Took an overnight flight from Singapore and arrived in Dubai 7am in the morning. To my surprise, Taj Palace Hotel provided a transport to fetch me from the airport even though it is only about 5mins away.
Checking in is unfortunately not that pleasant. They have a room reserved for me since last yesterday but they don’t have a room for me when I check in. Luckily, I met an old friend, Teresa Swinehart who is the counsel for ICANN so we spend an hour catching up in the lounge while I wait for my room. Teresa also just fly in from WSIS in Geneva. (I believe things is in good hand and under control there :-)Meeting starts at 9am and have lunch with folks from Etisalat, the monopoly telco in UAE. By mid-day, I was knock out and so took a quick nap but come back in time to hear Paul Wilson talk. The other interesting presentation is Etisalat’s IPv6 trial. Surprisingly, they already started working on IPv6 since 2001 and have an operational IPv6 network!
Spend the evening adventuring around Dubai downtown with Teresa and we stand amazed at how westernise Dubai is. (Seattle Best Coffee in Dubai anyone?)
Dinner is hosted by the Dubai Internet City. Dubai Internet City is incredible. They have MNCs which will make any sillicon-valley-wanna-be country jeolous – Sony, IBM, Siemen, 3Com, Cisco, CNBC, CNN, etc. The dinner is set in the open field beside the pool and surround by Siemen, 3Com, Sony Ericsson, IBM!
Wish I can upload the photos but I realized I forgot to bring my adaptors :-(
