100Goals100Weeks.com - Ian Usher has sold his life, what is he doing next?

Current status: 93/100 goals - 100/100 weeks

Snowboard on Dubai indoor ski slope

5 - Completed

Dubai shopping centre United-Arab-Emirates - No specific date

Legend:

dubai looks like an amazing place. They have build a map of the world made of sand islands just offshore, and now they have a huge indoor ski slope in the middle of a shopping centre, in a desert country. Brilliant!

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How exciting! Main flights now booked!
Thursday, July 24, 2008

I was woken early this morning by a call from my very helpful travel representative with a view to sorting out my main flights for the forthcoming trip.

I have been procrastinating a bit, as the house has not sold, but I finally decided, "What the heck? I'm just going anyway, I can leave the house and paperwork in the hands of the estate agent and settlement agent. Should be fine!" I hope it will.

So my first flight is now booked for Sunday 3rd August, just over a week away, from Perth to Dubai, where I arrive early on Monday morning. From there I fly to Nice in France, and have a few weeks in Europe, including the Tomatina Festival in Spain. After that I fly from Madrid to London, have a few weeks in the UK, and head to Germany for beer-swilling at Oktoberfest.

From Germany I fly to New York on 6th October, and am free to travel the States for a few months. My next flight is booked for January from Honolulu to Tokyo, and then eventually back to Australia in February.

I am now officially excited!

I did a bit of work on the map page today, and figured out how to add a Google map, with lines and dates for flights, and pins for the approximate times and dates for achieving the first few goals. You can see the map page here:
http://www.100goals100weeks.com/details_Where.php

Over the next couple of days I will try to get a bit more information on the map, the calendar and some more details in each of the individual goals that are planned for the early stages.

There are join-in opportunities coming up if you are in the vicinity. Do you want to come along on any of these?
Ski Dubai - planned for Tues 5th August, maybe around 2pm
Big Bungee Jump - planned for Sat 9th August (to be confirmed)
Dive at Christ of the Deep - planned for Wed 20th August (tbc)
Tomatina Festival - happens on 27th August

View Larger Map

If you are planning any trips, take a look at these guys, fantastic efficient service, and excellent prices:
www.airtreks.com

Today is the day. 100 goals starts now!
Sunday, August 3, 2008

100 goals starts today. I have left the house in the hands of the real estate agent, and am now at a friend's house for dinner before being dropped off at the airport in a couple of hours to catch my flight to Dubai.

My first goal is scheduled to be achieved 2pm on Tuesday afternoon at SkiDubai, and then there are only 99 more to go after that!

I am still disappointed that I didn't get to leave as I planned, leaving everything behind for the new owner, but somewhat symbolically, the last two items I picked up as I left the house were my wallet and passport.

First goal achieved! Ski Dubai.
Tuesday, August 5, 2008

Well, we're off to a flying start, as the first goal has been completed successfully.

Today I caught the bus out to Mall of the Emirates, where SkiDubai is situated. What an awesome place. After meeting my friend Mark from Perth at the entrance as planned, we had a quick chat, and he was off for his ski lesson. I paid for two hours on the slopes, and was issued with jacket, trousers, boots and board, and I was straight onto the chairlift.

The first couple of runs were a bit shaky, it's been almost three years since I was last on a board (how has that happened?), but it soon started to come back.

The place is pretty big, with a four-seat chairlift, and a single drag-lift too. I had a few goes on the chairlift, but found the drag to be alot quicker, so managed to fit quite a few runs in.

I thoroughly enjoyed myself, and for a while it was possible to forget that it was over 40 degrees outside!

Finally I reckoned my time was up, but nobody was checking tickets, so I went for "one more run". About half an hour later I had to call it a day, as I was meeting friends Jeff and Socorro at 4pm, and was now running late. I got changed very quickly, and dashed off to meet them.

A great indoor snowboarding experience - it certainly beats the old Catterick army garrison dry ski slope where I first started learning as a kid.