This is the first time I have ever flown on time and the plane arrived 15 minutes before its scheduled arrival which was great. The plane was full and I was sitting next to a Syrian man who had a lot of stories to talk about and he was very friendly. Turns out this man is the main distributor of Godiva chocolate, and he was asking why I wouldn’t eat sweets, I think I might have insulted him but he was very nice.
When I went to immigration the line was going down the escalator, it was a huge amount of people, the fast track for Emirates was full. Then I spotted the GCC line, I thought it was under construction but it turns out there was one line open. There were only 6 people standing instead of the usual 200 in one line which was the case for all other lines. What amazes me is that they have a lot of immigration officers but still doesn’t seem to be enough.
I also found my bags really quickly since the conveyor belt was stuck and there were three to five airlines per conveyor belt. I saw my bags and grabbed them right away, I went outside to find the hotel car and headed right to the hotel.
I know I have to get up early to go to the meeting and the other things to follow, I know I’m going to feel hungry very soon.
I think that my brain clock is just going to go off the deep end at this rate. I have another training session in Dubai and this time it is compressed and its going to take a lot of time. The bad part is that it is two shifts, morning and night but at least I get to have the afternoon to myself. At first I was running around to get my passport done since I wasn’t sure if it was going to be outside the Middle East but it turns out its going to be in Dubai for the time being.
I am going to be packing a for a few days and the most insane part is that there is so much work to do these days I’m not sure how exactly I’m going to manage both but I just have to. I’m going to take advantage of any time off to go see some movies which are going to be entertaining, I’m not going to leave any movie unseen.
I still can’t get enough of borders, there is always something I might have the last time I visited the store. So I sift through the books reading titles and authors wondering which one might interest me. The one thing I do is jot down book names and authors in the notes of my phone to add it to a list of books I want to buy, I read some really interesting books that I would want to read at a later point.
I seemed to have found the books for Halo that I completely forgot about and it was very difficult not to buy books with the Master Chief on the cover. I know I will buy it at a later point. I picked up a few magazines since they have a very large selection, I picked up a few motorcycle, car, cinema, and pc magazines to read at some point. I have had magazines pile up and I’m not sure when I’m going to read them all but I am.
Its funny even with such a large store and a big selection I remember books that I have seen at other book stores in London that weren’t available at this bookstore. There are so many books and not enough space, they should make it at least two floors of the same size to accomodate all these books and different genres.
I have really gotten used to Emirates Airlines, it has become rare for them to be on time, they are either 30 minutes late or 2 hours or more. It just seems odd that an airline like this is consistantnly late, I’m happy I have a really short trip so I don’t have to check in my bags, it seems that Emirates Airlines have started losing bags recently.
The staff for Emirates Airlines are very nice and I have never had an issue with the staff and having their own terminal in Dubai Airport does help. The business class is decent but I think they can do bettter for the price, but the economy is a bit cramped for me. I tend to hit should to should with the people next to me, I think they are trying to pack as many people as they can into the plane.
The flight was pleasent and I managed to watch a lot of anime both ways of the trip so I was enjoying myself the whole way to and from Kuwait.
This is a short notice 24 hour trip to Dubai to get some work done and get back, I have begun to get annoyed with these really short trips. I don’t mind if I can drive there, when driving its an exploration.
At this point I only paccked a few t-shirts and a few shirts for this trip and nothing much, its very light and simple. I didn’t want to check-in a bag so I packed it all into my carry on. I just loaded up my laptop with a few episodes of anime and some reading material and I am good to go. The airport is filled with a few people taking business trips as well you could tell from their attire and what they are reading.
I ran into an old friend and I didn’t even know he was married which was a surprise. He is traveling with his wife to take her CFA exam in Abu Dhabi, and he finished his a little while ago. There is always a surprise at the airport.
RUF is a german company which works only on Porsches and extensively modifys them to fit their requirements of performance and customer needs. The machines that they brought to the BIC track were beautiful, and it was a very nice surprise from the GulfRun people.
There were two vehicles a they yellow RUF which seems to be based on the Carrera but is modified to the point it produces 900 bhp and costs 85’000 KD. The silver RUF is a modified Cayman which produces 428 bhp and costs 45’000 KD.
You get these beautiful machiens as well as the excellent service. RUF has recently moved their head quarters from Germany to Bahrain, and the funny part is their facility is made completely of German equipment, even the fencing and pipes, vehicle lifts, I couldn’t find anything that wasn’t German. They are so proud of Bavarian engineering that they one of the engineers has a BMW R1200S!
They only work on Porches, not even Audis, and they are very hood at it. They even helped us trying to fix the Audi RS4 and hey didn’t charge us for any of their services and these guys are extremely expensive, they have top of the line engineers with amazing skills, I was watching them systematically figure out what the problem was in the RS4 without removing any parts.
If you want a fast car, with perfect handling, and a company with excellent service then RUF would be the only way to go.
We started off the day early meeting up at the Circuit and there were a lot of people from the track who were there to point out for us all the safety issues and facilities available on the track. We were all eager to start, and I was part of group three in the beginning, but there were a few cars that couldn’t go due to technical issues so I was moved up to Group 1 heading out right away with some very powerful vehicles.
We headed out into the track with the track chase vehicle in front of us which is a modified Lexus IS 350 and it can move. The after the first warm up lap I started going a little faster and a few laps in I started getting a feel for the vehicle and I was blasting music the whole way around. It was fantastic chasing vehicles down and seeing if you can over take them, it is all about the abilities of the drivers, the cars can only do so much.
You start off slowly pushing yourself and figuring out the limits of your car, and some of the guys have good basics but lacking some techniques. A lot of people were missing the lines and apexes which basically means you loose speed and power coming out of the corner, I know I am improved as I was driving the course but I need to take a course to help me improve even more.
We started off with the three groups and each group gets 20 minutes each so that people can get used to the track without any pressure. Later on they had open track sessions for anyone who wants to go out to go, and I went out more times then I could count. I took at least 10 passengers over the number of times I was on the track, I was on the track for most of the day but it does take a toll on your vehicle. They tell you what to do and what not to do on the track to cool down your vehicle, and cooling it down is extremely important.
There was a few technical difficulties with a few vehicles but at least nothing bad happened to anybody and these are issues that can be fixed. I think everyone enjoyed the whole day on the track, and I know that everyone had a smile on their face through out the day. There were a few times when people were clowning around but it was all in good fun, nothing too dangerous.
You will soon be seeing a GulfRun video of what was being done since we mounted a camera onto the front of vehicle while racing around. I was chasing some cars, but their were some vehicles which were impossible to follow on the track since they were driving like demons.
Then there was the drag race which is a very entertaining session, and I just wanted to enjoy myself and I didn’t want to do it too much. Some people went a lot to test their vehicles, my tires reached their limits a long time ago since they need replacement.
It was one hell of a day but well worth it and very exhausting, this was an experience that every person should enjoy.
I will never get used to the Dirham and its value, it always feels like it doesn’t have that much weight to it. When we went to the Gold Class theater it cost 100 AED per ticket, if that was even close the price in Kuwait it would be insane. It feels like your carrying around thousands but if your going shopping that really isn’t much at all and you feel like the money disappears quickly. When I spend 10 KD or 20 KD I really do feel the amount, but with the Dirham it feels like Monopoly Money you can just exchange that 1000 note for a 500 note or 100 note. I will never get used to the dirham, and it just won’t hold the value that I feel its supposed to.
I have been traveling to Dubai over the past few years mostly for work and things are always changing with more developments and more projects. Service used to be of very high quality at all the hotels and businesses in Dubai, but it seems things have declining for the past few years.
With the expansion of businesses and the population at an exponential rate services hasn’t been able to keep up. The quality of employees have also declined, I have learned that a lot of people have left Dubai to work else where even if they earn less but its less expensive then Dubai.
At a lot of hotels there have been screw ups and mistakes at different points such as vehicle reservation, airport pick up, room extention, and that is only at the hotels. I have been told by friends living in Dubai that you have to beg the dealership to look at your car if you have problem since they sell more cars then they can service so it is an issue to have them fix any minor issues. It takes effort to get good service, and now with more volume the service level has dropped.
I have managed to go the movies over the past couple of days but it has been insane the amount of meetings I have been going to. I start early morning around 8am and finish around 9pm for three days in a row. There have been a few breaks in between the meetings but still its exhausting. By the time the day is done I just go to my hotel room and want to pass out, one day I just went to Mall of the Emirates because I wanted to pick up a few things before leaving but still it was an exhausting trip.
There isn’t enough time to even surf the net I’m so tired, I just want to go to bed after getting back to the room and the traffic in Dubai exhausts you even more at the end of the day. There was one day where I almost fell asleep while taking a shower because it felt so relaxing. I’m happy to be home and in my own bed.