Blogs from Dubai, United Arab Emirates, Middle East - page 8

I'm celebrating my 50th birthday with 50 new experiences. My husband and I love to travel and have visited many places. So when choosing new experiences, I chose the United Arab Emirates (UAE) - an Arabian Peninsula nation settled mainly along the Persian (Arabian) Gulf. The country is a federation of 7 emirates. Jose Gomez, from the dept. of tourism was our guide. He is very passionate and has a pluthera of information that makes touring the city enjoyable and fun. Look him up on Facebook! With Dubai, size matters. Dubai is the site of ultramodern Burj Khalifa tower - the tallest building in the world. Very impressive - at over 828 metres (2,716.5 feet) and more than 160 stories. A must see! On the 123rd floor is a restaurant and lounge. Very pricey. At.mosphere lounge ... read more

I had left on a late night flight from Shanghai, so my arrival to Dubai was in the early morning. I was quite glad that there was a sandstorm/poor visibility meaning that we had to circle for about another hour to an hour and a half. I got to get a bit more sleep in. We landed and I was through immigration pretty quickly. Since it was still early, around 7 am, I decided to sit in the Costa at in the arrivals section and have myself a nice, strong coffee to wake up a bit. After about an hour, I headed over to the subway, which is very conveniently located nearby. I took the train to where my hostel was located in the older part of Dubai. After getting a little bit lost, I found ... read more

Today we fly halfway around the world to Malaysia via Dubai. We queue up to check in at Lisbon airport. We always carry a spare battery for my camera. We were told at Melbourne airport at the start of the trip that this had to be stored in one of our suitcases in the hold - if we put it in our carry on bags it could apparently catch fire and make the plane crash. We were of course happy to comply. As we stand in the queue here in Lisbon we see a sign telling us exactly the opposite - all spare batteries must be stored in our carry on bags. We wonder how this can be. Maybe it's got something to do with the different directions that water spins around as it drains out ... read more

We did it! After many months of planning, worry and excitement, we finally left Paris on Sunday 24th of September even if. I shed a few tears when I said goodbye to my parents (or maybe more than a few tears but we were all very emotional!). We then had about 6 hours to sleep on the plane before landing in Muscat, our stop on the way to Dubai. We did not sleep for even one minute in spite of the earplugs, blanket and pillow provided by the airline. The man behind us was the loudest snorer I've heard (and god knows my nan and dad are very loud... And an aircraft is pretty loud too!). So we watched a couple of films instead. The transfer in Muscat went well and we arrived in Dubai at ... read more

Currently sitting at the airport in Dubai. We are really tired. The goodbyes were really hard but now that we realised that there is no way back it seems easier. In Frankfurt Tessy was positively controlled for explosive substances and the police had to come. Fortunatly it was just an error but they hold her back for about half an hour. Now 18 hours of flight are waiting for us. We can't wait to finally be in Christchurch. Greetings from Dubai, Adela ... read more