The Fam had such a fun weekend celebrating the National Day with the entire country! After 11 years of living in Qatar, this is the first time we had been spectators to the celebrations. In the past years we have always avoided going out during the National Day. We just enjoyed the holidays in the comforts of our homes. We dreaded the crowd and we dreaded the traffic most of all! Guess that was our mistake. Our idea of enjoying the holiday was finding some fun for ourselves, away from the crowd. We used to think of going to the mall and dreaded the traffic and the crowded parking. We were looking to have our own fun, which now we realized was not the right way to attack the holiday :) This year however, we decided to brave it. Instead of avoiding the crowd, we just went with the flow and I must say we had a blast! This time we stayed away from the malls, we went where the action is! Our National Day weekend actually started last Thursday, 15 December when our Small Ate joined the National Costume contest and our Big Ate joined the Slogan Making contest. Both girls won 2nd place, yaayyy! On the 16th, we visited the Darb Al Saai event site located in the block off the Sports Roundabout. It is the the very well lighted area with lots of tents just across the Wyndham Hotel in Al Sadd. This I must say has set the mood for our Arabic weekend. As we entered the site, we were welcomed by the site of boys and their falcons. There is a competition for Young Falconer over the weekend and the event had attracted a big number of participants. The girls enjoyed their first hand experience of seeing this very old traditional hobby of Qataris which had been passed on from generation to generation. I personally do not have an idea on how the game is played and I do wonder what the head cover is for... the gear covers the bird's eyes... so how can they hunt with that? Hmm... this one would have to be included on the list of things I'd ask Google... :)
As we walk through the site we saw several other attractions inside the several tents in the area. One that had caught our attention (because it's just beside the popcorn and nachos booth) is the "Souq Waqif" in the center of the site just behind the very big screen showing a video of last year's celebration. As we enter the tent, we were welcomed with Arabic sweets to try. The tent was filled with booths selling traditional wares such as swords, women's accessories, woven rags and blankets, wicker baskets and jewelry. It feels like being transported to a place that is truly Arabic. This we don't really see everyday though we are here in the Middle East. The place is so mondern and the malls filled with signature brands. It is seldom that we get to visit any traditional souqs in the country, and the sad part is that most of them have already been demolished to pave way to modernity.
Then the kids ran to the children's play area. Oh our little Oyen so love playing with sand and she immediately removed her shoes the moment she set foot in the playground. There were a couple of bouncy castle and slides but I didn't let the girls enter them. The place is too full that I am scared they would be trampled upon by bigger kids. Although in the beginning there's a small bit of whining but eventually they just made do with the only available kiddie ride and lots of sand! From this point on, I am roaming the area with 3 (including my nephew) shoe-less kids! We actually planned to leave the kids in the play area while we adults and our Big Ate check out the other attractions, but when I saw those camels, oh, I just have to ran back and get them! They were truly excited to see the camels up close. Actually they all wanted to ride it seeing one local kid atop one camel. But of course it's not allowed. Actually, there also was a children's competition for camel dressing as mentioned in the NDQatar website. Of course we had to have our pic taken with the camels, didn't matter if we had to step on camel poo! LOL!
On our way back we also saw some classic cars exhibition. Unfortunately the area was fenced so we couldn't go near the cars. But nonetheless we enjoyed it too and of course the Expat Daddy loved it. While we are still looking at the cars, the kids took the opportunity to play with more sand. Right at this point, I just gave up. Well, we brought them there to enjoy, so let them have a blast! Well, that's one good thing about Qatar, when you take your kids out, you don't really have to be such control freak. Just so long as you can watch over them, they can really just go free and live the moment. Oops, I forgot to mention that on the way to the play area, we passed a man in traditional costume riding a horse, then 3 cages, 2 with oryxes and the other one with a couple of ostriches. What really awed the kids is that on our way back, the ostrich had already lain I think about 6 to 8 eggs! They were just so amazed but at the same time regretted that they left the ostriches and were not able to see it lay its eggs.
At about 10pm, it's time to go. First because I know they are tired already and wouldn't be able to walk anymore and second, they are HUNGRY! Since the place only had popcorn, corn and nachos and we were only successful in getting the popcorn, I just asked them not to line up for nachos anymore and just go to our fave resto, Turkey Central (located in Al Nasser) to cap our Arabic night. Of course it will be with yellow rice, grilled chicken and beef grill! It was indeed a good night with the family and all I can say is that we enjoyed!
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