The Janadriyah Festival 2013

It's already a ritual for The Pink Tarha ladies to visit the Janadriyah Festival every year since we started the blog. This year, it's our fourth time... and it's probably one of the most memorable because 1. it's the shortest time we've ever been in, 2. it's Shoegarfreeruby's first time to see the festival, and 3. an earthquake, a sandstorm, and a downpour didn't prevent us from going.

The afternoon of our visit to Janadriyah, a killer earthquake hit the border of Iran and Pakistan and tremors were felt in the Gulf countries including Saudi Arabia. News reports said that almost 40 people died in the province of Balochistan. This is the first earthquake I felt in Riyadh and it would have been a reason to cancel our trip to Janadriyah because tremors would likely be felt again in the coming hours. But no, we couldn't cancel our trip because Tuesday is the only day that we're available and the festival will close on Saturday so we rode the bus in our workplace and went on our way around 5:30 in the afternoon. We were joined by other employees in the workplace.

It was drizzling when we arrived but it immediately came to a stop when we alighted from the bus (thank you, heavens!). Because we only have 3 hours to go around the area (actually, just 2 hours because of the 2 prayer times), we immediately searched for the... restroom. Lol. Just so we can go around without having to look for one again. 

Eyecandy got her henna tattoo while waiting. The price of getting a henna doubled this year! SR30!

E having her left arm henna tattooed.

Anyway, the restroom we went to was near the pavilion of the United Arab Emirates, which we haven't seen on the past few years. This pavilion is also in the middle of controversies in the past few days because of 1. a female singer who was not on the line-up to perform, 2. a religious police being taken out of the area by the National Guard, and 3. three Emirati men who were deported because they were too handsome and the religious police felt that the women visiting the festival would fall for them. SERIOUSLY. This story is so annoyingly funny that even TIME picked it up and a lot of friends in the Philippines were making fun of it in their Facebook and Twitter statuses. Oh well...

The Emiratis

We saw a group of singers performing during the time of our visit. This is the only pavilion we've seen so far that segregates the men from the women. We couldn't get past half of the pav because it was for men only. (It was pure coincidence that we were looking for too handsome men to fall in love with. LOL. Just kidding!)

Performance from the UAE crowd

After visiting the UAE pavilion, we went inside the Eastern region's pavilion. We've seen this on our first Janadriyah in 2010 and nothing much has changed.

A man playing a wood and string instrument

Old and new.

The bridal scene

This might look familiar.

The barn of yesteryears.

From a distance, we saw the stage where the guest country, China, was performing their famed dragon dance. After that, several martial artists performed with their swords.

The Chinese stage is the most popular!

We went inside the China pavilion too. 

The very red China pavilion

"Jackie Chan" welcomed us.

Cool screen!

It was much simpler compared to the pavilions of Japan and Korea. They only showcased their crafts and highlights of their culture. Very interesting crafts though.

Ms. China should wear this in the Ms. Universe pageant.

Love the floral designs in Chinese fabrics!

More red carpet worthy gowns

Painted ceramics

Close up on the blue/black design of a plate

This is paper art. Brilliant!

Calligraphy! (I want to learn this!)

We had our name written in Chinese and had commemorative pins as souvenirs.

Our souvenir.

It was another salah when we went out of the Chinese pavilion so we walked around and found ourselves in the Gulf countries' pavilion where men were praying together and the religious police were milling around with policemen in tow. The presence of the muttawas kind of dampen the festive atmosphere of the place. They were far too many! They were even hounding men to pray and shouting at them. There's nothing wrong with praying, of course, but they don't have to shout and embarrass these people.

Men praying.

After the prayer finished at around 8:15, we went to buy our food for dinner. R and I went for McDonald's, Eyecandy went for Shawarmer, and a friend went for felafel. We decided to go outside the gate already to wait for our bus. Call time was at 9pm and we wouldn't want to have a repeat of that time when the bus left us! LOL. 

We were halfway through our dinner when the bus sidled along the road and parked near our benches. We went inside the bus to wait. Lo and behold, a sandstorm suddenly came and covered every thing around us with brownish orange sand! We made it in the bus in the nick of time!

Sandstorm brewing.

RAIN!!!

The wind was howling and the bus was rocking. It toppled some flags and monobloc chairs in the distance. And then the rain came. It washed away the sand in the atmosphere but it brought in mud. It was one of the scariest moments I've experienced in the desert.

Some of our bus mates were lost in their way back to the gate and some were not allowed to go out in the weather so we had to wait for them for another hour. They finally arrived quarter to 10 and we were on our way back to the workplace. We arrived an hour later. Thank you, Lord, for keeping us safe.

Outskirt of Riyadh; not a version of the Kingdom Tower. :P

The Janadriyah Festival will continue to be a good showcase of the best of Saudi Arabia's culture and tradition. Even if there are a few issues that pop up each year (ie. sandstorm) or just repeats (ermn, muttawa encounters), that's not enough to keep you from going. We're looking forward to Janadriyah 2014 already... we hope the Philippines gets to be the guest country! ;) ~ Sundrenched

Janadriyah 2010
Janadriyah 2011
Janadriyah 2012
Janadriyah 2013