Burj Khalifa Tower
My final man-made landmark is the Burj Khalifa Tower. After another long 8 hour flight from Beijing to Dubai, in the United Arab Emirates, I was thrilled to be finally standing in front of the Burj Khalifa skyscraper.
Fortunately, with my internet pre-booked ticket in my pocket, I was able to bypass the long queues of people waiting to get to the top of the tallest structure in the world. The $115.95 which I paid for the 'At the top sky level' was well worth the cost. My interest in this building was sparked many years before when I discovered it was the tallest building in the world.
Standing at a staggering 830m above the ground, this building is a man-made engineering marvel. This remarkable building was designed by Adrian Smith, from the world renowned architecture company Skidmore, Owings and Merrill. The buildings Y shape design creates three wings made up of rounded tower blocks. The towers step up and support the tall central tower which is the tallest building in the world. The design is based on the Islamic Minoret tower and is a tribute to Islamic culture.
I recommend you go to the Burj Khalifa at about 5:30pm when the sun is setting. The view of Dubai city at sunset, with the desert in the background is absolutely extraordinary with the sky slowly change from blue to orange and then finally to black. Being so high of off the ground you can see curvature of the earth on the horizon line. The length of the shadow was spectacular to see.
This building is amazing and not only because of the views. It only took six years to build which I found amazing. I have never seen so many elevators, 58 in total in a building before. I could not believe there were 2909 stairs from the ground floor to the 160th floor, and trust me I took their word for it because I was not going to climb and count them. The amazing height of this building means it is almost 6 degree centigrade cooler at the top compared to the ground.
The most amazing and somewhat frightening fact about this building is that there is over 24,000 windows that need to be cleaned, my tour guide explained it takes a team of 36 workers almost four months to clean all the windows. Not a job for me.