My journey to visit my family in Switzerland and my friends&family in Spain started today. I left my house at 105 Bellevue Avenue, Georges Hall at 5pm for my Emirates flight EK 413 at 9.45pm. The plane is my favourite airliner, the Airbus 340-500 and I was sitting in 32A. Thanks to www.seatguru.com I've had this seat reserved for months, since I wanted to be on the window right behind the wing to shoot the best video of our takeoff in Sydney SYD and my first landing in Dubai DXB. Don't miss the videos following the photo of the A345.

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I landed in Dubai at 5.30am and the airport made a very good impression, since the Emirates Terminal 3 is brand new (few weeks or months). The prayer rooms, men walking around in traditional Arab white clothes and many other things were new to me. I'm still touched by the look that the woman at the border control gave me. Since women are all covered up in black clothes and the only thing you can see are their eyes, they put heaps of make-up to strengthen their look. The woman in question had green eyes and was looking me in the eyes while she was talking to me. Unlike the normal passport controls where they sit behind the window and have a quick look at you to check if it's you on the photo, she was standing in front of me s while she asked me how long I would stay in Dubai and if I smoked.. Which I found weird but probably they ask you because they want to warn you of special rules or something.

I exchanged 100€ and cached a taxi. I asked him to drive me to the Burj al Arab, the most expensive hotel in the world, shaped like a sail and located at Jumeirah beach. They claim 7 Stars. I have been looking forward to seeing it, it is so beautiful! It was about 20ºC and there were several surfers at the beach. I had a walk around the beach for about two hours, while the sun was rising and the moon was still in the middle of the sky.

Then, I drove by taxi to the Dubai Mall, the world's biggest shopping mall with over 1200 shops. The streets were deserted. The shopping mall had only been opened weeks earlier and it was extremely empty. Some stores were still unpacking the stock and everywhere you looked you could see considerably more staff than customers.

Still in the shopping center there is a massive aquarium with a 32m long screen, which is the world's biggest aquarium screen in one piece. It is open to the public and free of any cost. Inside there are 33,000 fish swimming around, under which stingrays and different kinds of sharks. When I walked past it for the second time, three scubadivers were swimming around in it and feeding the sharks... Don't miss it in the video!

Burj Dubai
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Dubai Mall, Aquarium
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Back at the airport, I bought a CD with Arabian music so I can mix it with the videos recorded in Dubai! My flight from Dubai to Zürich took off punctually at 16:20. The A330-200 (first time flying in one of its kind) is half-empty. I have a window seat and the seat next to me is free. After the 6h flight, the landing is delayed for 20 minutes because it's snowing heavily and the runways are being cleaned. I'm looking forward to seing my grandparents in Zürich!

Takeoff Dubai DXB
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All the photos in this webpage are my own and are protected under Creative Commons.

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