Damp On The Sunshine Coast

This was the view out the back door this morning just prior to setting off for my daily bike ride.  However the photo further down below shows what the weather was like that was coming our way and visible from out the front door.

The photo below doesn't do justice to the actual darkness of the approaching clouds!  The clouds then open up and we get a decent shower of rain, totally unsuitable for bike riding!

Then it clears up to be beautiful with blue skies again.  A few minutes later the clouds roll in again and we get another couple of mls of rain.

At this time of year you would expect the weather to be crisp and clear with the wind coming to us from the centre of the continent.  It should be cool overnight and a top of around 21 during the day with clear blue skies.

We are getting the top temps of 21 or so but the wind is coming from the south east off the ocean. This is bringing showers with it.

This year the weather is a little topsy turvy.  I should be mowing the lawn every four weeks or so.  Currently with all the consistent showers, it needs mowing every couple of weeks!

We have showers forecast for the next week or so!

I collected my Samsung Tab 4 tablet this morning.  After getting home, I took it out of the box and I logged in to it using the usual GMail address.  Before I knew what was happening, it was copying heaps of apps onto the thing all from my GMail 'account'.

I will let it go at the moment, then go back and delete what I don't want later.

Most likely you have this icon (left) in your system tray down near the clock on your computer.  The recommendation from Computer Club is to accept the offer of a free Windows 10 upgrade but when the magic date comes (July 29th) decline the offer to update just then.

The suggestion is to wait a month or so and see what gremlins are in the new package and to let Microsoft sort any problems out.

It took a little bit of fooling the old laptop to get the icon (and the invitation to update to Windows 10) to show and let me register it for the update.  Google was my friend and this morning the icon appeared and allowed me to register for the free Windows 10 upgrade.

Online Update

We have been with the new ISP now for a full week with our new internet connection.  I have noticed the speed is slightly slower by up to 10%.   Most of the stuff I get takes around 5 minutes to come through so it now may take 5.5 minutes.  The connections itself has been rock solid.  Overall I am quite satisfied with the move.

I have been keeping my eye open to upgrade my tablet.  We both started out with 'cheap' Chinese imports but Trish now has a very workman like Samsung Tab 4 10.1"  It is great, especially when we were overseas recently.  It picked up low strength WiFi much quicker and steadier than my cheap $160 Chinese brand tablet. But most importantly the model Trish has starts up reasonably quickly. My tablet takes an eternity just to start up and be usable!

The 10.1" model is about to be superseded by a new 9.7" model.  The older model has a RRP of $349 while the new one is around $400.  Trish bought her older model one for $269 along with a $20 store credit in February before we went away.  So I have been keeping my eye out for one at around $250.  You could get a $244 deal late in May but that was only available while we were overseas.

Then yesterday eBay had a special one day deal where buy anything costing over $200 and you get a $50 eBay Voucher to be spent on eBay in July.  Many of the larger chain stores here have an eBay online store so I bought the tablet for $298 with a $50 voucher to be added to my account on July 1st from one of the large chain stores with a near-by branch.

Trish has her eye on a 'white' kettle from the same large local chain store at $78.  The plan is to spend the $50 voucher along with $28 of our own money and buy the white kettle after July 1st.

I have selected 'click and collect' ( I go to the store and pick it up) but received a call from them yesterday saying they only had a 'display' model left and would I settle for that?  I declined the offer so they are chasing up a brand new 'still in the box' model for me.  Being the end of the model, I hope there is one left somewhere.

Right now we have a glorious blue sky outside but earlier it was cold, gray and overcast. I shortened my ride to 8k's this morning as it was extremely chilly riding about on such a cold gray morning.

We had a great meal on Tuesday evening with friends who have had many Cruising holidays.  We caught up with them for a chat and to compare our cruising experiences. We received some valuable feedback from them, had a great meal and lots of wonderful conversation.

The footy is on again tonight on TV so we are back into the swing of it all later on.

Computer Stuff

Cheap portable 2TB hard disk drive, under $92 from Dick Smith.  Be quick!

http://www.ebay.com.au/itm/Toshiba-2TB-Canvio-Basic-USB-3-0-Portable-External-Hard-Drive-Black-A2/261936315053#shpCntId

I didn't know this before yesterday but there is a version of Nero which is available for 'free'.

It is a light version which means it only has the basic stuff which is all most people need.  It is Nero Version 7 lite.  Do a Google search for it.  Later free versions may install adware so be careful.  Or click HERE for the Nero 7 "Lite" free version.

There may be later free versions as well but for everyday basic use this would do you perfectly.  And there isn't any adware!

MERS

The symptoms for Middle Eastern Respiratory Syndrome (or MERS) sound pretty familiar to me.

Trish and I were both feeling quite unwell when we were in Saudi Arabia but I don't think we got a full blown case of MERS. 

The symptoms are:

• Most people become unwell quickly, with fever, cough, shortness of breath, leading to pneumonia.
• Other symptoms include muscle pain, diarrhoea, vomiting and nausea.
• There have been people with mild symptoms and some have caught the virus but have no symptoms.

The feeling unwell, fever, cough and especially in Trish's case the 'nausea' seem to 'ring a bell' when we look back on how we felt during much of our stay in Saudi Arabia.

Maybe we had a milder form of the disease, I guess we will never know for sure.

Not Much News

You can guess from the photo we again have a lovely sunny day in store.  We managed 24 degrees yesterday which is just sensational for this time of year.

Again it is same old, same old news.  Not a lot is happening.

My internet provider was changed yesterday from Internode to Bigpond.  The speed I am now getting seems slightly slower but we will give it some time to settle down.  I received an email late Thursday afternoon saying the deal had been completed and to use the password I had been supplied with in a separate email to log in to my new internet.

Needless to say there wasn't an email with the password but I was able to get online, eventually into my new account and swap over the password.  After some inquiries I received a text saying the password was abcd1234 which seemed a bit basic to me.  Any way we are now connected.

I got a new modem/router as a part of the new ISP deal.  So thoughts on using the same names and passwords for devices on the new modem router wireless network here  backfired a little.  When the 'new' modem/router was connected it wanted to create a 'new' network which it called Network 2.  So anything being connected via the new modem/router needed to have the password typed in again.  The 'old' passwords were for Network 1!

It wouldn't connect to the internet straight away when I first tried to set it up and then came on and dropped out again a couple of times.  I am guessing the email saying all was ready to go was a little premature.  With connects and disconnects, I suspect the 'tech' was just doing the switchover for me at the exchange at that very time I was connecting.

All is fine and appears rock solid now.

As you can see from the photo it is 'Bottling Day'.  I have a quick trip to the doctor later today just to update a "referral" and then Trish and I are off to check out a local Shopping Centre just for a walk around. Trish is currently at Quilters and if I get things done quickly enough I will squeeze a bike ride in as well after the bottling.

I have Computer Club tomorrow and plenty of sport on TV over the weekend to keep me occupied.

According to their Facebook page, Kate, Arj and family are in Brighton in the UK beginning their summer holiday adventure.

Wet Wednesday

If you check the rainfall figures on this link and go to the month of June you will see we have had rain the last 6 consecutive days, and usually these are morning showers and enough to wet all the roads and pathways.  This makes an early morning ride extremely unpleasant.

The new 4TB hard drive is now all set up and running perfectly.  I have had to redo all my backup program as well.  All is now completed.  On top of that I bottle washed this morning too.

As the rain showers have just started up again (mid afternoon) anything which requires drying is in the garage where the car is after a couple of drives around this morning.  Most of the stuff still drying is from the bottle washing.

I have updated the versions of Office to Office 2013 on all computers Thanks for the extra quick download Arj.  Trouble is each version then required a 2GB 'update'.  All is now done though.

And at last my hearing in my left ear is popping and bubbling again and seems to be clearing!

The new modem/router (a part of the deal when going with a new ISP) arrived yesterday and I will spend a little time sorting out the Wireless Network names (SSID) and passwords in the next day or so.  My new ISP want us to use their passwords, I want to use mine so I don't have to sign everything in yet again!

Trish is into Brisbane tonight for a show with five other ladies so I will settle back and watch the "State of Origin" Rugby League game tonight live from Melbourne.  I am not a huge rugby league fan but these games can be excellent to watch.  This is Game 2.  I watched Game 1 online in Saudi Arabia.

I reckon my new internet provider could have me connected before the weekend.  They said it would take around 5 working days after the phone line was switched to them.  It was sometime late last week the line was switched back over to "Telstra".

Computer Storage Update

As I reported yesterday, one of my backup hard disk drives died (or at least the power supply did) the other day.  Don't ask me why but I have kept almost all the stuff I have ever downloaded.  You just never know when you might want it.  I reckon I still have the very first movie I ever downloaded!  So to cover the loss of the dead drive I re allocated/backed up stuff all over the place.

Every now and again I get a message saying that a file on a back up hard drive is locked and cannot be moved.  This can be the very first indication that hard drive may be on the way out.  Another sign is being told to run Check Disk as there may be some faulty sectors on the drive.

Or you take your drive to someone else's computer, plug it in the computer doesn't 'see it'.  Each of these symptoms is a little sign that a hard drive may be on the way out.  It doesn't mean the drive is dead, it just means it is no longer working entirely reliably at 100%.  When a hard disk drive does this a few times I reckon it is time to retire it and replace it with something you can rely on.

I have several 1TB portable drives which have been 'retired'.  I haven't thrown them out, I have kept them and use them as 'storage drives' and keep backups of backups on them.  They get used possibly 10 times a year to backup so are not in the hurly burly of everyday hard drive use.

When the power pack on my very old 2TB drive died the other day, I was able to switch stuff about onto retired portable drives.  What exactly was on what drive I couldn't remember but I had all bases covered.

I did some research and found I could buy a 4TB Seagate desktop drive online for around $160 delivered.  The website also said the hard drive would come from outside Australia.  This is an excellent price as even on special, they usually sell in the shops for around $200.

The toaster only toasts bread on one side so we were in the market for a new toaster from our local electrical store.  Whilst there I thought I would see what the best price was they could do on a 4TB drive.  I expected to pay more than the online advertised $160 delivered price.  I eventually bought one for $180 which I reckon is a pretty good deal.

And we got another $5 off the toaster too!

With a huge 4TB drive it means I won't have stuff all over the place.  Everything will be in one spot on the extra large drive, I may have to share the other files around a little though when I create backups of the major backup!

Quiet Around Caloundra

My hearing still remains much less than perfect.

I can now at least communicate reasonably with those around me.  I survived my first day back at the Computer Club yesterday OK with a couple of exceptions despite the hearing problems.  So things aren't too bad on that front. It is now the typical heavy head cold and ears all blocked up situation that many people have endured.

It has taken the best part of a week for sleeping patterns to return to something like normal after 2 months away.

I have been back on the bike a couple of times during the last week but regular morning showers have curtailed some riding days.  Right now it is quite grey outside and we have had a couple of showers this morning making riding a very uncomfortable pastime.

I have become involved with the Community Association again spending time getting information back up onto the website.

Internet remains a concern but we haven't had any major interruptions.  Our phone has been switched  from Internode back to Telstra so all is ready for the change of ISP.  That move could have taken up to 16 working days but was completed in around 3 days.

We have had a large convection micro wave oven for around 4 years.  We bought it so we wouldn't need to use the oven during our very hot weather here.  But it never really suited our needs.  It was a large unit and wouldn't fit in the space designed for it in the kitchen and had to 'live' on the kitchen bench.  With limited bench space in our small home we have now reverted to a standard micro wave oven, put it into the space provided and freed up bench space.  We gave the the large one away!

Another brew is bubbling away in the garage!

I keep backups of backups of all my computer stuff.  I have two large desktop hard drives and several smaller portable drives for the backups.  One of my desktop hard drives died on Friday so I have had to re-jig my backups.  The one large 3TB drive remains quite touchy but works 'most' times. I am on the look out to replace the touchy larger drive as my major back up device.

We had our first 'Friday drinks' at our place on Friday.  Generally drinks goes from 3 pm to around 7:30 pm.  So when the last guests left around 11:30 on Friday we had had a big night!  Saturday was spent reasonably quietly.

There is heaps of sport on TV.  I have cricket from the West Indies and England, there is heaps of tennis right now and on top of that we have our own Aussie Rules footy to enjoy!  This keeps me busy most times at the moment.

A "Glue" Ear

Yes, that is correct, I have a "Glue Ear".

We have just returned from the ENT specialist who checked out my crook left ear.  It is diagnosed as a Glue Ear and any connection to the whack on the side of my head from the buoy when snorkeling in the Red Sea a couple of weeks ago is purely coincidental.  


It was caused by the severe head cold I had when in Saudi, causing a build up of fluid behind the ear drum which over some time has caused the bones in the middle ear to have problems vibrating.

A small hole has been cut in my ear drum to drain as much of fluid as possible away from the inner ear.

Already I can hear a wider range of sounds.  The good thing is it should all clear up within a matter of weeks.

I am a relieved man!  I see the ENT guy again in 5 weeks time.

Time To Move

Our new email address in a few weeks will be thomas4551@bigpond.com and thomfam90@internode.on.net will cease to exist!  Currently both our phone line and internet connection are with Internode.

So after 6 months of a poor internet service I have just got off a 'chat' and have arranged a move from our previous ISP to Bigpond.  Bigpond is the major internet supplier in Australia and own ALL the equipment that I use to connect to the internet here on this estate.

So my previous internet supplier sub-let their connection from Bigpond.  Whenever I had a problem, they would have to go cap in hand to Bigpond to carry out the repair.

Regretfully the new internet service won't be anywhere near as good as what Kate and Arj get in Saudi Arabia.

We are actually going to be on a better deal than currently as once everything goes through, we will have 'free calls' on our landline.  Right now we don't use the landline at all for any outgoing calls, we use our 'mobiles' instead.

This isn't a deal breaker, but is handy to have.  Otherwise charges are exactly the same as we currently have.

It takes up to three weeks for the porting of the phone over to Telstra (Bigpond) and another week for the Bigpond ADSL connection to go through.  I would suggest those are maximum times and we could expect things to happen a little more quickly than that!

Telstra is the major supplier of telephony services in Australia, Bigpond is their internet section!

EDIT:  My speed has been returned to me.  Messages I left for the person looking after my 'case' at Internode failed to get through to her.  Therefore she was unaware of my problems.

My move to Bigpond cannot be altered now, I am obligated for 24 months.

The Dark Ages

Regretfully my hearing still does not appear to have improved.  However it is now only a couple of days till my appointment with the ENT specialist!  I am a little worried as to what the problem may be and if it can be fixed.

My internet authentication problems which I have endured for 6 months still continue.  Again the problem has been raised a level with faults.  My connection has supposedly been recoded at the exchange (whatever that may mean).

I would usually get a connection speed of 6.8MB, but currently it is running at 1.5MB.  My neighbour over the road who is connected at the same point as I am (but with a different ISP) is getting 6.8MB!  On top of this authentication dropouts continue.

The slow speed means different computers here at home cannot get on the internet and download at the same time.  And as we have returned from being away for two months all the computers want to do is updates!  This is causing problems.

Time for a change of ISP.

We feel as far as the internet is concerned we are back in the Dark Ages.  In Saudi, Arj gets a speed of over 75MB!

Settling In Back Home

But I still can't hear properly.  We arrived home almost exhausted on Thursday morning so there wasn't any value trying to make any sort of doctor's appointment for my hearing problem at that stage.  If I were to call them on Friday I wouldn't be able to see anyone till Tuesday anyway as Monday is a public holiday.

My scheduled appointment with my ENT guy is for 1pm on Wednesday.  So I feel it is best to wait until then and see the 'expert'.

But it is sure frustrating especially during any conversation.

Watching TV we have always used headphones and I can even now I can hear all I need to hear when wearing those.  I listen to my radio again using earphones and I can hear OK then.  My hearing is good enough to allow me to hear during phone calls.  Problem is if the phone is in another room, I don't always hear it ring!  Roll on Wednesday!

Whilst we were away I had problems with many of my email accounts as I was logging in from Spain or Italy or even Saudi Arabia.  GMail and Yahoo mail saw this as suspicious behaviour and would automatically 'lock' some of these email accounts.  Yahoo wanted to send me a text message to my mobile phone to confirm it was really me trying to log in which wouldn't work as my home mobile phone sim wasn't enabled to work overseas in Spain.

So while in Spain I hastily sorted another alternative system out as I have 95% of my emails forwarded onto to a single email account which I use exclusively on my phone or tablet.  This at least keeps things 'tidy'.

Over the last day or so I have been reverting back to my previous system and doing other catch-up stuff with PC updates etc.

The "Phone Line Tech" arrived as scheduled to review my internet drop out problems first thing Friday morning.  Once he knew exactly what the problem was, he admitted that he did not have the expertise to fix it.  He could ensure the line and all the physical connections were OK but could not help with the 'authentication' problem.  That was a job for a more qualified technician.

Two of the lights on my modem/router are for the my internet connection.  One light (ADSL) shows that I can connect to the internet, the second light (Internet) indicates that I have successfully connected to my internet service provider (ISP).  Usually during a normal 'dropout' the ADSL light goes out and then so too does the Internet light.  In my case, the ADSL light always remained on, it was the Internet light which would go out meaning I had been disconnected from my ISP.

This morning (Saturday) I received a call from my ISP.  They informed me the drop out problem had been referred to a higher level tech and the recoding of my internet connection had taken place.

It is expected that this should 'fix' the problem.  Now we will wait and see!

Trish slept for around 8 or 9 hours last night as her body time clock got back in sync.  I didn't sleep so well but was up early to watch the tennis from Paris and then the cricket from the West Indies.

There is plenty of footy on TV this afternoon.  Trish is getting back into her Arts Centre work again as there is a large Arts Centre Fair on this weekend.

The old car wouldn't start when we got back home.  The battery was flat and needed recharging at a garage.  I was given a replacement battery while the recharge took place overnight.  All is back in place again now and working fine.

After 40º+ in KAUST and also in Dubai, the 5 or 6 degrees overnight at here at home and the 22 max during the day has come as a bit of a shock to the system, a shock we are quickly getting used to!

I Can't Hear But We are Home. (Thursday)

We arrived back home at around 8:30 am our time this morning.  Our bodies would say it was more like 2:30 am!  Trish is having a quick sleep trying to catch a few hours.

We have promised ourselves a few quiet days just to catch up with things.

The Skybus 880 is a great plane for long haul trips, (that is if there is any good plane for a long flight).  Our flight home went smoothly with no hassles and minimal sleep.  There is that little room even in Economy class which makes the trip a little easier.

It was all smooth sailing I am pleased to say.  Everything went to plan.

We had a couple of minor hiccups when we did get home.  The Pay TV wouldn't work but the young lady from India walked me through some procedures on the phone and we got it all going again.

Both computers have spent much of the morning updating.  This can be a dangerous thing but it seems all has gone OK.

The dog next door still barks at anything in the front street that walks by!

And I decided to have a beer a little earlier than I would have ordinarily.  After all we have been in non-alcohol countries for the last couple of weeks!

My hearing popped like crazy as the plane took off and my hearing seemed to improve as we got into the flight.  Regretfully it has reverted to me being half deaf again after we landed.

On Our Way Home.

It is almost 8am and I am sitting quietly at Dubai Airport. Trish has headed off to spend the last of her Dirhums (UAE currency) and left me to sit quietly in the cool and jump on the net.

What a place Dubai Airport is!

Our final full day in Dubai was spent quietly. Being around 40 degrees outside precluded a lot of outdoor sightseeing.

We had a great lunch at our preferred small Cafe before returning to the cool of our hotel room. Around mid afternoon and almost at 40 degrees we jumped on the train to visit a spot called Souk Madinat. (Souk means market.)

It was a 30 minute train trip followed by 10 mins in a cab.  Souk Madinat is a part of a tourist complex.  Regular souks see you being regularly pestered to buy a cheap Rolex or being railroaded into a shop to buy stuff you don't need.

We are quite used to that and after saying "No thanks" about 9 times they get the message.

At Souk Madinat there is no pestering nor any haggling over prices. Everything is a set price, usually set to tourist prices.  The building is a reconstruction of what a genuine Souk  from years ago would have been like (see photo above left).  It has been created solely for the tourist.

The one big addition though is air conditioning. And thank heaven for that.  It was too touristy for what we prefer to do but we are glad to have experienced it.

Another cab ride and a short train trip and we were back at Dubai Mall for the Dubai Fountain display.  I must say though it is a 15 minute walk from the station to the mall, albeit air conditioned all the way. Dubai Mall is huge with all top brand and very expensive shops.  A 15 minute walk equates to around 1km, even if most is via travelator. 

The photo is where the Dubai Fountain Show happens. If you click on the photo for a larger view you can see where the jets of water are fired from.  Some jets reach up to 5 storeys high!

We watched the 6pm and 7pm fountain shows. Each performance only goes for a few minutes but it is a great experience. It was well worth the effort.

The photo left is the crowd just departing the 6pm early show.  Most were heading indoors to escape the heat.

We again caught the train back to our station after catching the 7 pm Dubai Fountain show. The train was so crowded that you were literally picked up by the crowd and deposited on the train!  It could have been frightening.

As we completed the 5 minute walk from the station back to the hotel at around 8pm the neon sign was flashing that the current temperature was 36 degrees.

What did we learn from our trip to Dubai? 

Select a much cooler time of the year to visit than June.  Two full days isn't really enough time to see and experience everything.  If you are staying for a short time carefully select your hotel so it is near the places you want to visit.

Dubai is a stunning experience, even if just to experience the wealth that a resource like oil can bring to a country.

A Samsung 4 Tab tablet will cost you around $400 in Dubai.  Recently Officeworks had them on special for $250. The current RRP at home for one is around $350.

Tuesday, Our Trip Is Rapidly Coming To An End!

On Monday evening we walked the streets around the hotel  for a better look at everyday affairs in downtown Dubai.  The neon sign said it was 35 degrees at 5pm.

We adjourned back to the hotel for a cool off after an hour, it was just too hot to walk around as we had planned!

After cooling off in our hotel room we ventured back out again at around 7pm to where we had eaten the night before, a small Cafeteria it was called where we sat on the street and ate. See the photo above.

We had Chicken Fried Rice and half a roast chicken.

The Roast Chicken came with a small salad, a couple of dips and about 6 pieces of 'bread' while the chicken fried rice was just that.  I had a couple of cans of Coke while Trish had a huge glass of freshly squeezed orange juice with ice.  The Homus was amazing, so tasty and just a hint of spiciness.

Neither of us have been eating a lot lately so there was way too much food.  But we ate a bit more than we usually do.  The bill was $14!

As it was still hot we hit one of the nearby "Hyperstores" which is open 24 hours a day to cool off a little.  I saw TV brands I never knew existed and heaps of extremely well priced pieces of clothing and home utensils.  Trish bought some smart summer shoes for $15 and she is very happy with them.

Today we still aren't sure what we will do.  We had considered a Big Bus Tour at around $160 for the pair of us.  Instead we may go out later to the famous Dubai foreshore area and then back to the Dubai Mall for the after dark colored fountains.  We feel that taxi may be our best method of transport today.

We will see.

My hearing doesn't appear to be much better this morning and tummy queasiness is still affecting Trish.

We expect to depart our hotel at 7 am tomorrow morning, Wednesday.  Our plane is due to fly out at 10:30 am Dubai time, 4:30pm Queensland time.  We get to Brisbane around midnight Dubai time, 6 am Thursday Queensland time.

This may well be the last post from overseas.

We are both looking forward to getting home, after all 2 months away is a long, long time.

Snow In Dubai (Monday)

Snorkelling in the Red Sea seems years ago today.  I am writing this post from a very hot Dubai on a hot and steamy Monday.

My hearing in my left ear from the whack with the rescue buoy has improved but very very marginally.  Fortunately I have an appointment already booked with my ENT surgeon a few days after we get back so I will get him to check it.  Trish still seems to think it is swollen from the bump thus interfering with the works. Things won’t get better till the swelling subsides.

We said our farewells to the kids and left by taxi from KAUST to the airport at Jeddah around 8:20 am on Sunday.  Jeddah airport is not the most hospitable place in the world so we were a little apprehensive.  A young chap in a suit spotted us (he was an airport employee) and walked us through the self check in process for our bags and our boarding passes.   

We were through quite quickly and after a couple hours were on our way homewards, the first stop for three nights was Dubai.

Dubai is hotter than KAUST!  And it is so busy but with shopping available everywhere.  There are two hypermarts just near our hotel as well as a small supermarket.  There are cheap eateries everywhere around the hotel.

Our hotel is not near the centre of Dubai but is out some distance.  However there is a “Metro” station close by so today (Monday) we bought an all-day train ticket for around $7 each and off we went.

First stop was the Gold Souk (souk means a kind of market place).  We are $500 poorer but Trish is a very happy lady with her new bangle.  Some of the gold available from these shops reminded us of the extravagant gold worn in India.

From there it was back on the train to continue on to the Dubai Mall.  The train or ”Metro” is another story with one carriage of the train having a section just for women.  

There is a wide pink line and men are not allowed to cross it.  So the female section is a little crowded while the male sections of the train are all heavily overcrowded.  So some men finish up being pushed onto the female side of the pink line.  Along comes a woman, all covered with the usual Muslim garb but with a clip board (she’s a railway official) telling all the men to get back over the line or she will fine them!

Ah well to each his own I suppose!

The Dubai Mall is just huge, too big actually with row after row of fancy over priced shops.  The best part was the huge aquarium in the middle of the shopping centre.  

The aquarium is several storeys high and takes up an incredible amount of space with huge numbers of all sorts of fish swimming around in it.  It is most impressive!

It is almost a 20 minute walk along heavily air conditioned walkways fitted with travelators back to the Metro Station.  Our final stop was Emirates Mall. Again lots of shops but no real good deals to be found anywhere.  Things were generally more expensive than back at home.

Its major feature is a snow playground!  The kids can go up and down a ski lift, there is a short toboggan run and other fun snow play things to do.

Eventually we make our way back to the metro and around 40minutes later are back in our hotel room cooling off.

Neither of us is really 100% health wise.  Trish still has a bit of a tummy problem, my ear isn’t working well and I am not eating a lot.  Trish has lost weight!

We are not sure exactly what we will do tomorrow, our last full day before heading home Wednesday morning Dubai time.  We have several options.

While in KAUST my mobile phone did a major system upgrade to Android 5.0. Unfortunately after the upgrade several things wouldn’t work properly.  I took the gamble to reset it back to Factory Conditions.  So when I had a few moments after the reset I would be busy putting stuff back on it.

Actually the phone did most all by itself, I got the option to restore apps as things had been the day before the reset.   Arj’s great internet access enabled it to be pretty good again the next day.

The internet we have at the hotel is nowhere as good as Arj’s but I reckon I have just about got everything back, probably well over 95% from before the upgrade.