{"id":1828,"date":"2013-11-22T07:26:38","date_gmt":"2013-11-22T07:26:38","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.jasonalden.com\/site\/?p=1828"},"modified":"2013-11-22T07:26:38","modified_gmt":"2013-11-22T07:26:38","slug":"money-in-the-air","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.jasonalden.com\/site\/staging\/?p=1828","title":{"rendered":"Money in the Air"},"content":{"rendered":"

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\nHalls filled with men touting the latest missiles like they were video recorders, sheiks indulging in a few new business jets and fake replicas of Big Ben<\/a>… Dubai is odd.
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\nRising out of the desert, the city stands with it\u2019s bright lights and towering structures, a magnificent symbol of it\u2019s own prosperity. I was in Dubai this week for Bloomberg News<\/a> covering the International airshow<\/a>.
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\n\u201cFive Thousand Dirham a night\u201d exclaims my taxi driver. The cost of a night in the new Armani hotel<\/a>, at the start of my ride\/his guided tour by cost (I wasn’t staying there). All this glitz and glamour contrasts with it\u2019s strict Islamic routes and conservative customs. At the show, men and yes I mean predominantly men, walked around exhibits and had their pictures taken with what are essentially war machines as announcements were made that companies were buying hundreds of airliners.
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\nThe part of the trip that I was looking forward to the most was the air display, I\u2019d never shot one before and with F-15<\/a>\u2018s flying at close to the speed of sound I was expecting a challenge. That challenge came but not in the way I\u2019d expected; the perfect blue skies gave way to a sand storm that blew off the desert and swept over everybody in the crowd. It quickly became apparent that the show would be cancelled for the day and I retreated to the media centre to clean my cameras. The next day was far more successful, and the fast jets came out to play… as did I.
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\nMy efforts were rewarded with a front page on The Financial Times, see it here<\/a>.
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\nI\u2019ve done allot of traveling and wasn\u2019t expecting any surprises on this trip, but I was very wrong. The Arabic culture is fascinating and something I hope to explore again.
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