How was your childhood...?

Lifestyle Relationships
1

Kids these days, whats theyre idea of fun?

Sitting on the computer 24/7 or the X-box/ PS2 (okay so im partial to hypocricy - so sue me)

When i was their age i used to spend most of my free time on my Universal mountain bike :blush: my inline skates, constantly trying to build a tree house, trying to set bugs on fire using a magnifying glass or throwing a tea party for all of my friends in the garden - tea is to be sipped not slurped!

I remember the really good times, when my dad used to take a day of work just to take us to the park - which wasnt often because he was nearly always working so it was a special treat when he did - weā€™de go to the nature reserves - i didnt really like them, they were boring, youā€™de have to walk for ages and the grass was so high it was difficult to ride your bike in it

BUT if you took walkie talkies and binoculars you could play in the woods which was really fun

In the holidays we used to stay with our cousins in Scotland, weā€™de go to the beach in St Andrews to feed the gulls, Edingburgh Zoo to see the Penguin parade, Caithness Glass, which was equally awesome, the Sea life centre (no match for the ones in England i swear it!) , picnicing in Loch Lamond, the ship that was sold to the Scots from the English for a mere Ā£1! It was wonderful

There was a huge warehouse that had been converted into an indoor jungle gym, called ā€˜Jungle Kidsā€™, it was so amazing, you could drown in their ball pools and the slides were soso huge! i loved it, especially the Haunted Cave which had these sausage like things hanging from the ceiling, you had to hold on to them and swing from one end to the other, and when you wanted a break weā€™de run out through the rope doors and our mums would be standing there holding cold icy Slush Puppy :yummy:

We had lots of fun, and in the evenings we would eat popcorn and junkfood watching our favourite movies :smiley: at that time The Lion King was in season. Weā€™de construct a makeshift tent to sleep in and when all the grown ups put the lights out weā€™de have a ā€˜midnight feastā€™ and pretend we were on a flight across the Bermuda Triangle :smiley:

I remember feeding the sea gulls and getting sand stuck between my toes, there were so many other memories Iā€™de love to share as well, about the times when were driving through the desert in Saudi Arabia or on swimming in my friends pool (and occasionally nearly drowning) but Iā€™de need at least the rest of the year

Iā€™m so glad my parents always thought about us and made sure we had some great memories together, it made us really close as a family and its made me realise how important it is to always take care of them the way they took care of you

And also I wanted to put this up so i could look back at it in about 20 years time :smiley: given Iā€™m still living inshaAllah

Anyone else want to contribute?

2

ooh :D Excellent thread, Masha'Allah.

oh man! Childhood memories. Those were the days. We used to go to this place in Abu Dhabi called "Breakwater".... a huge, rectangular-sized expanse of rocks jutting out into the ocean...surrounded by the 'sumander' (ocean). Abbu would try to catch fish, me and my sisters would race each other along the rocks. We would try to catch seaweed, collect uniquely-shaped/coloured seashells, and in general make a muck of ourselves. We would come back to the car literally covered from head to toe in sand and water :D Then one tauliya/towel would be passed around to everyone, lolz - we would try to rub all the sand off ourselves before getting into the car.

Evenings, when weather was cooler - the whole family would head to the Corniche. Wahan par we would take our football or frisbee, and play there until sometimes 10/11 at night (was very common for families to be out late enjoying the cool weather, especially on Thursday nights because the next day chuTTi hoti thi). Ammi/Abbu would be walking around the area, me and sisters would play with our frisbee.

hmmm. Going to al Ghurair centre in Dubai, was the only large shopping mall at that time.

Playing 'adventure' games with my sisters... we would come up with the corniest adventure plots. We were lost in the woods and ghosts were after us :D We would use our imagination and make up our own tents (using chairs and bedsheets and a walking cane :D ), or we were sailors caught in a storm (we used a mattress as our raft). i remember poora poora din guzar jaata tha, we had no indication of time, we were so lost in our role-playing games.

Driving to the outskirts of Abu Dhabi, jahan par khajoor kai darakht lagay hotay thain, by their hundreds. There used to be a particular time that the Sheikh used to allow anyone to go pick khajoors off the trees... Abbu would park the car by the side of the road, and we would pick khajoors off the trees and then eat them especially during Ramadan. Fresh fresh khajoors... oh man i miss that.

During Eid, going out for a drive to see the lights around the city.

Simple things. But all mean so much now.

3

My Dad put together his first PC in 1986 when i was 5. I taught myself how to use it in 1987, when I was 6.

Most of my childhood memories ever since are focused around computers......

4

**

That explains a lot :halo:

:smiley: :smiley: Just joshing :slight_smile: :flower1:

We only had one computer back then, my beloved Commodore 64 and we went insane on that. There was a ā€œKoala Painterā€ programme that went with it, i have a pic of it somewhere. You could draw anything on it that you wanted on the ā€˜tabletā€™ (i think it was called). This is early 80s i am referring to; we went crazy on the computer. Spent long hours playing games with the most amazingly boring graphics but which we thought - back then - were oh so cool.

Thanks for the reminderā€¦ i forgot about the countless hours spent on the joystick playing Miner and all those other low-graphic games.

5

haha Nadia, we had a Comodore 64 too. Did you have the one with a tape player??? All the games and programs came on cassettes and we would sit there for half an hour watching all the funky colours on screen waiting for the computer to load. It was cool cause we would hook it up to the t.v.

We even brought it to Canada when we moved here and I played with it until I was around 12. Who needed Nintendo? Playing Olympics on our Commodore was a lot more fun.

6

:D haha Mehnaz, yeah we had that tape player!!! Did you have to rewind and forward it to a particular 'number' - you know, it had three digits, in order to load a game, you had to either rewind/forward to a particular 3 digit number (like 548, for example). Ours would take a long time to load up, too, so we would sit there just staring at the screen :D

wow you brought it to Canada ? We gave away ours there :( Olympics - hahaha that was one cool game! i loved the music on it. Did you have the Winter Olympics or Summer Olympics? Each country had its own national anthem you could play. i loved the cliff-jumping event... i was fascinated at how they had a realistic sound of sea-gulls in that one. The music was cool too (by the standards of that era).

Commodore 64 zindabad :D sigh Later, towards the end of the 80s, we got floppy disks - disks larger than the size of your hand. They made loading games much more faster, comparatively speaking, than the tape player...but still of course slower than what kids today are used to.

7

Commodore 64s were for pansies.. they werenā€™t REAL computers :snooty:

We had an IBM XT that my dad put together in '86, another on in '88. In '87 my parents bought me an Atari 2600 console from London (oooooh boy the days I spent playing on that baby). In '91 I got my forst proper computer, and Atari 520 ST. My life more or less focused on that until '93, when it became obsolete and my dad let me and my brother use a spare proper PC he had. It just along from thereā€¦ every 2 years the incessant nagging my brother and I would put up would pay off and weā€™d get an upgrade.

I was part of the 5-boy clique at school that would spend our breaktimes talking about computers and who would take our computers round to each others homes for funā€¦

sigh

Fun days :slight_smile:

8

[QUOTE]
*Originally posted by mAd_ScIeNtIsT: *
**Commodore 64s were for pansies.. they weren't REAL computers :snooty :

We had an IBM XT that my dad put together in '86, another on in '88. In '87 my parents bought me an Atari 2600 console from London (oooooh boy the days I spent playing on that baby). In '91 I got my forst proper computer, and Atari 520 ST. My life more or less focused on that until '93, when it became obsolete and my dad let me and my brother use a spare proper PC he had. It just along from there... every 2 years the incessant nagging my brother and I would put up would pay off and we'd get an upgrade. **
[/QUOTE]

My family wasn't that rich to afford Ataris and a new computer upgrade every two years :o :D

We had the Commodore for almost eight years, i think... wonder where she is now.

ah well. Childhood memories. They say a child's lifelong personality, to some extent, is formed during the child's first four/five years.

(Sorry, Xara, i hope i am not derailing your thread).

9

Nadia, yeah, we had to rewind to a designated number. We had the summer olympics ā€¦ it was sooooo much fun cause each country would play their national anthem. :smiley:

We also had Michael Jacksonā€™s Thriller and James Bond - A View to a Kill!!! Those were really good games to play.

We threw it out in 1995! :hehe: I wouldnā€™t let my dad toss it.

10

Maddy i was born that year, they had computers then? :smack:
tell me, did you get round to building ure own radio as well? :smiley:

Nadia_H dont worry abt it :smiley: theres so much that goes into childhood memories, even if it is computers

MehnazQ what is Comodores? the only computer i remember is the Atari :smiley:

i guess my family were more outdoor type

11

my memoryā€¦ is a big black hole :smiley:

And I wat to keep it that way :hehe:

12

haha the Ataris. Did you guys ever have the Sega there? Alex the Kid?? :rotfl:

Xara, i was talking about ā€œthe good ol daysā€ yesterday with a colleague.. man i miss being a lil squirt

im gonna write from home as iā€™ll end up writing about 3-4 posts in a row if i do it now

13

bachpan k din

kitnay achay thay woh din

sigh

i wont write anything, coz then i wont stop :D

14

Atari? we used to play Sega Megadirve/ was it mastersystem? what was his name?? the little Roman guy and Obelisk?? (funny how i remember the fat guys neam isnt it?) :smiley:

and Sonic the hedgehog!!! wow that was fun lol

pretaextus that cant be a good signsurely :o

irem yara ure right, theres just so much you could go on forever, :slight_smile: i know i couldve writeen an entire thesis and then some!

15

[QUOTE]
*Originally posted by Xara: *
Atari? we used to play Sega Megadirve/ was it mastersystem? what was his name?? the little Roman guy and Obelisk?? (funny how i remember the fat guys neam isnt it?) :D

and Sonic the hedgehog!!! wow that was fun lol
[/QUOTE]

Aaargh!!! He wasn't a little Roman guy, he was a little Gaul guy and his name was Asterix!!!

And aye, I remember the Sega megadrive, I used to play it at various family and friends' homes. There was a game on there that has always stuck in my mind, Altered Beast.

sigh

memories....

16

sigh Bachpan...

Age 3: First trip to Pakistan!
Age 8 to 9: Played in the youth team of SC Vienna Victoria (local soccer team)
Age 9: Second trip to Pakistan!
Age 11 to 13: Played in my schoolĀ“s basketball team and reached the 3rd round of the all Austria basketball tournament with my team.
Age 13: Won the annual judo tournament at our school
Age 14: Was in the winning team the annual soccer tournament at our school
Age 15: Third trip to Pakistan!
Age 16: Broke our school record in a 400 m race by 2 seconds (new record: 56 seconds)
Age 19: Completed polytechnical school (and went to university later on)

17

[QUOTE]
Originally posted by Umer: *
*sigh Bachpan...

Age 3: First trip to Pakistan!
Age 8 to 9: Played in the youth team of SC Vienna Victoria (local soccer team)
Age 9: Second trip to Pakistan!
Age 11 to 13: Played in my schoolĀ“s basketball team and reached the 3rd round of the all Austria basketball tournament with my team.
Age 13: Won the annual judo tournament at our school
Age 14: Was in the winning team the annual soccer tournament at our school
Age 15: Third trip to Pakistan!
Age 16: Broke our school record in a 400 m race by 2 seconds (new record: 56 seconds)
Age 19: Completed polytechnical school (and went to university later on)
[/QUOTE]

amazing how you listed trip to pakistan with all those acheivments!

18

Maddy yay thats it! Asterisk, the little guys with wings attactched to his head, he had one mean punch!

Umer That sounds amazing, :k: mashaAllah, the only thing of sports i can remember is races, and me usually coming last :bummer:

19

aah my childhood :D. full of sports, fun, and sharartayn.

into all kinds of sports and after-school activities at school in jeddah. was in the school soccer and badminton team. most of my day was spent in school. school used to end at 2:50, but iā€™d come home at 5-6. after-school activities were mainly playing/practicing soccer. even on weekends i remember getting up for fajr, and practicing soccer after praying fajr. and on weekend evenings i used to go play cricket. trips to pakistan were very frequent too - every 2-3 months i used to visit pakistan for a week or two. once i moved to pakistan for o-levels sports was only limited to mohalla cricket. and at school it was mostly batameeziyan/sharartayn :D. but activites were always outdoors. i was never into video games or computer games. the only computer game i used to play was FIFA. and the average time i spent on the computer in my childhood was 1-2 hours.

i have always been shararti from childhood. not every kid gets 23 stitches in 21 years of life :p. other achievements include getting cement/gypsum powder into my eyes. scrapped knees and elbows and bruised shins were a common thing. played soccer match with a damaged ankle once. its permanently damaged now :bummer:.

to summarize, aik andaā€¦woh bhi ganda :smiley:

20

^

i damaged my ankle permanently as well :bummer:

only i fell from some monkey bars :smiley:

dont you think it was fun being shararti? ok sometimes it was dangerous, like trying to set umm the house on fire, or using red ants to threaten other kids

but all in all it was way too much fun :smiley: