DAY THREE - LEAVING DUBAI

10/17/2012 - Today was our last day in DuBai and we are now heading to Abu Dhabi, but before we left we took a guided walking tour of Old DuBai. We visited the DuBai Museum located just across the street from our hotel. The museum has some of the original underground tunnels made by early 15th century settlers of DuBai. We next walked over to take water taxis across the river to get to the other side of town in DuBai to shop in street markets which sold spices, seasonings and a variety of wholesale products. We walked through the Gold Souk, where we learned about Muslim tradition, which required a man looking to marry to provide his bride-to-be family with a minimum of 1kilo of gold, plus $50,000 for the bride for a clothing allowance.

We attended a business presentation at JAFZA, which is one of the world's largest and fastest growing free zones. JAFZA is striving to be the leading logistics business hub in the Middle East by offering one stop shop services to its clients by providing services such as: office space, warehousing, long term leasing, business centers, built to suit options and assistance with employees. JAFZA also offers 100% foreign ownership of company's products or services, no customs fees and no corporate taxation. JAFZA has a number of free zones with over 6400 companies as its clients. The JAFZA presentation was held in a very posh executive level board room and everyone was so impressed. We were even served tea in elegant arabic dining during our meeting. The presentation meeting was very insightful about supply chain management matters.

Our last stop before arriving in Abu Dhabi, was to the Grand Mosque. This mosque is something grand indeed. The all white marble/pearl architect accented in gold trimmings was an exquisite sight to see and visit. Before entering the mosque, women are required to be covered from their head to their bottom, no skin exposed on the arms and legs. The mosque is very grand and holds at least 41,000 people at once.

See pictures above regarding some of the places and things experienced on Day Three in DuBai.

Geneva, Annah, Sydney and Ray - MBAE14

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