20231212 AAAA Trip - Sydney, Australia to Dubai, UAE - 40,000 feet for 14 hours

2023 Alaska, Asia, Australia, Arabian Peninsula Trip 
Day 87/105 - Sydney, Australia to Dubai, UAE

If you look closely at the clock, it reads 2:50 and that's not afternoon time

Today was a travel day. It was early in the morning when we arrived in Sydney, so I counted that as Day 1 in Sydney. Today, we didn't get to Residence Inn until nearly 3 p.m. and it has been 19 hours since we left The Grace Hotel in Sydney. Today isn't going to be Day #1 in Dubai because we're beat.

Our cab arrived just before 3 a.m. so the day started well. We got to the airport and got checked in before 3:30 a.m. so again, great. Except immigration didn't open until 4 a.m. so we had to sit around for a while before we could actually get to our gate. We flew Emirates for the first time today. We sprung for the upgrade from Economy to Premium Economy and that paid off. We scored bulkhead seats so there was plenty of legroom. 

We had a window and an aisle and the seats were large. All this is a good thing for a flight scheduled to last more than 14 hours. We had considered upgrading to business class, but on Emirates, the choice would be to pay for the upgrade or pay for another cruise. It was that expensive. So, premium economy was it. They fed us well. We watched movies. Arlona read a bit. Arlona slept for a while, I took two short naps. The flight was right on time. The worst thing I can say is that we hit moderate turbulence several times. Not much they can do about that. It was also our first time on an Airbus A380 and wow - it was nice. Two decks of passengers made loading and unloading fast and easy.

14:25 and 7,490 miles after we departed Sydney, we arrived at Dubai airport and began the long walk, train ride, walk, walk, walk to immigration, and then to get our bags.

You know you're in Dubai when all the airport clocks are by Rolex

By the time we got to baggage claim, all three of our checked bags were coming around the bend. We retrieved them and walked to the parking deck to the Uber pick-up spot. I ordered an UberXL (because of our bags). Nasir arrived in less than five minutes and whisked us to the Residence Inn by Marriott Sheikh Zayed Road. The architecture on the drive was fascinating.

First glimpse of the 160-story Burj Khalifa on the far left - we're going there tomorrow

This is outside the Museum of the Future - we're going there on Thursday

After checking in, we took a walk around the hotel. 

We did find a grocery store a couple of blocks away and stocked the fridge with pop for our visit. We also grabbed a three-pack of microwave popcorn and that will likely be dinner tonight. The mission now is to force ourselves to stay away until at least 8 p.m. to get our internal clocks adjusted to the seven-hour time change we just went through. Sydney is on UTC+11 and Dubai is on UTC+4, so we are now nine hours ahead of the US East Coast.

So where are we in the world?

Check out the thin red rectangle with the blue dot

This zooms in on that area - you can see Dubai on the west of the peninsula

We are in the United Arab Emirates, or UAE for short. We will be here for a week and then board the Oceania Riviera for a cruise from Dubai to Qatar and another UAE stop before ending in Abu Dhabi, just a little southwest of Dubai. The UAE is a new country for us, so that puts us at 60 countries visited on our quest for 100.

Arlona is making dinner (microwaving the popcorn) so it's time for me to wrap this up. Well, that and the words are a little blurry. Must make it for two more hours...

20231211 AAAA Trip - Sydney, Australia Day 7 - Sea Life Sydney Aquarium - a fitting end to a great stay

2023 Alaska, Asia, Australia, Arabian Peninsula Trip 
Day 86/105 - Sydney, Australia, Day 7, Sea Life Sydney Aquarium

Today is our last day in Sydney. We planned to make it a low-key day because tomorrow will come early...too early. Some idiot booked our flight to Dubai at 6 a.m. tomorrow. Who would make such a stupid booking? (That would be me) The taxi will pick us up tomorrow morning at 3 a.m. for the roughly half-hour ride to Sydney Airport.

For today's adventure, we decided on the Sea Life Sydney Aquarium. Breakfast called first and we tried a place just down the road called Binge Kitchen. We ate outside just off the sidewalk and watched the workday start in Sydney.

I had the tasty breakfast BLT (just like a regular BLT)

Arlona had a breakfast wrap with eggs, bacon, and aioli

We booked the 10:30 a.m. entry slot at the aquarium so we headed west toward Darling Harbor and the aquarium after we ate.

The W Hotel on the right

The aquarium

Just hanging out near the water

Since we were early, we had to wait about ten minutes before entering. They sell a fixed number of tickets for each time slot to help with traffic control. There is a single path through the aquarium so sending in masses of folks would create logjams. Here are some of the aquatic creatures we saw.

The first thing you see when entering is a turtle, because who doesn't like turtles?

then you move past a variety of tanks featuring a variety of sea creatures.

Those eyes...

If you look closely, you can see a pair of black and white clownfish hiding in there

Lip filler?

Hey! You lookin' at me?

You lookin' at me???

That non-descript blob is an octopus

I need a vat of drawn butter, please

This was a highlight - two tunnels under the water where you are completely immersed in the action

This was so cool - the tip of its head was translucent

This is a dugong - a marine mammal and relative of the manatee

Like all mammals, they breathe air

The shape of their tail resembles a whale fluke whereas a manatee has a more fan-shaped tail

In the wild, they eat seagrass but in captivity, they eat lettuce - this one eats $AU18,000 worth per month

That equals 40kg or about 88 pounds of lettuce per day

It was also cool looking at the rays from up top

We continued to the next set of tunnels - this one featured sharks!

They also had a huge ray in this tank

It looks like a face, but this is the ray's mouth

Next up was the penguin area. They have gentoos and kings. They were fun to see, but nothing like seeing them in the wild.

This one was fascinated by a woman standing near the glass

It wouldn't leave and just kept staring at her

They had an entire room filled with columns of jellies

These sawfish are the craziest-looking things

Remora look like a cross between a shark and an eel

One more tunnel - with tortoises!

Our ticket also included free digital download photos. They're pretty cheese so I won't bore you with them, but here's a sample.

We really enjoyed the aquarium. We will be getting another dose on Wednesday as we're hitting up the Dubai Aquarium.

One thing we've noticed is that Aussies like their cars. We've seen several high-end vehicles. This one was stopped at a light as we walked back.

McLaren 720s

They run around $AU500,000, or around $US330,000

We headed back to the hotel to get our bags in order. Emirates has a 35kg (77lbs) checked luggage weight limit. The number of bags doesn't matter. The total weight does. The only restriction is that no single bag can weigh more than 32kg. Arlona's one, really stuffed bag comes in well under. My two bags are about 38kg, forcing me to pay for an additional 5kg at the rate of $100. It would be $200 if I waited until I got to the airport.

We were hungry and checked out a local chain called Betty's Burgers and Concrete Co. They have burgers, chicken sandwiches, and such plus ice cream blended desserts - that's the concrete part. We both had tasty burgers and split fries and onion rings. Like breakfast, we were on the street - this time at a table right on the sidewalk. It was good food and great people-watching. We walked the block back to the hotel.

We got showered and mostly packed. Before we turn in tonight, nearly everything will be packed except for the last-minute items like toothbrushes, deodorants, and so on. I will be setting the alarm for 2:30 a.m. (idiot) and the last mad dash will begin to catch the cab at 3.

Tomorrow is farewell to Sydney and Australia - it's been great, and hello to the United Arab Emirates and Dubai - we're looking forward to meeting you.