Transit Time in Dubai

Arrival at the newly opened Terminal 3 of the Dubai International Airport. It was really huge and empty. Empty because planes were staggered throughout the terminal and this terminal serves Emirates Airlines only.












A really long long walk to the immigration counters.















After clearing the immigration counters, you'll be passing by fourteen baggage areas. It was really a long walk again ........... long way down the hall. It took me ten minutes from the airplane to the exit.

Since I was in Business class, they do provide a limousine to your transit hotel. All the limos were Volvos.

Was allocated the Al Sondos Suites by Le Meridien. This was an all suites 5 star luxury hotel and was provided the Executive Suite.

A small area for entertaining your guests with a huge 32 inch LCD TV.

They have a tiny area for kitchen too with a hood, hot steel plates and the fridge was hidden in the tall cabinet.









The king size bed was soft and comfortable ..... only for one night ......















During breakfast, when you ordered tea, it was served in this teapot with strainer. Solid tea, definitely not a lipton tea brand.














The restaurant for the breakfast was designed in olden english style and food served was emmmmm ..... great!

The scenery from my sixth floor window. I'll be walking over to the Deira City Centre mall at the right hand side of the picture. A huge shopping centre indeed, probably the size of Mid Valley in Kuala Lumpur.

Lots of road construction that was on-going. The morning sun was still bearable.










My hotel taken from across the road.
















As it was still early, around 10.30am, the mall was quite empty. Saw quite a number of shops offering good discounts but my hand carry bag was already full.













As I was walking in the mall, I noticed a tall building located far far away and I was sure it was the current world's tallest building - the Burj Dubai. Certainly not one of those lamp posts.
Tags: Dubai, Transit In Dubai, Terminal 3 Dubai Airport, Dubai International Airport, Emirates Airlines, Al Sondos Suites, Le Meridien, Deira City Centre, Burj Dubai

Journey to Khartoum via Dubai

I can't help but to take a picture of this notice placed at a money changer's glass pane.

"Please satisfy yourself before leaving the counter, thank you, come again."

I knew what it meant, which is to count your money before you leave their place otherwise they won't entertain any claims of lesser amount given to you.

Won't name the place of this money changer. Next time if you discover it, you let me know.




Left my house at 9.40pm and arrived at the KLIA around 10.30pm and was shocked to see this crowd at the airport. Never before. Thought something went wrong somewhere.

Even the queue at the Emirates Airlines was equally bad. For this round, I get to have the Business class seat as I have upgraded it with my Skywards points. Thank you Emirates.

After checking in, I went straight to the dedicated Emirates Lounge, for my supper? dinner? whatever it is, I'm going to eat till time to board my plane. This lounge was located at the satellite building and meant for Emirates passengers only.

It has a number of tables for diners and leather chairs for people intending to have a short nap. Its food range was not extensive but enough for diners to have a good meal. The staff within the lounge were working non-stop. Clearing tables and ensuring the lounge was clean at all times.

The lounge provided a number of computer workstations for people to update their Facebook and Blogs ...... hehe.

Dinner was long gone and now for my next meal. Can't wait to try their spicy tomato soup, fried prawns, skewed beef, curry chicken and a bit of white rice. I can't do without white rice. Gossett champagne - not that nice ..... not to my taste (as if I drink lots of champagne before this).










Next, I took the small dishes of stuffed salmon, germany potatoes and turkey salad (bottom).










Just can't resist the sweet temptation of the sago with gula melaka and sweetened milk ......... slurp.















My plane was scheduled to depart at 12.30am and after watching the safety aspect of the airplane, I screened through their entertainment booklet to choose my movie.

Decided to watch The X-Files movie and Mamma Mia!

Yeah, I'm so far back in terms of watching movies. No time at all on normal days.







Of course, during this moment, they will serve drinks and titbits. I saw Moet & Chandon champagne on their list and since I knew its one of the most expensive, why not this time. Noticed that they opened up the bottle just for me.

While sipping the champagne and munching the peanuts, I enjoyed the movies.

About one hour plus into the flight, they served sandwiches. I took a bit ............... one of each is a bit lah.





There was this (clockwise) strawberry fruit tart, roast chicken breast placed on french loaf, a tiny chocolate cake, grilled vegetables on wholemeal bread and a camembert cheese with cream cheese rosette on brown bread.

About four hours into the flight, I was served breakfast? Was it? When you fly over different time zones, you'll be wondering which meal. As long there is food placed in front of me, I know what to do. There was croissant bread (don't know how to describe but it was very tasty not bland like a bread). Bread was unlimited and it came in various types. It came with fresh fruits, a yoghurt, cup of fresh orange juice and a tiny weeny honey in glass container.

I ordered the poached egg meal and it was really feeling, comes with german big sausage, potatoes with cheese at the base. Too much fat? Don't normally eat like this. I had been eating non-stop since dinner time at home and this was the fourth meal within twelve hours.
Tags: Emirates Lounge, Emirates Airlines, KLIA, Gossett, Moet & Chandon, Champagne

Dinner at Baby Moon

When it comes to dinner time, it's always the biggest question of my life - "what to eat?".

This time I remembered that a new restaurant, located at Taman Danau Desa, has just opened and why not try it out. Just a short walk from my condo.

Very torturing in blogging about such nice food when you are stucked in Sudan.

I can't recall the name of this dish but it was fried with lots of pepper. Nevertheless it was tasty with the aroma filling the restaurant the moment it was put right in front of you. Joshua, if you were reading this blog posting, please let me know the name of this dish.

This was mine, the Japanese Curry Chicken that comes with white rice. The gravy is basically more of black pepper than the curry taste. Maybe that was Japanese curry style. Never tasted it before so I gave a shot.

This is the Herbal Chicken Soup with Noodles together with a Honey Milk Tea. Too much ........ just writing the name itself got my saliva drooling.








Was this the Seafood Fried Rice ....... really got confused. Their food is given thumbs up by us. Won't mind going there again if the question of "what to eat?" crops up again and not knowing where to go.

All in all, four main dishes with three drinks cost us RM52. No 5% service tax.









They mentioned that their shop has good tau foo fa. It was served in a wooden container. Nice, not too sweet and smooth of it is important.

Tags: Baby Moon, Taman Danau Desa, Tau Foo Fa, Japanese Curry Chicken, Herbal Chicken Soup

On The Way to Sudan

* Latest
Can only say that I'm full again ............ need to go to the boarding gate now for my 1500hrs flight to Khartoum of Sudan, another 34 minutes for departure. A possible 10 minutes walk to the boarding gate.
Adios!

------------------------------

Updating at the KLIA Emirates Lounge and just heard that I have been called to go board my Emirates plane. The gate is 5 minutes from this lounge.

Very full now ......... and in the plane, will be eating all the way to Dubai (transit).

Got the Al Sondos Suite by Le Meridien as my transit hotel. It's an all suite hotel, really high class.

See whether I can update again in the Dubai Emirates Lounge about 15 hours later.

Cheers!

Bigger Better Cinemas in Malaysia

If you are thinking that recession is setting in then you are wrong from the perspective of cinema owners. Malaysian movie goers will get to watch their favourite movies in 51 new cinema screens throughout Malaysia in time to come.

TGV, GSC and Cathay Cineplex - here they come. Heard of Bollywood? Yeah, an Indian company by the name of Adlabs Films Limited, a subsidiary of the Reliance Anil Dhirubhai Ambani Group, have bought into a local Malaysian company, Lotus Five Star AV (M) Sdn Bhd, that is currently operating forty cinema screens under Star Screen Cinemas. This Lotus Five Star company is part of the Lotus indian restaurants ............. yeah, the expensive indian restaurant. They have made their profits and is diversifying into the entertainment industry now.

Initial capital outlay for the Malaysian operations would be about RM100 million to expand up to 100 cinema screens within the next fifteen months. There would be a change of name as well ............ BIG Cinemas.

This cinema chain is not new as they have cinemas operating in USA, Mauritius and Nepal at the moment. It's proven! Today it has 155 screens in India and 220 screens in overseas investments. In time to come, the cinemas will show English, Malay, Cantonese, Mandarin, Tamil, Thai, Indonesian, Korean, Japanese, Hindi and other language films, depending on demand from the neighbourhood.

Will it become a BIG bang when it has fully expanded in Malaysia?

Reading: Adlabs Films to operate cinema chain in Malaysia - Reuters India
Tags: Adlabs Films Limited, Lotus Group of Companies, Lotus Five Star AV (M) Sdn Bhd, Bollywood, Reliance Anil Dhirubhai Ambani Group, Hindi Movies, Tamil Movies, Star Screen Cinema, BIG Cinema

New Country to Study Medicine

Two of Romania's universities have been recognised by Malaysia, namely Carol Davila University of Medicine and Pharmacy in Bucharest and Petroleum-Gas University in Ploiesti recently. You can't go wrong when MARA is sponsoring local students to study there. So it must be recognised by Jabatan Perkhidmatan Awam too.

But why these two universities? Cheaper alternatives compared to those ranked in the THE-QS World University Rankings? These two universities are not even ranked amongst the top European universities or even Top 500 in the world.

Funny thing is it was the Ministry of Entrepreneur and Co-operative Development that executed the memorandums of understanding with these two universities instead of the Ministry of Education.

Reading: MARA Will Sponsor 200 Students To Romania - Bernama
Tags: Romania, Carol Davila University of Medicine and Pharmacy, Petroleum-Gas University, THE-QS World University Rankings, MARA, Jabatan Perkhidmatan Awam, Ministry of Entrepreneur and Co-operative Development, Ministry of Education

Indonesia Passes Anti-Racial Discrimination Bill

Indonesia, a vast Muslim nation in terms of its population, has passed a bill against racial discrimination. With the passing of this bill there is no ethnic or racial discrimination rulings in the country as they have learnt through the hard way in the late 90s riots that caught the world's attention.

Indonesia passed this bill in accordance with the International Convention on the Elimination of All Forms of Racial Discrimination ("Convention") that was enacted in 1999 in the United Nations, currently monitored by the Office of the High Commissioner for Human Rights, joining a host of other nations that has adopted the Convention.

Today, the Indonesian citizens are free from this bondage. If found guilty of any form of ethnic or racial discrimination in Indonesia now, it will certainly land you in jail. Yeah, jail term is there.

Sadly, Malaysia is not a party to this Convention. May I know why? Maybe, have to build lots of prisons prior to adopting this Convention here. Economy down, so can't construct the prisons.

Reading: Bill against racial discrimination passed - Jakarta Post
Tags: Indonesia, Racial Discrimination, International Convention on the Elimination of All Forms of Racial Discrimination, United Nations, Office of the High Commissioner for Human Rights, OHCHR