Henry's video of our recent trip to Dubai

Weekend in Dubai: Part 3

Just realized that I didn't finish my blog entries about our weekend in Dubai. I'm sure you have all been waiting anxiously to hear about what else we got up to (not).

After tea on Friday we headed to the World Trade Centre where we had tickets for the regional final of the Red Bull Car Park Drift competition. Except we didn't have tickets, we had a receipt that needed to be swapped for tickets before we entered the arena, or should I say car park. The problem was that no one seemed to be able to tell me where to collect our tickets from. The first counter I went to directed me to the metro station some distance away. The man there looked at me blankly, then sent me back the way I had come to another ticket desk, and so on, until I had been to five different desks.

By this time the start of the competition was only ten minutes away, so Jo had taken the kids to wait by the entrance we were supposed to use. Whilst she was waiting she got talking to someone, who informed her that we could get our tickets from a counter right next to the entrance. Irritating? Not at all!

We finally got our tickets five minutes after the competition had started, and joined the throng at the gate. There was a mass of people waiting, and no queuing system in place (where are the numbered ticket dispensers when you need them!). The security guards were taking a very relaxed approach to checking tickets carefully, then checking bags, then putting a wristband on.

The throng of people trying to get in

Finally we got in, found some seats, and settled back to enjoy the action. For the uninitiated car park drifting is exactly what it sounds like, competitors driving round a course set up in a car park, skidding as much as possible, and generally making as much noise and generating as much smoke as they can (very much like driving on the roads here). The winner seems to be (I think, I never quite worked it out) the person who can complete the course quickest and with as much skidding as possible.

My iPhone camera didn't cope well with the conditions

The event seemed to consist of a lot of sitting around listening to an excitable (the only drink on sale was of course Red Bull, and he seemed to have had more than his fair share) commentator gabbling away in Arabic, punctuated by 20 second bursts of action. Whilst the bursts of action were exciting, they were few and far between, and the competition seemed to fall further and further behind the timetable, not helped by the local favourite managing to get his car stuck in the crash barrier, and nobody being able to shift it.When it became obvious that the competition was likely to go on until the early hours we decided to call it a day, especially as Archie and Flossie were getting tired.

All in all it was a surreal experience, but one which we enjoyed in a strange way. Who would have thought a year ago that we would be sat in a car park next to the busiest road in Dubai, in view of the Burj Khalifa, watching cars doing their best to destroy themselves!?

Saturday was less surreal, but we had a great day at the motor show. Archie in particular was in his element looking at all the super cars, and both he and Flossie (and Henry) enjoyed getting as many freebies as they could (although Jo did best of all as demonstrated by the photo below). We didn't manage to get round the whole exhibition before it was time to make tracks back to Abu Dhabi.

Jo weighed down by all her goodies

All in all a great weekend, and I'm sure we'll be back in Dubai soon.

Thanks for reading as always.

 

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Abu Dhabi Grand Prix 2013: Day 3 & 4

After a good start, last weekend got too busy for me to do an update on days three and four, and here we are again at another weekend.

In summary days three and four were fantastic. In reality it's easier to follow qualifying and the race on television, but nothing quite beats the sight of the cars, the scream of the engines, and the smell of burning rubber. We all watched at some point over the weekend, and Archie in particular enjoyed himself. It did help that I was able to download an app which had a virtual representation of the track, with dots going round it (in almost real time, maybe 5 seconds delay) representing all the drivers. This meant Archie could watch his favorite driver, Jenson Button, on the app, and look up at the right point to watch him passing us by.

Mind you, Henry was the big winner. His friend's dad is senior in one of the hotel groups here and had a number of "spare" tickets in the main grandstand overlooking the start / finish line. So Henry spent both days in there, with one of the best views on the circuit. I'm not jealous at all!!

As well as the racing I went to the Muse concert, and Jo, cousin Pete and myself went to see Depeche Mode on the final evening. Both concerts were fantastic, Muse was the better of the two in my opinion, but I was surprised by how much I enjoyed Depeche Mode - they teased us with newer stuff before playing some of the classic hits.

That's Muse, honest, or maybe it's Depeche Mode.

After such a hectic weekend it was hard to drag myself into work on Monday but I just about managed. It's been a busy four days, mainly spent responding to proposal requests which seem to be coming in thick and fast at the moment, often with very short timescales (makes some of deadlines I had at PwC positively relaxed). These timescales can be even more pressured when you have to send the request to a local typing office to be translated from Arabic to English so you know what you are actually bidding for, and then you have to build in time to have the proposal translated from English to Arabic before you submit it.

This weekend is shaping up to be another busy one. Tomorrow morning we are heading to Dubai for a night, Jo and the kids first visit. We have a packed programme, including:

• A trip to the top of the Burj Khalifa, which Archie has been desperate to do since he arrived in the UAE.
• A visit to the Dubai Motor Show to see some of the new supercar models.
• Watching a Car Parade round the roads of Dubai, apparently there are more than 500 cars taking part with a combined value of a ridiculous number of millions of dirhams. The procession is being led by Dubai Police who seem to have one of every super car you can imagine in their fleet.
• Attending the "Red Bull Car Park Drift Final", which apparently is lots of cars skidding round a course in a car park, making as much noise as possible, and creating as much smoke as they can from their tyres.
• Watching the fountains at Dubai Mall, which are meant to be spectacular.

Just looking at that list suggests we are becoming petrol heads doesn't it!? I think we'll have a break from cars for a while after this weekend.

The weather should be fine for all that though. It is definitely getting cooller, indeed the forecast on the radio on the way home from work predicted "a cold weekend, with the temperature unlikely to get above 29 degrees centigrade"!

I'll be back next week to let you know how it all went.

Thanks for reading.

 

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