Ramadan 2014 - Day 1 Continued, Where’s the Artillery?

So after an afternoon nap I packed up some food and water and went down to the Corniche area to see the Ramadan cannon, which fires to signal the end of fasting.

When I got to the lot the cars were all there . . .

The fence and people were there . . .

Reporters and TV crews were there . . .

But wait a sec, where's the cannon?

For some reason the cannon wasn't there! Everyone waited around but no military personnel appeared and then we heard a nearby mosque sound the end of the fast. Strange, I wonder what happened to the cannon? I'm pretty sure it was supposed to be there. TV crews were there and you figure if the military wasn't going to be holding things there they would have informed the media.

I'll try going again in a few days. [July 1 update: the cannon has been moved to the State Mosque]

From the Corniche it was off to Souq Waqif to catch the Netherlands vs Mexico match (game was okay, then went into overdrive for that crazy-crazy last 10 minutes). Aside from the match the souq was pretty quiet, at half-time (8pm) some of the restaurants weren't open and the ones that were didn't have a lot of customers. Chances are most Muslims were at evening prayers called Tarawih so they’d probably be out later in the evening.

I'm going to see the 11pm match tonight (Algeria!) so we'll see if maybe the souq picks up after nine or so. There’ll definitely be a lot of Algerians there.

I had a snack at half-time and then a mixed grill at around 11pm. I think it was too much food, my stomach didn't feel that great afterward. I’ll try to cut back on mid-evening meals and stick to iftar and the 3am meals as my main ones.