Christmas in Kuwait

Rained all Christmas Day. These are photo's at night from down at the Gulf.

Jordan photos

 

 

 

 

Was in Jordan for a couple of days, these are a selection of photo's, the rest are up on FB.

 

 

Ninjabread cookies

Seen this at the Sultan Centre the other day, didn't buy it, but way cool.

 

 

 

lovely

3 month + 1 week

Wow....three months plus now.
I have a ton of photo's to upload, have not had time to do so as of yet. They will be forth coming soon, I promise.
Some more observations to throw out for you all.
The floor of every restrooms here is soaked in water, plus who knows what else. Every toilet has a hose for personal cleanliness, hence water goes everywhere. The mall, work, wherever, the floor is soaking wet. It is quite gross IMO.
Car horns....still hear them all the time. Everytime of the day or night people honk their horns to get their friends to come downstairs, at the car in front of them, at the car behind them, to have the employees at restaurants or stores come out and serve them. Yep, on a busy four lane road, just stop, hit your horn and someone will run out and take your order, either for food or goods in a store. Ah, forget about the traffic, you're important, not anyone else.
Oh, sports cars, some nice cars here, and some cars that think they are nice cars. Some idiots rev the motors so you can hear them a Km away, then scream down the road, again day and anytime of night. You can hear the motors screaming to be shifted. Some people just shouldn't have nice stuff.
Horns and engines all night long....peace and tranquility

Sri Lanka

So been back four days now, my hearing has returned.
Trip was a much needed break, very touristy though. Nice people, friendly, but I don't blame them, they need to make a living, but everywhere you went people were trying to sell you stuff or services.
Every square inch of the place is used, either to grow food, build housing or for manufacturing, outside of the national park, everything is used. When you have 20 million people crammed onto an island that would fit into one little corner of Ontario, who can blame them?
Great part of the trip? Rain and Greenery. It felt so good to get wet and walk around in the rain! A warm rain, not like Guelph this time of year.
Bought some things, including tea, see photo's below.

Sri Lanka Photo's

http://www.facebook.com/media/set/?set=a.548452171848447.142433.100000510085726&type=3

20 pounds

OK...so I'm down 20# now...not good. Not eating enough food and not working out enough....

Sri Lanka

So a short holiday period is about to start. We get from Thursday, maybe Wednesday off through to next Wednesday. So many people are bailing on the country, just to get away.
Originally we planned on heading to Kathmandu, but a 16 hour layover in Dubai killed that idea. We don't have a lot of time, so killing so much at an airport is out of the question. though Dubai may be doable for a long weekend next month.
Nope, heading to Sri lanka for a mini vacation. See something other than a moonscape. Some trees, water, grass and sight seeing sounds like a nice change to work and sand!!

Almost two months!

We get a few days off next week and the week after, so I will be heading to Sri Lanka for a few days of R and R.

Some more thoughts on Kuwait.

So I’ve been here for coming up on two months soon. There are many oddities here compared to Canada, or other western countries, but many good things as well.

There are a few things I am missing about Canada.

1.    Clouds. I have yet to see a single cloud in the sky. Not one. Every day is sunny and hot, though we are down to 36 in the daytime now. Mornings are nice at 24. Apparently we can get down to the 0 mark at night time come winter.

2.    It would be nice to get some rain! The whole place is covered in dust. Every morning foreign labourers are out with buckets and rags washing the dust off of cars. A few nice rain storms would clean the place up substantially.

3.    Traffic here can be ridiculous. Horn honking is an art form here. They honk if they want in, if they think you are too close, if a cute woman walks by, if they just feel like it. In Canada if you here a horn, it means something serious is happening, here it is normal. I hate walking anywhere because all you hear is constant honking.

4.    Traffic continued. No one here knows how to drive, there are no road signs, there is minimal enforcement of any traffic laws. Seeing 3 or 4 cars making a left or right turn into one lane is very, very common, all taking place while the other three directions are doing the same thing! You don’t yield, you force your way in.

5.    Unless you own a car, you need to take taxis everywhere. As soon as they see a white person some of them try to extort more money than they normally would. I know the prices from my routine destinations, so they get nothing extra from me. I have told cabs to pull over and let me out because I refused to pay what they wanted.

6.    Indian and Bangladeshi men make up almost all the labourers here. Indian and Pilipino woman make up the service staff. It’s odd, everyone treats them all like the 19 century British mentality of servants. It can be quite sad.

7.    The Arabs are actually very friendly, once you are a regular at a restruant or in a cab, you had better make sure you talk to the people you know there when you are nearby. If you walk by the cab without stopping and saying hello and the driver sees you, they will be most unhappy.

8.    Things I miss about Canada. SOS pads, they don’t have them, or anything close. Jos Louis’s and Ah Carmel’s, these need no explanation. Butter tarts. I have tea from home, but in a month or so, Red Rose tea. Steak, there is a good steak house at the mall, but I have yet to find it, I need charred cow very soon. Harveys hamburger.

That’s about it for now folks, take care.

Arab Organization Headquarters Building

Cup of Corn

So the Arab people love corn, they'll take a can to work, pop it open and eat it cold right out of the can and then share with everybody. You can buy corn on the cob or like the photo below, corn in a cup. I, like a normal person ordered an ice cream from this vendor, while the eight year old in front of me had a cup of corn like it was a treat! What we got here is a confusion in priorities!

 

 

 

Home made Potato Scones!

My first attempt seemed to go well!
( this post was from last week end! I only get so many free gigabits a month and I apparently used them all up! Hence why its being posted now!)

 

More photos

So there is a main road here that everyone calls the Gulf road, a nice board walk, trees, beaches, restaurants and such, run beside it, Went over there for dinner last night, and walked along the beach for a bit, these are some photo's I took of the Persian Gulf at night time in Kuwait.