You may have heard that saying…”their not building any more land” well I am in Dubai today and I can tell you - they absolutely are. You may have heard of a development calls “THE PALM” or “THE WORLD ISLANDS” in Dubai. These are man made (predominately sand) Islands. As you could of guessed, “THE PALM” is shaped like a palm with one long oblong island extending off the main land and several semi circle-lines coming off the oblong island. And “the world” is a series of islands in the shape of all the continents/countries of the world. Absolutely out there - they obviously don’t believe in global warming or rising sea levels here!

What an absolutely insane place this is. Just being here disproves many conceptions that we just seem to assume, such as the above.

This City is living and breathing “THINK BIG”.

I have just popped in for close to a week to assess some potential deals and the market climate here. But more than anything I think it is a lesson in what is possible, what we can achieve, and also what we maybe shouldn’t try and achieve too.

Driving through Dubai is a mixture of old charm mixed in with space age architecture. 7 star hotels and mirrored monstrosities of skyscrapers neighbor hand constructed, mud-packed dwellings.

Waterside properties are obviously the pick of the litter and thus they have created more water side properties by building more land in the middle of the ocean.

I am sure that it was a logistical nightmare to execute and will continue to be difficult to maintain; I am told that engineers will need to consistently replace the sand weekly in order to keep it above water levels. However, despite the logistics, building and planning involved you can not help but marvel at the fact that it was thought of in the first place and carried out.

Somebody was brave enough to say, “lets try this and lets do it on a grand scale”. What courage, determination, forward thinking, creativeness and innovation that takes.

To be honest with you, Dubai is not really my kind of town and at this stage I will not be doing any development here, but you can not help but marvel at the minds at work and the speed at which their visions are becoming reality.

It really is nothing short of phenomenal and a testament of what is possible. I know I will be going back to Australia and my development with a new view on what I can and will achieve and to that degree, what a worthwhile trip it has been.

Cheers, Carly