Bernie didn’t get a half day off work so I had to wait for him at Deira City Centre. I didn’t mind since it meant I got to ride the Metro again. Oh and I whipped out my knitting and all these other ladies kept looking on. I felt quite extraordinary! Knitting on the train – something I never thought I’d do here in Dubai.
I camped my big fat ass down on a sofa at Costa’s and finished the toe on my Cherry Cables, whilst enjoying a massimo cup of Mocha Flake and a huge chunk of carrot cake and Rob Thomas singing in my ears. I also called my buddy in Australia who was already at the Harbor Bridge waiting for the fireworks to begin. They welcomed 2010 a good 7 hours ahead of us.
I finished the socks, more on that on a later post, then Bernie called and told me to go outside. Why? It seemed that a child had been playing with the clouds! Swirling his fingertips around them and swishing them this way and that. This is what I mean.
Awesome clear skies. I was keeping all fingers crossed that the thick fog of last year’s New Year’s Eve didn’t roll in on us just before the fireworks started.
And I still had the 50mm on so I couldn’t take wide sweeping shots of the sky. I think I managed to get some nice cloud formations though.
Bernie picked me up and we headed home to rest a bit before the barbecue. We left at a little after 8pm and there was light traffic so we made it back to the office in good time.
The boss allowed us to use the parking lot for our barbecue and also access to the roof deck to watch the fireworks display.
Sam and the boys set up a nice area for us with fairy lights and some music. It was quite charming actually. The boys then got the barbecue going. We managed to catch a glimpse of the full moon and a bit of the eclipse. I was surprised that my 18-250mm lens managed to capture this. I had to turn the OS though since I left the tripod at home.
At some point during the evening, I had to sneak up to my desk and get a letter typed and printed out. Plus I may have snuck in 6 skeins of Rare Gems from the Blue Moon sale. 🙂 I rushed back downstairs before anyone could notice that I was missing.
Oh, right, you came here for the fireworks, yes? Okay, here goes. Two minutes before midnight we marched up towards the roof deck on our rather steep and scary metal staircase. The Burj Al Arab had a digital clock on its facade counting down to midnight but I wasn’t able to take a photo of it since we were on an awkward angle.
And because I was dumb enough to forget the tripod, I had to find something sturdy to support the camera. That something sturdy turned out to be Bernie’s shoulders. It wasn’t so bad but I did have a few “WTF?” shots which are never going to see the light of day.
This is a shot of the street as the fireworks started. The police closed off all intersections to avoid traffic. An hour or so before midnight, a lot of people walked out to the beach and we could see other residents starting to congrerate on rooftops. I think we all counted down to midnight at the tops of our lungs!
It would have been great if we had a video camera because from where we were standing we could see the synchronized fireworks display all across from the Jumeirah Beach side, which is the view shown here, all the way towards the Marina and the Global Village. It was like 5 or 6 different fireworks show at the same time. I don’t think there was any fireworks at the Dubai Creek though.
Just when you thought it was over, the sky would light up in bright colours again!
These huge spheres of colours seemed to grow and hurtle towards you before fading out!
They’re like massive, glowing Christmas baubles.
I think the display lasted about 12 minutes or so. It was awesome. So worth the trouble of going back to the office to welcome the New Year. We’re doing this again next year!
Ten Thousand Dancing Stars 