Dubai Day 4/ travelling to London

It is our final day in Dubai before we fly out to London at 2am. Today is also our 7 year anniversary ❤️. We had until midday to check out of our room so we slept in till 9am, packed our bags and headed to breakfast at 1030am. Coming back to the room we charged all the camera equipment and Lew backed up all our photos and videos onto two different hard drives for safe keepings. We travel with these hard drives separated in case something happens to one of them. Once everything was in order we dragged it all down to the concierge where it was being stored for the day. They also said we were able to freshen up whenever we please in the gym facilities.

Reluctantly we headed out into the heat to catch the train to Palm Jumeirah. Once out of the revolving doors this very strange mixture of extreme heat as well as humidity hit us. The funniest thing was that our sunglasses completely fogged up. Lew then mentions something about hearing that the weather is supposed to be incredibly hot and humid for the next two days....great, as if it's not unbearable enough as it is! You can see on some of the photos below the hazy look of the city and that is the humidity hanging over it. We had posted on Facebook for activities people suggested in Dubai as we had really run out of ideas and were keen to escape to somewhere cooler. One of them was to take the monorail down Palm Jumeriah to Atlantis which we contemplated the other day as it's close to the beach.

We knew the drill catching both the train and tram so it wasn't stressful. Plus we were so thankful for the air conditioning. I don't think it's a day for strolling around outside .

Getting off the train we transferred to the tram and took that until the Palm Jumeirah stop. We then had to walk 5 minutes up a large amount of stairs and then through a car park to get to the monorail station. It has such a half arsed station that they wouldn't take our cards and we were told the nearest ATM was back at the tram station. We were covered and sweat and just absolutely seething about how much we are sick of this country. It seems that everything they have built has happened so quickly that they haven't thought about how it would run and it just has lots of little niggly things that would make living here impossible. Walking back the 5 minutes in the revolting humidity we looked in both sides of the tram stations only to find no ATM like they said. We did notice a bank across the road so had to withdraw money from there. Walking all the way back we finally got our overpriced tickets to the monorail (60 AED/ $23 NZD). They also handed us two vouchers mostly in Chinese that were 50 AED each to use at the mall along the way. Apparently there wasn't a minimum spend either, free lunch?

The crossing to nowhere? Plus you much jump over the fence to reach it

We arrived into Atlantis and got off the monorail just teeming with Asian tourists. Heading inside the next air conditioned building we realised there were lots of different water parks that involved you swimming with dolphins and sea lions. Lew had forgotten his togs but we had seen a few people swimming in their underwear at Jumeirah beach so we thought he could probably just do that. Looking at the prices of some of these activities it would cost about 300 AED ($115 NZD) each. Crazy money ! We had planned on just making our way down to the beach but it proved rather difficult as we were stopped by security guards at each entrance going out of the building and onto the beach. There was a boardwalk around the top of the Palm that we thought we could walk down and into another entrance by a car park. The board walk was rather difficult to get into as not only did they have no pedestrian crossings you had to climb over a small concrete wall to access it?! The walk was probably the most unbearable this country has been since we arrive. Usually it is just a dry heat but today it had the added humidity. The sunblock we had applied back at the hotel was mixing with sweat and just running down our legs. It took about 20 minutes for us to get to the entrance and we got past the first security guard who gave us the directions to the beach. However, walking a bit further when we were so close to it another one called out to us informing us that the beach was actually closed and had been for the past month. The only options for the beach access were through the water park or the hotels private access. Basically we had walked all this way for nothing. We tried to go back and access it through the car park just so we could at least take a photograph and we came across another security guard. We got some shots and Lew had a good chat to him about him home country of India. At this stage I was squatting on the ground covered in sweat wondering why he has to be so nice to everyone? Could we not just go already! The one good thing we learnt was that there was a free shuttle back to Atlantis so we didn't have to walk 👌🏻.

Catching that we went straight back to the monorail to head to the mall, since we had been given those vouchers to use after all. The mall was a short walk away and to be honest was the most disappointing mall we had come across in all of Dubai! Most of the shops were still being built and it was just a entire long corridor of not much. We did However managed to find a salad bar that did smoothies and wraps and would take our vouchers. So we ended up getting a free lunch (although it was actually 4pm by this stage). We realised when we took the trip back on the monorail that the actual mall was a short walk in the opposite direction and that was just an addition!

We took the monorail, tram and train back to the hotel and hung out in the lobby. It was very strange not having a room to go back to and we were tossing up when and where to have dinner. We decided to eat in at one of the hotel restaurants and shower now. The fitness Center which we could use was fully set up and it was strange thinking this was our last shower and next time we will be in London! The Center also had weight scales so we spent a bit of time weighing every bag to make sure they were only 23.5kg each. We had to throw out the sunblock, mosquito repellent and aloe vera after sun gel and pack a lot of heavy things into my Sampsonite carry on suitcase so it felt like a wee brick. From then onwards we hung out in the lobby planning the next part of our trip. We made a huge mistake leaving it until less than a week to book our tickets to Paris on the Eurostar and that cost us an arm and a leg and we also lost a day in Paris. It was worth it to keep one leg though.

At 9pm we were getting hungry again and left our bags with the concierge as we went to Wagamamas for dinner on the ground floor of the hotel. We thought this was the easiest option as it saved us getting too hot and sweaty walking to the nearby mall. I had a ramen bowl and Lew had the same as what we got the other day. The food came relativelyquick and we were able to eat at a much slower pace than monday before our tour. Post dinner we got rid of all our cash and paid the rest on a card. Grabbing our bags we made our way to the train station. I changed into a singlet as I didn't want to get my nice white shirt all sweaty going back out into the heat. It took us about 5 minutes and luckily the air con is so strong it dried the sweat off you in no time. The subway was rather busy for that time of night -10pm and we were going to be super early to the airport as our flight doesn't leave until 0225. But the subways close at 11pm and we wanted to use our day passes. I have to admit it was easy to get to the airport and didn't take us nearly as long as we anticipated. We arrived at 1040pm and we were so early we couldn't even check our bags in. The usual story with the fact that there isn't many seats anywhere mean we were perched on a metal bar that protects the walls just waiting for check in to open.

At about 1140pm our flight opened and we were able to get rid of our bags. Mine weighed 23.3kg and Lews was 23.6kg. They didn't say anything and we were pleased to finally have all our stuff on it's final leg to London! We passed through security and all that jazz but still didn't have a gate for our plane. We sat down in a random gate with a good power outlet and passed time by editing photos and blogs from the past few days. The time seemed to go rather fast and we moved to our gate D13. I went to the bathroom and came back and our Aeroflot plane to Moscow was boarding! We had absolutely no clue what the flight attendants were saying to us as we entered the plane but we were just very thankful they didn't weigh our hand luggage. The plane was very cramped with no inflight entertainment.

Luckily it was only about a 5 hour flight and I actually had no one in the seat next to me. The safety briefing involved Russian and some incredibly fast English and we could only pick out familiar words. Taking off was rather spectacular with the Deira on the right with minimal lights and then new Dubai on your left lit up like a Xmas tree. The pilot had to delay his climb for a while as as we were coming out of the city as there were many other planes in a holding pattern above Dubai airport. The cabin was dark as we were climbing and we expected it to stay that way and lots of people were getting ready for a sleep. But a short while later all the lights were turned back and we got handed out the menu for "lunch" they called it. I had cheated and taken a sleeping tablet but they woke me up asking what I would like. Some how in my half asleep state I managed to get the special meal we had organised. It said VEG so I was just hoping that meant vegan and not just vegetarian. It was really nice food but Lew struggled to eat as he was squashed into his seat. I moved over to the isle seat and got ready to sleep so he had more room. Somehow he managed to lie down and and his feet were somewhere on me or my seat. It was uncomfortable and probably quite funny to see but we did get some sleep. Infact I was disappointed when a long sentence of Russian came over the loud speakers and I presumed they were saying we would land shortly. I had just got comfortable again and was keen to sleep more.

We couldn't see much flying into Moscow as it was very foggy and looked cold. We had about an hour layover before our flight to London. It was just as well as the terminals were long and there wasn't any escalators or trams haha. It was nice to stretch the legs anyways. I hadn't realised that this was Lewis's first time in Europe! The terminal we were at was very very busy with a big flight heading to somewhere in the states. There were also a lot of Jewish people in a large group and we couldn't work out what they would have been up to in Russia. We boarded the Russian airline Aeroflot with the air hostesses speaking in Russian to us and we just smiled politely wondering what they were saying. It was the second and final leg of our journey into London. We hadn't even bothered to check our seats numbers and when we got to the row we were in the only seats left were the two middle seat on opposite sides! We were super frustrated we hadn't noticed this before but we figured we checked in so early and as a group so we wouldn't have an issue. I grabbed one of the flight attendants attention and she said after we take off there are seats down the back we can move to. The flight seemed to take a lot longer than the first leg and it was very frustrating having no inflight entertainment or even a screen as you had no idea how far through the flight you were. Being in the back row the people in front had their seats back and you also had the line for the toilet next to us so it felt rather claustrophobic. We were very pleased to get back on the ground. Once we were off the plane Lew and I had to go out separate ways as he was going through as an EU resident and I wasn't so we had to be in different lines. We got through border control no problem and I'm officially in the UK on my tier 5 visa!

The excitement ended there though as the baggage carousel had no more bags coming out and there were at least 10 of us who were still waiting for our bags. The baggage collection department isn't exactly raising my hopes of getting our bags either as there were piles of bags just left around the place. We spoke to another man who had just done the same route as us and didn't have his bags. More of us came out of the woodwork and the baggage people made us fill out a form stating they would contact us within the next 24hours in regards to our bags. If they find them they will send them to our address. Very frustrating but we couldn't do much but leave . We even tried to declare my herbal tea I had which was sealed and probably fine but there wasn't a single person manning that department so we just walked out. We sat down in some seats once we were through and tried to work out our next move. We rung the insurance company and they need the bags to be missing for >24hrs and we will still have to pay out $250 NZD excess to get some compensation. I got some snacks from the shop opposite us as I knew being hangry really wasn't going to help the situation. Lew had discovered that another Aeroflot plane was coming in now from Moscow and we asked one of the staff members if we could get through to see if our bags were there. He said yes but also said we had to ring the airline baggage service. So we did as he asked and Lew got put on hold for 10 minutes before re calling. They weren't any help. We tried to just walk through but it was all very serious and I told the security officer that the airline had ok'ed it. He burst my bubble when he said "ok just wait here and they will come collect you". I decided to phone them myself and told another wee white lie about the airline saying that they left our bags behind and they should be on this flight now. They said that's fine and for Lew to come and wait on the chairs and they would be there in 10 mins to escort him through. Yay perfect! I took all the backpacks and said I would wait for him at the exit from customs. I imagined him coming through with both our bags problem solved! But when I text him 20 minutes later to ask how he was getting on he was still waiting to be take through. I rung the baggage service again and got a different guy. Explaining the situation he was completely the opposite to the other lady I spoke to and said security can't let Lewis through. I was very angry and asked why the heck did they not bother to tell us this as we had wasted time just waiting for them. Plus we had a good feeling they would be there! He said they would deliver them but I doubt that will be in a timely manner. No doubt we will have to become nudists over the next three days. I yelled at him some more and then hung up. I was fuming and called Lew back out from where he was sitting in security. We decided just to get to Erlitas house (my Aunty's (Janet) 88yr old Mum). Maybe we would find a mall on the way where we could buy some underwear and clothes.

Heading to the subway station we brought an Oyster card and using CityMapper we worked out which trains to take to get to Maida Vale. Heathrow is a surprisingly long way from everything and we had to take the Piccadilly line for a lot of stops and then transfer to the Bakerloo line. The trains were so old and really rather small. We would have struggled to get all our luggage onto them if we did have our two large bags. The trains screeched and rocked along the tracks and the lights often went on and off. We had definitely made the mistake of using Singapores trains as how can anything match up to that! It was easy to travel between the Piccadilly line to the Bakerloo line within one station but over all the journey was quite far and we were pleased it wasn't rush hour so we could sit down. We got off the train at the Maida Vale station and Erlitas place was just 200m down the road. She was very pleased to see us and showed us around her cute little flat. She is doing amazing for 88 and just returned from Paris when she was visiting friends. She even said she was keen to head to Vietnam for her next trip. She offered us all sorts of food and we went for the standard peanut butter sandwiches. I tried to get her to sit down with us but she kept encouraging us to eat this that and everything. She had even thoughtfully brought us two steak pies for dinner! I reluctantly had to tell her that I couldn't eat dairy and she seemed to think I must positively starve. I did promise that even if I don't eat the pie lewis certainly will! After chatting to her about our lack of clothing and the fact that we needed to get out and buy it she directed us to Oxford street which had lots of shops. We decided not to bother showering as we had no clean clothes to put on anyways.

Leaving Carlton Mansions we walked 200m to the tube station and headed into town. Coming out of the tube at Oxford Circus onto Oxford road was an experience in itself. The buildings are so historic and beautiful and the bright red double decker buses line the streets. Despite being the middle of the day the streets were packed and we went exactly feeling in the mood to dodge people as we made our way towards the shops. We weren't planning on using our insurance at this stage due to such a high excess so we planned to just get some basics as cheap as we could. We went in and out of shops and eventually came across some stuff we thought was ok in H&M. The most frustrating part was that there were different floor and different changing rooms for men and women and they wouldn't allow me to try some stuff on in the changing room next to Lew on the mens floor. So it took double the amount of time to try stuff on. They also give you these big clothes bags to carry all your clothes around that you want to try on yet when you get to the changing room you can only take 7 items in. I understand why but when you have just been up all night, haven't had a shower and have nothing but the clothes on your back it is frustrating. It made it easy as I just ditched half the stuff I was going to try on then and there. We made our selection, paid and left. I desperately wanted to find a LuluLemon as I didn't want to buy crappy socks and underwear especially if we weren't getting paid out for this. I found one using Mapsme since we had no data and I was able to buy these staple items. The entire time I just had my hiking shoes on as these were the heaviest shows I owned and we were trying to reduce our checked baggage weight. I really regretted this decision now as my feet were rather sore. We didnt want to be a burden on Erlita expecting her to cook for us and we had no energy to cook for ourselves. I asked one of the girls working in Lulu where the best cheap eats were in this area. She directed us to this place called Caranby which was a short walk away. We couldn't believe we hadn't noticed this already as it had lovely shops lined up on the street and seemed pretty lively. There was a couple of places in Kingly Court which she recommended and this was a square building with three stories and a courtyard in the middle. She had recommended a pizza place on the bottom story called Pizza Pilgrims which had really affordable food. Lew and I both ordered pizza and enjoyed finally being in London but we were fading fast! We quickly went into a Tesco supermarket to get some snacks, breakfast items and toiletries, it is certainly a lot cheaper than NZ. It wasn't too hard catching the train back around 7pm as we had missed rush hour. Erlita has made us some Spag bowl despite us mentioning we would probably find something out as to not bother her. But she wasn't concerned and said we could eat it tomorrow. We showered and headed to bed after having a cup of tea and catching up with Erlita for an hour.