Its a lovely day in Dubai! It is around 70 degrees and has that hazy look that says it could warm up quite nicely today.
A little background on our trip for whoever is reading… Brent has been wanting to go back to the Philippines for a while; it has been 10 years since he was there. So he wondered if I wanted to travel with him this winter and I agreed. That’s how I got involved.
Our other travel partner is Jordy Warkentin, from Kingsville, ON. He was in class with a Jordan Giesbrecht from Paxton that married a Filipina back in November. They are still there due to paperwork and Jordy was thinking of going to visit them this winter. Brent invited him along with us, he accepted, and we had a third person.
We left Boston about 10:30 EST on Emirates airlines. I have never flown with them and it was the best flying experience I believe I’ve ever had. The plane was 2 years old, the flight attendants were friendly, and the plane was only about 2/3 full. Pro tip I learned: take any empty seat in an empty row in order to get your own couple seats. We were in 3 seats and I was going to move after takeoff but another guy beat me to the empty seats after he had wandered the cabin for a while. The plane had good legroom, very edible food, and I was definitely impressed. The flight crew was all European, and the cabin crew were from 13 different countries and spoke 13 different languages!
At Dubai, immigrations was a breeze, and we headed to the baggage claim. Brent and Jordy both had their backpacks “delayed” and we waited a while for them to show up. There was a guy from Detroit area waiting too that we visited with. He hunts up by Farwell. Once we got our bags we walked through customs picked up my SIM card, and headed for the taxi. One driver tried to rip us off by charging us about 4 or 5 times the correct amount so we refused him.
We checked in at our hotel, Best Western Plus Pearl Creek in Deira, and headed up to check out the rooftop pool (16th floor) but the pool hours are 7am to 6pm. We were feeling like some real food so we ate ethnic food from the restaurant by the pool (a nice view of the downtown area) . We had spicy chicken and lamb dishes, I can’t remember the names. Then we went downstairs to the juice bar for falooda. I got rose and Brent got mango and Jordy had a lime juice. Falooda is a milky drink with a scoop of ice cream and maybe chia seeds and vermicelli. It was quite delicious!
We felt like walking so we walked a long ways down the sidewalk along the creek, past the abra docks and down to where the freight was loaded and unloaded. The freight was things like washing machines and tires and some rolls of maybe carpet. The boats were 50 to 100 feet long, wooden, decrepit, and tired looking. I dont know where they come from or where the stuff comes from but we did see small trucks loading stuff late at night. After the walk we headed to bed.
If you have questions, WhatsApp me at 989-763-9044 and I can try to answer them. My phone should work all the time.
restless feet 