or top of the palm. There is another Atlantis Hotel in the Bahamas south of Florida. I didn’t have time to go into the hotel, but I rode near enough to take the photo below. If you saw my video, you will remember Rory talking about the fast roller coaster. His mom is the one who showed me the hotel.

I went to lunch at one of the restaurants on the trunk park of the palm.

It was fun to see these fancy places, but I could never afford to live or stay in any of them. I stayed with my friends near their school and not in any of those hotels.

If you went to Dubai, would you rather go dune-bashing and camel-riding or would you rather stay in a fancy hotel? Please write with any questions or comments.