20231214 AAAA Trip - Dubai, UAE Day #2 - Museum of the Future

2023 Alaska, Asia, Australia, Arabian Peninsula Trip 
Day 89/105 - Dubai, UAE Day #2 - Museum of the Future

We woke up this morning and realized one thing. We're still a little tired from Tuesday's long travel day and seven-hour time shift. Ah, the joys of being 63 - both of us for the next couple of weeks.

This morning, we had a 10 a.m. entry slot at Museum of the Future. It is a short walk from our hotel, just north on Sheikh Zayed Road 1.3km (0.8 miles). The museum is a relatively new structure in Dubai. It opened last year, 2022, on February 22. If you think about how they write dates nearly everywhere other than the US, they write them DD-MM-YYYY. Therefore, the museum opened on 22-02-2022 - a palindromic date where it reads the same backward and forward. This is claimed to be the first museum in the world that doesn't look back at history but rather looks forward to possibilities. The museum's exhibitions are all set in the year 2071.

On the walk to the museum - it's beginning to look a lot like Christmas...

First glimpse of this unusual, torus-shaped building

The windows are in the form of a poem about the future, written by His Highness Sheikh Mohammed bin Rashid Al Maktoum Vice President and Prime Minister of the United Arab Emirates and Ruler of Dubai

The entry is beneath the torus

The ceiling inside the entry is a continuation of the outside underside of the torus

This lighter-than-air drone was circling around in the entry

I said that everything is set in 2071. The museum is offering a prediction of what this area and the world could be like in 2071. Everything we saw was designed to get people thinking about the future and what needs to be done today to ensure that we have a future. From things like renewable energy to reforestation, to health and well-being, the museum offered bold predictions on life in the future.

Our first stop was the Mohammed bin Rashid Spaceport where we boarded a shuttle that whisked up 600km into space to an orbital space station.

We entered a room that simulated a ride to the space station, complete with views out the windows

A model of the station

A model of the solar system

We were recruited for future missions.

They showed a model of a proposed solar power system. A huge photocell array on the moon would gather solar energy. This would be transferred as laser energy to Earth satellites. The satellites would convert it to microwave energy that would be directed to Earth-based ground stations. There, it would be converted to electricity and fed to the grid. Certainly an ambitious plan.

The architecture of the building is fascinating. On the outside walls, windows are everywhere in unusual shapes since they are patterned to be Arabic writing.

Next, we went through a series of exhibits explaining how they are reengineering the planet with genetic engineering to help critical species of animals and plants survive and thrive in the Heal Institute. They showed a “library” that will hold the DNA of every living thing so that it can be preserved.

Each one of those is a species of plant, animal, bug, or whatever

The next display was all about wellness - Al Waha. We went through a series of exhibits designed to help you reflect, disconnect, and relax. It was all about mind, body, and spirit. They said these things will all be critical in the future when we are all living a more constantly connected life.

The entry to the wellness exhibit featured a stylized Tribulus Omanense, the national flower of the UAE

In one exhibit, we held our hands above a grate that emitted vibrations You had to move your hands to the correct level above the grate where you could feel the maximum vibration in your hands. It was designed to help you focus and relax. It was actually quite interesting.

In this exhibit, you stood in front of a gong as varying bass tones played. It was supposed to help clear your mind and improve self-awareness. We didn’t get much out of this one.

The next exhibit had several folks sit around a table and hum something like a meditation sound – “Ommmmmmm”. The goal was to all work to move markers on the digital display table to the center by all working together. When we succeeded, we were treated to a floral aroma emitted from the table.

This display was neat. Walking on it felt like you were walking on sand. As you move your feet, the projected image below you changed, clearing the “water” from under you.

In this exhibit, you reclined and watched the ceiling as sounds played – the sound caused ripples in a tank of water that created moving shadows on the ceiling – it was pretty cool and relaxing

The final display was a series of tomorrow's tech that is available today.

All-electric Audi SUV

Different types of delivery drones

You could interact with this android

Dual-motor, hubless wheel bike

Driverless vehicle by Volkswagen

The last stop in the museum was an outdoor viewing platform in the middle of the opening of the torus. The views were quite interesting.

View 360-degree photo

Rather than walk straight back to the hotel, we meandered a bit, taking in more views of the museum as well as other cool architecture and sites along the way.

Dubai International Financial Center and entry to Gate Avenue - another popular shopping area in Dubai - we wandered through there on the way back to the hotel

This was pretty cool.

Eventually, we made it back to the Residence Inn. We decided to try the buffet in one of the restaurants in the hotel. 

It was good and it was easy and that was what we were looking for. Since lunch was late, we will likely skip dinner again tonight and just have a light snack. We thought about going up to the outdoor pool on floor 47, but it clouded over and got a little gloomy so we decided to just make it a hotel afternoon. We’re both still tired and just weren’t too ambitious today. I did throw in a load of laundry Whew.

Entertainment in the hotel is pretty limited. While they have a nice TV, and a large number of available channels, other than BBC News and CNN, pretty much everything is in Arabic. We even found a Warner Brothers cartoon. There’s nothing like watching Tweety, Sylvester, and Granny, all in Arabic. We could stream a movie via YouTube, but our YouTube TV, Prime, and Disney+ won’t work here. It looks like Netflix will, so we might be streaming on my phone and casting to the TV in the future.

Tomorrow, we plan to start using the hop-on / hop-off bus here in Dubai for some more widespread sightseeing over the next four days. We plan to make it to the older souks (shopping areas), the Dubai Frame, the royal palace, Palms, Burj Al Arab, and more. We will be doing all that over the next four days before we board the Oceania Riviera.