New Years Eve 2011/12

We celebrated the beginning of a new year by hosting a fancy dress party at our home. The theme was "in my past life I was..." We had a fabulous night with a great bunch of people, a combination of work colleagues and friends we have made in our apartment building.
We certainly felt the time difference though.... as our friends and family in Australia rang in the new year we were busy with final party preparations and waiting for our first guests to arrive!
NYE also highlighted how much we are missing our friends and family at this time of year and I shed a little tear at Oz's midnight.
Dubai's celebrations at midnight were centered on Downtown and the Burj Khalifa (right outside our door) and we knew it was going to be a big night! We had heard lots of stories of people getting stuck for up to 5 hours in traffic to go 3km and the mass amount of people  at last years NYE celebrations so we were happy to not be travelling anywhere other than a 1 minute stroll out the front door to watch the fireworks.
They locked down our area early in the day, annoyingly with no consideration for residents access. A mid morning dash to the supermarket resulted in a very loud argument with security who had locked down the bridge we use to get to the mall from our home blocking my access home. With very heavy shopping bags there was no way I was walking the way they were suggesting residents would have to use.... I was 3 minutes from home and to go the other way would of been at least a 40 minute walk! Needless to say neither of us would back down so I bolted through and hoped I wouldn't be spending NYE in a jail cell! Thankfully he gave up but I then encountered 2 more security guards and blocked access routes just to get into our building.... only in Dubai!!
We were very grateful and happy to experience NYE in Dubai but not so sure we will be doing it again - up to 1,000,000 converging on the footstep of your home is a little crazy!

Batgirl, Fairy and Spartacus

Piper and her friend enjoying my cupcake icecream cones!

Burj Khalifa just before the fireworks, we were very lucky to avoid the large crowds on the island in front and in the other vieweing areas. Residents were able to access this area from internally and avoid the crush!