Our first day in the UAE was spent in Dubai, where we had an obscenely extensive brunch at Madinat Jumeirah (I'm going to try not to butcher the spelling of these names), a super fancy hotel on the beach with a great view of the Burj Al Arab.
They have gone absolutely nuts on the sky skrapers in Dubai, the amount of construction going on is ridiculous, with innumerable cranes in every direction. Abu Dhabi is a bit the same but they also seem to have spent a lot of time and money making the city green and attractive - even their camel fence along the highway is much fancier than that of the Dubai emirate.

After gorging on every imaginable delicacy we went to the Palm Jameirah, another fancy resort right next to the Burj. You can just walk right in to these incredible hotels and jump in a golf cart for a ride along the beach - or at least you can when you're with Greeny.