Dubai Goodbye

wanna makan my mee pok!

I have never paid so much attention to an airport before. For that matter, perhaps never any other building.

That is possibly because I have never spent 10 hours straight in a single building, and where every moment of it being awake, taking in details one might possibly miss otherwise. I am in transit in Dubai international airport. For 10 hours. I have endured 8 of it, and it is now 8am in the morning. You go figure what I did in the past few hours other than memorise the floorplan of the 24-hour shopping arcade within the departure area. I even know where the power points are to recharge the laptops.

But as with solitude and boredom, one's senses get extremely heightened, and this was no exception. The first thing that hit me when I arrived from Birmingham was Dubai did live up to its reputation of wowing its visitors with the scale of nearly everything it does. A 3-storey waterfall loomed as I stepped into the ultra-modern arrival hall. Before I could fully take in the water-wall, I heard a very familiar accent. It was the Filipino accent! I would never miss it, my aunt being Filipino. Soon, this accent was coming not just from one direction, but all around; so many of the ground staff, if not all I encountered were Filipinos. All the staff, Filipino or otherwise (there were sizable number of Indians as well), were really really polite and courteous.

That continued as I took a bite at what has to be the best-service Burger King I have ever visited; the counter staff, a Filipino, was smiling as if this were for a TV commercial, "Hi sir, what would you like to have?". Service was prompt, efficient and without fuss. Amazing. I later spoke to some airport staff and heard that indeed a a huge Filipino population did staff the airport, some with over a decade of experience in the airport. Shops here also accept not only the local currency, but the American dollar and surprise surprise, the deflating British pound.

Oh well, I will leave the rest of the shopping details for you to find out when you do transit in Dubai. I didn't do much else but file a complain about my broken inflight entertainment system on my flight from Birmingham; 6 hours of staring at a screen that goes from black to black, and watching others around me giggle or cry at their screens.

What must a boy do to get home to his family? Well, apparently it seems, in my case, a 10 hour transit in Dubai airport and a broken inflight entertainment system. Well, that's the way the money tumbles!

Uncle T