Like no other, this city is on a quest for records, reinventing the Orient, building the tallest skyscrapers, and reaching for the stars. Where there was desert yesterday, today is a wonderland: a site visit in Dubai - both behind the scenes and in the spotlight. On the beaches, in the streets, in the desert. In his conversations with window cleaners, chauffeurs, shisha preparers, and chefs, as well as with environmentalists and investors, Helge Sobik looks behind the facades of luxury hotels and glittering towers and gazes at offshore islands. Through reports from the everyday life of the megacity by the Gulf, he conveys what draws so many people here for a few days: the feeling of life in Dubai - with all its contradictions.