Kuwait towersKuwait towers is one of the landmarks of this country.
One week in Kuwait
So, it is one week and one day gone since the day I arrived here. Yesterday I had almost a day off. I went to working place at morning to check something I promised to check twice a day. I wanted to rent a car but it became clear that I am not allowed to drive a car here before I get local driver's license because I am here with work visa. If I was just visiting I could drive with my EU and international license. Then I came back to hotel to write some emails and to arrange Vera's visa issues. I took taxi to both ways. To airport it cost 3 KD and from airport 5 KD. I didn't want to fight and I have him this after some time of arguing. The price here is always negotiable in some limits. Because Thursday and Friday are the days of weekend and Sunday and Monday are public holidays (National day and Liberation day) there is a five day long holiday for most people here. Most have got Saturday off as well. I have been working though and I will also work on these public holidays,
today I was working and tomorrow we'll work as well. There are many things to learn and to do before my predecessor leaves Kuwait.
National day (25th) and Liberation day (26th) are very important days for Kuwaitis. The trauma of 1990 Iraqi invasion is not forgotten and these days have a big meaning here. Yesterday I already saw many cars decorated with Kuwait flag, they were cruising along Gulf Road on the coast and honking horns. Young guys and children were spraying cars and other people with serpentine. Most cars were already covered by it. Especially young men were really crazy driving around and shouting something from cars. And music was loud as well. If I would not know alcohol is strictly forbidden here and police was everywhere I would have told they were all drunk. I suppose the serious meaning of liberation is here now somehow mixed with carnaval.
Yesterday evening I spent being a tourist. I took a taxi to Kuwait Towers and made some photos there. I also visited up in the tower (admission 1 KD). The view from there was rather nice. After that I had a walk along the pedestrian avenue by the
shore. I had a dinner in restaurant called Ruby Tuesday near the towers. This is in fact a restaurant chain. Maybe world wide, I don't know. I heard at least in Jeddah, Saudi-Arabia they have same restaurant. The food was decent (fillet in teryaki sauce and shrimps, creamy mushroom soup as a starter). It cost all together 8 KD which is not so cheap. Staff was very friendly though. They told that because the evening was so quiet the service was better than those evenings when the restaurant is packed with people. One of the waiters, Dominic who is an indian guy from Bombay fell in love with my camera and couldn't resist playing with it a bit. I made a photo of him and other waiter, Jennifer from Philippines. After a heavy dinner I walked to the Souq Shark and wanted to catch a taxi somewhere. This was harder than I expected. I walked around being a bit lost what to do and finally I had to walk many kilometers to the business center of the city to stop a cruising taxi. This is not very pleasant in motorway like environment with narrow way to walk along the road,
air gray with exhaust gases and no way to safely cross roads. Here the people were also crazy honking horns and screaming out of their cars waving Kuwait flags. Luckily at some point there were congested traffic and I was able to wriggle between the cars to the other side of road. I think only crazy finns walk there. This city is for driving a car, period. Jordanian driver took me back to hotel. I gave him 4 KD even 3 would have been enough this time, at least he was very happy for that price. I guess I was also just so reliefed that I didn't mind giving him 1 KD extra.
Today I had a nice day. After working Tunc, my predecessor asked if I want to join when he meets couple of his friends. I thought this would be nice. We went to the City and stopped in a restaurant of Turkish style where you can eat Turkish food, smoke sheisha (water pipe), drink tea and meet friends. We sat outside in pleasant +25 C temperature and I met two of Tunc's friends Cem and Semih from Turkey. I had some food wich was excellent, from
Turkey of course. We were laughing that while we sat around the table it was not difficult to guess who was the hard working Nordic person and who were the Turks. These guys were smoking their pipes being relaxed looking and I had a laptop in front of me on the table. This was of course for showing photos from Finland.
From the restaurant we drove to a district called Salmiya where Tunc's friends live. We had coffee at Semih's place and later we walked to the Salmiya mall district to see the celebrations of the National Day. Salmiya is like the modern, tolerant, fashionable, chic, money smelling shopping and entertainment centre of Kuwait city. Over there you can see local and other women in short skirts, some local girls dyed their hair blonde walking in jeans and t-shirts, some provocative outfits, men looking like coming from Copacabana beach with their shorts and basketball shirts, some women looking like they were just shopping in Milan or Paris. Also the local dressing seemed to have many new forms there. There were many sorts of veils with women, purple and pink abayas and many imaginary combinations. Youngsters also gather there and
you see all sorts of international youth fashion around. There are lots of coffee houses which are the substitutes for European bars for example. Over there friends meet each others and drink many sorts of coffee drinks and have a chat. At this time of the year it is very nice to sit on the roadside Paris style Cafe's and watch people. It was pleasantly warm evening. In summer this walk around the area is rather tough I can imagine. Now it was nice Mediterranean warm evening. And yes, lots of cars were cruising around and youngsters were spraying passers by with some pressurized foam containers. Noise was terrible, honking horns and young guys hanging out of their car windows and waving Kuwait flags screaming like crazy. We walked to Marina Mall which is perhaps THE mall in Kuwait. I think it is as big as the International Airport in Paris and over there people hang out, spend time and money. There is also a pleasant seaside where we sat a bit and talked while drinking some juice.
On the walk back we visited in an impressive hotel in Salmiya which was decorated inside like an old Arabic wooden building and included an interesting small mall inside it. And youngsters were still cruising around honking horns, spraying people and behaving mad. I had really nice chats with these new acquaintances Semih and Cem and I wish I will meet them again. I learned from Cem that in fact Kuwait city and its people are pretty tolerant. What you do in your own home, how you decide to dress on your free time is not a business of anyone else. Kuwaitis are very home oriented and their home is their castle. Many outsiders don't have an access to their family life and hospitality is mainly then when they meet people out of their homes. As long as you don't spoil the life of for example conservative Kuwaitis with your actions, like asking them to come over and drink beer with you, it doesn't matter if you personally like to drink beer at your home, your home is also your castle. Same goes with fashion, your way is your way and don't judge others. Forget about strict islamistic country where your neck is cutted if you wear too revealing t-shirt. It might irritate someone, but it's his / her own business. But be reasonable. Kuwaitis are a small group of people and been opressed many times. Therefore they don't like if they are forced to anything, like to wear western clothes or learn new ways of thinking. If this process comes from their own will, let it be so, but we are nothing to say what they should eat, drink, wear, drive, who they should be friends with etc. Somehow this applies to dear Finland also. We are stubborn and don't want changes that the others are trying to make us to do. But if it's our own idea, it's always a good idea. Society is seemingly changing here though. When I learn how things are now I can perhaps make some observations how this country changes during these future two years - if any changes can be observed.
Kuwaiti Press I read the daily newspaper Arab Times they deliver in the rooms here in the hotel. World news are about the same as in anywhere, including Finland. Usually on the front page there is a headline "Car bomb kills 43 in Baghdad". But what makes a small difference is the way how different news are written. They usually write very detailed explanation for example how some accident happened and what happened to the victims and who collected their bodyparts. And some local subjects are kind of different than in Finnish press. Here they for example write that "44 year old indian housemaid hanged herself with a robe hanging from a balcony and the sponsor found her hanging there and called police. Reason was that the sponsor had bought her one way ticket to India". Or "Indian shepard died in the desert by stepping on a landmine". There are lots of articles about either housemaid murdering the sponsor or vice versa. Many rapes as well. They are also telling that police busted an Asian couple having intimate moments in a car. Quatari man's car was stolen from the front of a police station and young kuwaiti men were busted in the desert by being drunk and shooting around with rifles. Also some teenager couple was busted by the girl's uncle who found them having sex while the boy's cousin and the best friend were busted too and taken to interrigation with police. Today the newspaper wrote that some pigeon cages were stolen from someone's house. The other day the paper wrote about four Sri Lankas executed in Saudi. It was a detailed story how they were decapitated in public square and their bodies were put to hang in wooden crosses as a warning for others. These poor men had commited an armed robbery where nobody had injured and they had been in prison for some years without a trial. Paper told that there are doubts that some of the men didn't know they were sentenced to death, they found it out just before they were executed. The photos of victims of crimes and who are covered with blood are also very detailed. The other day there was a photo where a police man in Iraq was using some tool to dig out the remains of a suicide bomber from a destroyed car in Baghdad. There were a head and legs and arms not connected to each others and litres of blood. Today they wrote about two Russian female tourists shot dead to their deckchairs in Pattaya, Thailand. They had arrived just three days before and were enjoying on a beach when a Thai motorist came and shot them. Victims were 25 and 30 year old. Motive is unknown. In the article they have a photo of these women still sitting on their chairs. Another has her mouth opened and both have eyes closed. They are like sleeping in their chairs while the police is taking a closer look at the wounds. They also tell that Pattaya is well known for its thriving nightlife. Photos of dead people here are nothing unusual. I really wish the relatives of these Russian tourists will never see photos of their doughters or wifes sitting on their chairs shot dead in blood while a Thai police is inspecting them. Well, here they don't publish photos of nude people and they do publish photos of dead ones. In Finland it's the other way round. What is more natural, decide yourself.
Kuwait's Flag
Map of Kuwait