Managed some more sleep over the Bay of Bengal before catching sight of some scattered lights coming up from India. Listened to a few comedy shows for a while before breakfast over the Arabian Sea...Saw lots more lights along the edge if the Persian Gulf approaching Dubai with the first glow of dawn appearing...Have a few hours to wait at Dubai. Having a coffee and a muffin. Can't seem to connect to any WiFi here. (did eventually). Airport is chaotic. Bri...

The visibility taking off from Dubai was terrible. Not sure whether it's smog or dust but the air quality looks very poor. For the first couple of hours we flew over the most godforsaken country I have ever seen. It was extremely flat, sandy looking wasteland and yet there appeared to be a lot of roads...(in hindsight I believe it was Iraq). Gradually the country improved and became a bit more Australia-like... hillier and with some massive water storages....

It was a rainy night in Brisbane when we boarded Emirates flight EK435 bound for Dubai. Our aircraft was Boeing 777-300ER A6-ECT and we sat in the very rear seats on the starboard side. We were served dinner soon after takeoff at 9pm but it was nothing special. Prefer Qantas food so far. I watched Pitch Perfect and Gail watched Parent Something ??? before we both tried for some sleep...Managed a bit of broken sleep before seeing a magnificent view of the ligh...

It was actually quite a good flight home. Leaving the California coast I could see lots of ships lit up below and then we flew through the night, keeping ahead of the sun until it finally caught up to us just before reaching Australia.

Our last day! We left our bags with the concierge and caught the shuttle to Universal Studios. We did a tram tour of the back lot, where we saw the stage buildings and outdoor sets for Desperate Housewives, Jaws, Tokyo Drift, and War of the Worlds.After that we tried some of the rides and shows before leaving around 5 to get back to the hotel and pick up our bags before heading off to the airport at 7pm. The plane left just before midnight. Qantas QF16 Los Ang...