I am feeling a bit more collected so here is a recap of the last few days.
Yesterday we visited Ernst and Young and today we went to Dubai Knowledge Village. Ernest and Young was different than I had expected. I don’t usually identify with asset management, assurance or auditing careers but one consultant in particular, described her work with improving que times in hospitals and how they actually collected data to identify the bottlenecks in order to suggest a process improvement plan that would allow for a more seamless system. She said they did everything including data collection, patient surveys, data analysis and then implemented their suggestions. They also helped to train and advise the hospital employees through the changes and measured their results. It was definitely a career I would be interested in and it was a surprised to find such a position at E & Y. I think that it is very valuable that the company seeks to not only provide investment information and regulatory compliance assistance but they can also look at the company’s overall structure to offer an integrated advisory service to help businesses achieve their strategic goals. Their approach appears much more holistic and customized than I had imagined.
After E & Y yesterday, we continued our tour to Atlantis Hotel and the Mariana- two overwhelmingly extravagant sites. The hotel is on the Palm Island and has an aquarium with 65,000 fish! The marina overlooks a man-made marina with a view of twisty buildings and large yachts.
The night slowed with a great sunset view from the hotel rooftop and a nice conversation about our day’s excursions. We discussed the events from a social perspective and how despite the massive wealth in the country, there are still inequalities and construction/labor workers living in pretty difficult conditions.
Lastly we had dinner and drank shisha (thats what they say instead of smoke shisha) at a local Middle Eastern restaurant where nice company and conversation continued.
This morning we went to Dubai Knowledge Village followed by Ski Dubai in the afternoon. I will fill in the details later but here are some pictures to tell part of the story. Tomorrow is Abu Dhabi Day (yes that is fun to say out loud). We are visiting the Chamber of Commerce and IBM!!
More to come…
**Disclaimer- My blog is in Arabic so I don't have spellcheck.
Did you guys get to go skiing or just look at the Ski Dubai? Aren't the malls in general, just crazy. I mean, coming from MN, you would think we have the MOA, but the Mall of the Emirate and Dubai Mall are over the top with the amount of space and variety of stores they have. They have movie theaters, ice rinks, fountaints, aquariums, etc.
ReplyDeleteI am not sure the rest of your itinerary, but you can't leave without doing the desert safari with sand dune bashing, camel rides and most end with a BBQ in the desert.
Hope you are having fun!
We did not ski but got a tour and chair lift ride. We wanted to ski but were running short on time and it was $90. Did you ski there?
ReplyDeleteThe malls are insane!! Ice rinks, aquariums...you are right- unreal.
And yes- the safari was out of this world fun. Ahhh... what a country!