Dubai Burj Al Arab Dusk Countdown Timer

Whatever you think of the Burj Al Arab, and people think a lot of things, it is undeniably a building with a sense of occasion. It stands out on its own little artificial island, shaped like a sail that has been filled by a wind coming from nowhere in particular, and at dusk the whole thing glows from inside through that curved glass wall, floor after floor of white light stacked up to the helipad. The sky behind it was doing the gradient thing, orange at the horizon fading through about six shades of blue, and there was one thin contrail cutting across it like a pencil line. I was up high on the mainland side, on a balcony, with the sea flat and dark and the distant towers of the marina reduced to a smudge of lights along the water. A wedding was happening somewhere below, I think, because there was music and a lot of cars. The whole scene felt like it had been designed rather than built, which I suppose it had been, and I could not decide whether that was a compliment. Either way, you cannot look away from it.