Day 5-- Preparing to "Zone" Abu Dhabi

Abu Dhabi currently has no zoning... and they want something that will regulate development like zoning, without being "zoning"... so we're doing Framework Development Regulations, or FDR for short.



Our goal is to flesh out the details of the daring plan, Abu Dhabi 2030:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DWsIoZKx5qU

One idea we are putting forward is to preserve what's good like the villas in this neighborhood (next two pics)






As well as vibrant neighborhoods like this ...



with old school neighborhood shops like this:





And create more parks like this...



There's a most amazing waterfront prominade. Could it be better connected by foot from the city?




And have more shade streets like this...



This is an old part of Abu Dhabi that could be redeveloped in to high rises...



Below is one of my favorite parks in the city




All for now...

Day 1: Friday and Ramadan

This is a not great picture of business class on Etihad airlines. The chairs adjusted so you could be entirely horizontal. I got maybe 4 hours of sleep during the 12 hour flight-- which isn't bad since it was a daytime flight that arrived in Abu Dhabi at 11:30 PM Boston time.



I've had a few hours out on the town to walk around. Actually, the city is really pretty cool. What I like best is it's international feel. You walk down the street and you see people from all over Asia who live here. The cab driver who brought me from the airport is Syrian and has lived here for 20 years. His wife and child live in NYC, but he can't get a visa to get in. And inflation is killing him. It's up about 120% in the past year.

It's Ramadan-- a month during the year when people don't eat or drink during the day. An advertisement for KFC to break the Ramadan fast.



Today is Friday, so it's a double whammy... the streets are pretty deserted-- but probably more pedestrians than you'd see in the Financial District of Boston on a Sunday.



If you click on the picture below you will see some guys lounging on a bench in an otherwise pretty barren urban environment. The streets are just too wide. They've built some very fancy underpasses to help people get across. Needless to say most of the people I saw take their chances going above ground. That might change on heavier trafficked day.



Men going to the mosque for Friday noon prayers...



This was a cluster of about 30 or so bikes that workers have parked to go work in a factory -- on a Friday during Ramadan-- safe to say these workers nor their boss are Muslim.



I found a very cool and surprisingly cheap supermarket to buy lunch. If you eat in public that's a no-no during Ramadan. So rather than eat in the hotel restaurant I bought a ton of food for about $7 -- including knife.



Yum!

Woody's place Pattaya/ Naklua

Well, Woody is onstentatious. This will give you an idea of his finished product...

Woody's livingroom/ entry...




Lot's of antiques



He's on the 29th floor, one below the penthouse... about 1000 sf... his building is in the least developed land about 20 minutes out of town. The rest of the Pattaya area is really dense. South of Pattaya is much more built up. In planning is a 97 story residential building. It will be the tallest residential building in the world. From what I can tell there is an insane building boom going on here.




The bedroom... one cool thing about the 29th floor is that there are no mosquitos up that high.

The swimming pool area from the rear of the building...

The entrance... these collumns are really quite amazing

See you all in a few days!

Mark

Pokhara, Nepal

Okay, Woody's house's... his kingdoms! They really are spectacular, but I'll start here with the most humble house with it's most humble side showing. It's a classic villa. It's started at about half the width and Woody expanded east. The final colors of the outside of the building will be the top band of orange and a sunshine yellow.

Yes, the outsides humble, and has very little yard. But Woody's done pretty well with the little space he has. Here is the front yard:

Woody's house has an amazing number of arches-- in fact more than 32 arches. Here's a look through from the back of the house towards the front entrance. Notice the marble walls, and Wody's trademark, lots of glass...



From the same spot looking back out over the lake and back terrace. The house has three kitchens and baths so it can be used as a single family or a three unit. This is the downstairs kitchen. A bedroom shares the terrace to the right.

View from the upstairs bedroom:


Looking from the upstairs dining room through to the back of the house. There are also several circles in the house:

Upstairs kitchen (one of two)

Balcony on the far side of the house. This is really a walk way with little use, but it looks cool!

Woody's back yard...

Now we turn to house number two which is very much under construction. It's on the far side of the lake from Woody's village house. There are no roads and it can only be reached by a very circuitous walk (maybe 5 miles), or a paddle across the lake. It's a major number of steps-- maybe 1000 up to the house from the lake. The path in parts has leaches. The first I'd ever seen. They look like little inch worms. Both mom and Woody picked off a few leaches after our visit.

A view of the house approaching on the lake. I have some fantastic video footage, but it's too big to upload.

Here's the top of the stairs and the entrance to Woody's domain... looks like a villa in tuscany no?

It may look like Tuscany, but California will be on tap as this house will mostly sheathed in glass...yes, glass! Any exposed walls will be plastered

Woody's spiral staircase is pretty amazing. Will it stand an earth quake? This is a very active earthquake and landslide area. Note one of Woody's two min-pins.

This is where the video is killer, but this house has 270 degree views over the lake. What you can't see in the background due to haze is the white topped Annapurna range-- They jut way above the hills on clear days. This is the view to the north from Woody's living room.

Same room looking west

From the roof looking east:

From roof looking north

from roof looking west:

That's all for now!

Nepal!

We flew from JFK to Bangkok and spent a rest night in the airport Novotel... $130 a night, but well worth it to not have to hike anywhere. Plus it had an amazing pool, restaurant and spa which we took advantage of. After 16 hours in a plane it was nice to just relax at any cost. Speaking of plane... Thai's premium economy class was amazing. For an extra $300 you get a bunch of leg room, and incredible food. There was enough room between the seats that Mom and I took turns sleeping on the floor in front of our seats.

One thing that surprised me about flying direct was our route... due north over the North Pole. So the really cool thing was going north the sun was setting, but after we crossed the north pole, the sun started to rise to the east. Pretty crazy!

Monday we flew on to Kathmandu. Wow, what a place. Nepal is poor, very poor. Poor enough so that the Maoist party is a major force. Actually they are trying to pull together a new constitution and government after 10 years of civil war. The GDP per person is around $1100. Kathmandu is chaotic. To give you an idea of how chaotic, check out this video!

Our hotel was in an area of Kathmandu called Thamel. It's the backpacker hippy area. Tiny alleys, no sidewalks, full of people, cars, motorycles and bike rickshaws. The pavement was not smooth at all. Can you picture an 82 year old woman navigating this? Well, this aint no ordinary woman, this is Shirley G!

We did get out of Kathmandu one afternoon to go visit the village of Bakhtipur-- this is a small town that has a lot great architecture and made the smart move of banning traffic from it's core. I would highly recommend staying a few nights here. I wish we had!

One of the cool things we saw in Bakhtipur was people threshing rice.

We stayed two days in Kathmandu and then flew on to Pokhara. The flight was in a 40 seater prop plane. Several airlines make a good business of flying tourists to Pokhara. By bus it's 6 to 12 hours. By plane it's 25 minutes.

The weather was hazy so I never really saw any big mountains from the ground. I did get a good look at them from the air though. They make the rockies look like foot hills. Not just because of their height, but their girth and the way they stretch endlessly from west to east. Here's a good photo I took of Manaslu from the plane to Pokhra. It's about 25,000 feet high and the eighth highest mountain in the world. The top ten highest peaks are in the Himalayan mountains.

Pokhara (pronounced POKE-rah), is a small city of 80,000 with the tourist trade centered on strip along the lake. We were here to see Woody's two houses. You'll get to see those in the next installment!