Mayadeen Shooting Range

Mayadeen Shooting Range is one of the two public shooting ranges in Kuwait. I went a long to give it a whirl a few weeks a go with a very petite friend of mine who had already visited twice in two weeks; she had become some what of an addict . 

  On arrival there is a  small selection of both rifles and pistols to choose from. The largest rifle available is an AK-47, which is a rifle that was used by the Soviet Armed Forces, how cool! Naturally my very petite friend had already requested to shoot the AK47 and not surprisingly had been declined the opportunity....probably had something to do with the recoil; we opted for a slightly/much smaller rifle.
The range is in a stable type building and you get to shoot live ammunition at targets, I enjoyed the experience a lot! I am not sure why it feels so good to shoot a gun but I'm guessing it has something to do with the adrenaline, for me it was the same sort of feeling as winning a race! I thought I would be terrible however turns out I was pretty good! I will definitely be returning and next time I would like to shoot a pistol too, I have never shot a pistol before! Next time all shots will all be in the 10!

Proud to be Kuwaiti P2BK 2013

Last weekend I visited the local annual event "proud to be Kuwaiti". The event is held at the Kuwait International Fair Ground which consists of 8 halls and an outside space where different exhibitions are held- not really of the art variety, just food, books, industries etc. Normally this event is held in one of the halls, however due to it's popularity this year they decided to hold the event in the outside space and a souk was built especially. It was a pretty cool place to wander round, there were lots stalls full of Kuwaiti business', fashion boutiques, some displays of local crafts and a big stage with live performers. The things I enjoyed most were the huge sand sculptures and the art, there was a lot of cool graffiti, I found a book called "The Illustrated History of Kuwait"", the illustration reminds me of tin tin :-)! I would love to see a sand sculpture being made, I think they mix the sand with glass or something! Definitely worth the trip! I will be looking out for future exhibitions, I think they are hosting one with wedding dresses soon which could prove interesting to say the least, judging from the shops I have stumbled across! ha! A few pictures to follow....although I did not manage to get many......too many people :-(!

The Avenues Mall/Nightclub/Match.Mall

The Avenues Mall is the biggest mall in Kuwait and is pretty much the "place to be" for the locals, especially the younger generation. As most of you will probably know people pretty much do all their socialising in malls here as in the Summer it is too hot to be outside (so I hear) so the malls are full of places to eat and entertainment- similar to Dubai but not quite as grand yet- no ski slopes.
Thursday evening I went along to Avenues and enjoyed dinner in Benihana, a chain of teppan-yaki (teppan meaning- steel grill, Yaki meaning "broiled"- cooked on a steel grill) Japanese restaurants, the chain started in New York I think. It was my first time and it was yummy, our chef was rather amusing, the highlight of his performance was probably him making the shrimp dance Gang Nam Style. I'm not sure if all venues are the same but the decor basically had you sat in forest, I MISS NATURE, coming from London it seems bizarre to be saying this but living in Kuwait makes you appreciate how green Europe is with all it's parks, heaths, and rivers that are present even in the big cities, maybe I am a bit of a country bumpkin after all, HA!
 Post meal we had a little wander, avenues by night is a very different place, there were so many people just walking around, nobody was carrying shopping bags and the girls were all glammed up, I went in to the bathroom and it was like stepping in to the ladies in a nightclub, there were just rows of girls applying tons of make up! The young Arabic girls here like to wear a lot of make up, they must literally spend hours! I felt quite out of place with my bare face and casual harem pants! The men in the Mall were also quite keen to try their luck, I had one young guy come up to me and just state, " I want to F**K you", I think perhaps his English was limited but who knows.... ....maybe he has had luck with this line in the past! I conclusion I think avenues could roll with a new slogan....something a long the lines of "50% of relationships in Kuwait now start in Avenues Mall" ha ha.

Advert least likely to be shown in the UK

So I was sat watching some awful rom-com on one of the 5 or 6 english channels I have last night, kind of forgot I was in Kuwait for a minute or two....then came the advert break, the usual beauty products etc etc, followed by an add about domestic violence?!!(not sure if they have a domestic violence problem here, I feel some research coming on).... followed by an advert for an ABAYA SHAMPOO, with the slogan "keep your abaya black"...not sure why I found this so amusing, but I did, so I thought I'd share! Persil even stock an abaya shampoo, called "persil black".

Insha'Allah-God Willing, the reason for the lack of punctuality in the middle east!

Now I'm sure I am not the first one to write about this but I am going to go ahead and make the correlation between the term "insha'allah" and the distinct lack of punctuality here in the middle east- particularly Kuwait! The term insha'allah is used when speaking about events/meetings planned to occur in the future; it is written in the Qur'an that a Muslim should never make plans for the future without following with "insha'allah"- god willing(the same concept is also in the bible somewhere). Muslims believe that everything is already written "maktub" and therefore we should not say "we will do bla bla bla", as we do not know what god has planned for us, technically we could be lying. This belief may, in part, explain the ridiculously laid back attitude here when it comes to getting anything done, in my 2 months in Kuwait 80% of my scheduled appointments/meetings etc have been at least half and hour late, to get anything done, especially when it involves administration, generally takes at least twice as long as the time frame given, and nothing gets done unless you take responsibility of making sure it does! It is something you have to learn adapt to quickly, especially in the work place where it is likely to test you most!
  It is kind of a nice concept though really, don't stress, what will be will be!

Ajmal Arabian Stud Farm- Arabian Horse Farm

Today I visited Ajmal Arabian Stud Farm, owned by Mr. Mohammad Al Marzouk. With little interest in horses and having not researched the farm at all my expectations of today were low; I was more than pleasantly surprised. Mr. Mohammad Al Marzouk states that his" purpose is to make Ajmal Arabian Stud a sanctuary, a place of serenity dedicated to the perpetuation of beauty and excellence." When I arrived it felt so peaceful, it was the first time in weeks I have not been able to hear traffic! The farm was beautiful both inside (inside looked like a home catalogue and was full of hand crafted goods, It was like Arab decor done with taste, I wanted to own everything, there was a map on the ceiling, sigh!) and out and the animals and land were all extremely well kept and everything was CLEAN- Kuwait itself is filthy so this was refreshing!
 We sat in a viewing area and the horses paraded in front of us. Each with their own little performance! The horses are a little smaller than the normal jumping horses we are used to seeing in the UK and they were much, much more graceful! Each horse was so full of character, at points I was laughing out loud at their behaviour, they were all so very proud. They were just so god damn pretty :-), I could have watched them for hours!

Arabian horses are bred for both their appearance and character, as the Arabian horse was once a companion to the Bedouin people they were bred for there good temperament- they could not be spending all their time with bad tempered little rogues! The Characteristics they say they look for are - a great heart, a prideful spirit, abundant charisma, cute ears, expressive eyes, a very well arched neck and flying movement- they say Arabian horses should "fly without wings"........uh oh westlife you've been busted!haha!
  The farm also put on a very impressive lunch spread for us, I felt like I was at a banquet! I had lobster, salads, good cheese-something I'm missing- there was a mini chocolate fountain and I got to try a whole array of Arabian deserts :-)! All in all an amazing day, for all the senses!

skyfall 414 base jump- Chris McDougall sets the record for bas jumping in Kuwait!

Happy international Women's day; as a gift to the women of Kuwait Zain, Gulf Bank, Domino's Pizza, Go Sports ,Torino Lamborghini and Camco Global Events are throwing men off buildings! Amazing! Chris McDougall today set the record for base jumping in Kuwait by performing Kuwait's first ever base jump! He jumped from the tallest building in Kuwait Al-Hamra Tower, it is 414 metres high, a total of 80 floors! I stood in the audience and watched him jump twice from this tower! It was so exhilarating! Some how during the second jump I managed to stand with the photographers, the security guys were really nice, and sort of ushered me forward (maybe it was my professional looking camera :-)), when he landed everyone swarmed around him, I felt like I was photographing David Beckham or something, it was weird, it must be so annoying to be famous! Post papping I also got to have my photo taken with Chris (feels slightly odd referring to him by his first name, but hey..), he was really chatty, he said he was more comfortable up at the top of the building than down in front of the press but really I think he was a bit of a natural, very charismatic!
Definitely my best day in Kuwait so far! AMAZING! I would kill to have his Job.....I think, nobody has given me the opportunity to jump off a building with a parachute before, maybe i'd have second thoughts about risking my life over 4000 times, i'm not sure! Pictures to follow.....

Prayer call- Quality control?!!

So after bolding stating that I actually enjoy the prayer call I have discovered that the skills of each Muezzin (the dude that calls prayer) are vastly varied.The words of the call to prayer normally stay roughly the same however the rhythm and melody change according to the Muezzins personal style; apparently each Muezzin is selected solely on his ability to recite the Adhan (call to prayer), but I think maybe they are short of people that can sing in kuwait haha.Whilst most prayer calls are indeed beautiful I have been in the city a number of times now and I have borne witness to the most horrific sounding prayer call, when the call stopped it gave me the same feeling of relief I experience when I have been listening to a nieghbours car alarm for 20 minutes and it finally stops! Yikes! I think prior to moving in to any property in Kuwait I will make sure I hang around for a little listen of the local prayer call!

Park Life- Human Nature?!

So over my five day national day holidays I hunted down salmiya park- with the distinct lack of pavements and no I phone, this was harder than it sounds, this was actually my third attempt! When I found the park, i'm not going to lie, I was a little dissappointed, it was a reasonable size for a park in kuwait but it was not big enough to absorb the constant whir of the traffic and it was a little arid with only a small variety of plants, not quite the sanctuary I was looking for!
 Despite my intial dissappointment, soon enough I was fully engaged in people watching, it was like being in any park in london-with lots of women in abaya's and a few shisha pipes thrown in to the mix- there were men playing cricket and football, children skating and just generally making too much noise, women "power walking", people running  (I think I would get dizzy running round and round this park; it must take perhaps 3 minutes to run round the perimeter), people having BBQ's, it was great! It seems park culture is some sort of universal human behaviour!

Happy National Day :-)

This week Kuwait celebrated National Day on 25th of Feb. National day marks independence from Britain back in 1961, it is the date that Sheikh Abdullah Al Salem Al Sabah was crowned ruler of Kuwait, he is said to be their most loved Sheikh as he paved the way to independence and set up the constitution. National day is followed by liberation day- 26th of Feb, which marks liberation from the 7 months of traumatic Iraqi occupation, liberation was enforced by multiple nations,led by America on the 26th of Feb 1991.

There were celebrations going on throughout the city such as kite flying and there were attempts to break 4 world records;
1- Most People singing National Anthem of Kuwait Simultaneously. (70,000+)
2- Largest Human Flag, Flag of Kuwait (32,000)
3- Largest Human Picture, Picture of Amir Kuwait (6,000)
4- Largest Human Mosaic, Shuhada Al Kuwait (5,000)

Unfortunately the events were not particularly well advertised and I only found out about them after they had occurred :-(!

Despite all this the main form of celebration I found most bizarre, the locals cram into their cars- which are all decorated with flags and pictures of Kuwaiti Rulers and then basically sit in a traffic jam on the gulf road for hours on end?!!!! They also squirt water pistols and foam at other cars and people passing by-people used to squirt foam in the colours of the Kuwaiti flag but it was banned two years ago as it was causing damage and health problems :-0-many people wear the flag colours or masks etc, it is all good fun but I cannot imagine why anyone would WANT to sit in a traffic Jam! I guess people really do not like to walk here so in a way it shows local tradition/culture haha! Either way it does bring everyone together and as the 25th and 26th fell on a Monday & Tuesday this year so I was given the Sunday off and so had a total of 5 days holiday- PLEASING!