City of Culture

Abu Dhabi is currently developing a cultural capital (estimated to be worth about $27 billion dollars) to be built in a “cultural district” on Saadiyat island in the Gulf. Those spearheading the project want art to draw in a tourist crowd.

The Louvre Abu Dhabi will be one of five museums, including a Guggenheim contemporary art museum taking its name from its New York parent,. The island will also boast a vast complex of luxury hotels, golf courses, marinas and private villas for some 150,000 people, set for completion in 2018

Team Alice in Le Mans

During the firsts laps it seemed like a new race for Toni Elias who started from the fourteenth position on the grid and maintained the tenth position until the fifth lap. But, just a bit later, the Catalan rider didn’t manage to maintain his good rhythm and lost four positions. At mid race, just like in China two weeks ago, with less fuel and therefore with a lighter bike, he found a rhythm which allowed him to finish in eleventh position even if the rain slowed him down during the last part of the race.

His teammate, Sylvain Guintoli, wanted to do well for his own supporters, but the Frenchman didn’t manage to find the right rhythm at the beginning of the race. He lost too much time from the group pace and consequently lost the possibility to fight for better positions.

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Transportation

Transport or transportation is the movement of people and goods from one place to another. The term is derived from the Latin trans (”across”) and portare (”to carry”).

Industries which have the business of providing transport equipment, transport services or transport are important in most national economies, and are referred to as transport industries.

On my travels I’ve come across all manner of odd transport which we are not used to see in Europe. For example in Asia there is the tendency to transport anything on two wheel vehicles. Credit goes to Koos for the pictures!

Hot Air

There aren’t many things that make up for having to get up in the middle of the night, but watching the sun rise above the desert dunes from a hot balloon must surely rank as one of them.

Captain Dee has been professional balloon pilot for 15 years and flown through the airspace of more than 25 countries, so he’s had more than his fair share of early flights.

Q: Why the early starts?

A: Because the air is at its most stable and temperature is coollest

Q: What do passengers see on a Balloon ride:

A: Bedouin villages, Jebel Faya, camel farms, oasis farms growing vegetables. Different coloured sand and wadis.

Team Alice in Shanghai

ELIAS IN EIGHT POSITION IN THE PRAMAC GRAND PRIX OF CHINA.
ANOTHER WORLD CHAMPIONSHIP POINT FOR GUINTOLI

The fourth 2008 MotoGP race started with uncertain track condition. The asphalt has completely dried out a few minutes before the start of the Pramac Grand Prix of China, where the Alice Team riders have respectively started from fifteenth and fourteenth position. Guintoli has done better than his team-mate at the beginning maintaining the thirteenth position until the eighteenth lap when he lost two position and concluded in fifteenth. The opposite has done Toni Elias, who in the sixth lap was in seventeenth position, but after a few laps the Spanish rider found the right rhythm which allowed him to come back and finish the race in eight position. A pity for the not so happy start, seen Toni has registered the fifth fastest lap in the race, not too far from the fastest. A sensible step forward for the Catalan rider who hopes to keep growing in two weeks time, on May 18th, when there will be the Alice Grand Prix of France.

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