Leaving Yemen and overnight in Dubai

Trans Siberian Railroad
Leaving Yemen (4/10/08)
The flight leaving Yemen was 3 hours late. Hung around the CIP (Commercial Important Person???) lounge or as someone else said, The Canadians in Peril lounge. Nexen takes security very seriously so we needed to take a twin otter flight to go to our terminal facility so that we can eat lunch. Not a big you say. The flight was literally five minutes. More time taxiing than in the air. A 2 hour flight from Yemen to Abu Dhabi, a 2 hour bus ride to Dubai, a 2 day layover in Dubai and then I will take a flight to Moscow and then another flight to get to St. Petersburg. It took 12 hours to go 1 hours worth of flying time to get out of Yemen.
My new lap top is great for traveling. Nice and small and great for passing time with blogging, internet and watching movies/videos. It does take away from reading however but I am sure there will be lots of time for both given the amount of time that I will on trains and airplanes this trip.
Overnighter in Dubai (4/11/08)
This is probably my 20th time in Dubai and the place just does not grow on me. I think it is a city without a soul. It seems to need to have the biggest, shiniest, rarest and the most expensive of pretty much everything. The city probably has a small dick and needs to compensate. Dubai will probably be buying a corvette next. The evenings are nice this time of year but the days are getting hot and will be disgusting by the time I get back in 5 weeks.
The good thing is that there is a really good Irish pub in the hotel that I am staying in. 6 hours to kill so the challenge is to stay sober enough to make my flight.
Let’s go back to bitching about Dubai. The traffic is unreal and getting a cab is always a challenge. I had to wait an hour to get a cab. A normal 15 minute drive took about another hour.
However if designer clothes, gold, silver, shopping and construction cranes are your thing Dubai would be great. Here is an example of Dubai economics, I paid 5 dollars for a soft drink in the hotel and paid 20 dollars for 2 shirts, 6 pair of socks and 6 pair of underwear in a large department store. They were not Tommy Hilfiger mind you but will do the trick for a raggedy ass back packer.
I am looking forward to flying on Singapore Airlines. They are 5 Star and suppose to be a nice flying experience.
I don’t give too much thought to safety when it comes to traveling but I am curious about Russia. I work with a lot of expats who spent time in Russia and I have been warned by 4 of them to be very careful there. Just spent 6 hours reading a book called The Memories Keeper’s Daughter. What a great book and great way to kill time while waiting for a flight.
Singapore Airlines was pretty good but I did not find it better than Emirates. I am amazed how much carnage airplanes cause when there is an accident. They are so smooth in the air and the landing is a minor bump that even a light sleeper like me could sleep through.
Notwithstanding (I use words like this to try and sound smart) there was so much turbulence on the flight. The flight attendance suspended service and were strapped to their chairs for much of the flight. Not a big deal as most people want to sleep on a 3 am flight.