Friday, December 01, 2006
Saturday December 2nd 2006 Well, the Games are officially open now. The
ceremony last night looked impressive on the plasma screens here although I was only looking up now and then but the colors were fantastic. Shadi, a Jordanian Volunteer who has been living here for 6 years and has recently married an American woman tells me that after living here for 6 years, it's really seems incredible to imagine that this amazing ceremony is happening in Doha. This is because Doha has changed so much in the last six years.
The Asian Games Cauldron was lit in a most
impressive fashion when the son of the Emir riding a horse raced all the way up the ramp of the stadium carrying the flame. Rain is not something which is ever expected in Doha but it was raining and so everyone was nervous the horse would slip and it did ever so slightly up the top but all was good.
A journalist who has covered three Olympic games, this morning commented that the ceremony was really at Olympic standard and it certainly was. I didn't really get to watch it and once I left the venue at 8:30pm I just went
home, had a shower and went to bed only to be woken up later for matters at the MPC.
We had a busy busy day yesterday with many faxes to sent. I didn't realise how many journalists would still be faxing and indeed most arab journalists are just writing by hand and faxing as do Indians, Sri lankans and the list goes on. We were short staffed and five fax machines were too little to cope with the demands between 11am and 3pm...and the Games really hadn't started yet.
But with the actual games starting today we may finally get some relief with people going to competition venues and we, at the MPC are certainly looking forward to that. I expect we will still be busy though.
It's still raining today and here everybody seems happy when it rains. It's so rare that they say if you make a wish when it rain, it will come true.
More later.
ceremony last night looked impressive on the plasma screens here although I was only looking up now and then but the colors were fantastic. Shadi, a Jordanian Volunteer who has been living here for 6 years and has recently married an American woman tells me that after living here for 6 years, it's really seems incredible to imagine that this amazing ceremony is happening in Doha. This is because Doha has changed so much in the last six years.The Asian Games Cauldron was lit in a most
impressive fashion when the son of the Emir riding a horse raced all the way up the ramp of the stadium carrying the flame. Rain is not something which is ever expected in Doha but it was raining and so everyone was nervous the horse would slip and it did ever so slightly up the top but all was good.
A journalist who has covered three Olympic games, this morning commented that the ceremony was really at Olympic standard and it certainly was. I didn't really get to watch it and once I left the venue at 8:30pm I just went
home, had a shower and went to bed only to be woken up later for matters at the MPC. We had a busy busy day yesterday with many faxes to sent. I didn't realise how many journalists would still be faxing and indeed most arab journalists are just writing by hand and faxing as do Indians, Sri lankans and the list goes on. We were short staffed and five fax machines were too little to cope with the demands between 11am and 3pm...and the Games really hadn't started yet.
But with the actual games starting today we may finally get some relief with people going to competition venues and we, at the MPC are certainly looking forward to that. I expect we will still be busy though.
It's still raining today and here everybody seems happy when it rains. It's so rare that they say if you make a wish when it rain, it will come true.
More later.
# posted by AdeC @ 9:22 PM 
