Hello! It's been a while. And yes, I know. I have been back from Dubai for almost 2 weeks now - my bad! I came straight back and started working again so I've been busy busy busy.
The last week or so of my Dubai trip was crazy eventful (as the end of holidays always are)! It seems as though in the first few days/week you think you have all the time in the world so you take time to sleep and veg around the house. Then in the last few days you realise how little time you have left and cram everything into those few days, like a crazy person.
In my two weeks in Dubai I completed a total of 4 rooms and thoroughly enjoyed every second of it. I am officially addicted. I'm planning on visiting the two escape room venues that are open in Melbourne right now and keep up my addiction! After having done Challenge Chambers with family friends and then HintHunt with my old high school friends, I decided I liked both of them for different reasons. Oh, and then Challenge Chambers again with my dad...and again. HintHunt inundates you with clues and not all of them are important at that very moment, and the clues are incredibly cryptic, until you know what they mean then they make perfect sense. And you'll stand there saying to yourself "Of course, how could I have missed that?!". Whereas Challenge Chambers is perhaps slightly easier and more straightforward. You're only asked to solve one thing at once and then move on, personally I found it a lot easier at Challenge Chambers but also less stressful as I wasn't panicking as much. Having said that, at the end of HintHunt when my friends and I finished with 1:01 left on the clock.T hat's right 1:01. We let out the stereotypical cheer that I had always thought was contrived on TV game shows. Man, did that feel good to finish. We were running around the rooms to get things we'd left in the other room; doing maths like crazed uni students and yelling at each other to "find the damn magnifying glass!". It was great fun, once again, I fully recommend escape rooms.
As well as feeding my addiction, I also went quad-biking, go-karting and to see the Monte Carlo Ballet's Romeo et Juliette.
Quad-biking happened in a truly Dubai style. We rocked up, late. They didn't notice/care. They took us to the quad bikes; we sat down. Note: no helmet, protective gear, insistence that we be wearing jeans or long trousers, or goggles. We rode around for an hour, wooping and scaring ourselves a little. It was so much fun, not sure it was entirely worth the full price that they charge (we had vouchers), but a good day out all the same.
Go-karting was great! But as anyone that knows me will tell you, I'm a little bit of a car freak (Australians read: hoon) so of course go-karting would be something I'd enjoy.
If you'll excuse me, again, I'm going to have a little bit of a rant. Not about escape rooms, this time, but about the audiences in Dubai. *skip to tl;dr version
I went to see the Monte Carlo Ballet perform Romeo et Juliette. This ballet piece was exquisite. It was beautiful, technically gorgeous and it had sex/penis jokes...everything you could ever want from a ballet. It was lost on the audience. Completely. And utterly. Lost. There were two points in the performance which I thought that the director didn't make the right creative choice. However thinking about it, it seems as though he didn't have much other choice.
The last week or so of my Dubai trip was crazy eventful (as the end of holidays always are)! It seems as though in the first few days/week you think you have all the time in the world so you take time to sleep and veg around the house. Then in the last few days you realise how little time you have left and cram everything into those few days, like a crazy person.
In my two weeks in Dubai I completed a total of 4 rooms and thoroughly enjoyed every second of it. I am officially addicted. I'm planning on visiting the two escape room venues that are open in Melbourne right now and keep up my addiction! After having done Challenge Chambers with family friends and then HintHunt with my old high school friends, I decided I liked both of them for different reasons. Oh, and then Challenge Chambers again with my dad...and again. HintHunt inundates you with clues and not all of them are important at that very moment, and the clues are incredibly cryptic, until you know what they mean then they make perfect sense. And you'll stand there saying to yourself "Of course, how could I have missed that?!". Whereas Challenge Chambers is perhaps slightly easier and more straightforward. You're only asked to solve one thing at once and then move on, personally I found it a lot easier at Challenge Chambers but also less stressful as I wasn't panicking as much. Having said that, at the end of HintHunt when my friends and I finished with 1:01 left on the clock.T hat's right 1:01. We let out the stereotypical cheer that I had always thought was contrived on TV game shows. Man, did that feel good to finish. We were running around the rooms to get things we'd left in the other room; doing maths like crazed uni students and yelling at each other to "find the damn magnifying glass!". It was great fun, once again, I fully recommend escape rooms.
As well as feeding my addiction, I also went quad-biking, go-karting and to see the Monte Carlo Ballet's Romeo et Juliette.
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| Aditi and I on our quad bikes |
Go-karting was great! But as anyone that knows me will tell you, I'm a little bit of a car freak (Australians read: hoon) so of course go-karting would be something I'd enjoy.
If you'll excuse me, again, I'm going to have a little bit of a rant. Not about escape rooms, this time, but about the audiences in Dubai. *skip to tl;dr version
 |
| The space and stage that the Monte Carlo ballet performed. |
- There was slow motion in some parts throughout the piece as too many things were happening at once and all were of equal import and thus needed to be noticed. The first couple of incidents of slow-mo were great! The dancers kept in sync and it was an inspired effect. There was one slow-mo scene which was not the best. It was simply too long. The dancers got out of sync (who can blame them!) and the whole thing started looking a bit Year-7-Drama-Class-esque.
- Just after the interval the lights all went off on the stage and some house lights came up. My first thought, as a techy, was: "Oh no! The lights have malfunctioned, poor lighting crew!". That was not the case. There was a piece of staging that had to be added which required more than just rolling onto stage, this was unfortunate. It took too long, and I even saw some people leave. It would have been better if they could have done that during the interval but costume changes would have been sacrificed.
Onto the Dubai Audience. They were simply the rudest, most ungrateful little @$%&@ I had ever had the unfortunate time of sitting amongst. Honestly, I was so embarrassed to have been a part of said audience. The whole production started almost an hour late as people were only arriving when the performance was meant to begin, even though the tickets said that doors opened from 2 hours previous. They continued talking during the first 5 minutes of the start of the show and during the first few minutes after the interval. And people were late to arrive back into the theatre after the interval. These things could potentially be excused if it were not for their behaviour at the end of the show. Anyone who has ever been to any sort of theatre performance, dance or otherwise, knows that there is a protocol when it comes to the bows at the end. For the ballet, it's simple.
- Ballet corps
- Major characters
- Main/Title characters
- Whole company x 2
- Director on stage, whole company
- Curtain close.
As soon as, AS SOON AS, the lights went down on the final heartbreaking scene of Romeo and Juliet lying dead in each other's arms, people were leaving. People from right near the stage; people from the middle of aisle; people from the upper tiers. Then once the ballet corps had had their bow, more people left. There was a stream of people leaving! By the time the director was on stage only about half, if not less, of the audience remained. I was outraged! It was a privilege to have watched the Monte Carlo Ballet perform Romeo et Juliette, and I sincerely apologise to them and suggest that no ballet company goes to Dubai as I have no doubt that they won't be treated any different.
*Phew! Rant over. tl;dr - Dubai audiences were rude to an amazing ballet company.
And then I hopped on a plane to Brunei, had the usual stressy lay-over because Brunei airport sucks and then arrived back in Melbourne and got me some real bacon.
Thanks everyone (anyone) who has actually been reading this!
Until my next travel! Au revoir! Arrivederci! Auf Wiedersehen!
