Metro week

Some decent new photos from Arabian Business for the week in which the Metro will officially roll for the first time, and the two below have a very personal connection.



This station might be the closest to my former Media City workplace. How sad that the Hard Rock Café, so totally unique with its architectural irony, is either already defunct or doomed soon so to be. And as for The Palm hotel... all that remains of the place where I had great room rates for whenever guests from Europe came to visit, is bare sand to the left of the Hard Rock.



I guessed it would look a bit like this, just to the east of Trade Centre Roundabout. This was the first corner of Dubai I confronted back in 2002, when a whole bunch of us were flown from Germany for the Gitex event in the month of March. Our accommodation was in the venerable WTC apartments, just visible at the right of the photo. Then there was a bridge across SZR to the Fairmont. Now, presumably, a new bridge serves the Metro station. How time flies.