Back to Reality. Last Long Weekend for 2017 Round-up.

The Weekend That Has Been

We just came back from a long weekend when we had 3 days off - Thursday, Friday and Saturday.

Last November 30 (Thursday) was the Martyrs' Day Commemoration in the UAE while the UAE 46th National Day was celebrated on December 1-2.
_{Martyr's Day is observed in the UAE every November 30 to commemorate the Martyrs of the UAE, especially the military who have died in defense of the UAE.}

_{UAE National Dayis the celebration of UAE's independence and the union of seven independent Arab states .}

As this will be the last long weekend here in the UAE, we took advantage of the time and spent the whole day yesterday (Saturday) to have some much needed family day and relaxation time.

We went to the Emirates Park Zoo (i'm so excited to share this experience) off city, then went back to the city in time to watch the Air Show at 4:00pm. We then stayed in the park and had picnic while we waited for the fireworks scheduled at 9:00pm.

It has been a while since we last took part on this celebration. The last before this year was in 2014 (UAE43). Since it was a jampacked street event with everyone was rushing to the Corniche armed with foam spray, we were not in a position to witness the celebrations in 2015 and 2016. Please bear in mind we had baby number 3 in 2015. It would be a total suicide to even attempt to go to such events. lol

_{Photos from the 42nd UAE National Day in 2013. Cars were decorated with UAE flag colors and parade through the Corniche the night of December 2.}

_{Video from Gulf NewsTV, about car decorations for UAE National Day. Customer Maha Al Shamsi is actually a half Filipina, a niece of our Samahang Batangueno friend.}

Comparisons

If there was anything significantly different this year, I noticed that the streets were not as extravagantly decorated as the previous years. Even the buildings which were known to put a lot of effort in decoration seem to have downgraded a little bit.

What was even more noticeable was the cars which, as far as I could remember would be driven along the roads decorated in UAE flag motifs. They even modify their mufflers so that the cars would make loud sounds while going around the city.

Well, those were not observed the past 2 days. Maybe there was no competition this year?

More to come.

I will try to share our Zoo adventure soon. Those times with the kids were awesome!

Thanks for reading!