Happenings..

Apparently, 19th Doha International Book Fair has just started yesterday at Qatar International Exhibition Centre. It will last till 3 Jan 09. That will help us to be a bit occupied this weekend. Can also be used to instill the reading habit in our kids..

You can read about it in the Gulf Times.

Meanwhile, for the sport enthusiasts, you can look forward to :
1. ExxonMobil Open Tennis Championship 2009 from 5-9 Jan 2009
2. Qatar Golf Open Championship from 8-10 Jan 2009
3. Qatar Golf Masters Championship from 29 Jan to 1 Feb 2009

You can get detail schedule for sports activities in Qatar by visiting here.

For the time being, we wish our friends who celebrate Christmas a very Merry Christmas.

Things to do next few days..

Here are the list of activities in Doha to keep us occupied.

For the next few days world class tournaments that you can find in Doha :

1. WPPA Class 1 World Powerboat Championship - QATAR GRAND PRIX, DOHA from 28 Feb 2008 - 1 Mac 2008 at The Corniche
Read here if you more information and the official website is here.

The F1 Boat Powerboat Racing will come to Qatar on 29 March 2008. The official website is here.

2. Commercial Bank Motor Grand Prix of Qatar at Losail International Circuit from 7-9 March 2008. It will be held at night!!! 2008 Commercial Bank Grand Prix of Qatar will become the first motorsports World Championship Grand Prix to take place at night, an historic moment for MotoGP and Qatar. You can read more at its official website.

Those are on top of the 7th Doha Cultural Festival that is about to start in 2 days time ie 28 February 2008.

Go out & have fun...

Qatar Masters 2008

Got up early on Friday morning just to watch Qatar Masters 2008 with Ramzi. We have been in this country for almost 7 months. Sadly, we have not got the opportunity to play golf here. Time is not the reason. Qatar has only one golf course. It is called Doha Golf Club. For its exclusiveness, it comes with a great 'price'.

I could still remember getting up at 4.30am in the morning just to play golf in Vietnam. Tee off time could be as early at 5.45am especially during summer time. You can call me crazy. But that what golfers do. Getting up in the wee hours in the morning just to tire themselves at the golf course. Yet we call it sport..hehe.

Adam Scott reading the game on hole 18 yesterday...

The golf club was virtually empty at around 8.45am on the 2nd day of tournament day and on weekend! Amazing. I once watched a golf tournament in Malaysia years ago. I could still remember how pack the golf course was. Here in Doha, you could hardly see any human beings. The car park was also deserted. Oh my.. The only reason I could think of was lack of serious promotion by the daily newspapers. Or perhaps the locals are not into sports especially golf?

I also consider Qatar is the only place in the world where you can have the world's top golf players walking beside you!!! You can also take a good shot of them. Shall I again consider myself lucky being in Qatar?

It was only during uploading the photos from my camera to laptop I realised that the photos had a foggy marks at the top half of them..For that reason, all the photos were not as sharp. The photos looked like as if we were having a terrible winter day yesterday when in contrary it was bright and sunny day yesterday with temperature around 17 Celcius. Major disappointment to me. Else it would be perfect photos of the world's top golf players.. Is it a good reason to watch the tournament today?

Olympics 2016 Bid

Qatar will officially launch her bid to host Olympics Game in 2016 today. The Corniche is fully geared up for the launch today of the logo and website of Doha Olympic 2016 as Doha is competing with six other cities to organise the international games.


Dazzling show: A rehearsal held at the Corniche yesterday for the spectacular launch ceremony of the Doha Olympic 2016 bid to be held today, 25 October 2007.

A poster of Qatari archer and rally car driver Nada Zeidan on a building near Abu Bakar Siddiqi mosque, in preparation for the Doha 2016 Summer Olympics and Paralympics Games Applicant City ceremony today