Welcome to Grapeshisha, the free newsletter providing you with an insider's view on the UAE. Are you are considering a move out here? Do you live here and love it? Do you want to be clued up for your next visit? Or are you just interested in the glamour of Dubai? Well, Grapeshisha is for all of you. In our free newsletter, we will look at a number of topical issues and give you the real deal about what's actually going on.

So, let's kick this edition off with Dubai. Everyone's talking about the upcoming projects as if they have already been built but it's difficult to put the whole thing into perspective until you actually see anything. And a construction site doesn't do much justice to possible wonders of the world. We recently stumbled upon the Dubai GIS Center website that begins to give a great picture of what's really going on. This fantastic website has a great download page:

http://www.gis.gov.ae/en/downloads/downloads.asp?nPage=4

If you are only going to download one file, then I would suggest the 'Major Projects' PDF, about halfway down the page. It is a full 2.5MB, so beware if you've been promising yourself that dial-up upgrade for the past few years. Zoom in about 200% and check out new developments, indicated by yellow.

Points of highlight include:

• The 3 Palms - Personally, methinks the Palm Deira resembles more of a giant woodlouse than a palm tree, but that's just me. http://www.thepalm.co.ae/
• The World - Where would Dubai be without the World, and of course, where would the World be without Dubai? http://www.theworld.ae/
• The Burj Dubai, rumoured to kick the competition to touch and reach highest to the heavens. http://www.burjdubai.com/
• Hydropolis, the first underwater hotel, for when a submarine ain't good enough http://www.hydropolis.com
• DubaiLand - the Middle East's answer to Disney. http://www.dubailand.ae/

If you're wondering where Burj-al-Arab, the 7* golden hotel, is located - look close to the Palm Jumeirah, next to the Madinat Jumeirah, and you will see the location of the current defining landmark of the UAE. http://www.burj-al-arab.com/

A super map is all well and good. But what's it really like to be in Dubai? The speed of growth is phenomenal, but invariably this means super cranes, diversions and traffic jams. Leave Dubai for a couple of weeks, and you'll find a skyscraper where you thought you had a sky view. But while there are infrastructure issues wherever you go currently, there seems to be a solution in process to alleviate them all. With road widening, underpasses, overpasses and a spanking new metro system all in progress, Dubai should become the lifestyle that you hope for but cannot yet find.

Businesses are being lured to make Dubai their home, or their anchor in the region. And executives love it. Dubai is midway between Europe and the Far East, making it an ideal compromise with the added benefit of fun. With swanky hotels and restaurants emulating both the East and the West, who would complain about this super safe kingdom? In years to come, Dubai will have anything and everything (the largest indoor ski slope is a prime example of this). All that you desire, and only a short ride away. The hope is to entice the tourists and businesses to make Dubai the most profitable piece of land in the world, and to keep it that way. Will Dubai be the super city for the modern era? The future is not yet written, although the vision has been marked out in the sand.

We hope that you have enjoyed our introductory newsletter. Remember, when you're asked, tell them you heard it on the GRAPESHISHA. Smoke you next time...