Another Doha Adventure

Our life had been a bit too smooth and peaceful for living Doha, so it was time for... another Doha adventure!  Are you ready?  It's a good one.  :)

Along with the modern lifestyle and eating habits, comes obesity and diabetes. And Qatar is up there in the number of citizens who are obese and/or have type 2 diabetes.  So, what is their approach to this problem? Make a national holiday! Sports day was born last year.  The second Tuesday of February is National Sports Day.  There are races and games and all sorts of activities to participate in.  Everyone (except, of course, the migrant workers) is off work.

QF hosted a lot of events and games.  There was a bike race, a 5k, tennis, football (American soccer), and bouncy castles and train rides for the kids.  We decided to go since Steve was off work. We arrived in the morning shortly after it was supposed to open.  It was open (It's always questionable if things will start on time here).  Well, we went to the bouncy castles and train ride so it was outside on a field.  Big E loved trying each of the 4 bouncy castles. The train ride was also a hit.  There was supposed to be a carousel, but it never showed up.

Here's Big E at the art competition.


In education city there is a really nice horse arena.  There was supposed to be pony riding and an Arabian horse show, and dressage there.  Al Shaqab (the name of the arena) is on the opposite side of education city, so not really walking distance.  Well, I guess you could, but it would take bit because you have to wind around.  Anyway, there was no posted information about how to get to Al Shaqab.  So after spending some time at the bouncy castles we packed the kids and the stroller into the car and drove to one of the gates.  The guard at the gate said, "You can't park here.  Go to gate 8."

So we drove to gate 8, but that included to u-turns at two different roundabouts all because we missed one turn.  At gate 8 we were told, "No, you can't park here.  Go to gate 7."

Gate 7 was just down the way a bit, so we drove there.  There were about 4 other cars wanting to get in to see the shows.  The guards there said that we had to go to gate 8.  Umm, no.  By this time Steve was irritated, as was I and I'm sure everyone else in that line of cars.  No on seemed to think that telling the guards at the gates where to go to get to this event was a good idea.  Steve rashly turned around. And went back to gate 8 to talk to the guard there.  We asked for his supervisor's phone number.

The supervisor said we had to go to the shuttle station outside of Gate 5 and that we couldn't park in Al Shaqab parking "because it was full and for the volunteers." So we turned around again and drove to the shuttle station, unloaded the kids and stroller, got on a bus and were on our way to see the horses, or so we thought.  We drove down a short way and there was a line of cars stopped at the gate into Education City (not the gate into Al Shaqab, just to clarify).  There was a bike race on the one road that connects all of Education City, and no one could drive on the road for the next 30 minutes.  And as it turned out that bus wasn't really going to Al Shaqab, it was just going to take you to a parking lot were you could get another bus to go to Al Shaqab.

So off the bus we go and we walk back to our car.  Steve and I had had it.  We were done trying to get into Al Shaqab. Big E was so disappointed that we weren't going to see the ponies. He asked if we could go back to the bouncy castles again.  So we drove around education city and met up with the bike race again, though the line moved a bit when there was a break in bikers.

While at the field we ate lunch. (For it being national sports day to promote health, there sure was a lot of junk food for sale. We did buy Big E a big lollipop, which took him 2 days to eat.  He really enjoyed that one.) And Steve found a shuttle that was supposed to take us to Al Shaqab.  So we decided to get on.  But it was too good to be true.  It just took us to the unmarked parking lot (we knew where we were, it just wasn't marked as a bus stop for the Al Shaqab events). We got onto another bus and finally made it.  The lack of coordination and communication in this country could be a whole post on it's own.  So we won't touch on it much.  But there was no information posted anywhere on where the shuttles went or how to get to the horse events.  Somehow you were just supposed to know.  Oh, and remember how the guards' supervisor said that the parking lot at Al Shaqab was full?  Well, there was a total of 2 cars and tons of open parking spaces.  More than enough for the people that were there.  I guess some people's definition of honesty is different than most people's.

We saw an arabian horse show, where a horse kissed Big E.  He's still excited about that one.  We saw a dressage demonstration, and horse jumping.  Big E also got to ride a pony, by himself.  He was so happy when he came to show me his stamp that he got for riding the horses.

Here's the kids and me at Al Shaqab in the outdoor section of the arena. 

Steve and the kids in the indoor section.

 Big E getting ready to ride and so happy to have a stamp that said he waited in line. :)

A smile like that makes it all worth it.