It feels a little schizophrenic to travel from a war zone in Afghanistan where there were literally firefights in the street when I was leaving (more on that in future posts) to shopping for expensive clothing and hanging out at an ice bar in Dubai just a few hours later…

Fortunately, embracing such ambiguities in life has never been a problem for me and so I soon adjusted and made the most of my time in Dubai. And I have to say that when you’re sunburned and it’s really freakin’ hot outside that it feels pretty good to slip into an environment that maintains a constant temperature below freezing.

This is my glass after one drink. After the next drink, I was unable to resist chewing the ice my glass was made out of…

Everything is made out of ice – the walls, the bar top, the couches, the art, the glasses, the stools – everything…

All of this ice is imported from Canada…

Everyone that knows me knows that I enjoy watching (but not always participating in) wretched excess… Excess is what Dubai is all about. It fuels the city.

The underprivileged and uncool in the outside world gaze in envy through the ice sculptures at the hipsters in Chill Out through these windows…

The skyline of Dubai… It’s really a good thing that this sculpture is made out of ice since the horizon in Dubai changes so quickly.

How else would you know you were in Dubai if they didn’t have ice camels?

Here’s a video panorama of the bar… I shot this right after a big group left, so Chill Out was temporarily primed up for some video documentation. This is not, however, a normal state of affairs in terms of occupancy…