Blogs from United Arab Emirates, Middle East - page 20

Yes, we are about to start our trip home tonight. Our flight out of Barcelona is not till 10.40pm so today we toured architect Antio Gaudi most known masterpiece the Basilica de La Sagrada Familia, what an amazing building and to think this building is not expected to be completed until 2026 when it started construction in 1882. Still is a wonderful building and give you a great insight to Gaudi design. After this tour we then had a wonderful Spanish lunch of Paella. What a great way to finish our time in Europe.... read more

It is of course still crazily hot, so we spend the morning lazing around the hotel's lukewarm pool. We've booked late afternoon tickets to go up the Burj Khalifa, so we head off to the adjacent Dubai Mall, which we read is the largest mall in the world. Of course it is. Judging by everything we've heard to date, I'm sure that if any other mall somewhere had the temerity to try to outdo it, the Dubai Mall would just quickly tack on a couple more floors and restore the natural order. It is indeed massive, and we need to get a map to try to get our bearings. There's a two storey high thirty metre long aquarium in the middle of the mall, and one of its walls is a single pane of glass. That's ... read more

We decide to go exploring, and head off towards Dubai Marina which only looks to be a few hundred metres from the hotel. It's ridiculously hot and uncomfortable. My iPad tells me that it'll be 42 degrees here tomorrow with 91 per cent humidity, and that means it will "feel like" 59 degrees. 59 degrees! That really is ridiculous. Apart from us the streets are largely deserted, which we suspect means that we're the only people here stupid enough to be wandering around outside when the temperature feels like it's somewhere north of 50 degrees. We stagger into an air conditioned mall and perhaps unsurprisingly discover that this is where all the people are. We take a few minutes to cool down before heading outside again where it seems to be even hotter than before. We ... read more

We left Blighty on the 3rd March 2016 and we will arrive back in eight hours, on the 11th June 2016, which is a trip of exactly one hundred days. The journey tracker on the blog has our final mileage as 33,711 miles. In doing so, we've crossed three continents, visited eleven countries, crossed the international date line and jumped over the equator twice. It's hard to describe how it feels to be finishing the trip as thete is such a combination of emotions and thoughts: excited to be going back home, relived that everyone made it safe and well, keen to start afresh in the new home where we've only lived for six months; a small twinge of sadness that this particular adventure is finished; delight at the prospect of delicious home cooked food (especially ... read more

"Travel while you are young and able. Don't worry about the money, just make it work. Experience is far more valuable than money will ever be." - Anonymous To travel is my long time dream back in the Philippines. Actually not only me, we are group of friends who dreamed and wished to be in different places around the world. Over a cup of 3 in 1 coffee or a bottle of Emperador Light with some Dingdong and Nagaraya on the table, we talked and wished alot. :) On my younger years (20's) I always dreamed of visiting Asian countries (Hongkong, Singapore etc. But during that time I can't do that, I don't have the means to travel. I am a jealous type of person (in a positive way) :D, I envy some of my students ... read more