Travel Blog: Arriving Down Under

Monday evening was the start of our 30-plus hour travel time to Sydney. Most people from Canada or the US would take the western route, through Vancouver or Los Angeles. We've done that before and found that crossing the International Date Line seems to mess up the body clock quite a bit, so we decided this time to go eastbound. The best option for that trip is Emirates, which flies the Airbus A380 from Toronto to Dubai three times a week, and flies Dubai to Sydney more often than that. So not only were we looking forward to seeing how the flight direction would affect our bodies, but we were also looking forward to Emirates' Business Class, which is one of the best in the world.

We weren't disappointed. Our first flight was just over 12 hours, of which we managed to get about 5 or so hours of sleep.

It might be a 'cubicle', but it's better than being in an office!

Wide screen TV for over 1,000 movies, TV shows, etc. This is
the tail camera view.

Because we had over 6 hours for our layover, we were also provided a room at a hotel close to the airport - at least it was physically close to the airport; for some reason even our driver couldn't tell, the traffic coming out of the airport was so heavy that it took us almost a half hour to drive about 2 km. Once we turned off of the congested road, the rest of the trip took about 2 minutes!

We 'stayed' at the Rotana Hotel Dubai, long enough to take a shower, relax for a little while and get a complimentary meal at the hotel's buffet restaurant called Choices. As buffets go, this one was excellent. It happened that Tuesday evening was their Italian themed night. They had everything from antipasti, cheeses and Italian cured meats to pizzas made right at the cooking station, and anything Italian in between. For dessert, they even had gelato, offered two ways: the regular way, or 'teppanyaki' style, which was the cold stone method. The dessert chef paddled your choice of ice cream with additions - chocolate chips, cookie pieces, nuts, etc - and scooped it all into a bowl. Monica had vanilla (yeah, boring) with chocolate chip cookies pieces. It was delicious!

Rotana Hotel Lobby

Getting back to the airport for the second leg of the journey only took about 2 minutes in total, and not long afterward we were back in the lounge waiting for the flight call. This plane looked exactly like the last one, except that it was brand, spanking new - the airline had only started flying it a few days earlier. It even still sort of had that "new plane" smell!! Just as on the previous flight, we were served two meals. On the first flight they were dinner and breakfast; on this one they were breakfast and lunch. That only served to increase the confusion to our bodies, since we arrived in Sydney at 11:00 p.m., and had had no dinner!

First course of Monica's lunch - Carrot and Coriander Soup
with salad and rolls

The trip from the airport to the hotel was only about 20 minutes at that time of night, and on the way our driver told us about some of the things that were going on or coming up shortly. First - the big Asia Cup Football (soccer) Tournament was in the midst of playoffs, and all of the players from all of the teams were staying at our hotel; second - the Sydney Festival was still going on in the downtown area, especially around Hyde Park, which fortunately is not too close to the hotel; and third - this coming Monday is Australia Day, the biggest national holiday, celebrated much the same as Canada Day at home. There will be road closures and parking restrictions on Monday, but the biggest draw will be around Circular Quay because there's also a huge fireworks display on the Harbour Bridge! Apparently not to the same degree as New Year's, but big all the same. So we will finally be able to see fireworks in Sydney, up close and personal as it turns out. Those of you following on facebook would already have seen the view from our window as taken on Thursday morning -