Jul 7, 2023 2:16:26 GMT NATH45 said:

Jul 7, 2023 1:47:16 GMT iNCY said:

The UK is boring, full of sub-optimal people, crap weather and worse food.
The only thing worth than visiting the UK would be being born their and subject to their views on dental hygiene.

Germany is similarly generic and uninspiring, it is if someone vacuumed the soul out of a country with ruthless Eastern European efficiency.

You're just miserable lol.

Must be fragments of English DNA in my genetics.

I am (again) headed to Vegas for work if anyone has any restaurant recs.

Six days in the desert in August, it's gonna be great

Aug 6, 2023 0:07:54 GMT Michinokudriver said:

I am (again) headed to Vegas for work if anyone has any restaurant recs.

Six days in the desert in August, it's gonna be great

The Wynn buffet is the best buffet. You can make a semi-reservation and I recommend you do that to skip most of the line.

Din Tai Fung in Aria is fantastic.

My journey starts at 5:10am when I arise from a brief slumber after finishing work at midnight. I get ready in the most formal attire an Indy wrestler can wear, shorts & a WWE officially licensed purple Asuka t shirt.




I get to the train station to find there has been a significant delay in my quest,
but there’s no point walking all the way back home. I decide to utilise the quiet carriages on the train to sleep no avail. Signs are only printed in English and not everyone on said trains can read it so it’s frustrating.



So here’s some scenery from scratched and graffitied windows while I endured swordfishtrombones & enjoyed Thriller.





I use the delay to my advantage and even more +EXP to my 2023 movie list,
Watching both Godzilla & Uproar.

I also have a side quest of acquiring sandylea James Blunt tickets. Because I practice good cinema etiquette I was stressing I wouldn’t get through before Event Cinemas marathon of trailers finished. Mission successful. Watch Godzilla.


No further news is good news regarding my quest and I sit through Uproar which to my calculation should line up perfectly. Then I again worry I didn’t calculate for Event Cinemas legitimate 20 minutes of trailers.

Film finishes, all is good.

More than Britpop, the film “Killers of the Flower Moon” and mint flavouring I hate random salespeople on the street which are roaming around the cinema. I take a break from the album list and put on some tried and true Kanye.

In this distraction of looking up at sales people swarming every passer-by, I look up and @admin is straight in front of me. I look back down and then it actually registers, that’s not another person shilling this months cause. The quest is complete:

meet @admin

The main, the myth, the legend himself HR is right in front of me.
Looking like a million bucks as if he’s about to Vince McMahon strut into AEW and announce he’s replaced Tony Khan as owner of AEW.



Despite having potentially purchased AEW his generosity knows no bounds and shouts me an orange juice to keep the system hydrated. We have a great chat and then HR descends into the sunset for his press conference.

===

Super cool to meet up with someone on this forum, especially considering how long we’ve been posting in its various forms.

Awesome post System, you really built up the suspense, and it's great to see @admin himself in the flesh. Great photo.

My journey started at 4:15am - my alarm time to get to the airport, only to find that my flight had been cancelled and was rescheduled 6 hours later. Pro: I could phone in a whole day of work because I was supposed to be in a workshop up in Sydney, con: it put our meet-up in jeopardy.

Luckily System is a mensch and was able to hang around for me, putting the delay time to good use to produce more of his great content for the forum. He did me a solid in the PW gift-giving tradition a month ago, sending me a Taylor Swift cup in the post for my wife (as well as some exclusive Fergus Ferguson merch) so I wanted to catch up to say thanks. We had a great chat (briefly interrupted by some passers-by who wanted to talk about his tattoos - street celebrity!) before I had to go to the office to at least put in a brief appearance at 4pm. :lol:

Very cool that almost 22(!!!) years to the month of registering I finally met a poster in the flesh. What an amazing community we have built together.

Dubai 2: Electric Boogaloo

(With sandylea this time)

What an impressive place. I'll likely never get there, but impressive nonetheless. Hope you are having or had a great time.

New gimmick: Fergus Ferguson, Citizen of the World.

DUBAI!!!

I have to be honest I didn’t really know much about Dubai until
System originally went and then I still thought pretty biased things about it so when Fergus asked if I would like to go I was a bit apprehensive.
I was excited about all the theme parks though so agreed to go.
I absolutely loved it. Admittedly leading up to it I wasn’t super thrilled with the potential heat (though it’s freezing in Australia right now so I was excited to escape the weather anyway) and was just worried about a few other silly little things.

The first day there was already pretty overwhelming because I started the holiday with a concussion! Some fuckwit decided my head looked like a great place for his extremely heavy suitcase to land. I called him out on it and he blamed me for standing there and said he would do it again if he wanted to. I wanted to throw hands but I behaved… waiting for our bags took forever, I was in a mood. Lucky Fergus!

Finally arrived at the hotel and could shower and relax a tiny bit, yay! We then ventured off to Dubai Mall for the LONGEST WALK IN THE HISTORY OF ENTRY WAYS. It takes 8 minutes to walk from the metro to the entrance of the mall. We are both quick walkers and there is escalators that also assist with this walk - still took 8 minutes. The mall is HUGE so by the time you walk 8 minutes and try to find the one specific shop you want, you already want to leave if you’re not a huge shopping fan 😂
Thankfully we went to the food court and Fergus tamed the wild hangry beast that was brewing. Texas chicken was incredible! Such a great value for money and was delicious!

Then off to the aquarium! It’s huge and inside a mall 😱
I fell in love with the otters instantly, and even the fish because they are so unique looking. Animals are amazing, can’t believe they even had ferrets at the aquarium.

Watched the fountain show which was gorgeous, before venturing into the tallest building in the world Burj Khalifa. Tom Cruise is absolutely mental! There is no way any part of my body was hanging off that building 😂 Dubai really shines at night!
During the day it’s very colourless, it’s still gorgeous in a way but at night the whole place just lights up and it’s incredible to experience.

😁

Next post coming - THEME PARKS!!

The theme parks!
IMG Worlds of Adventure
Aquaventure Waterpark
Motiongate
Ferrari World

I LOVE THEME PARKS. Admittedly I hate queues but the beauty of Dubai in summer - no one else wants to go YAY!

Thankfully they are also indoors for the most part!!
The first theme park IMG World is entirely indoors, with the exception of one ride that starts indoors, ventures outside and ends indoors. There is themed sections my favourite was Lost Valley - dinosaur themed!! Super fun rides though I was happy not to repeat them, the kids were insane and talking about how tame they are and they couldn’t wait to go again. No thank you 😂 Forbidden Territory is by far the best, it’s relaxing and just super cute.
Cartoon Network section was very kid based so didn’t do too many rides in this section except The Ride of Ooo, very slow ride but it’s ABOVE everything and I’m terrified of heights so I absolutely hated it. The Marvel section was super cool to look through as they had the daily bugle building and the Avengers tower. Sadly didn’t go on many rides here because Thor and Spidey’s looked like they would’ve caused projectile vomit but I loved Hulk’s and the spinning/high ride. It’s pretty incredible how BIG this is park is considering its all in a building. You’d never guess it was a theme park just driving past. They also had a type of Aladdin lane way thing set up which I adored and took some pretty cool pictures 😁
Overall loved the day here but the rides aren’t something I would find the need to revisit if I was to ever go back to Dubai.

Aquaventure Waterpark aka THE GROUND IS FUCKING HOT.
They give you these shoe socks to wear thankfully but the cement BURNT through them and it was hell walking on the cement. Thankfully I was able to get a second pair which helped so much but they still ended up pretty messed up, so glad I doubled up.
Otherwise it was an amazing time! I wish I got to stay at the park way longer because there is a lot we actually missed ☹️ but what I got to experience was amazing. One tower of especially we managed to do 90% of the slides which included walking up a staircase EVERY SINGLE TIME. I am sorry to my legs!! But the rides were so worth it, except blackout THAT SUCKED, System fault there because he failed to mention it just suddenly DROPS 😭😭 and I also whacked my head hard beforehand and gave myself a huge bruise 🤦🏻‍♀️ the next tower is where the Leap of Faith is - I was shitting myself because this is a near vertical drop and very quick (9 storey drop in 3 seconds) but Fergus really wanted me to do it and when in Rome yada yada. So I did it. My eyes were closed the entire time, I didn’t see shit - apparently you can see the shark tank when you go through, zero idea lol BUT in the shark attack you can see the tank and it’s amazing! This is a tube ride, and easily had the longest wait because it’s the best. You go down quick and then come to an almost dead stop to enjoy the tank - fish, stingray, sharks swim around you and it’s just super cool. You have other sections of course like river rapids where you just chill in a tube and float around, a beach section (which the water was warm, the perfect temperature of water!) and I even did a 3.5 metre jump into the water - which may not sound like much but did I mention I’m terrified of heights?
Honestly loved this park and if I ever decide to go back to Dubai this would be my number 1 place to return to (with proper shoes!).

Motiongate - this one is half indoors/half outdoors broken up into sections again. Walking to the main entrance was painful it was so HOT, but finally getting to the Dreamworks section was worth it!
First up Shrek - fun little section with pretty basic rides
Madagascar - this had the best ride, very similar to the Scooby Doo ride we have at Movie World in the Gold Coast here in Australia so I was super excited to go on it twice.
How to Train Your Dragon - my mum LOVES this franchise so I was pretty excited to go there just for her tbh and get as many pictures as possible. The boat ride was fun but I felt so weightless when it went really high 😳 and the Dragon Gliders ride was fun because it was a mixture of slow and fast but oh boy didn’t like my legs dangling 😂
Last up was Kung Fu Panda - teacup ride! I LOVE TEACUPS. Fergus did not 😂

Next section was Liongates - these are your adult thrill rides Now You See Me, The Hunger Games, John Wick - they were fun but nothing to overly gush over sadly.

Lastly was Columbia Pictures - here we have Ghostbusters, Hotel Transylvania, The Green Hornet, Zombieland Blast Off - absolutely did not go on the last one but the theme was super cool. I will give Dubai super praise for the effort they put into themes because it’s by far my favourite thing with each of the theme parks. These rides are pretty chill/family friendly.
I loved Motiongate and enjoyed the rides/themes but I think I was more excited to finally get here to buy souvenirs for people 😂

LAST ONE AND MY FAV!
Ferrari World!!! This one is in Abu Dhabi so 2 hour bus ride to get there had me worried it wasn’t going to be worth it but oh boy it was!!! It is also INSIDE a mall so entirely indoors except 3 rides that go outdoors briefly. Sadly the Formula Rossa was down for maintenance but I got to enjoy the jr version, I absolutely loved Mission Ferrari - was the very first ride we went on and then saved it for last again. Crazy go on the ride without knowing anything about it because so many things happen you wouldn’t expect, so much fun!!! Flying Aces was amazing, sitting towards the front is better than the back because the back just made you feel like constant flying (guess it’s the name lol) and lastly Turbo Track is a ride to remember, 22 seconds shooting you straight UP out of the roof and straight back down. Absolute instantly and we went on it TWICE. The first time was my favourite because the young girl across from me yelled out I survived!! And it just cracked me up so much.

Sadly the merchandise shop was insanely expensive because of Ferrari logo so that was the only disappointment but considering with everything we planned for Dubai the theme parks is what I was most excited for I am really happy I loved them all!!!!