Abu Dhabi...Part 3

Back to Abu Dhabi.

On Saturday, we went to visit the Sheikh Zayed Mosque, which was finished in 2007. It is the largest mosque in the UAE and the eighth largest in the world. It is large enough to accommodate 40,000 worshipers and cost about $550 million to build.

The courtyard is about 180,000 square feet and with its floral design is considered the largest marble mosaic in the world. You can see part of the floral design under Emma, Evelyn, and Hyrum; clearly it was very, very bright. Thanks to a similar reflection in my buddy Scott's blog when he visited, I remembered to bring sunglasses. It's possible that I forgot to mention this to everyone else, though. Oops...

Outside, there are some beautifully manicured gardens with these large glass domes.

Like I said...it was bright.

Dress code.

Inside the entrance of the mosque, they have a model of the mosque...very meta.

They have the names (in Arabic and English) and times of the six daily prayers posted.

The mosque has seven imported chandeliers from Germany. The largest, seen below, is the second largest chandelier in a mosque and the third largest in the world (33 ft diameter and 49 ft height).

The main prayer hall (capacity: 7,000) has the world's largest carpet. It was made by Iran's Carpet Company, is 60,570 square feet, weighs 35 tons, and its 2,268,000,000 knots were made by 1,200-1,300 knotters over about 2 years. It is made primarily of wool (coming from New Zealand and Iran).

The 99 names of Allah are featured on the wall.

And with all that, Hyrum was most excited about the water.

Me in the doorway into the courtyard.

We also saw the Capital Gate building (aka the Leaning Tower of Abu Dhabi), which is the "world's furthest leaning man-made tower" with an 18 degree westward lean. The Leaning Tower of Pisa leans at about 4 degrees, and something called the Leaning Tower of Suurhusen leans at about 5.2 degrees. Therefore, Capital Gate doesn't just beat the competition; it blows it out of the water. The Leaning Tower of Pisa and the Leaning Tower of Suurhusen are both unintentionally tilted, while Capital Gate was built to lean on purpose. Therefore, the Leaning Tower of Suurhusen still holds the record of most leaning tower that is unintentionally tilted, which sounds like a sore loser trying to come up with another competition category so they can still win something. Really, you're now flagging the fact that your structural tilt is ineptitude instead of a conscious decision? If you look closely (doesn't really require you to look that closely to see the reflection), you can tell that we saw the building through the car window.

On Sunday, we went to a huge mall in Dubai before dropping me off at the airport. It's a weird feeling to be shopping on a Sunday, but the holy day there is Friday, I swear...maybe not the best turn of phrase when discussing the Sabbath...okay, I promise.

On the way to the mall, we passed two things that screamed Abu Dhabi to me. The Petroleum Institute and a gas station food court that included a store called "Texas Chicken." When you combine oil, American influenced chain stores, large Muslim mosques, and beautiful beaches, you start to get a sense that Abu Dhabi is an interesting place.

The mall was huge and included (starting in picture #2; picture #1 is to indicate overall largeness) an aquarium, an ice rink, a bagel shop (mainly exciting to people who have spent bagel-less months in Ethiopia), some weird fountain with metal or stone men who are either diving into the water or trying to commit suicide head first, giant potted plants (seriously, where do you find a plant pot that big), and a small grocery store.

"You didn't really think I would leave Buzz and Woody at home to miss all the excitement, did you?"

Next to the mall is the tallest building in the world (I have no further information than that; feel free to research on your own time). The building is seriously so tall that no matter how hard we tried, we couldn't get the whole thing in the picture (even with the photographer getting as close to the ground as possible and slanting the camera up). I hear the fountain show at the base of the building is really cool, but we'll have to save that for another trip.

The tallest building in the world seems like a good place to end the trip recap.

While not detailed until next week, I wanted to publicly congratulate my brother Lawrence and his new wife Erika on their union! Congratulations you two! To the many years ahead!