Righto.
After a rather dull 2008 (a personal best for dullness), 2009 for me is shaping up to be seminally better in comparison. On paper anyway.
My life's on track. My head's in gear. And the inner nethers of my brain are finally whirring. Coupled with short term and semi-vague goals finally placed and intact, its all in all a pretty decent first week by my count.
The Transition: December 31-January 01.
The transition to the new year suprisingly(and eeriely) quiet here in Doha, Qatar. No celebrations. No honking horns. No elated cheers from the people. No countdowns. No nothing. Not even a frigging peep peep from that green Vespa outside the Souq. (I'm in the fucking CAPITAL CITY ferchrissakes, and these buggers don't even think to honk their horns when the fucking new year rolls around? What the fuck?! This is buggerific balderdash!)
Anyway, the plan for New Year's Eve 2008 was to have dinner in a Malaysian restaurant, at the Souq Waqif. The moment "souq" was mentioned, (Dad called home, said "Get dressed. We're eating out at the Souq Waqif.".) my mind flashed donkeys, camels and goats. Yes. Literally. Donkeys, camels and goats. In that specific order. You know? Dudes with small dinghy stalls, oil lamps, and dudes charming snakes, belly-dancing, hawking and spitting...
O.O
Those thoughts weren't really comforting, and I certainly didn't want to leave the comfort of my chair. I would have been fine and perfectly content getting a Burger King takeout (Double Whopper, extra cheese please.) and celebrating NYE's right at home. In front of the lappy. While watching a re-run of Equilibrium.
Then Mum nagged. And nagged. And nagged. And called my full name. And then nagged some more.
I remember cursing a bit at myself for having no enthusiam. "Its bloody New Year's Eve!" I told myself." Get yourself together. Stop acting like an idiot." I remembered Inner Justin saying.
I reluctantly dragged my butt away from the laptop (was in the midst of coding a remote detonating grenades for BF2), reluctantly got dressed and primped, (olive graffiti shirt, black/red BUM t-shirt, jeans with gutters.), stuck my contacts onto my eyeballs, grabbed socks, and headed out the door.
At the Souq.
It was an estimated 20 minutes before we pulled into the parking space of the Souq Waqif. Much to my surprise, the lights of the Souq at a distance were pretty captivating. The grounds were bathed in a soft, yellow glow, and there were minarets on top of the main structures.
Adding to the facade of the Souq were angular, open balconies of (presumably) restaurants. Or at least I *think* they were food establishments. I do remember vaguely see some patrons and tables on those balconies...
Remember, I expected dark and dinghy, not open-air dining options. From our parked car about 80 metres from the Souq, I could just make out the narrow pathways into the Souq.
The temperature hovered around 15 to 17 degrees Celcius at around 6pm. So it was rather perfect for an evening/slash/midnight stroll. That lifted my dull spirits a bit.
Upon entering the Souq's inner area, I stared at the activity around and my senses just buzzed. It wasn't like anything I had imagined. Well, not anything, per se, but the mental imagery in my mind was a far cry from the actual place.
Instead of goats peddlers, there were Starbucks barristas. Instead of hawkers selling dried dates, figs and nuts, there were swanky modern, wooded furniture on the porches of food establishments. Not just any food establishments. These had dudes in vests and tuxedoes serving the mass of patrons.
(For some weird reason, I had to suppress a deep, deep urge to yell, "Garçon! Where's my goat!! Bring me my goat!")
The overall impression the west sectional of the souq gave me was that of a gourmet food court. Seriously. This puts Pavillion's food court to blistering shame.
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8 minutes later.
The Worst Restaurant in the World.
Dad leads the way and navigates the crowds and finally,
"*Weird external curtains cover first five letters*sian Restaurant. Authentic Malaysian cuisine.
And boy was I pissed after 15 minutes.
Long story short. Food sucked ass. It tasted like mule ass. Priced like a cock in a mule's ass.
The bloody dishes were 35 bucks a pop. That went for the Nasi Lemak Rendang, the "regular" Nasi Lemak, and all of the other shenanigans on the menu. And the coup de grace? Char Kuey Teow was 40 bucks. FORTY *beeping* bucks! And no, it did not taste like the liquid diamonds I was expecting for forty bucks. It was [insert plethora of unsavoury language].
My dish was called Fried Rice Pinna by the way, and 'godawful' doesn't even begin to cover the hate I have for it. I swear my kidneys failed just from eating that dish.
And the place was run by Philippinos. Bad, bad decision.
No offense against the people, but they butcher our food. U-N-F-O-R-G-I-V-A-B-L-E.
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Forgetting the food episode.
It so happens that on that day, it was the Qatar Art and Cultural exhibition. Heck yea.
How coincidental is that? No admission fees. No guards. No tickets. Just walk in, walk out.
Some of the paintings and scultures looked stunning. (Actually, It was only one that looked decent. It was a portrait of a Qatari oryx, in all its horned splendour. Proportions were magnificent, and the colour tone was flawless. It was also the only painting by a Nadia. A female.)
The others paintings, if you could call them that, looked like plates of sick. Plates of effing sick. All drawn by entitled morons with cheese between their ears. Oh, and they were all dudes.
Now comes the insanity.
Each of those paintings cost 30 grand. 30 large each for doody scrawls.
I could vomit art better than that.
Seriously overpriced works of doody.
More gallery browsing, saw the "real" side of the souk, (Indian peddlers, Lebanese peddlers, figs, dates and nuts, and then Mum reminded us we needed groceries.
(Watch check: Dec 31, 21:53pm)
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The Carrefour Dash
Dinner's done. And there was new plan was in motion now.
Quick dash to Carrefour, about a 8 minute drive, for tomatoes, carrots, butter and turkey, an then to the Corniche for the 00:00 am countdown.
Shopping aisle, shopping aisle. Weigh carrots. Weigh brocolli. Weigh some unknown vegetables. Grab some grapes. No. Those grapes don't look too good. Ahh. New box of grapes.
Grab grapes. Weigh grapes.
Runs to get butter, runs to get eggs.
Oops. Bad idea to run with eggs.
Mid stride, an egg falls off the rack and smashes.
No!
Stops me in my tracks. Blood pumps hard and heart races insanely. Eyes darts around. Whew. Thank Buddha nobody saw that.
Grabs a roll of plastic, and tears one. Wraps the plastic bag around theright shoe and sweeps broken eggshells under the refrigerated milk.
Then.
ARGH!! Indian dude in Carrefour jumpers!!! Three o' clock! Slow down!....slow down!
Walk away slowly. Be calm...be cool.....
*Gets replacement egg and puts it in trolley cart.*
*Walks slowly away from trolley cart.*
Dad: "Hey! Got the eggs yet?"
Justin: "*Argh!* Oh! Erm. Yea. Um. Yup. Eggs. In. Umm. Trolley. Um. Eggs. Yup. Got them. Um. No problems.
Dad: "Hmm? Okay then."
Justin: "Yep. No problemo."
*Slowly turns and walks away to chestnut stand*
Dad: "Oh. And why are you wearing a...plastic bag on your shoe? And is that egg yolk?"
Justin: *Looks down*
"Nope..."
Checked out, and headed to the sea.
We parked near the curbs and walked towards the Corniche stretch at around 23:45pm, dodging some of the rabid, time-controlled sprinklers on the curbs watering the array of pretty flowers.
(Its winter now, absolute perfect climate for these bunch of pretty things. Life's not so perfect in the summer for these guys. They die really horrible deaths when June comes. They thirst for non-existent water while simultaneously getting bombarded by 12 hours of intense 40+C desert heat. Six of those hours in direct, unforgiving sunlight. Then the 20 mile an hour sandstorms pick up and rip their battered dead bodies, roots and all, out of their dried and dusty flowerbeds onto the road. Upon which hundreds of 3 tonne SUVs screech along the roads, [inside of which fat, spoiled, rich kids and their mumsies, also fat] tear their lifeless, dried stems into dust.]
Where was I? Oh yea. New Year. Corniche. Right.
It took a short 20 second walk from the car to the seafront, and finally, the four of us (Ma, Pa, Sis and I, and no we're not mobsters) reached our favourite spot.
Our favourite spot just beneath the quaint, mildy rusted, bronze street lamp, approximately 18 meters from the degrading Oryx statue, his broken steel barricades and some flag-less flagpoles.
We stood there. Silent. Contemplative. Our four figures dotting the sea front. The sea was calm. The air was cold, and breezy.
I took a quick look behind me to gauge the crowd, and the following were my exact thoughts and actions.
Damn, its cold. Gotta zip up me jacket.
*whistles*
Ooooh, the sea looks great. And is that a bird out there? Its a...no. Nope. No...
Damn, my hands are freezing.
Pockets...pockets...
"Mummy, its 11:58!"
I'm blessed. I'm soo blessed. *mumbles a short prayer of blessing and gratitude for making it to 2009*
*Looks left and right*
Where are all the people?
*Looks behind*
A couple of foreign immigrants, wait, there's a bout 80 of them.
There's a dude with a guitar, six to fifteen deck chairs, four left, about five right, two or three on the grass, another two or three on the grass further back.
Thirty odd Carrefour bags filled with......*squints* .....Coke, some Seven-up.
Damn my MP3 player ran out of juice. Last song playing was Sixpence None the Richer's It Came Upon a Midnight Clear.
ITS THE NEW YEAR!!!!!
*clap**clap**clap**clap**clap**clap**clap**clap**clap**clap**clap**clap**clap**clap**clap**clap**clap*
Unrelated note.
Philipinno dude sitting precariously close to a pile of fresh manure (laid at the base of a palm tree) starts to strum and play his guitar. Takes a deep breath to burst into song.
The wind at the seafront suddenly picks up rapidly and smashes the full force of the manure stench right up his path. Just as he takes that deep breath.
He chokes violently and splutters hard and goes argh..many, many times. Faint but distinct Tagalog swear words were dispatched swiftly.
