Once Upon A Trip Of My Lifetime

The vibes are as strong as they were exactly 6 years ago!

Because six years ago, I experienced something utterly unique and wonderful.

Something which still echoes in my heart and in my mind every January.

And this January of 2023 is really bringing back those amazing vibes.

Here’s the reason:

The dates of January 2023 are falling on the same days as they fell in January 2017.

Which is bringing back all those amazing vibes of my trip of a lifetime to Dubai with Jia and Uzair.

Call me strange or bizarre but if you experienced something for the first time in your life, it stays with you for as long as you live.

I experienced so many things on that trip for the first time, including:

• Stepping inside the boarding lounge of an airport.
• Going through all the normal flight boarding procedures.
• Sitting inside an airplane, which ran on a runway and took off the ground.
• Seeing myself going high up in the air and ultimately leaving my hometown and then my country.
• Seeing the vastness of our world from high above in the sky.
• Landing in a place about which I had seen only TV or in pictures and embarking on a truly amazing journey.

From my departure on 5th January till arriving back to Karachi on 10th January, what I experienced on those days is still as fresh as if it happened yesterday.

The reason of doing a little flashback on my blog today is nothing but going through nostalgia, especially considering the January calendars of 2017 and 2023.

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Anyway, enough with the boring stuff!

Allow me to share some old pictures, along with some new ones, from that amazing trip of my lifetime:

Along with myself and Jia, Uzair was equally super excited about this trip. He spotted this airplane model on display, after we entered the boarding lounge and touched it. My Sony W290 was in my hand, so I was quick in capturing this moment.

A section of my boarding pass!

Our flight was scheduled at 2:10am on 5th January but we arrived at the airport many hours earlier, which disrupted Uzair’s sleep time. While waiting in the boarding lounge for our flight to arrive, he fell asleep on my lap.

Boarding for our flight to Sharjah finally begun after 2am. I didn’t took any pictures then because I was carrying handbags in my hand and also watching over Jia, who was walking ahead of me with half-asleep Uzair. Uzair was unable to experience the airplane’s take off minutes later because he fell asleep immediately on his seat. Meanwhile, Jia and I stayed awake, going through some really mixed set of emotions and feelings. I took this picture from Jia’s smartphone, just before our flight was about to exit from Karachi’s airspace.

For the next two hours, the outside view from the window was just pitch black. But as soon as the first light of a foreign land appeared over the horizon, as I was well awake to see that for the first time despite tiredness, I grabbed Jia’s smartphone once again and started to take pictures. Jia and I also awakened Uzair as we were about to land.

Many of you may have seen this view from your travels so many times, so you may consider this as a normal view. But for someone who hadn’t flew before on an airplane, seeing this was just mind-blowing. I was out of words back then and I’m still out of words as I’m looking at this once again.

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We landed at Sharjah’s airport after 5am in the morning. Breathing air of a foreign land for the very first time was quite a surreal experience for me as I’m still having strong vibes about it even right now. My Uncle and my little brother were at the airport to pick us up and we headed towards Dubai.

I didn’t took any pictures of that early morning road trip because I didn’t pulled out my camera from my bag amid the excitement. Jia also didn’t took any pictures because of the same reason as we were just in complete awe and wonderment.

After settling in at our hotel room, which probably happened after 6am Dubai standard time, Jia and I just dropped ourselves on the bed and fell asleep. Uzair was already sleeping, so the three of us took the much needed rest.

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