Dubai Mall. Jesus.

I’m sitting right now in a coffee shop in Dubai at the world’s newly opened, largest (and most ridiculous) mall. I keep walking in around in awe and just swearing to myself. It cost 20 billion dollars to build this place. It’s next to the world’s tallest man-made structure, the really cool-looking Burj Dubai tower (pictured right). This place pisses excellence decadence. I’ve never seen anything like this before and it’s hard to describe. It’s balls crazy.

To get to my particular table and the smiling Filipino girl that works here, I had to walk past the massive (2.6 million gallons of water) indoor aquarium, the indoor Olympic-sized ice rink with 65 foot wide video screen over it, the indoor waterfall, and a handful of the 1,200 stores. You know — no big deal.

For those wanting more fun facts, here are the Wikipedia entries for the Dubai Mall and the Burj Dubai.

Andrew’s predicts that if my wallet gets stolen here, it probably isn’t a huge concern because it will be replaced with a brick of solid gold. Spot on, sir.

I’d also say it’s time for me to consider my future in big oil?

Okay. I gotta go. It’s quite a hike back to where the taxis will take me back to the airport. (There is no bus service from the airport, but, you know, don’t worry. I think gas is free here.) I just had to get on here and express my wide-eyed awe. Holy shit, Dubai.

Update: There is a new website about Maik Janisch here.

This is more of a PSA than a blog post. Just want something useful to come up when people Google this guy’s name. The last thing I said before walking out the door to send the money from Medellin was, “Well, here we go! I’m about to send money to somebody from the internet! This should be dumb.”

Beware of Maik Janisch. He lists apartments in Lima, Peru on Craigslist that do not exist. He’ll send detailed replies over email, answer his phone, and accept money sent via Western Union or Moneygram, but when it comes time to move in to your apartment, he’s nowhere to be found.

There are some example scam posts on this page:

Maik Janisch - Lima Apartment Scam

I didn’t lose too much money, but lesson learned - don’t trust people on the internet. Gee, who’da thunk it? Even for someone generally quite savvy and overly paranoid about this kind of stuff, I was convinced - and too trusting.

Wah wah.

From a cozy hostel in Lima, Shipley out.

The only way to ensure I didn’t kill the old content while fixing it was to make a new blog.

Take that /blog!

Look at my sign man, I only can exchange. I don’t want no trouble y’all still some thugs.

… Chill out buddy. And I’m done.

Back to your regularly scheduled Shipley-ness. Nathan, don’t break it again.

-andrew