Tag: party

40th UAE National Day

Reading Time: 2 minutes

Today marks the 40th anniversary of the United Arab Emirates formation.

Although it’s been a short history, it’s been an amazing story of progress and prosperity.

The local Emiratis celebrate the event through revving the turbos in their hotted up cars to deafening levels, and by covering them with masses of crazy string, and snow in a can.

It was truly a lot of fun. We found a good vantage point on Beach Road, which at 6pm was already pumping with a car park of amazingly decorated cars in all directions. They weren’t literally car parks, just cars not moving.

There were so many amazing cars painted in the Red, Green, White & Black of the UAE flag, or adorned with patriotic stickers of the Nation’s rulers. No expats seemed to take the celebration to such limits, we at least had UAE flags hanging off the windows – like many others had.

It was interesting to see the local guys focus quite a lot of their spraying of crazy string on certain seemingly non-descript cars. We worked out later it was the cars of local Emirati women – which were only able to be spotted through the extremely dark window tinting.

Another trick the guys with snow in a can had was to walk down the line of cars that are stuck in traffic. Then when they reach a car with their windows down, they let the car have it and fill it with as much snow and string until the car’s windows close. I learned this first hand when they got me! I’ve never noticed before how extremely slowly our electric windows go up, when you need them up. It was all a lot of fun.

It made me think though, a night like that couldn’t work in Australia. Here no cars were spared, in Australia I imagine quite a few folks would be protective of their cars and fights would probably ensue. And the partying that we saw on show was totally alcohol-free. In Australia, the addition of alcohol – such as at our own Australia Day celebrations – more often than not eventually turns such large public events into a bit of a disaster, once people become too far gone.

The celebrations started around 6pm, but they’re still going now at 2:15am. We’re not sure what time this will stop.

Happy 40th birthday UAE. Thanks for having us and my family. You don’t look a day over 35. 😉

Here’s to the next 40!

A Dubai fancy dress party – 05 June 2009

Reading Time: 3 minutes
All dressed up. Elle's a lady of the night, Myles as a ninja, and Lewis as Batman's off-sider, Robin
All dressed up. Elle's a lady of the night, Myles as a ninja, and Lewis as Batman's off-sider, Robin

This weekend we attended a fancy dress pool tournament party at a friend’s place. They had a wonderful villa with their own private backyard which is a bit of  a luxury in Dubai. They made the most of it and had two large dogs running around. It would be so much better environment than the majority of dogs in Dubai – including the ones we hear in our apartment complex.

It was tough to come up with something for me and my pool partner go to this party as.  We wanted to either bring something Australian, or locally. The final idea, after many options, was to do a delightful corny play on words and dress as “Sheikh, Rattle & Roll”.  We bought some local Kanduras (robe/dishdasha) for the sheikh part, we had baby’s rattles, and – running out of inspiration – we hung some bread rolls from the outfit.  The final piece was perhaps not the greatest idea, as we had the dog closely following us around for most of the time.  My head piece was probably normal sized, so it failed to fit my watermelon-like cranium. So unfortunately it fell quite a few times which gave the dog the split second opportunity on two occasions to quickly snaffle up the bread rolls I had.

We thought the dog was just following Paul & I for the bread rolls, but it turned out the dog was actually owned previously by a local guy who wore the same clothing. The story goes that the dog may have been mistreated as he is apparently not a big fan of the local dress. So it was perhaps our fault when the usually friendly hound nipped the chin of one of our fellow revelers, in an unprovoked attack. Or perhaps it was just the excitement of the evening.

The night was organised for a number of reasons. It all came clear when the cakes took over the pool table, where we were allegedly playing a keenly organised and Microsoft Excel powered tournament. Not a lot of competition there, one of the games was lost off the initial break — by none other than my wife, Elanor!  Perhaps she could have been more useful out on the street, she and my boss dressed as ladies of the night.  The party was for the one of the ex-PNG pilots who made Captain, as well as a host of birthdays which would prove difficult to celebrate together as most people avoid the Dubai summer.

A good night was had by all – even the “Man in skirt” who briefly masceraded as dog food.  Unfortunately we had to be one of the first to leave, as we probably had close to the youngest kids there. Lewis was asleep for a great deal, but the noise became too much. And when he finds that second wind, it’s difficult to put him back to sleep.  And also difficult to make him enjoy himself.  Mind you, this was 12:00 midnight when we left, early. The party consisted mostly of the local PNG community, who know how to party!  Just ask my Aunty in Cairns who has PNG folks next door.

The other good thing about PNG parties, is they know how to put on a feed! We were tasked with bringing Elle’s famous potato salad, but left it on the bench at home. I intended to return home alone to fetch it after we arrived, but the hosts insisted there was more than enough food, which there was.