A summer jaunt to Qatar - part 2 (+ Bonus Movie Review)
Part 1 is here.
A hazy day in Hong Kong
So I got on the train from the airport to the central city on Hong Kong Island. The train is great, it's fast and it leaves from a terminal INSIDE the airport. I love it when public transport integrates well. I was then shocked by the haze as we headed toward Hong Kong. I could barely see the hills next to the track, let alone look across the harbour to Kowloon.
Anyway, got out of the train station to a brisk winter morning in central Hong Kong. Central Hong Kong is weird. There are very few pedestrian crossings and few streetfront shops (and the few there are are things like Bulgari or whatever). But there are huge numbers of bridges between the buildings. It's got this weird, labyrinthine feel to it, where you wander around the interior of one building to another. Certainly interesting, and it's not bad, just unusual and a little disconcerting. Also, I was really craving a big bowl of noodles or fried rice, and all I could find were Euro style bakeries or Starbucks (which, incidentally, do not have Kid's Hot Chocolates for anywhere near the NZ price). I got chicken, mushroom and pasta in a broth eventually, which stifled my craving, and was surprisingly tasty. Also, it's really clean, and I mean, really clean. I only realised this after I saw a fourth street cleaner in about 10 minutes. I suppose it's a good Keynesian stimulus.
Anyway, I had noticed that there was quite a slope to the city and I could see some big hills looming out of the haze right next to the city, so I set off on the Peak Tram which I'd found. It's similar to the Cable car in Wellington except a lot longer, and a lot steeper. The skyscrapers in Hong Kong are massive, but the Peak Tram goes significantly higher than they do. So, got to the top, looked out over the hazy city, then decided to get to the top of this peak as the Tram goes most of the way, but not all. Got to the top, after a satisfyingly energetic climb, which goes through the Victoria Peak Dog Exercise Area, which is quite nice. The view from the top felt like it would have been breathtaking had I been able to see anything through the haze. As it was, I could look out and just see the slope to the south going down to the south coast of the island and to the north, the skyscrapers looming eerily out of the haze.
Now, I feel I should point out, that while the view didn't take my breath away, that's not to say that I didn't enjoy it. On the contrary, I've seen a lot of good views in my time, and in NZ we're a little spoilt for them. What I hadn't experienced, but now I have, is the view of a city emerging from the surrounding haze. It actually looked quite cool, and I enjoyed it. As a tourist, I wanted something far from my normal experiencesand I got it. I felt a little sorry for the people who live there, as I think it might get a little oppressive after a while, but there's not much I can do about that.
Went back down the slope and wandered through Hong Kong Park. The haze had started to thin a bit by this stage and I could just see Kowloon across the harbour. Hong Kong Park is quite nice and has lots of free stuff to do. I went to the Art Specialist Graduation Exhibition at the Hong Kong Visual Arts Centre and looked at some fun and cool paintings and sculptures. Then I wandered into the Aviary and looked at lots of birds. I liked the varieties of Mynahs the most. There were also these large birds in their own enclosure, I think they were Hornbills, which looked like Rod Stewart versions of vultures. They were regarding the world with sullen glares until the brightly coloured cleaner walked past whereupon one swooped down and clung to the cage in what seemed to be an attempt to eat her. I think I saw something about them being omnivorous and eating monkeys, but I'm not sure. Then I remembered I was in Asia as there was a big sign saying words to the effect of "Don't Feed the Birds - You might get Avian Flu". Then I walked through the Tai Chi garden where there's a memorial to the Fighting SARS Heroes, who I think were seven health proffessionals (including three doctors) who died during the epidemic back in 2003.
I wandered past a pond to take a photo of about 8 turtles clustered on a small rock, seemingly finding refuge from the rapacious Koi, perhaps. :) Then I got into a conversation with two businessmen on their lunch break, Manjit from India and John from Ireland. They seemed quite keen to tell me about where I should go in Hong Kong and what to see. Apparently next time I come, I should climb up to the Big Buddha on Lantau Island. They also suggested I catch a ferry across the harbour to Kowloon to be able to look back at central Hong Kong. Then I wandered the Conservatory. Plants, peaceful, pleasant, not much else to say except that Cinnamon Trees are nice and I want one! How cool would it be to have a nice tree in your garden that you can also get cinnamon, the most awesome of the spices, from too?! :)
After that I went to the Flagstaff House Museum of Tea Ware. I now know a lot more about the history of teamaking and -brewing. They have little tea pots over a thousand years old there. Very cool. Also, did you know that an old style of tea making before they started steeping the water in the leaves was to grind the leaves up into a very fine powder and then whisk it in boiling water into a kind of froth? I didn't, and it was interesting that it ended up looking like a kind of less frothy, green latte. Apparently, back in the old days (about 800 years ago), they used to have competitions to see who could make a cup of tea with the best and longest lasting froth. Yup, China's been doing old school barista competitions since Italy was in the Dark Ages. :P
Then I massaged my feet by walking on the stones in the Foot Massage Garden. After all that, it was time to leave Hong Kong Park. Yes, all of the things in the last four paragraphs are in the Park, and they were all free. Good times.
Went down into the city intending to catch a ferry to Kowloon and then the train to the airport, but I stumbled across a protest. I had no idea what they were protesting as they were chanting in Cantonese and all of the placards save one was also in Cantonese. The one I could read said "Bad Government needs to be Governed" which seemed like a fair sentiment, but when I eventually enquired upon two men speaking english, it turns out that they were protesting against proposed legislation which would give, from my understanding, equal rights to gay and lesbian relationships. I disagreed with this and, politely, disagreed. They said that they love gay people, they just don't condone homosexual behaviour and certainly don't agree with children being raised by gay/lesbian parents. I disagreed with this too, and asked whether the issue stemmed from a personal or religious basis. As it turned out, they were Christian, and I was drawn into a long and vigorous theological discussion.
By the time I extricated myself, I didn't really have time to go to Kowloon, so I hurried back to the train station. Turned out you can check in for your flights at the train station in the central city which was pretty sweet as it was less than 3 hours to my flight by then. Having checked in, I wandered to the waterfront and looked out at Kowloon. Again, Hong Kong proved that it has a different public/private distinction to my own sensibilities when it turned out that the public viewing platform was through a rather swanky restaurant, and they were completely fine with me just wandering round the side to take photos of Kowloon.
Went back to the train station and hopped on the train. Changed my money to US dollars, as Hong Kong airport doesn't stock Qatari Riyals, went through immigration and got on my Qatar Airways flight.
The flight was 9.5 hours and followed a similar pattern to the previous one. We left about 7pm (Hong Kong time), I ate dinner, watched the first two thirds of Star Wars - The Clone Wars, decided to sleep, woke up with 1.5 hours to go, watched the rest of the movie, ate some food, and arrived in Qatar at about 11pm local time.
Star Wars - The Clone Wars
Warning! Spoilertastic...
It was better than I expected, but my expectations were pretty low so don't read too much into that. By the way, this review was much longer than I intended so feel free to skip forward a few paragraphs. The things I liked about it were incidental things. I liked that the Jedi apprentice newbie who was referred to as a Youngling really did seem quite young. I liked that she had a different lightsaber fighting style (She had an odd reversed grip). Some of the action sequences were quite cool, such as the vertical fight scene where two Jedi and some Clone Troopers assault a monastery on top of a sheer cliff. The enemy Snoopy droids were actually quite funny, whereas I found them a little painful in the other movies. (For the record, the Snoopy Droids are the Trade Federaion droids from the Phantom Menace. They looke like robot Snoopys to me.) For example, when Rex (a clone trooper) and some few other Clone Troopers are in a hopeless situation surrounded by Snoopy droids, Rex calls out "Surrender, we have you outnumbered!", the Snoopy Droid sergeant says "Wait, what!? One, two, three..." and all the droids stop shooting while he counts and are then blown away by the timely arrival of Obi-Wan Kenobi in a dropship. It's a really dumb joke but it made me chortle so I give them credit for that. I also liked that in a scene where lots of clone troopers have taken their helmets off, they'd obviously made attempts to individualise themselves, with some interesting haircuts. Also, a cosmopolitan, vaguely camp Hutt who lives in Coruscant and has fluorescent tattoos and other decorations. Fun, incidental things.
However, the script is poor. The dialogue is really bad. I though Ani was a bad nickname for Anakin, but SkyGuy? Come on! Also, there were no payoffs. After ten minutes trying to rescue Rex and some others, Anakin Skywalker is forced by circumstances to leave them to their fate. Anakin angrily mutters into the comm, I'm sorry Rex, but I can't come get you. Rex bravely says to not worry, the mission comes first. So Anakin flies off to Tattooine (which leads to a related rant: Which is the only Star Wars movie to not have scenes on Tatooine? The Empire Strikes Back. Is that the best Star Wars movie? Arguably, yes. Are these two points related? Perhaps). But anyway, after all that, what is Rex's fate?!!11!!? He's fine. He shoots some droids and goes home. Count Dooku's new apprentice, Ventress, shows up and for no reason I can see has had an ongoing antagonism with Obi-Wan and Anakin. Are we supposed to hate her more because they dislike her? You can't just throw characters in there without an intro. Then, afterwards, does she die? No, she just disappears at the end of Act 2, after Obi-Wan runs away after being a prick to her, teasing her with his, I don't need a lightsaber to fight you, styles. So she has some bizarre build-up where we assume she's this badass they've tangled with in the past, turns out to be quite ineffective, and then disappears from the story. Roughly at about the same time that Padme inexplicably turns up. Coincidence? I think not. I think Padme has some Dr Jekyll - Mr Hyde thing going on.
But anyway, onto the thing that annoyed me the most. The whole movie seems to revolve around Anakin getting a padawan apprentice called Asohka (sp?). Despite the fact that her dialogue is bad and her characterisation is uninspired (Insert perky tween trying to prove herself to the big boys), I still realised that for some reason I cared about her fate. Probably because she really did seem like a vulnerable child a lot of the time. So having engineered a situation where she's separated from Anakin, surrounded by badass droids which in episode 3 are each a tough fight for a single Jedi, where Anakin is fighting Count Dooku who laughs and tells Anakin that he can't save her so he steals Dooku's ride to go find her, what do they do? Do they kill her and have her die in his arms, to fuel his paranoia about protecting people he feels responsible for and going some way to explaining his behaviour in episode 3? No, they have her handily beating all three of them in time for Anakin to show up, so she can show off her handiwork in an 'Ain't I awesome!' moment with her teacher. And they then go and finish the movie. Wait, what? So, neither Ventress or Asohka, neither of whom are even mentioned in the third film, die? Well, what's supposed to have happened to them? Weird.
Qatar, so far... :)
Anyway, so I arrived in Qatar at about 11pm. The lady at immigration seemed suspicious of the fact that I didn't know my mother's address off the top of my head after about 36 hours of travel, but let me in anyway. :) Qatar is really flat, and kinda dusty. Though it looks a lot nicer by the light of day than at night. Chatted with Mum and Dave for a bit, then went to bed. I slept through until 8am. Did I mention that this is the best longhaul trip I've ever done? Mum and Dave were still asleep so I went and had breakfast on the roof of the apartment building and looked at the tall buildings in the financial centre through the haze. Almost all of the people in the building are Kiwis who work with Mum in the education consultancy company, and I got to meet most of them after Mum came and found me on the roof. I felt a little self conscious as I was wearing my glasses, had bed hair and needed a bit of a shave. They were all congratulating me on getting into med school while I felt completely inauthentic as a self-confident, stylish med student. :P As an aside, as I write this, the local mosque across the way is calling out a prayer. Pretty neat, huh?
For lunch we drove across Doha to the Dip Club. Which as far as I can tell means Diplomatic Club, rather than Go-for-a-Dip-in-the-pool Club. It's a fairly posh, private club that Mum's paying some large amount for, but it's got a really nice pool and a gym. Driving across Doha was interesting. It's low urban sprawl spread out from the coast across dusty desert. Reminds me a lot of Bandar Seri Begawan in Brunei, except dry desert rather than humid jungle. Lots of construction, trucks and workers. Had lunch at the pool with some of Mum's colleagues who seem nice. Went down to the Dip Club's private beach and put my hand in the Arabian Sea.
After that, we went to the nearby, new residential are called 'The Pearl'. Apparently, back before Oil became a big thing, about the only source of external revenue for Qatar was from the pearldiving trade. So pearls are important in the history of Qatar. Anyway, The Pearl is a large, manmade peninsula with two circular harbours with large, posh apartment buildings. From the air it probably had the shape of a 3. It's mostly constructed and when it's finished, I think it'll be the really swanky place to live. The architecture is ok, and I liked the fact that each building looked different, but I don't think it's really for me.
We came home to chill out, and I wrote this, which took longer than I expected. I blame the Star Wars rant. :) It's 5:30pm and just getting dark. Tonight, we're going to the Souk, which is a renovated, old-style market for dinner, which'll be fun. And that's about enough for now.
A hazy day in Hong Kong
So I got on the train from the airport to the central city on Hong Kong Island. The train is great, it's fast and it leaves from a terminal INSIDE the airport. I love it when public transport integrates well. I was then shocked by the haze as we headed toward Hong Kong. I could barely see the hills next to the track, let alone look across the harbour to Kowloon.
Anyway, got out of the train station to a brisk winter morning in central Hong Kong. Central Hong Kong is weird. There are very few pedestrian crossings and few streetfront shops (and the few there are are things like Bulgari or whatever). But there are huge numbers of bridges between the buildings. It's got this weird, labyrinthine feel to it, where you wander around the interior of one building to another. Certainly interesting, and it's not bad, just unusual and a little disconcerting. Also, I was really craving a big bowl of noodles or fried rice, and all I could find were Euro style bakeries or Starbucks (which, incidentally, do not have Kid's Hot Chocolates for anywhere near the NZ price). I got chicken, mushroom and pasta in a broth eventually, which stifled my craving, and was surprisingly tasty. Also, it's really clean, and I mean, really clean. I only realised this after I saw a fourth street cleaner in about 10 minutes. I suppose it's a good Keynesian stimulus.
Anyway, I had noticed that there was quite a slope to the city and I could see some big hills looming out of the haze right next to the city, so I set off on the Peak Tram which I'd found. It's similar to the Cable car in Wellington except a lot longer, and a lot steeper. The skyscrapers in Hong Kong are massive, but the Peak Tram goes significantly higher than they do. So, got to the top, looked out over the hazy city, then decided to get to the top of this peak as the Tram goes most of the way, but not all. Got to the top, after a satisfyingly energetic climb, which goes through the Victoria Peak Dog Exercise Area, which is quite nice. The view from the top felt like it would have been breathtaking had I been able to see anything through the haze. As it was, I could look out and just see the slope to the south going down to the south coast of the island and to the north, the skyscrapers looming eerily out of the haze.
Now, I feel I should point out, that while the view didn't take my breath away, that's not to say that I didn't enjoy it. On the contrary, I've seen a lot of good views in my time, and in NZ we're a little spoilt for them. What I hadn't experienced, but now I have, is the view of a city emerging from the surrounding haze. It actually looked quite cool, and I enjoyed it. As a tourist, I wanted something far from my normal experiencesand I got it. I felt a little sorry for the people who live there, as I think it might get a little oppressive after a while, but there's not much I can do about that.
Went back down the slope and wandered through Hong Kong Park. The haze had started to thin a bit by this stage and I could just see Kowloon across the harbour. Hong Kong Park is quite nice and has lots of free stuff to do. I went to the Art Specialist Graduation Exhibition at the Hong Kong Visual Arts Centre and looked at some fun and cool paintings and sculptures. Then I wandered into the Aviary and looked at lots of birds. I liked the varieties of Mynahs the most. There were also these large birds in their own enclosure, I think they were Hornbills, which looked like Rod Stewart versions of vultures. They were regarding the world with sullen glares until the brightly coloured cleaner walked past whereupon one swooped down and clung to the cage in what seemed to be an attempt to eat her. I think I saw something about them being omnivorous and eating monkeys, but I'm not sure. Then I remembered I was in Asia as there was a big sign saying words to the effect of "Don't Feed the Birds - You might get Avian Flu". Then I walked through the Tai Chi garden where there's a memorial to the Fighting SARS Heroes, who I think were seven health proffessionals (including three doctors) who died during the epidemic back in 2003.
I wandered past a pond to take a photo of about 8 turtles clustered on a small rock, seemingly finding refuge from the rapacious Koi, perhaps. :) Then I got into a conversation with two businessmen on their lunch break, Manjit from India and John from Ireland. They seemed quite keen to tell me about where I should go in Hong Kong and what to see. Apparently next time I come, I should climb up to the Big Buddha on Lantau Island. They also suggested I catch a ferry across the harbour to Kowloon to be able to look back at central Hong Kong. Then I wandered the Conservatory. Plants, peaceful, pleasant, not much else to say except that Cinnamon Trees are nice and I want one! How cool would it be to have a nice tree in your garden that you can also get cinnamon, the most awesome of the spices, from too?! :)
After that I went to the Flagstaff House Museum of Tea Ware. I now know a lot more about the history of teamaking and -brewing. They have little tea pots over a thousand years old there. Very cool. Also, did you know that an old style of tea making before they started steeping the water in the leaves was to grind the leaves up into a very fine powder and then whisk it in boiling water into a kind of froth? I didn't, and it was interesting that it ended up looking like a kind of less frothy, green latte. Apparently, back in the old days (about 800 years ago), they used to have competitions to see who could make a cup of tea with the best and longest lasting froth. Yup, China's been doing old school barista competitions since Italy was in the Dark Ages. :P
Then I massaged my feet by walking on the stones in the Foot Massage Garden. After all that, it was time to leave Hong Kong Park. Yes, all of the things in the last four paragraphs are in the Park, and they were all free. Good times.
Went down into the city intending to catch a ferry to Kowloon and then the train to the airport, but I stumbled across a protest. I had no idea what they were protesting as they were chanting in Cantonese and all of the placards save one was also in Cantonese. The one I could read said "Bad Government needs to be Governed" which seemed like a fair sentiment, but when I eventually enquired upon two men speaking english, it turns out that they were protesting against proposed legislation which would give, from my understanding, equal rights to gay and lesbian relationships. I disagreed with this and, politely, disagreed. They said that they love gay people, they just don't condone homosexual behaviour and certainly don't agree with children being raised by gay/lesbian parents. I disagreed with this too, and asked whether the issue stemmed from a personal or religious basis. As it turned out, they were Christian, and I was drawn into a long and vigorous theological discussion.
By the time I extricated myself, I didn't really have time to go to Kowloon, so I hurried back to the train station. Turned out you can check in for your flights at the train station in the central city which was pretty sweet as it was less than 3 hours to my flight by then. Having checked in, I wandered to the waterfront and looked out at Kowloon. Again, Hong Kong proved that it has a different public/private distinction to my own sensibilities when it turned out that the public viewing platform was through a rather swanky restaurant, and they were completely fine with me just wandering round the side to take photos of Kowloon.
Went back to the train station and hopped on the train. Changed my money to US dollars, as Hong Kong airport doesn't stock Qatari Riyals, went through immigration and got on my Qatar Airways flight.
The flight was 9.5 hours and followed a similar pattern to the previous one. We left about 7pm (Hong Kong time), I ate dinner, watched the first two thirds of Star Wars - The Clone Wars, decided to sleep, woke up with 1.5 hours to go, watched the rest of the movie, ate some food, and arrived in Qatar at about 11pm local time.
Star Wars - The Clone Wars
Warning! Spoilertastic...
It was better than I expected, but my expectations were pretty low so don't read too much into that. By the way, this review was much longer than I intended so feel free to skip forward a few paragraphs. The things I liked about it were incidental things. I liked that the Jedi apprentice newbie who was referred to as a Youngling really did seem quite young. I liked that she had a different lightsaber fighting style (She had an odd reversed grip). Some of the action sequences were quite cool, such as the vertical fight scene where two Jedi and some Clone Troopers assault a monastery on top of a sheer cliff. The enemy Snoopy droids were actually quite funny, whereas I found them a little painful in the other movies. (For the record, the Snoopy Droids are the Trade Federaion droids from the Phantom Menace. They looke like robot Snoopys to me.) For example, when Rex (a clone trooper) and some few other Clone Troopers are in a hopeless situation surrounded by Snoopy droids, Rex calls out "Surrender, we have you outnumbered!", the Snoopy Droid sergeant says "Wait, what!? One, two, three..." and all the droids stop shooting while he counts and are then blown away by the timely arrival of Obi-Wan Kenobi in a dropship. It's a really dumb joke but it made me chortle so I give them credit for that. I also liked that in a scene where lots of clone troopers have taken their helmets off, they'd obviously made attempts to individualise themselves, with some interesting haircuts. Also, a cosmopolitan, vaguely camp Hutt who lives in Coruscant and has fluorescent tattoos and other decorations. Fun, incidental things.
However, the script is poor. The dialogue is really bad. I though Ani was a bad nickname for Anakin, but SkyGuy? Come on! Also, there were no payoffs. After ten minutes trying to rescue Rex and some others, Anakin Skywalker is forced by circumstances to leave them to their fate. Anakin angrily mutters into the comm, I'm sorry Rex, but I can't come get you. Rex bravely says to not worry, the mission comes first. So Anakin flies off to Tattooine (which leads to a related rant: Which is the only Star Wars movie to not have scenes on Tatooine? The Empire Strikes Back. Is that the best Star Wars movie? Arguably, yes. Are these two points related? Perhaps). But anyway, after all that, what is Rex's fate?!!11!!? He's fine. He shoots some droids and goes home. Count Dooku's new apprentice, Ventress, shows up and for no reason I can see has had an ongoing antagonism with Obi-Wan and Anakin. Are we supposed to hate her more because they dislike her? You can't just throw characters in there without an intro. Then, afterwards, does she die? No, she just disappears at the end of Act 2, after Obi-Wan runs away after being a prick to her, teasing her with his, I don't need a lightsaber to fight you, styles. So she has some bizarre build-up where we assume she's this badass they've tangled with in the past, turns out to be quite ineffective, and then disappears from the story. Roughly at about the same time that Padme inexplicably turns up. Coincidence? I think not. I think Padme has some Dr Jekyll - Mr Hyde thing going on.
But anyway, onto the thing that annoyed me the most. The whole movie seems to revolve around Anakin getting a padawan apprentice called Asohka (sp?). Despite the fact that her dialogue is bad and her characterisation is uninspired (Insert perky tween trying to prove herself to the big boys), I still realised that for some reason I cared about her fate. Probably because she really did seem like a vulnerable child a lot of the time. So having engineered a situation where she's separated from Anakin, surrounded by badass droids which in episode 3 are each a tough fight for a single Jedi, where Anakin is fighting Count Dooku who laughs and tells Anakin that he can't save her so he steals Dooku's ride to go find her, what do they do? Do they kill her and have her die in his arms, to fuel his paranoia about protecting people he feels responsible for and going some way to explaining his behaviour in episode 3? No, they have her handily beating all three of them in time for Anakin to show up, so she can show off her handiwork in an 'Ain't I awesome!' moment with her teacher. And they then go and finish the movie. Wait, what? So, neither Ventress or Asohka, neither of whom are even mentioned in the third film, die? Well, what's supposed to have happened to them? Weird.
Qatar, so far... :)
Anyway, so I arrived in Qatar at about 11pm. The lady at immigration seemed suspicious of the fact that I didn't know my mother's address off the top of my head after about 36 hours of travel, but let me in anyway. :) Qatar is really flat, and kinda dusty. Though it looks a lot nicer by the light of day than at night. Chatted with Mum and Dave for a bit, then went to bed. I slept through until 8am. Did I mention that this is the best longhaul trip I've ever done? Mum and Dave were still asleep so I went and had breakfast on the roof of the apartment building and looked at the tall buildings in the financial centre through the haze. Almost all of the people in the building are Kiwis who work with Mum in the education consultancy company, and I got to meet most of them after Mum came and found me on the roof. I felt a little self conscious as I was wearing my glasses, had bed hair and needed a bit of a shave. They were all congratulating me on getting into med school while I felt completely inauthentic as a self-confident, stylish med student. :P As an aside, as I write this, the local mosque across the way is calling out a prayer. Pretty neat, huh?
For lunch we drove across Doha to the Dip Club. Which as far as I can tell means Diplomatic Club, rather than Go-for-a-Dip-in-the-pool Club. It's a fairly posh, private club that Mum's paying some large amount for, but it's got a really nice pool and a gym. Driving across Doha was interesting. It's low urban sprawl spread out from the coast across dusty desert. Reminds me a lot of Bandar Seri Begawan in Brunei, except dry desert rather than humid jungle. Lots of construction, trucks and workers. Had lunch at the pool with some of Mum's colleagues who seem nice. Went down to the Dip Club's private beach and put my hand in the Arabian Sea.
After that, we went to the nearby, new residential are called 'The Pearl'. Apparently, back before Oil became a big thing, about the only source of external revenue for Qatar was from the pearldiving trade. So pearls are important in the history of Qatar. Anyway, The Pearl is a large, manmade peninsula with two circular harbours with large, posh apartment buildings. From the air it probably had the shape of a 3. It's mostly constructed and when it's finished, I think it'll be the really swanky place to live. The architecture is ok, and I liked the fact that each building looked different, but I don't think it's really for me.
We came home to chill out, and I wrote this, which took longer than I expected. I blame the Star Wars rant. :) It's 5:30pm and just getting dark. Tonight, we're going to the Souk, which is a renovated, old-style market for dinner, which'll be fun. And that's about enough for now.