Abu Dhabi is the capital of the United Arab Emirates, a nation formed in 1971. Another city with no addresses, it's structured into indecipherable numbered sectors (which seem to appear on no maps at all), and to make it worse, many of the major streets have dual names (numbers and names). It was also, to my mind, one of the most oddly planned cities I'd ever been in - very different than neighbouring Dubai, and very hard to understand what they were trying for. Anyways, I wasn't there long during my visit in 2007, and here's the result.
Photo List (Total 155 Photos)
Click bolded headers below to view, or click "just the best" for quick tour
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General city views (75 photos) - I took a stroll through central Abu Dhabi, trying to figure out the city as best I could. The downtown is punctuated by huge streets stuffed with blocky buildings with vaguely Arabic decorative motifs, and scattered through with so much parking that at times it felt like one big parking lot downtown. Though there were other people about in the waterfront parks, in stores, and restaurants, it had an extremely sterile feel to it. Includes a few snaps of the airport, lots and lots of photos of buildings, including some very ugly ones, and also the stunning Investment Authority Building.
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Waterfront (30 photos) - Photos of parks, driveways, and buildings lining the Abu Dhabi waterfront.
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Culture (29 photos) - The Abu Dhabi Cultural Foundation, the Al-Hosn Fort.
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People (14 photos) - Abu Dhabi has a very wide mix of people from all over the world, and I made more of an effort than I usually do to try and capture some of them. Well, 14 photos anyways. These also show some of the ways in which Abu Dhabi fails to provide for it's citizens.
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Signs (7 photos) - Another very confusing city to find your way around. Here are some examples of the signage around town - see if you think you could get to a party without a cellphone!
