Well, until today it was called the Burj Dubai. Apparently it has been renamed the Burj Khalifa after the President of the UAE and Ruler of Abu Dhabi. I don't suppose this is in any way related to the recent loan to Dubai from Abu Dhabi of a large amount of money to get them out of the financial mire.
Never mind. Whatever your views on Dubai, this building is an amazing feat of engineering. At 828m tall (3.5 x higher than Canary Wharf tower!) it absolutely dwarves anything else in the world. The next tallest occupied building is the CN Tower in Ontario at a mere 553m.
You can see the Burj from almost anywhere in Dubai and the view from our villa isn't bad. We did toy with going but there were 6,000 invited guests and we had learnt from our abortive efforts to see fireworks on National Day that getting there wouldn't be easy.
The reported 10,000 fireworks at the opening ceremony were very impressive, but by the time I'd scuttled up to the roof with my camera they had finished. The picture below was my best effort. Not as good as the one below that (from Getty Images by a better prepared photographer than me) which gives a bit more of an idea of what a spectacular event it was as the whole building erupted with fireworks.
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