Flip through the latest issue of Gulf Weekly.
Stretching across the vending area and entertainment village was a zipline which proved an energy-packed hit with daring adults and children. I must admit I fancy myself as a bit of an adrenaline junkie so I was dying to have a go, but with waiting times stretching to two hours in even as early as midday on Sunday, and with temperatures soaring, I decided to walk away.
The street acts were out in full force, such as stilt walkers, spark drummers and flamenco dancers. My particular favourites were the Team Power Stilts guys, who bounced around on rubber stilts performing backflips, star jumps and a variety of other acrobatics with huge grins on their faces.
British professional trapeze group Gorilla Circus brought the flair with a variety of high-flying gymnastics which included double somersaults and catching their partners by their hands and feet, although when they brought out tightrope walker, Ellis Crover, and proclaimed that he was about to ‘risk his life for your entertainment’, the very obvious safety net 10 feet below him ruined the spectacle somewhat.
As one of those young kids who used to love going to the fire station open days and sitting in the fire engines, I realised that this youthful fascination never really left me when I came across the Ministry of Interior exhibition and spent a good half an hour having a tour of the police motorbikes, traffic vehicles, civil defence cruisers and even a forensics wagon, packed with the kit used by detectives at crime scenes.
Inevitably, as a lifelong gamer, I found my true calling in the Gamezone where my friend Hassan and I ruthlessly destroyed excited kids on the F1 video game simulators, including one race where we finished 1-2 and had time to get out of our seat, have our winners’ photograph taken and walk off the stage to watch the child in third place crawl across the line almost a minute later.
We also had a go at the pit stop challenge (which requires you to change one tyre with a wheel gun) and got our time down to eight seconds from last year’s 15, which we were immensely proud of. Perhaps by the 2030 Bahrain Grand Prix, we might be somewhere near the current pit stop record (all four tyres, no less) of 1.8 seconds set by Mercedes!
Dennis Hoyt’s fantastic art exhibition blew me away. Despite reading my colleague’s preview in last week’s GulfWeekly, it didn’t prepare me for how intricate and colourful these designs were. He was also an extremely friendly man who talked me through the process of creating these pieces and how he puts them all together before revealing his future plans to Mai Al Khatib-Camille.
