Day 8 - Dubai to Abu Dhabi and back again (part 2)

To say the Sheikh Zayed Mosque in Abu Dhabi is big would be an understatement. It's quite hard to bring that size across in photos to be honest.

This is a shot looking from just inside the indoor part of the mosque back out towards the entrance. The size and detail of the design is most impressive.

Here we're inside one of the massive halls - this one can fit 7,000 people. A few things of note in this shot are you can see where the imam sits, and next to that is a golden arch in the wall for Qibla. Qibla means the direction for prayer, which in the case of the Muslim religion is the holy city of Mecca in Saudi Arabia. Which is only 1,000 miles away! The room here at my hotel also has a Qibla indicator on the ceiling, I'll try to remember to snap a pic of it before I leave.

  

From all I hear, the former President of the UAE, Sheikh Zayed was a great man. He is often described as "the undisputed father of the nation". He became President in 1971 and was still in charge until his death in 2004. Even to this day, the locals still have enormous respect for how he brought the Emirates together and developed the country into an economic power.

The name fooled me at first, but this is not where the current President lives. This is Emirates Palace, a luxury hotel which cost something in the region of $3 billion to build. No, that's not a misprint. It is the second most expensive hotel to build in the world after...Marina Bay Sands in Singapore! We weren't allowed to go inside because we weren't dressed for such an occasion.

Our next destination was a quick trip up to the gates of the real Presidential Palace - our driver advised us it was not a good idea to be taking photos anywhere near it...apparently there are hidden cameras all over the grounds and surrounding area watching you!

So our next stop was this...

The UAE Heritage Village. Yeah I know, one of those places they take the tourists!

This is a great shot, the old with the new. In the foreground, that's a archaeological dig site dating back to the Bronze Age. And in the background, you can see part of the city skyline of Abu Dhabi.

I love this photo, sort of old and new again. But take out that busy city skyline and you could be on any tropical island in the world! That's one of the traditional wooden boats they'd have used back in the day.

After a lunch stop at Marina Mall (first time I've ever been to Starbucks), we hit the road to return to Dubai.

And it's a fun trip out on the highway! Someone using a blinker to change lanes is almost an event to celebrate, considering it doesn't happen all that often. The nominal speed limit is 120, but people do up to 140 without a problem. And the main highway is incredibly wide - in the southern part of Dubai around Jumeirah it's seven lanes each way! Feels like you're drowning in a sea of tar...

Speaking of Jumeirah, I'll get to see the Palm Jumeirah amongst other things when I go on a three hour Dubai city tour. Then this evening, I'll have dinner onboard a traditional dhow as we cruise along Dubai Creek. I am expecting some brilliant photos!

And in another piece of news, I've booked a ticket for the Burj Khalifa tomorrow. Am hoping for less hazy weather so I can get some awesome pics of the city, but maybe I shouldn't hold my breath!

Must find time for a shopping expedition...but when? I leave on Saturday night!

Day 8 - Dubai to Abu Dhabi and back again

Just a short post this morning Dubai time.

I was very busy at the concierge desk yesterday booking tours.

Today I'm starting with a full day city tour of Abu Dhabi, which is about 120km away. Among other things, we'll get to see the Jebel Ali Port & Free Zone which is the largest man-made port in the world. Also the Sheikh Zayed mosque, which has a capacity of 40,000 people!

I'm also hoping we go somewhere near Yas Island - for those uneducated, it's where the Abu Dhabi Formula 1 track is.

I'll post photos of Abu Dhabi later.

I've also booked a half day city tour of Dubai tomorrow, and that will be followed in the evening by a dhow cruise dinner on Dubai Creek. Let me just say that "creek" is the wrong name for it. It looks fairly wide to me, so I wouldn't want to try and swim across!

And on Friday, the holy day of the Muslim calendar, I'm heading out of town in the afternoon for a 4WD desert safari where I'll get to go dune bashing, see a belly dancer and eat a barbeque under the stars.

Last night I had to go out and get some money. It was quite an eye opener because the area around the hotel is mostly Indian, so I wandered through many lanes of fabric stores, electronics and replica watches. And I only walked for about 10 minutes to get to the ATM! Even saw a chicken wandering about...

When I got back to the hotel, I had dinner in the hotel's English pub themed restaurant. Even the fine touches were covered. The wallpaper, the HP sauce and mustard, some Bowie music and the food - and did I mention that most of the staff were Indian? I had a cottage pie and whisky flavoured cheesecake - it was superb...and best of all with drinks it only cost me $20 Australian.

Tonight I'll be checking out the hotel's pizzeria - looks like they charge around $10 for a large pizza. Woohoo!

Anyhow, got to head off and have breakfast. We'll be leaving for Abu Dhabi in about an hour, so look out for a Part 2 post later on.

Day 6 - Singapore to Dubai and Day 7 - Dubai

I'm writing this late in the morning Dubai time on Tuesday.

It was a very long Monday...

I did get lucky on the laptop battery front - there was a place in the Funan Digital Life mall in Singapore selling a whole bunch of them. And no I didn't have to sing. Something tells me the humour of it would've been lost on the staff...

Bought a cool set of noise-cancelling earphones for the remaining flights that I had. They worked really well on the way over here!

I had to check out of my hotel at 3pm and my airport transfer wasn't until 8:45pm, so I had some time to kill. I tested out both the laptop battery and earphones in the foyer of the hotel listening to some music. It was steadily raining at the time and by the time I bit the bullet at 4:30, it was still steadily raining. What does one do when it's raining and you've got time to kill?

The answer was perfect. I headed back to the cinema where I saw "Wall Street". It was only a couple of blocks from the hotel, so it really was the perfect solution.

But to see what? I passed on "Legend of the Fist: The Return of Chen Zhen" because obviously I hadn't seen the first movie. That'd be like watching "Wall Street 2" before "Wall Street"! In the end I settled on Leonardo Di Caprio's new flick, "Inception" mainly because I didn't like the sound of anything else.

And I'm glad I went for it - it was a brilliant movie. Molly says "do yourself a favour" again. I won't give away the plot, but let's just say the title refers to getting inside a person's dreams and planting an idea in their head. A very mentally challenging film to follow but well worth it if you do.

I'd gotten back to the hotel and within 10 minutes, my ride was there - he was about 20 minutes early!

So we made it to Changi Airport where I went through the usual international travel procedure. Check in, pass through Immigration, change currency etc. However they didn't do the security screening until I was at the gate.

We left at 11:40pm. I so badly wanted to sleep but I mustn't got in more than about 2 hours. By the time I got to Dubai Airport at 2:50am local time, I was a mess. It meant the time was now 6:50am in Singapore and I'd had hardly any sleep since that time the day before. I felt like a grizzly bear...

And it didn't help that it was a long way from our gate to the passport control, baggage and security areas. Multiple moving walkways, multiple downward escalators, multiple upward escalators. Good thing I wasn't in a hurry to catch another flight!

Finally I made it out, found my driver and got to the hotel. They have left hand drive cars and drive on the right side of the road. Took a few minutes to get used to! And I have to say that my driver used the lane markings as an indication, not a strict thing to follow. But at 4am, you can get away with that in probably any city around the world.

When my head finally hit the pillow at 4:15am, I was so glad. But I had to get up in time for my free breakfast. Did it finish at 10 or 10:30? Reception did tell me, but I suffered a massive memory failure. Presume 10 just in case. Typical it turned out to be 10:30, but that's about my average sort of luck...

Breakfast was nothing out of the ordinary, aside from the donuts. And they make a mean fruit juice over here too. Kenny G was playing in the breakfast room - I didn't mind it actually because it wasn't anything "hard" to listen to.

Picture time - what's my room like? Let's start with the view. This shot looks toward Port Rashid and Dubai Maritime City. I don't think I can see the Persian Gulf, but it isn't that far away. In the foreground of the shot is Fort Al Fahidi, the boat you can see is just behind the Dubai Museum.

 

Calling it a room is an unfair description - it's actually an "Executive Suite". See below pictures of the bedroom and the lounge room. Yes the two rooms are separate!

 

You can't see them in the photos, but there are also two Sony widescreen TV's.

I'm planning on spending a bit of time in the room today, because I don't feel particularly energetic at the moment. I might head across the road to the Museum if I'm more enthusiastic later, but right now I can't see it happening.

I may check out the hotel pool, it's perfect weather for that actually. 38 degrees and fine!

Tomorrow, I'd like to do a tour of the city if I can arrange it. Right now, I can hear the call to prayer coming from a nearby mosque - there is no doubt whatsoever that I am now in a Muslim country.

Day 5 - Singapore (race day)

As the sun went down, the lights and the excitement went up. We had the driver's parade, the Singaporean national anthem and before you knew it the race was upon us. A passing mention to Lewis Hamilton's girlfriend, Nicole Scherzinger from the Pussycat Dolls for glamming things up quite nicely.

For me, this video was the moment that has made the whole trip worth every cent and more - lap 1 of the Singapore Grand Prix.

It was a pretty eventful race. Quite a few incidents happened close to me, such as the crashes of Kamui Kobayashi and Bruno Senna. Because they crashed entering the tunnel underneath me, I didn't actually see it happen but you could hear something unusual. The pics below show the damage to both cars and the spot they crashed.

"Three wheels on your wagon, well there's your problem!"

"Is it a bird, is it a plane, no it's another damaged Hispania!"

I have no idea why they felt the need to pose at the crash site...

The race's biggest talking point was the tangle between Lewis Hamilton and Mark Webber at Turn 7 - see shot below (they'd already pulled out the ripple strip by the time I got there!)

Worked out nicely for Mark - he got to take out his closest championship rival without incurring a penalty.

And with a couple of laps to go, a flaming mess came past me...literally.

The Lotus of Heikki Kovalainen was already on fire when it approached my position - I could see the flames and smell the smoke. Heikki then proceeded, idiotically in my view, to continue on through the next six corners with his car on fire before finally parking it just after the finish line on the pit straight. That meant he passed about three or four better spots he could've parked it!

After all that and a great win by Alonso, the championship positions at the end of the race are almost the same as it started. Webber now leading by 11 points, but only 25 covering the top five drivers. And to think there's still four races to go - brilliant!

As I promised yesterday, some thoughts on the subjects of time, money, sex and power.

An F1 pit crew can change the car's tyres in under four seconds!
The teams stayed on European hours throughout the weekend to minimise the effect of jetlag - that meant dinner at around 3 or 4am! I heard Nico Rosberg was cranky because where he was staying at the Pan Pacific, the restaurant had closed...
Due to the full tanks at the start of the race, lap times were around seven seconds a lap slower than on almost empty tanks at the end of the race.

An F1 steering wheel is worth about $50,000.
All tickets were sold for race day - I can't get an exact figure, but in 2008 for example the crowd on race day was around 100,000 (40% of which were foreign tourists). Estimated economic impact of around $170 million.
The Singapore Government spends around $100 million to host the race.

A hooker tried to pick me up on Saturday night after the race. She wanted to come back to my hotel room (which was only about a block and a half away). I got rid of her by telling her my girlfriend was ready for some action - and no she's not bisexual.
An F1 car is undoubtedly sexy, even more so under lights. Cars like the McLaren with its chrome effect paintwork, and of course the Ferrari, look spectacular!

A current F1 engine produces about 750hp - but in the 1980's in qualifying settings, turbo engines produced around 1200!
Reportedly, the Prime Minister of Mauritius was here pressing the flesh - apparently in the hope of hosting a race. Dream on buddy I'd say! If France can't afford a race, then I don't see how an African nation could!

Well it's my final day here in Singapore - I jet out late tonight for Dubai. Going to head to Funan Digital Life before I go, apparently it's Asia's biggest shopping mall for technology so it should be a cracker. Hoping to pick up a new laptop battery for a song..."why do birds suddenly appear...every time you are near...". Maybe not that sort of song!

The time difference is 6 hours from Sydney over there in Dubai, so you'll probably get my posts very early in the morning. Temperatures are forecast at around 37 degrees and sunny - maybe just maybe a dust storm thrown into the mix. It couldn't be more different than the weather here!

I must say I think the locals here like Aussies. It's not a surprise considering how opposite the two countries are! You have the wide brown land of Australia and tightly packed Singapore. Australia has an average of 2.9 people per square kilometre, Singapore has 7022 per square kilometre!

And it's our personality that they like too. We're very friendly, happy people generally - so much so we sometimes get called the "no worries" country.

I must say the locals seemed to have a fondness for me - as you can imagine, I do stand out over here. Especially when I was wearing my wide-brimmed hat! You'd think more people would wear them over here, because they help keep the sun and rain off your head but also come in handy as a fan! I had one taxi driver tell me I was like the Dalai Lama - I gather it was my jolly nature that drew that remark!

As their motto says: Majulah Singapura (onward Singapore). And they certainly know how to do that.

Day 4 - Singapore (second day of F1 action)

Yesterday was again fascinating.

It was a massive day of sport with the AFL Grand Final - I thought I'd have to go to a bar to watch it but it was shown on the Australia Network. Who'd have believed there'd be a draw? Apparently the AFL was very happy with the result. It's not often you get to sell 100,000 tickets two weeks running!

As a sidenote, say hello to Stoney on my behalf - doesn't matter where you go in the world you can't get away from our voice talent! It seems he's the male imaging voice on the Australia Network so all the Aussie expats who live here get some of the Stoneman's finest. I also saw Paul Clitheroe on an ad, but that's neither here nor there.

So I was a bit later getting to the track yesterday, but I did manage to capture this when I got there...

This was the first lap of the Formula BMW race and I thought it'd be great to record the noise that these cars make. Not bad eh? I'll do the same thing tonight on lap 1 of the Grand Prix - the sound will be quite incredible.

Since all the same cars were on track as yesterday, I decided to put the camera away and enjoy the spectacle of the on-track action.

For the same reason, I wanted to head over towards the Singapore Sling chicane and Anderson Bridge section of the track for a different view of things.

On the way I came across the Esplanade Outdoor Theatre...

 

And Singapore's famous "Merlion" - believe it or not, it's 8.6 metres tall!

Killer optical illusion hey? No, the tourist boat was definitely not getting drenched.

 

There was some kind of Ferrari demonstration on track when I got to the Singapore Sling chicane. This shot really shows how the circuit winds it's way through some of the older colonial buildings of Singapore. On the right is the Singapore Cricket Club, and I'm not sure what the other building is.

Got lucky taking this shot of the Anderson Bridge to capture one of the Ferraris preparing to cross it. They only use one side of it on the racetrack because there's two seperate decks - as interesting as that would be to see them pick a side it's not very safe! In the background is the Fullerton Hotel.

And this is the LG Live Fan Zone stage where Mariah Carey will be performing tonight - I'm not going to worry about seeing her. If last night's Adam Lambert show is anything to go by, I probably wouldn't make it in time anyhow! The crowds of people around even an hour after qualifying finished were still big. Besides I'd rather head in the other direction and catch the podium ceremony!

On the subject of the race, as usual a fearless prediction of mine ended up shattered. Although as a Ferrari supporter, I was quite happy to be wrong in saying that both Red Bulls would be on the front row.

Still it's not a bad situation for Mark Webber. He's behind all the other championship contenders on the grid, but a finish on the podium is still a good chance and if he does that he'll still be in the hunt. Hopefully he can finish ahead of Vettel because that would put serious pressure on Red Bull to solely focus on Mark for the rest of the season. Indications out of the team are that Vettel has to score "big points" to keep his hopes alive.

Tomorrow morning, I'll have an early start when I'm on with Paddy & Ciel. It'll be 6:45am local time when they have a chat to me, so fingers crossed I'm not half asleep or it could be the most boring radio this side of the Super Radio Network!

Tomorrow's last post from Singapore will be all about the wash-up from the race and also on the theme of "time, money, sex and power" - 4 things that definitely relate to the sport of Formula 1 and to a lesser degree, Singapore as well.

And then tomorrow night at 11:40, it's another 8 hour flight - this time to Dubai. I get into the United Arab Emirates around 3am, so I pray to God (or should I say Allah?) that I can at least sleep part of the way!

Day 3 - Singapore (first day of F1 action)

The title of Usher's recent hit sums up the afternoon and evening of entertainment - OMG!

This was the scene at around 3:30...more on that soon.

This gives you an idea of the day view from my stand. Starting off the action on track was Formula BMW - nowhere near as fast as an F1 car but still makes a pretty good noise! They'd only just finished their first practice session when...

Don't worry, I did stay completely dry - I was underneath the grandstand while this happened.

It didn't take long for a waterfall to form on the stairs!

Out onto a soaked track went the Porsche Carrera Cup cars. Rear engined, rear wheel drive - fiendishly difficult to handle in wet conditions I'd imagine!

Would you believe it - this was the scene about an hour after the "waterfall" picture. Incredible...

And then the moment we'd all been waiting for...F1 first practice. Here's Mark Webber coming into my corner. A 90 minute session on a drying track was intriguing. Oh yeah and did I tell you that this was the first time they'd ever driven around the circuit in the wet? A session from the motocross trials riders was followed by Formula BMW qualifying, where two drivers were forced to park their cars right in front of us.The first was some kind of mechanical issue, but the second was clearer...

Look on the right rear side and you'll see the rear wing is lower on that side - it's because he hit the wall coming out of the previous corner!

F1 second practice was the drivers' first hit-out under the full night sky. Fernando Alonso also fell victim to what was becoming a bit of a minefield right in front of us, but his problem was unusual.
When he came up to us, he missed his braking point and drove straight on into the escape road.

But I don't think the track wasn't wide enough to do a "flick spin" - basically that just means they gas up the rear tyres and turn the car around deliberately. So he engaged reverse (not as easy as it sounds), got back to a position where he could re-join the track and then...he stalled. Sounds embarrassing for a twice world champion, but the anti-stall mechanism on his car didn't work properly.

This sounds stupid, but the driver cannot start the engine - F1 cars are not equipped with a starter because it's unnecessary weight. The mechanics do that with a gadget back in the pits.

Vettel and Webber in the Red Bulls were flying. Up to his incident, Alonso was the only one really challenging them. Don't be surprised if Mark ends up on the front row, the main question being which side? Now I didn't get any clear pictures of the cars under lights, because it was a tricky scene to shoot.

However, I did discover my camera has a video option...




Look out - I could be the next Cameraman Joe!

Day 2 - Singapore (it's a 2 for 1 deal today)

Got an unexpected surprise on my way to the Singapore Flyer. Stumbling through one of the many malls along the way, I came across this...

  

I could've died a happy man right there on the spot. A Ferrari F1 car, probably a replica but I don't care! And then there was something else intriguing...

This tyre was the front right on Rubens Barrichello's car when he won the Valencia race last year. It would be worth thousands to a memorabilia collector - and no I'm not kidding. I saw a Jordan wheel (tyre not included) about 10 years ago going for a thousand dollars!

I can't remember exactly which corner this is but the view with Marina Bay Sands in the background is incredible - and trust me, the lights look bright because they are!

Then I passed through Harvey Norman - I wish I was kidding but it's true. I do have a photo but it's better if I don't post it, I'd like to forget that encounter if at all possible!

And now I'm on the Flyer - in the above shot you're looking at the back of pit lane. On the far right hand side, you can see the tyres laid out at Red Bull - there's also a press conference going on there. Well I'd say so but I can't be 100% sure!

The name of the game is to get to that checkered flag first, but as Murray Walker always used to say, "To finish first, first you have to finish". Nice touch with "Singapore" written on the ripple strip on the outside of the final corner too - no coincidence they've chosen red and white considering they're the colours on Singapore's flag.

I did see something interesting just after this shot, but I wasn't quick enough to shoot it. A Lotus crew member walking up pit lane wheeling along one of those "clicker" things that clicks every metre to measure how long the pit lane is. Why do that? So they know how long it will take a driver to enter pit lane, make a pit stop and then get back on track. Very important for strategy purposes. These guys will look for any advantage over their rivals, so this demonstrates "the lengths they'll go to!"

In this shot you can see the pit straight and the first few corners of the lap. Turns 1, 2 & 3 are hidden by the overpass. Incidentally, we drove across the big part of that yesterday on the way in from the airport. My driver told me that anybody loitering up there for a free view on race day wouldn't last long - the police will clear them off in no time flat! Turn 4 is at the bottom left of the shot.

As you can see, this is how high you get up there - I believe that's the Ritz Carlton Hotel (but I could be wrong!) The ride goes up 165 metres, and boy did I feel it...I have to a fair degree conquered my fear of heights, but this was a test!

We're overlooking the Marina in this shot. Right in the middle is the offshore stage they built which this weekend will be hosting freestyle motocross. Hope you land all those tricks guys or you'll need scuba gear! To the right of that is my grandstand. It doesn't show all that well how the track goes underneath it, but it does! And I'll be sitting right on top of that passageway...

And this is a bit of fun to finish off. I spotted this display underneath the Flyer - the Recycle Challenge. Local tertiary students were given the task of designing and building F1 car replicas using recycled materials or based on an environmentally-friendly theme. Very clever eh? Apparently the judging was done on Thursday, so I'll see if I can find out who won! I like the first one myself...

Better get to bed I think - it's now almost 1am on Friday, but the good news is I'm taking it easy in the morning. Off to the track at around 3pm for day 1 of the Singapore Grand Prix weekend.
The undoubted highlight will be 3 hours of Formula 1 practice.

Fingers crossed for some extra wings on Mark Webber's Red Bull!