Retired

Well I call it retirement, somehow I’ve pulled it off a few years early. In reality I have given up working 12hr shifts forever but if the money runs out I’ll need to do something, just a little less unsociable.

In an attempt to keep the monetary reins on, I have booked a five month trip away, starting in the Dubai, yeah that will test the budget!

So yesterday Jan 3 2024 I left a wet miserable England by climbing aboard an Emirates A380 and just six short hours later it was summer.

Yes the plane geek loved the whole experience

Arriving at the hotel in downtown Dubai I was immediately upgraded to a bigger room, bigger than some flats I’ve lived in. It was breakfast time, so it was an ear popping elevator ride to my 41st floor room for a freshen up, then back down to the second floor with obligatory ear popping thrown in, for breakfast.

I had a snooze and was ready to hit the town. Being a big window shopper I headed for the Dubai Mall and literally spent the rest of the day there. The next few days I was just a tourist, loving the touristy things. One highlight of my pre trip planning was the museum of the future, this amazingly formed structure houses a vision of the future of tech, however my pre trip planning didnt cover how far into the future you have to book and I found that out at the ticket hall, sold out for the next month.

At least five stories tall and continues underground, the Museum of the Future.

So, onwards and upwards quite literally as I went up the Burj Khalifa building. The tallest building in the world currently), located by the water fountain display at, you guessed it, the world’s biggest shopping mall.

Clockwise. Burj Khalifa. Looking down from floor 148. 10 million litre aquarium in the mall. Three story waterfall in the mall. Meet n greet the otters (They were overjoyed to meet me obvs). Biggest mall blah blah blah

The week continued with a trip into the Desert to take part in various activities. Read my dire feedback on Google or TripAdvisor for more on that.

Clockwise. Burj Al Arab (most expensive in the……..). Skywalk and glass slide on the side. I ran out of time to do that. A souk. The beach. The sunset. Another souk.

JBR beach with the biggest ferris wheel…., really do I need to go on? I spent a day swimming and tanning my lilly white body, that somehow remains lilly white. Burj Al Arab looks amazing, but without a ticket you can’t get close and as with most stuff in Dubai its in the middle of a building site. The souks and gold souk are always colourful.

In sequence. Looking down from the top of pic 2. Dubai frame. From a distance. A dow and a car.

The old town houses the gold and the spice souks. They are a colourful experience. The dow still operate along the Dubai creek transporting goods from the Riyhad harbour, inland. The harbour itself has the QE2. There are daily tours but only two and they were sold out. I managed to blag my way onboard and had free run of the whole ship.