The week leading up to the Motor Show, Shell (who recently completed the words largest GTL plant in Qatar) organised a Scuderia Ferrari Formula One street demonstration, held on the Doha corniche. After an hour or so of delays the show began, a Ferrari F2008 driven by Marc Gené, completed a number of laps, Sonya and I had never experienced the speed and noise of a F1 car before, and it was interesting trying to get good photos as it zoomed past.

In the evening Friday we decided to visit the main Motor Show, I think we went at the most crowded time, as the Qatar Exhibition Centre was packed. All the car makers were their with their luxurious makes, some of the highlights were the Porsche Panamera GTS, Audi R8 GT Spyder, Bentley Continental GTC and Lamborghini Aventador. Similar to the cars the girls were also nice eye candy.

When we left the Exhibition Centre, we couldn’t resist the noise coming from next door, we approached to find the Red Bull Outdoor Show, we waited a little while for it to start, then we were entertained with a two car drift show, the highlight being when they simultaneously drifted donuts around a camera-man. After that was the Freestyle Motocross (FMX) show, where three motocross bike riders perform jumps and stunts, the most impressive being the dangerous backflips. The highlight of the outdoor show was streetbike freestyle rider Chris Pfeiffer, who performed some amazing stunts that left you wondering how he did not lose control of the bike.

Entry price was five Qatari Riyal and as usual for Qatar, it was family-day, where single males were unwelcome (unless you were Caucasian of course).

First up was the a single white-tiger, which didn’t help with the zoo’s negative image, a tiny domed cage with the tiger strutting back-and-forth along the edge. You couldn’t help feel sorry for it.

Onto the birds, a much more pleasant encounter, many varieties including Grey Crowned Cranes, ducks, geese and flamingos, which we had never seen before.

Next was a lonesome elephant, the small enclosure brought the elephant only a few metres away, so close that a man was able to extend his arm with popcorn and the elephant was able to extend its trunk to grab it, and would have, if the man hadn’t been stopped by the zoo keeper. Feeding the animals was a common occurrence in this zoo.

Similarly to the elephants, the monkeys were in arms reach, however nobody seemed to mind that they were being fed, and young Qatari boys and girls were happily feeding them popcorn and biscuits, even though there was a “Don’t feed the animals” sign right above them.

The open savannah enclosures housed zebras, giraffes, deer, antelopes, and of course Oryx, one of the main reasons for the zoo visit. Surprisingly, Oryx weren’t very lively animals, preferring to laze around on the ground.

Finally, we visited the nocturnal and small animal enclosures, similarly to the other animals the animals were easily visible and accessible, however there was minimum security, and many children were banging on the glass trying to get the animals attention.

Overall the zoo was enjoyable, animals were visible and accessible, maybe too accessible in some cases, the small enclosures and children feeding them being a result of this. Unfortunately, like the rest of Qatar, Qataris are ‘above the law’, and this isn’t a good thing for the animals.

Guo-Qiang’s work ‘homecoming’ is visible as you walk through the Mathaf entrance, sixty-two large granite rocks all the way from Guo-Qiang’s hometown Quanzhou, China. Carved on the rocks are Arabic calligraphy, a tribute to the deaths of the Muslims minorities in Quanzhou.

Once inside Mathaf (the gallery itself was designed well, with white , minimalistic spaces, though easy to get lost), the first indoors work was  ‘ninety-nine horses’, a large eighteen metre gunpowder  drawn mural with additional small gold leafed horses hanging in front. One of Guo-Qiang’s signatures are the use of gunpowder in creation of his work, from simple explosions with templates creating works on canvas all the way to extravagant outdoor ‘daytime fireworks’ exhibitions.

The next work was one of Sonya’s favourites, titled ‘fragile’, it consisted of 480 porcelain square panels assembled into an eighteen metre canvas, each square had intricate ‘Blanc de Chine’ or Dehua (an area in the Fujian province in China close to Guo-Qiang’s hometown) porcelain flowers. On the large canvas the Arabic word ‘fragile’ was drawn with gunpowder and ignited, this contrasted with the delicate porcelain.

One interesting work, titled ‘flying together’ was a suspended lifelike camel with falcons surrounding, the falcons seemed to either be attacking or helping the camel to fly.  Like the camel, falcons are a symbol of Qatar, where falconry (essentially, keeping falcons as pets) has existed for thousands of years.

Towards the end of the exhibit were documentaries showing Guo-Qiang’s fireworks choreography, which even included the ‘daytime fireworks’ in Doha that we unfortunately missed. Daytime fireworks use coloured powder to paint the sky, because there are no smoke trails, the powder looks to appear from nowhere (except for the big bang prior).

Every year around the time of National Day, Qataris will dress up their four-wheel-drives with white and maroon themes of Qatar flags, photos of the Emir and royal family, the Qatar emblem, slogans and even love hearts.

Starting the night before National Day and ending the night after, Qataris will parade their cars along the Doha corniche, making as much noise as possible, including loud music, honking, and high revving of their engines sometimes causing explosive bangs. When with friends, all wearing traditional dress of thawbs and gutra or keffiyeh, the friends would sit or stand on the top of their four-wheel-drives, while usually supporting a large Qatari flag, sometimes women and children are there, and sometimes even teenagers are the drivers.

Spectators in tradition dress and all supporting Qatari flags and colours use load horns, shaving cream or silly string, sometimes spraying at the cars.

After you get past the cringe worthy and dangerous nature of what you are seeing, it is quite an enjoyable experience, and something that we will never forgot.

It is a special day for Qatar and during the lead up to the day, the whole country is decorated with flags and Doha’s corniche trees are covered with lights. Cars, of both Qataris and expats, are also decorated with displays of patriotism, pictures of HH (His Highness) The Emir, the Qatari Flag, white and maroon colours, hearts…etc. This is our second Qatar National Day, however this year we made a conscious effort to make sure we didn’t miss the main events (i.e. the early morning military parade). Last year, we arrived on the corniche as the crowd was dispersing… and unfortunately, after the parade had finished. Anyway this year we woke up nice and early and walked across to the corniche. By the time we arrived and found a spot on the road it was about 7:30am, and the place was packed! We actually found it difficult to find a space, but managed to squeeze behind some young Qatari women.

The parade started with the Qatar National Anthem. After a recitation from the Holy Qura’an, the Parade was led by a group of Qatari children wearing national costume, accompanied by horsemen and camel riders in traditional dress. After this there was a car convoy, followed by Infantry Forces, Police, Internal Security Force, and Emiri Guards, and all their associated equipment and vehicles, like tanks, boats and so on. In between that, there was a particularly magical moment where we, the spectators, turned around away from the parade to see hundreds of traditional Dhows sailing across the Arabian gulf towards the city skyline (my favourite moment of the parade). It was such a nice surprise and so beautifully done. The parade finished with an air show by the Qatar Emiri Air Force.

In the evening we headed back to the corniche to watch the crazily dressed up cars and their equally crazy drivers (an experience which warrants a separate post and photos in itself, so stay tuned) parade down the main corniche strip. There was also a Dhow Laser Light show and of course the night ended with the magnificent display of fireworks.

On arrival we realised we were a little too early, there was nobody else in sight (well, except for the copious numbers of volunteers), and all stadiums and sports halls were empty. We walked around for a little before deciding to have a quick bite, bypassing time before the wrestling commenced.

Greco-Roman wrestling

Greco-Roman wrestling is a hand-to-hand combat between two men with emphasis on throws. I had briefly seen this style of wrestling on tele back when the 2000 Sydney Olympic Games were on, but seeing it live was much more entertaining.  There is an interesting phase of the match when one man will be on hands and knees and the other man tries to perform an Olympic Lift from behind.

The wrestling was also made somewhat more entertaining by a loud, elderly, Iraqi supporter wearing the full Iraqi green and white tracksuit, red and white Keffiyeh (traditional Arabic Turban) and playing a darbukah (traditional Arabic drum).

Chess

Not the first sport that comes to mind, but is a recognised sport of the International Olympic Committee, even more appropriately, chess has origins from Persia where it was known as Shatranj. I convinced Sonya to check out the chess games, and as imagined it wasn’t very exciting, we stayed for no more than five minutes.

Boxing

Back to real sports, the boxing started with the Light Fly Division, a weight class for men under 49kg, the rounds were fast paced and enjoyable. Again, the loud Iraqi supporter was there, and caused quite a commotion when Iraq was announced the winner during a very close match.

Athletics

After boxing we made the short walk from Aspire Dome to Khalifa Stadium. Having attended football games there previously, it was nice being able to simply walk into the entrance and sit at the closest seats as there weren’t many other people, on the field was discus, high-jump, long-jump, pole-vault and 200m running.