Racing at Yas Marina Circuit

I'm 2 days behind on the blog, so I'm actually writing this on the airplane on the way home. 

So "this morning" we met in the lobby at 9am to go for our first of two days of organized activities. We had about 10 choices when we registered for the conference, so we opted to go to Yas Marina Circuit for racing Go-Karts.  Yas Marina is located in Abu Dhabi, about an hour away from Dubai. 

Along the way I spoke with our guide, Erica, who is originally from Mexico. Her husband is a Captain with Emirates airline and she has two children in high school. Most of the people here are ex-pats. There are approx 2.5M people in Dubai and there are only 950,000 Emirati in all of the UAE, which has 7 Emirates, Dubai and Abu Dhabi being two of them.   Here only the Emirati get their schooling for free, high school is the equivalent of about $20,000 Cad per year per child.  Emirates Airlines pays for 80% of the school fees, so she said they are a good employer - also, like the hotels, they provide room and board in a community complex for the employees. Even our limo driver the other day, he earns about $1500 a month salary plus tips he receives and is provided an apartment or shared room as part of his employment.  Some interesting driving facts we learned from him:

- seat belts are mandatory. If you get caught without a seatbelt it is a 3,000 dirham fine ($900 approx) and you lose your vehicle license for 1 month (or you can pay an additional 3,000 dirham to get the car back after 2 days). 

- if you get caught running a red light it's a 2,000 dirham fine plus a 3,000 dirham fine for something else and then if you lose the car for a month  and it's 3,000 dirham if you want the car back in 2 days. 

- you get a certain number of driving points every year and they renew the following year. If you run out of points you can't drive anymore until your points renew (unless you buy someone else's points!)

Some other interesting facts we learned along the way...in Dubai there is a Free Zone, where you can start a business and have an office or location without having to have an Emirati sponsor. If you are operating outside of that free zone (like have a secondary location, etc) then the business would have to be sponsored by an Emirati citizen and give up or "share" 51% of their profits to that sponsor. For instance, the Cultural Advisor who we spoke with a few days ago said he was a businessman and had started 40 different companies. I now suspect he sponsored 40 different companies and is receiving 51% of the profits of each as the Emirati sponsor while doing very little himself!

When oil was discovered in Dubai the Sheikh invested a lot of money into infrastructure, free health care (I think for everyone) and made education free for the Emirati people so that they could be educated. Everyone loves the current Sheikh, Sheikh Mohammad, and his father, who they call the Father of Dubai and who many we met referred to as a visionary man as he was the one to have the vision to bring tourism and build up Dubai and as mentioned created the sponsor 'scheme'. Essentially between father and son, they built Dubai from a desert wasteland into what it is now in only 25 years.  

Being Sheikh passes down from father to the oldest son, and if there are no sons to the oldest daughter. However, their are exceptions, the next in line to be Sheikh of Dubai is the second born son of Sheikh Mohammad.  The first born son is the Crown Prince, but he is not business minded or forward thinking and so he has been bypassed in favour of the second son, who will be his fathers predecessor.  Sheikh Mohammad has two wives, and two children by the second wife, who is not Emirati but is a Princess from Jordan. I asked if all children are seen as equal, even though his second wife is not Emirati, and they are, because their father is Emirati.   A woman who would want to marry a foreigner (not Emirati) would be disowned, stripped of any wealth (any businesses she has sponsored) and therefore it does not happen. And also, every woman wears the Hijabi who is Emirati, it is not mandatory but it is mandatory. 

Anyway, we arrived at the racing circuit and the first thing we did was a pit challenge. We had to change a race tire and see how quickly we could do it as a team of 3, one to unscrew the bolt and re screw it, one to remove the old tire and one to replace the new tire. A pit crew can do this in 2.2 seconds, our best was 5.4 sec. 

After the pit challenge we went to an obstacle course that was set up in a wide open parking lot with cones. There were two courses set up as mirror images of one another and two Toyota Celicas and we did the course racing against one another.  The cars were set up with a straight away and then a hard turn (left or right depending on what side of the course you were on), then you turned and came down another straight away and did an oval loop around some cones and then another hard turn and straight onto an area that was soaked in water, brake and drift (donuts) around a cone set up and then race to stop between four cones...and if you knocked over a single cone you were disqualified. It was so much fun. We each got two turns driving and each turn we did the course six times racing. 

After the racing we were taken to another area to do the Go-Karting, we karted for 10 minutes and then we were SO hot that we didn't do the next 10 minute set. Jay won, he did the fastest time around the track. 

Maurice (pronounced Morris) was second and Tony was third. 

The guys got right into it, pretending to spray champagne. 

After this we had a quick lunch and drove back to the hotel. We had about 2 hours before we had to be ready to leave to go to dinner at a Bedouin camp for dinner. If you wanted to do some dune bashing in 4x4s on the way we had to be in the lobby for 4pm (if you took the bus, 5pm). I left the pool area because I for sure wanted to take the SUV, Jay was going to take the bus but at the last minute joined me in the lobby to go in the truck. 

It was about an hour to the desert and after 50 minutes I asked the driver if there was somewhere to use a washroom before we got there. He said he would ask the Lead Car as we were in a convoy of 6 SUVs, but the lead car said there was nowhere to stop as the only public washroom had a lineup they could see from the highway. So I asked how long we would be driving in the dunes before we arrived at the camp and he said about another hour. I would definitely need a washroom and I let him know. He said "when we arrive at our meeting spot there is a bush". I said "I'm good with a bush". So 15 minutes later we arrive at a meeting spot so that the drivers can deflate their tires, making them float more on the sand and I get out and start to trek over the dune to the bush that I can see the top of. As I get there I look back and the other 20 people are out of their SUVs and taking some photos and a group of six are walking towards my bush. So I have to cup my hands around my mouth and shout "I'm going to the bathroom..."  The group of six get wide eyes and immediately vear off course and the rest of the group laughs. I quickly went from being the girl who volunteered to wear the Hijab to the girl who peed in the desert. All class. 

The off roading was pretty tame, but a lot of fun!

This is the angle we were on sliding down a dune at one point. I have some good video, but it's hard to capture in a photo (and Jay had the camera, so didn't get a great shot). 

We saw a few Arabian Orx, I'll add a photo later (on my ipad I only transferred a few to the iCloud to be able to finish up the blog on the airplane). And I got a few other nice desert photos out the back window. 

It was about 30 minutes of dune bashing before we arrived up at a Sunset Spot where they had set up camels to ride and a falcon demonstration.  And it's a good thing I had gone to the washroom because we were up here for another hour to hour and a half before we had access to facilities, which were down by the camp set up for dinner (about 5 mins away by car).  As we sat up there the President of Manulife, who is a woman, sat down next to me and commented how funny it was that I had to shout I was going to the washroom...and then, right after, two women hopped out of a jeep - they had gotten a driver to take them on a bathroom run, so we kinda laughed as I gave her a little flick on the shoulder and joked about how they were high maintenance. 

Falcons are a big part of the Emirati history as they all were bedouins and relied on falcons to hunt for meat in the desert. If you had a falcon it was a symbol of wealth because you could provide meat for your family. Now falcons are protected, but because they were decimating a small bird population they are no longer allowed to hunt in Dubai if they are not wild birds and they cost anywhere from $8,000 to $750,000 USD to purchase for competition. 

After sunset we took the SUVs down to the camp set up for dinner. 

They had fire dancers, a belly dancer, two women doing henna tattoos and two women doing palm readings. The palm reader I went to said I will have a long, healthy life, that I will have grandchildren...then she leaned close to me and asked me if I had been with a married man. I said no, she looked again and asked if I was sure...yes, pretty sure...she looked again and asked 'even one time?"...um, no. And then she said - well, maybe he didn't tell you. So bizarre. She said I like to travel, that my husbands business is going well and that money was good, that he loves me very much but loved someone before me and said my business had been slow but was picking up and would be good for the rest of the year.  Interesting and somewhat creepy. 

I had a henna tattoo done on my hand and my foot. 

Last day in Dubai

This morning we were supposed to go on a 4x4 excursion that included the dune bashing, ATVing, camel ride and sand surfing, but because we did the 4x4 last night and I rode the camel we decided to skip the activity and hang out by the pool. 

We didn't set the alarm for this morning figuring we would try to sleep in until 9 and maybe see if we could book another massage today before lunch so we closed the curtains last night before bed and didn't wake up until 10:50!!  By 11 I was down at the pool and Jay went for a workout in the gym. I sat down there for about an hour before Jay arrived and then we ordered lunch by the pool. Once we finished lunch we decided to take a cab to the Emirates Mall. I had exchanged $500 into dirham at home and had only spent about $100 on tips and a couple of shirts for Jay.  So we went to the mall and bought a few things for the girls and a dress for Lily-Anna because we had bought a shirt for Jack in London but nothing yet for her. And Jay bought a wallet and I got a bathing suit top and 3 cover ups. 

Actually, I haven't really mentioned the gifts we have been receiving every night in our room from Manulife but we received the first night the copy of our names in Aramaic. The second night I received a pink cashmere pashmina. The third night we received a package with spices and oil. The fourth night we received a DVD set to learn to tango to prepare you for Burnos Aires in 2016. The fifth night we received a Gucci mens wallet and a Prada ladies wallet (this is what prompted me to write about the gifts..we passed a Gucci store and I said to Jay we should go in and see how much it is worth because it's too big and wide for him, he uses a small wallet. The wallets were sitting out on a counter, so I said "oh, they can't be worth that much, they're sitting out" and everything else was under glass. So I found the price and it was the equivalent of $400 Cad. So then we passed a Prada store and my wallet was under glass so I asked the clerk how much it cost and it's the equivalent of $650!  Every person at the conference received these..wow. I'm going to try to exchange mine - I have the box and the certificate of authenticity and everything, so I'll have to see if there is a Prada in Toronto. But the problem is that if the wallet is $650 then I can't afford to exchange it for anything!). And the final night we got a bag with goodies for the plane ride..a couple of magazines, chips, pretzels and a twix and a snickers. Very thoughtful, over the top, gifts. 

After we were done shopping at the mall we went out to meet our driver again who said he would be back at 5:00pm and was there right on time.  We went back to the hotel and got changed to go for dinner at the Burj Kalifa. We were having cocktails on the 123rd floor lounge, called Atmosphere. I borrowed Kate's dress that she wore in Brad and Allison's wedding in March and got several compliments on it (Thanks Kate!!). I, of course, forgot my camera because I wasn't taking a bag, but I got Lorna to take a few photos of Jay and I so I can add them later.  The view from the 

Iounge was amazing, the building so far surpasses everything else in height that a 70 story building looks small in comparison. 

From there we went down to the 6th floor to have dinner. Outside the bank of windows was a balcony and every 30 minutes they did a water fountain and light show set to music (like the Bellagio, except the Dubai way..meaning bigger and better). We saw 3 or 4 shows during dinner, there was a beautiful breeze last night so it was warm but not hot at all, and almost all of the humidity dissipated. 

After dinner we took the bus back to the hotel and packed the rest of our stuff. We leave tomorrow at 7:00am for the airport. 

Travel day Dubai to Uxbridge

We got up this morning and finished packing the few essentials that we had left out of the suitcase and headed down to the lobby for 6:50am. We got in our transfer to the airport with Mark and Lorna and arrived quickly to the airport. Today is Friday, but the weekend in the Emirates is Friday and Saturday. Friday is the day for worship a and rest, so there was no traffic on the highway. 

When we arrived at the airport there were signs for business class check in, which is a separate area from economy check in. We followed the signs and there were 20 or so counters for check-in and baggage drop so we had only one person in front of us in the line. 

Once we checked in we went through security and again there was only one person in front of us, then we went to the business class lounge, which is as big as the terminal in Toronto (the first class lounge was a floor below). We accessed our gate right from the lounge. So we went and had breakfast at one of the 4 buffets and sat and had some fruit, croissants, yogurt and a latte and then walked around for a few minutes before boarding. 

We're now in the air, I've finished catching up. I could connect to the internet for $10 for the flight, but I don't really need to so I'll just wait until we land and upload the blog. 

I watched a movie and had breakfast and then had a nap. Jay woke me up after 30 minutes and said "you said to wake you up in an hour.."  Clearly I needed to use my own alarm clock. Jay went to sleep shortly after, I wanted to wake him up after 30 minutes and tell him he only had half an hour left to nap. It took a lot of willpower not to do it. 

14 hours is a LONG time to be in an airplane. At the half way through point I was very discouraged that we still had 7 hours left to Toronto!  I mean, if you're going to spend 7 hrs in an airplane then best to do it on Emirates..but it's still exhausting. 

When we arrived in Toronto the customs line was short..we had to claim over the $750 limit because of the gifts from Manulife, so we got jammed and had to go into the room for people who have to declare stuff. We had to wait about 30 minutes, but when we explained why we declared over the allowance the border patrol let us go without charging us duty. 

We went out and got our car home, courtesy of Emirates, and we got home about 6pm. The girls arrived home shortly after with my parents and now we're all snuggling in bed - I have a not enough sleep headache and a client appt at 9:30am, so I am off to bed early!

Another somewhat lazy day..

This morning Jay had his half day business session to attend.  We met for breakfast in a really cool room at the hotel called The Music Room, its like a tiered lounge with tables and red velvet banks of lounge booths.  We had breakfast in there at tables set up on the highest tiers and then as the advisors moved down to the couches for their session the spouses ducked out to the pool.

Actually several times during the blog I can insert the same photo over again:

I spent a couple of hours like this before Jay arrived to meet me for lunch.  I actually spent the whole time chatting with Lorna and learning more about her, then Mark and Jay came down and we decided to grab a quick lunch and then take the shuttle to the Dubai Mall to do some shopping.

The Dubai Mall is insane.  It has areas for everything, so we walked in and we were in the jewelery section and you see a Cartier on one corner, a Rolex on the other, a Chopard on the next - complete craziness.  Then, the rest of the mall is laid out in sections and subsections and zones.  So the menswear is all in one place, the ladieswear, etc.  The problem with this is that it is so huge you spend a lot of time looking at the mall and not for stuff in the mall!  I wanted a swim suit and a nice cover up - we never even saw a women's store - Jay got 3 shirts and a pair of shoes in the most ridiculous shoe market you have ever seen!  This is a shoe display...note the one pair of shoes.

Further in the mall there was an ice skating rink, a huge aquarium (I don't like the photos because the store in front of the enormous aquarium is a candy store and all you can see reflected in the aquarium are the lights).  This aquarium was at least 2 storeys high through the mall and 50 yards long, it was massive.  You could also pay to go into the aquarium and underwater zoo and walk through the aquarium tunnel, but we just saw this display from the mall concourse and kept shopping.

Then there was a really cool waterfall with bronze sculpted divers that were scaled to the size of a man.  Very cool.

Once we were done at the mall we took the shuttle back to the hotel and got changed to go out to dinner.  We had dinner on a ship on the creek.  The walls and ceiling of the boat were made of glass and it launched and we went down the creek for an hour and then came back.  The whole time on the boat we sat and ate dinner and when it stopped we got off..a neat restaurant concept, but everything we do as an event is at least 30 - 40 minutes from the hotel.  It takes 20 minutes just to get off the palm!

When we came back to the hotel we all met in the Voda Bar and they announced that this Pinnacle Conference in 2 years will be in ....

Tour of Old Dubai and the Souks

This morning we gathered in the lobby at 8:15am to be transported to the Sheikh Mohammed Centre for Cultural Understanding for breakfast and a talk with a cultural advisor.

We took a coach bus off the palm and learned all sorts of interesting facts.  For instance, the palm can be seen from space because each lamp post has a small blue light on the top which lights up at night and lights the palm. (I didn't actually know this until I just tried to google the palm at night, but there is actually more than one palm island in Dubai!  We are on Palm Jumeirah, which was the first and is the smallest).  The breakwater around the palm required 7 million tonnes of stones which were each precision placed with divers and GPS.  And, the island required as much sand be dumped as you could create a 3 ft high wall and circumnavigate the globe 23 times.

I also got some photos from the bus of some of the more modern architecture.

We arrived at the Cultural Center and had the opportunity to have a traditional bedouin breakfast.

(The crazy panoramic option on the iPhone if you can't keep the arrow centered bends the image, but its still pretty cool!).

There were chick peas and then a vermacilli noodle with eggs, then a dried and then roasted chicken with vegetables, then a pancake of sorts that was more like a small, soft pita served with date syrup and a type of cream cheese that was the consistency of greek yogurt and then fried honey and dough balls called loukoumades (which we've had before from the Danforth when Dwayne and Leanne or Shane and Anna have brought them up - they're litle honey puffs of exploding goodness).

 

After breakfast we had a very open and candid talk with an Emerati host who gave his opinions on our opinions of the middle east and their culture.  He asked for a female volunteer to wear the hijab and I volunteered, so as he was advising me what to put on he would talk about the hijab and its significance culturally.  I'll get some photos from Mark and Lorna later, but Jay didn't take any with my phone, so I don't have them now to post.

The Cultural Centre was my favourite part of the day - its too bad that I can't remember all of the interesting things that the host said - but it was very cool to see his perspective on his perspective on our perspective (yes, I meant to say that) and why there is so much confusion and political spin.  Their slogan is Open Doors.  Open Minds.

After our visit at the Cultural Centre we went to the spice souk (market).   We took a water taxi across the 'creek' to get there.

And the sides of the 'creek' were lined with ships like this: (I don't know their purpose, but they were all similar style)

 We had 20 minutes to explore on our own or stay with the group.  We decided to explore on our own and were immediately accosted by vendors trying to sell you 'original duplicate' rolex watches and Louis Vuitton bags.  After about 10 minutes we came across a few people from our group with the guide, they were on their way to a perfume place where they sell traditional Emerati perfume, which is scented oil with no alcohol in it.  The scent of the first perfume I tried was really light and sweet, so I bought 4 little bottles of it - one for each of the girls and 2 for good friends of theirs, Avery and Myah.  The 4 little bottles were 30 dirham, which is $10 for all 4 and something fun and unique to bring them home from Dubai.

From the spice market we went to the gold market - at this point it is not just hot, it is freakin' hot.  Since we aren't in the market for any gold Jay and I decided to just sit on a bench and watch the world go by for the 20 minutes that we had to spend there. 

Once we were done at the gold market we walked back to the bus and went to a sister Jumeirah property for lunch called Madinat Jumeirah.  The inside of this resort complex was enormous and beautiful - it is nicknamed Little Venice because of the intricate series of canals on the property.

This is a view from the entrance of Madinat looking at the sail hotel, the Burj al Arab which sits on its own man made island as well.  Though you can't tell from this photo that its out on an island in the middle of the water.

I took some photos of the architecture of the hotel and commented on how this is more what I was expecting and how beautiful it was.  Jay said - "Why take pictures of the fake architecture, this was just built to look like it belongs somewhere else, it's like going to Vegas and taking pictures of the pyramid and being like 'oh good, now I've seen a pyramid'"  Whatever, its still beautiful!

 And a view of the canal as well.

Inside of the buildings were stunning as well, the ceiling in the corridors was amazing.

After lunch it was time to head back to the hotel - we had about 10 minutes to mosey through the shops in the resort and we ended up buying the girls each a little bottle of sand art that we watched how it was made.  When I asked him, the artist said that it took him 3 to 4 years to learn how to make them.  We bought the smallest for them, but he had some huge pieces as well.


We got back to the hotel - still stinkin', sticky hot and went straight out to the pool for the next couple of hours before we had to get ready for dinner.

Tonight's dinner was a dine-around and we were assigned the Vietnamese restaurant in the hotel called Voi.  It was interesting, and all the food was good - but everyone is so hot from the day out in the humidity and so tired that we all just wanted to go to bed and our whole table left immediately after dinner was finished.

Now Jay's asleep - he woke up at 3am last night and didn't get back to sleep at all, and its nearly midnight and I'm off to bed too.

Tomorrow is another lay by the pool day, unless we want to go to the mall in the afternoon, which seems like it would be kind of cool - the worlds largest aquarium is apparently in the mall...so maybe.  There are shuttles there from the hotel.  Or, we'll hang out by the pool.  Jay decided after the heat of today (and it is really humid now) that he won't do the golf activity, so he is either going to switch and do the 4x4/ATV desert adventure with me or just stay on his own at the hotel.  Tomorrow morning I have free, but Jay has to go to a business planning meeting from 9:30 - 12:00pm.

Oh, and we received this cool gift from Manulife last night in our rooms..its our names written in aramaic.

Lazy pool day...

We had nothing to do today.  No responsibilities other than to be at my massage at 12:30 and make it to dinner for 8:00pm - it was so nice.  I can't remember the last vacation where we just had a chill out day - mostly because, if you read the blog, you know I like to be busy on vacation.  But the planning for this is out of my control and so a day by the pool it was!

I couldn't sleep last night.  I went to bed shortly after midnight and then went to sleep no problem until 2:00am.  Then, try as I might, I could not fall back to sleep - so I was up until about 5am...I tried my yoga relaxation stuff and nothing was working.  So when the alarm went off at 8:00am for us to get ready for breakfast (between 8:30am and 10:00am) I turned it off an immediately fell back to sleep until 9:30, at which point I woke up in a panic.  We were down to breakfast by 10am - but then also learned that no matter what we eat or drink and at what time of day or where we can charge it to our room and Manulife is picking up the bill...sweet!

After breakfast with Mark and Lorna we came back up to the room to get ready to go to the pool.  (I actually wrote 'to have a nap'..but that's not what we did, so I'm not sure why I wrote it - obviously was wishing I had had a nap today!).  The pool is beautiful and there are lots of chairs and lots of umbrellas.

We sat around the pool for a few hours, literally doing nothing but enjoying the peace and sunshine and heat (seriously, we did nothing - I hope you like those 2 photos - they're the only ones I took today!) and then it was time to head to the spa for my Thai Massage.

Oh. My. God.  At least once in your life you have to have a Thai Massage (it deserves capitals) from a teensy weensy Thai lady who is as strong as a power lifter and is, perhaps, verging on being a sociopath.  It was heaven.  She had me bending and stretching in ways that the human body shouldn't and it felt SO good.  Jay had a Thai Massage too, from a 'dude' and says it was the 'most incredible massage I've ever had'.  And its a good thing that he did have the Thai Massage, where they give you Thai style pants and a t-shirt to wear while they stretch you - because the other men who had regular massages were given the disposable underwear that you sometimes get if you're doing a scrub and had to wear them and a couple of them complained that their 'dude' was a little aggressive on his lines (meaning he was swerving into the 'don't like to be touched by a dude' territory).

After our treatments Jay and I met back down by the pool and had a chance to Facetime with the girls for a bit and wish my Mom a Happy Mothers Day.  Its only 8 hours difference, so they were just getting up.  Jay wanted to Facetime his Mom right after, but its 12 hours to Vancouver so it would be 4am...and as much as she loves him, I'm sure she doesn't want a call at 4am!

From the pool we went up to the room to get changed and I said to Jay I needed to see if they have a pharmacy for some feminine products, which I totally didn't plan for when I was coming here though I knew the timing would be right.  I ended up having to go to the concierge and get some tampons delivered from a pharmacy - I don't need them for a few days potentially, but there is no where close to get anything like that.  Each hotel is a resort compound with security and there are no neighbourhoods close by.  So the box themselves was 21 dirhams ($7) and then I had to pay a 20 dirham delivery fee...$14 isn't bad considering they were delivered from off-site right to my room!

Came up to the room and got changed for the cocktail reception before dinner and then headed down.  About 10 minutes after we arrived Mark and Lorna arrived...Mark said he was reading the blog and wanted to get down there before us so that he was first!  Lol.  It didn't happen though!  Even though the cocktail reception started at 7:00pm and went to 8:00pm and we said we would meet them at 7:30pm and got there right on time..they got there last.

At the cocktail reception we met Joel and Jana a couple from Halifax and they would be the youngest here.  They got married in August of last year, I would say Joel is 30ish?  It was nice though, they then came and sat with us (us being Jay and I, Mark and Lorna) at dinner and then we went out for a drink with them afterwards.   Dinner was in one of the restaurants in the hotel, a Lebonese place - I tried chicken liver, so that's something.

Now I'm just in bed and Jay went with Mark to a cigar lounge at the other end of the hotel to have a scotch.  Tomorrow is bright and early an 8:15am start in the lobby for a tour of Old Dubai and a spice and gold market - should be fun!

My Mom just texted me to ask me when school starts tomorrow.  I texted her back drop off and pick up times and she wrote back "I asked the girls when school starts and they said: 1 - About half an hour after we eat breakfast and 2 - when we are ready to go"  So funny!!

Travel day - Uxbridge to Dubai

First of all, I have to say - Way. To. Go. Jason.  Total score all day long, in every aspect of travel - and as a reward conference, he totally earned it!  If there is one sure way to make me happy, its to take me on vacation (3*+)...if there is one way to make Jay happy (despite having to go on vacation) its to take him 5*+ and that's how we've been treated all day.

We got picked up by our complimentary limousine at 5:45pm and transferred to Pearson Airport.  We got checked in to the business class section of Emirates airline and given complimentary passes to the Plaza Premium Lounge, so we made our way up there and had some dinner.  (Dinner was crappy buffet, cold pasta and a few other options but it was free - so we ate just enough to take the edge off and figured we'll eat on the airplane).  Mark, Jay's business partner, who also qualified for this conference, and Lorna met us in the Lounge after about an hour and we hung out until it was time to board the airplane.  They had free beer, wine, etc and although I didn't have any (because it was Crush Merlot and I'm a snob and wouldn't drink it even though its free - - WHAT on earth has happened to me Julia?!?!)

At 9:00pm our boarding was called and we made our way down to the gate.  They were already boarding, so we got into the business class line up and went down the boarding ramp...as we got down the ramp it split off to two entrances (this airplane is HUGE, there are two levels.  The lower level is for the economy passengers and the upper level holds about 20 first class passengers and 100 business class passengers).  Mark and Lorna were a few passengers behind us but we looked back and the ramp was empty - Jay wanted to switch the signs on Mark to have him go into the economy section instead of the business class section - which would have been so funny.

We got on the plane and immediately Jay started to grin.  There was SO much room!  I said to Jay after we had been in the seats only about 15 minutes "these seats make me happy".   This is Jay...grinning.  Wild man.

Beside you is a little ledge, and a space for a few drinks, and your own on-board iPad.

 The dinner menu looked great.

And tonnes of leg room.  (like my purple, fuzzy airplane socks? I take them on every flight and immediately strip off my shoes and socks and put them on...so comfy)

 Even for Jay!

It was about this time that Jay said "they totally know if it's your first time in business class because you're taking pictures of your seat".

And then your whole seat folded flat into a bed too and shifted forwards and back if you have short or long legs.  And it was super comfortable, but then a flight attendant came by and said "Would you like a mattress?"  Oh yeah, totally taking a mattress - just about 3/4" thick down mattress to smooth out the bumps in the seat..with the extra long blanket and puffy pillow it was awesome!

There is a partition that goes up between passengers for when you want privacy - so fun.

We had dinner shortly after take off - I had a spicy thai coconut curry rice and chicken dish and Jay had lamb chops that he really enjoyed.  Even Jay said half way through the flight "these seats make me happy too".

I managed to stay up until 2am watching movies and then slept between 2 and 6am.  Got up at 6 and watched another movie and then had breakfast, french toast - yum.  We were done sleeping and watching another movie and Jay saw the guy in front of him and said to me "He has a pillow!"  "Um..I have a pillow, it was on my seat when we sat down".  Jay slept just fine without a pillow.

When we arrived in Dubai (13 hours later) we were greeted at the gate and taken to another lounge while they picked up our luggage and then escorted us to a priority customs (though the airport was completely dead anyway).  But beautiful.

From the airport we took private shuttles to the hotel - there are probably 20 of us that came in on the same flight.  All in all there are 33 advisors here with their guests and 6 Manulife Sr. employees.

I thought that the hotel might be completely over the top and gaudy - and its borderline, but just the right side of tasteful and quite lovely.  This is a photo of the chandelier in the foyer from below that was used in the most recent Mission Impossible movie.

When we got into our room we had a welcome bottle of prosecco and a cheese tray which was a really nice treat!  Jay doesn't drink it so right after the photo I poured it all into one glass :)

And I made Jay stop and not drop a thing so I could take some photos of the room - because inevitably all of our crap is all over in 2 minutes and I never get a good picture of the room again!

And our bathroom - oh my goodness.  The tub is huge, and there is a window our room that has a blind to pull down and really cool shutters too.. you can see them closed in the first photo of the room from the outside and then open from the bathroom looking out.

And a creepy shot with Jay in it...

After about 30 minutes we went down to the lobby to meet Mark and Lorna and go to a very informal group networking in the lounge.  We spent an hour and a half down there meeting all sorts of new people (much to Jay's chagrin) and drinking cocktails on Manulife (thank you Manulife)..I tried something called a Honey Bee - which is rum, lime juice and honey - tastes like a Margarita without the tequila - delish.  Mark never showed down there - now, you have to know Mark to know that this is not a surprise to me at all, and it doesn't bother me because I'm not expecting him to be on time anyway!  In fact, its now just before midnight and we've been back up in the room for about an hour and Mark just called to see if we were going to go down to the lobby for a drink.  Yeah, no.  Jay is asleep - so is everyone else because we've all slept 4 hours in the last 35 hours.  But that's Mark!  All night Jay has been saying "we should wait for Mark" "we should wait for Mark" and I finally said "but why does he always have to be last?!?"  Jay said it's a form of control and I said "why should we feed into his need to be last when I have my own need to be first!"...Mark was left in the dust, and I think he's ok with that, he's probably thinking "why should I feed into her need to be first when I have my own need to be last!"  We have an unspoken understanding.

Anyway - so far the trip has exceeded my expectations.

Incidentally, there is an 8 hour time difference.  We're ahead.  So its midnight here and 4pm at home!