Goodbye Jeddah Hello Abu Dhabi

this is my second last moving day of the year and i've spent the best part of half an hour trying to find one of my two mobile phones the new one which is somehow lost it's not in the car i don't think it's not in my room but it is pinging from somewhere around here fingers crossed stinking hot all right there's it's beeping here somewhere it's in somewhere where's it oh i know where it is okay so what i normally do is i put the phone yeah i put the phone in the sun visor here so that i can talk to my wife on the way home and that's where it was geez it would have been it might have been days before that was found so i'm rescued so what did i think of saudi arabia jeddah in particular yeah nice people traffic's crazy what i loved was the fountain which is quite magnificent shoots up 312 metres into the air looks spectacular at night hotel wise i stayed at the intercontinental the first two nights would not go back there again very old and dated then i moved to the hyatt house which i quite liked really nice common areas downstairs the room was fantastic but the thing i loved the most was probably the in-house laundry washing machine and dryer here in the hotel free of charge i've been away since march 4 so it's been a real grind getting stuff washed lovely to have it in house and look at this they've even got a pro ironing setup and there's a rooftop swimming pool wise i didn't find much until the last two nights when i found this place miyazu a great japanese restaurant really stunning cuisine beautiful music that makes you feel nice and warm so if i was going back i'd be going back to that restaurant they're not cheap but certainly one of the standout meals that i've had this year i think then it was off to jeddah airport for my trip to dubai this is my second last travel day of the year and i've got to tell you i am very tired it's about four hours sleep last night and an 11 a.m flight to dubai and about an hour drive to the ritz carlton and i'm gonna have a sleep it's quite a quiet airport quiet in terms of audio but plenty of people checking in for this flight to dubai must be a reasonably sized plane my two friends are up here who are they the guy in the blue is mario and the guy next to him is steve good photographers 40 minutes to check in and that was business class it would have been quicker going in the economy line it appears there are three f1 drivers on this flight and or maybe more it's a beautiful airport well that was horribly disorganized through security took a heck of a long time and they pulled all my stuff aside and then failed to look at any of it it's an interesting exercise coming to this airport you need to leave plenty of time here i think we're getting close to a departure gate i certainly hope so it's an epic adventure [Music] good morning okay thank you well this is a beautiful lounge and it's beautiful and cool and i have an assortment of food here i think we've got the in between time between breakfast and lunch so it's a bit of everything [Music] the a380 is such a nice aircraft it's big reasonably quiet even when you're situated right down the back as i am today and if you get this aircraft you get the one two one configuration in business compared with some of the older aircraft which have 232 and it's nowhere near as nice this one also has the lounge down the back that first and business class passengers get to use and i gather they've put this aircraft on for a short flight because of the f1 demand there's certainly a lot of f1 people on here flying into saudi with saudi air airlines it was a dry flight and flying out of saudi with emirates once again it's a dry flight but they do offer this mock champagne which is a similar drink to i think what was being offered in the paddock at uh the last race in general that was an easy two hour 15 minute flight very comfortable but i don't have the app that i need to get into the country it didn't load because it wouldn't accept my australian phone number so there's no doubt i'm gonna battle with that when i get here every 15 minutes of looking around well my suitcase wasn't the last piece of luggage off but tell you what it wasn't far off it and it went priority so i don't know what sort of priority system they use for that well coming into dubai was pretty simple i just showed my passport i didn't ask to see my pcr result which i had to produce at check-in and i didn't have to show that i had the app downloaded which i still have to do because there's a drama so that was a little bit simpler than what i thought it might be to get in i'm here to pick up my car thank you we're about 11 minutes and 40 seconds into this transaction and i'm not sure any closer to a resolve yet give me your yeah watch the paddock club team yeah we they expect hosts expected oh hey you get better okay so this is my car it's a little listen and um at that rate they can get through just under four customers an hour i don't know how any business can run like that and i think i was probably quick the gentleman before we was more like 19 minutes so hello hello i'm checking in perfect just the right place exactly good eye [Music] this is a really really nice room big couple of queen-sized beds in a lovely part of the city it's on the grand canal opposite i can see the fairmont hotel but this is a pretty handy to the track maybe 25 minutes on a good run 35 on a bad really when you look at it today was a two hour 25 minute flight but it gobbles up the whole day from packing getting to the airport leaving yourself enough time to get through check-in and immigration at this end the car hire what a nightmare that was but hey i'm here now i'm now going to have a stake and i'm excited about that prospect but one of the things that does grab me is the size of the billboards on either side of that highway i don't think i've seen bigger anywhere in the world if you've never been to abu dhabi and are wondering what it's like it's an interesting place at the moment the weather is perfect you wouldn't want to be here i don't think in july or august where it gets to 50 degrees you don't see too many locals working in the retail industry it's pretty much all immigrant workers all very friendly almost all of them speak english and if you are coming here you must go and see the mosque it's just behind this hotel there's something special and particularly at night when it's so beautifully lit women have to wear a headscarf men have to wear long trousers i believe although it's been a couple of years since i've been but well worth going to have a look even if you're not at all interested in religion just the architecture is something spectacular i now need to go and do a photo shoot with somebody so i'm going to say thank you for watching this so i'm going to so i'm going to politely ask you to hit the like button if you've liked it doesn't cost you anything subscribe if you haven't done so already and a reminder that all members receive a whole host of extras you can become a member by clicking the join button which is next to subscribe on your laptop some countries don't allow it remember you can find all of my digital images at prostarpix.com for editorial and personal use my f1 photo books you'll find them at kimilman.com along with a line of merchandise and for my best images live from the track and all during the week head to instagram and search at kim elman thanks for watching and stay passionate [Music] as an act of purist optimism i thought i'd come into this lulu hyper market and see if they got any vegemite because somebody told me in the last country that they had it there and look i got it i can't believe it and it was so easy from one guy who just took me down there said yep there it is at the bottom shelf so i'm happy you

Channel: Kym Illman

Views: 81,884

Keywords: f1, formula 1, formula one, f1 behind the scenes, f1 drivers, f1 2021, grand prix, travel, Emirates A380, jeddah to abuh dhabi, entering jeddah, entering abu dhabi, goodbye jeddah, hello abu dhabi, f1 jeddah, f1 abu dhabi 2021, f1 travel, travel during covid, f1 logistics, how f1 teams travel, f1 drivers travel

Id: 4ftYFlXR3OY

Length: 10min 26sec (626 seconds)

Published: Wed Dec 08 2021