Kuwait – day two
I kind of expected nobody would notice when I started blogging again after a two week break so it was great to get so many emails and comments- thank you for the warm welcome back. I sure hope that Khalid’s feedback comes true (he said
“at last they appreciated your years of extraordinary training service to Bapco employees. I'm happy that you are still up to the challenge of losing weight :).Well done for all find work you achieved during last year and I'm sure more to come from you in the coming year when they renew your stay in Bapco for another 5 years :)”.
My friend, if that comes true I will be taking you and your family out for a low fat dinner! ( and here we are - 5 years later in 2021 and I am still here! Looks like I owe you dinner , Khalid!)
Nice also to hear from my namesake, Mr Neil, ( sadly we are down from 3 Neil’s in Awali to 2, another sign of the impact of the falling Oil Prices, and I fear soon Mr Gilbert may be the only one!)
For a man who normally gets bored after 2 lines of an email I was honoured that he wrote
“As ever a good read, although to say that on the blog requires me to sign up etc etc”.
I was also amazed that as a world traveler with 30 years + in Bahrain he has never visited Kuwait and was inspired to do so by my blog!
One of my ex bosses felt moved to email from the Philippines
“GOOD TO HAVE YOUR BLOGS BACK AGAIN. YOU ARE RALLY ARE SO EXPRESSIVE AND CREATIVE, FAB! HOPE WE DO SEE YOU DOWN IN EASTBOURNE BUT THEN HOPE YOU GET THE NEW JOB/EXTENSION.”
- thanks Brian!
As well as my existing readers it was nice to see some new ones in the Blog statistics this morning- 14 from the Ukraine, 11 from Kuwait , 6 from Singapore and 5 from Malaysia ( have you been advertising my blogs down there James??).
Finally over in Germany it looked like Mr Phil Gregory had finally carried out his threat to boost the popularity of my travel blogs by using multiple id’s to like them – 28 views from Germany beats only 21 from Bahrain, 20 from Russia, and was only just behind the 31 from the UK and 66 from USA- where I have no friends- how weird.
So it looks like the Blog is getting even bigger in the former USSR and with a fantastic 77 readers in the last 24 hours we are rapidly heading to 7500 readers, a great start to the new year- thank you all!
But you did not all take the trouble to read the blogs to read my self congratulation – but to find out, like me about Kuwait.
You will be pleased to hear that my tour guide, Mr Dumpa, excelled himself (and even CDSP) with his hand crafted action packed itinerary . Chester will love the fact that the execution of the itinerary ( like his for Doha) was filled with unforeseen problems!
Jeboy reached the hotel dining room ahead of me (and he had a 30 minute taxi ride to get to the IBIS hotel where I was staying from his accommodation!). We shared an excellent buffet breakfast. Now I hear my weight loss sponsors rubbing their hands with glee at that sentence. So to put you straight there was a great Hotel IBIS selection of yogurts, fresh fruits, hard boiled eggs, French bread, coffee, tea, juices, as well as a selection of hot dishes.
Moreover, my apologies go to Mr G. for not adding the currency translation yesterday. So the currency here is the Kuwaiti Dinar (KD) with an exchange rate of 1 KD to $3, so for my friends in Bahrain 10 bd will get you 8 KD, and through the miracle of http://themoneyconverter.com/ our 4 KD breakfast cost £9 or 5 BD. A bit more expensive than the Souq in Bahrain (1 bd) and a lot less than the Sofitel (15 bd!)
Jeboy relaxed with a coffee while I rushed upstairs to get showered, dosed up with flu tablets , and wrapped up against the cold ( 11 degrees in Kuwait compared to 16 in Bahrain, and when you are used to 50 degrees in the summer that’s really cold) . We headed out by taxi to our first destination , Green Island Park at 8.30 am , an hour behind schedule ( my fault, sorry Jeboy!).
We walked down the path to the island , where we met a bunch of Arabic twentysomethings heading the same way and were met at the end by an unsmiling security guard who in his best customer friendly English told us the island was “closed” . When we pushed him for more information he told us it opened at “10 am”. Wrapped up as I was for the cold ( winter hiking socks, my new skinny jeans, blue Omani Dhow tee shirt, blue long sleeve shirt, my new red jersey and my Bapco winter jacket!) we were not prepared to stand around waiting for 90 mins! So we decided to walk along the coastal path ( it would be too posh to call it a Corniche after my visit to Doha) to the famous Kuwait towers. However , due to the magic of the internet let me tell you what we missed by someone not checking out what time it opened when they planned the itinerary!:
“The Green Island is located along the coastline, extending from Al-Shiwaikh to Ras Alard, spanning an area of 785,000 square meters. It is surrounded by natural rocks brought from Al-Fujairah Emirates. In fact, even the sands at the beaches of the Green Island is said to have been imported from other countries. Established on 22nd February 1988, and owned by T.E.C, the island includes about 50,000 coloured shrubs and seedlings planted here, and with all the colours and greeneries, it doesn’t render the feel of being in a desert country.
On the eastern side of the island, is a swimming pool with a depth of 2.5meters to 3meters. Green Island offers a range of entertainment options including an amphitheatre with seating capacity for at least 700 people. The island also includes a 35mts tall tourist tower, with an overhead water tank. On standing atop the tower, visitors can catch a glimpse of the whole island. The tower includes a Kid’s Castle, with several rooms, corridors, channels, spiral stairway and waterfalls.
There is a restaurant on either side of the island, and a well-equipped service center. There is plenty of space and options to play games with family, including Soap-Football, inflatable bouncing castles, playground for kids, options to train ride, bicycle rent, a good walking path, and above all opportunity for an outdoor picnic meal.”
Edi wow!
So whilst research may not be a Pinoy strength spending money wisely, taking photos, singing and dancing are! I left haggling with taxi drivers over the fare to Jeboy who has much better Arabic than me and in spite of some very rude drivers, and some blatant attempts at overcharging the rich looking Westerner he got every driver down to affordable prices ( 1.5 KD, 1.85 BD, £3.37, $4.93, and for my newest readers that’s a massive 114 Ukraine Hryvinia!).
I would give him 5 KR at the start of each journey to allow for a tip and he would always return the 3.5 KR , announcing that they did not deserve a tip ( unlike Tom in Manilla who negotiated hard and pocketed the change!) .
On the 5km walk along the seafront to the Kuwait Towers at the end of the bay Jeyboy managed to take an incredible 60 pictures , and sang and danced his way along happily . He later showed me the excellent videos from the Alshya Christmas party where his dance troupe did 3 fantastic routines ( a cross between Fame, Dirty Dancing and Glee!) and deservedly won several prizes.
He is also currently attending Zumba classes and on his way to qualifying as a Zumba teacher- what a talented guy. It was so great to catch up on all his news. I was so impressed to see how he had blossomed from the shy line cook I met two years ago when he visited Bahrain to the confident outgoing multitalented Host he is today. As a thank you for his hard work planning the itinerary and haggling with taxi drivers, saving me a fortune , one of our last stops of the day was at The Avenues Mall where we got him a new outfit for his Zumba classes as a late Christmas Present.
when he visited Bahrain in 2013
I had the hard task of picking out the 5 best photos for the blog and a couple of Jeboy then and now! It really was a very enjoyable walk ( Abid you were right about me loving the cold if I was wrapped up warm!) . As usual I ended up thinking why doesn’t Bahrain have more walks like this. There were loads of people out enjoying the sun along the way, fishing, walking, cycling, jogging and so on. Even the feral cats had found some lovely spots to sunbathe! When we finally reached the Kuwait Towers they were a hive of Maintenance activity with new pedestrian gates being fitted. When we tried to get in via the vehicular access and Jeboy inquired how should we get in he was ignored until one of the departing contractors explained the Towers were closed for Maintenance.
Thinking this was a temporary activity he asked when they would reopen . By then it was 10.30 am and maybe he figured we could eat lunch and then go back in an hour to get the Fantastic view from the revolving observatory 400 meters off the ground. The guy told us to come back in about a month, inshallah! So it seems that Bahrain does not have the monopoly on closing tourist sites for “refurbishment” . I was starting to figure why Kuwait is not really a tourist destination!
We decided to head back to town and got a taxi (guess what, 1.5 KR!) to Marina Mall where we strolled in the sun by the beautiful and very expensive boats in the Marina. There were lots of restaurants in the sun and they were all packed with Ladies who lunch. Of the 1 million Kuwaitis (of the total 3 million population) 65% work and of those 35 % work for the Government. The rest go out to lunch! We decide to walk to another restaurant called BICE ( where I have had excellent meals in Bahrain and Dubai) in a beautiful location overlooking the Arabian Gulf.
By the time we got there it was 12 noon and having been up since 2 am and having had breakfast at 8 am and walked some 6 km in the cold sun we were really hungry. As we approached the restaurant several chauffeur drive Limos rolled up and the beautiful people of Kuwait walked to the restaurant . I knew we had made a good, but expensive, choice for lunch.
However the day was against us and as we turned the corner to the restaurant entrance and the outside terrace we were greeted by a lot of men in overalls with drills, saws and general dust and noise. Eventually a waiter appeared and with the excellent customer service skills we were by now getting used to in Kuwait told us that the restaurant was “ closed”.
We saw a smaller café below with people sitting outside in the sun and went down there and at last we were served by a Filipino who actually smiled and gave us a warm welcome. However, nothing on the breakfast menu inspired us so we walked to the backboard to choose one of the specials from the lunch menu.
Another waiter then told us that the Lunch menu was not available until 2 pm, and we could only eat from the breakfast menu until then.
Jeboy tried to reason with him, but he was having none of it. How do they train these people to lose so much business? Several hungry high end diners wanting a nice relaxing lunch in the sun and they just refuse to serve them.
As we walked down the path to find someone who actually wanted our business we discussed the fact that the Kuwaitis are on a different timescale to the rest of the world. If breakfast is served from 12 – 2, and lunch from 2- 5 then dinner must be 10 pm to 2 am – and that’s why no one works- they simply don’t have time.
According to Wikipedia :
“Kuwait is a small, relatively open economy. The Kuwaiti currency is the highest-valued currency unit in the world. Kuwait has nearly 10% of the world's oil reserves. Petroleum accounts for nearly half of GDP and 95% of export revenues and government income. In recent years, Kuwait has done little to diversify its economy due to positive fiscal situation and hostile relationship between the parliament and government, which has prevented the implementation of economic reforms”
The falling oil prices ( even back in 2016!) meant major changes in other GCC economies that were heavily reliant on Oil and Gas. For example in Bahrain, with the economic vision of the wise Leadership, they aimed to reduce the reliance on Oil and Gas from 85% to 45 % of revenue by 2030 with the boosting of the Financial and Tourism sectors .
They have also reduced the subsidies on meat, electricity, water and even fuel.
Kuwait, it appears, has not changed since I left in 1999! Even KSA is tightening its belt ( in spite of Millions of $ of oil reserves) and there have been major changes in Dubai and the UAE, Oman and all the other Gulf states I have visited in the last 6 years.
So where did we finally eat? Pizza Hut. It was packed with young people and smart businessmen in Western Dress, The food was fantastic, the service was stunning ( all Filipino staff) , The price was probably one tenth of what I would have paid in BICE- lesson learned!
When we left to go into the shopping centre behind Pizza Hutt we realised we were at the Al Bustan centre, home of Bertolucci’s so we went and got our home made Italian wooden key rings.
If your name started with an I, a J or an R and you worked at BAPCO, I had your Pasalubong. They also had a beautiful frog fridge magnet for me which I still have in 2020
By now it was 3 pm and we were exhausted so we walked back to the hotel for afternoon tea and downloaded all the photos, read the papers and took in the sunset views of the Arabian Gulf from La Terrazzo, the Hotel Ibis outdoor Shisha café, with stunning views of the Gulf.
After a quick change for me we did some more shopping in the Souq ( cheap tat, not a patch on Doha ) and the very popular Avenues Mall, then headed out by Taxi along the Gulf Road to Arabella.
Back then it was actually hard to find much information about Arabella. It was a newish outdoor restaurant complex, European style, by the sea in a great location and was very popular with a great range of (Alshaya) brands like Shake Shack, Cheesecake Factory(where Jeboy works , but he is at the Avenues , their largest 500 seat unit) and many others.
When we got out of our taxi there was a huge queue of luxury cars for valet parking (with a whole army of smartly uniformed traffic, security and valet parking staff directing them) . From what I did read on the web it appears that Bahrain is not alone in building massive out of town locations without sufficient access roads or parking ( Seef Mall Muhurraq being a prime example). I was glad we arrived in the 1.5 BD Taxi and did not have to hunt down a parking space.
Jeboy showed me around and was very knowledgeable about all the Alshya Brands and what they offered and eventually we settled for the Cheesecake factory.
When I went to the one in Dubai I took it for what the name implied and just had Cheesecake ! However in Kuwait we had a fabulous healthy meal, served by an excellent young Indian Server.
As many of the staff there trained at Jeyboy’s restaurant word soon spread that he was in the restaurant and everyone came over to say “Hello”. As an ex Hospitality professional it was great to hear about the staffing of such a big operation ( 300 seats at Arabella) and how all the food is cooked freshly each day.
Jeboy explained how the host team allocate the arriving customers to the servers fairly and taking account of the regular customers requests for favourite tables etc. I was really dehydrated when we arrived and had my next batch of flu tablets to take so we had a big bottle of San Pellingro ( I know how to live eh, thanks to Nathan for reminding me Kuwait is dry the day before I set off!) and I was delighted they had a special healthy menu . We had Edamame ( soya beans in the pod cooked in soy and sesame seed and very delicious) as a starter.
My Dietician Claire suggested these as a source of Soya to reduce my Cholesterol alongside soya spread, soya yogurt and soya milk which I switched over to some months back .However even Patrick ( who can usually find anything at the lowest price in Bahrain) has been unable to find them! For those of you who want something new and healthy to snack on let me share with you my research in Wikipedia:
“Edamame (枝豆?)/ˌɛdəˈmɑːmeɪ/,(Japanese) or edamame bean is a preparation of immature soybeans in the pod, found in the cuisine of China, Japan, Korea and Hawaii. The pods are boiled or steamed and served with salt. In Japan, it is usually blanched in 4% salt water and not served with salt. Outside East Asia, the dish is most often found in Japanese restaurants, some Chinese restaurants, and health food restaurants. In the United States it is sold packaged in frozen sections of grocery stores, in cans, or fresh in the produce sections of health food stores.”
Then for main course I had a beautiful tender grilled chicken and tomato dish which was cooked to perfection with really juicy chicken breasts. Our server was very attentive throughout topping up the water, taking away the edamame and checking everything was cooked to our satisfaction . He also gave us all the Cheesecake scripted sales lines, but he made them his own.
Having had the Cheesecake in Dubai and being on Khalid’s challenge I had said to Jeboy I would not have the famous Cheesecake, and Jeboy agreed that he too was full. However, our server was just too well trained, had such a cute smile and described the toasted marshmallow cheesecake so well that I could not resist.
It was sooo good but Jeboy was good to his word and would not try any and I was defeated half way through! As by now I was low on Kuwaiti Dinars after all the taxis, Pasalubong and paying for meals that I decided to use my credit card to pay , even though that meant we could not use Jeyboy’s 30% discount . He explained that the names on both the Alshaya discount card and the credit card have to match to stop their staff lending the card to friends . The server was delighted with the tip ( I always reward good service and his was excellent) and he used my name from the card to thank us when we left, nice touch.
As we wandered back to the road to get a taxi back to the hotel I heard this voice calling “Mr Neil” and thinking no one could possibly knew me in Kuwait after a 16 year absence we continued walking . The voice followed us and we turned to see our server who had run half a kilometer after us when he had found Jeyboy’s black scarf on the seat after we left. Now that is what I call going the extra mile, literally!
If you want to find out more about The Cheesecake factory the on line article I used for my background information to update this blog was:
Fascinating facts about The Cheesecake Factory
Back at the hotel we took up our usual spot in the lounge for hot chocolate, to review the day, go through the photos and plan day two! Eventually Jeyboy headed home (with all my flu filled hanky’s to wash and iron along with is uniform ready for his return to work on Sunday) . I dosed up on flu tablets and cough medicine, caught up with my online friends and managed to sleep for 3 hours before writing this blog as I watched the sun rise from my 6th story window . The view isn’t quite the same as the 37th Floor of the Ezdan in Doha or even the 7th Floor of the Sandy Springs in Pattaya but it’s always good to see the sun rise, which, with my insomnia, has become part of my daily routine in the Middle East.
Due to the late opening hours in Kuwait we amended the itinerary for day 2 to start at 830 am which left me an hour to bath and have breakfast after I uploaded this Blog. We had another action-packed day planned so don’t forget to check back next week to see what we got up to.
This was Blogger Neil, from Bahrain, excited to be back in Kuwait after 16 years, signing out xx
 |  |
Hello, I am The British Kabayan! Feel free to read my stories.
WOW, never expected my photo to be on top of your first blog post after such a long time :) thanks Neil. Keep it up.
ReplyDelete