Category: Travel

The Jordanian airport is pretty tiny and very old but somehow they have the same e-gate system Dubai have. They also have Corona in their duty free which gives them a 1-0 over Bahrain. The weather here is pretty cold, I didn’t check the weather from Kuwait because I figured it would be pretty much the same, thats not the case and I am regretting not bringing a jacket with me. I am staying at the Four Seasons which so far is one pretty nice hotel and I’ve got an amazing relaxing view. I have unlimited Internet for the next days I’m here so I will continue to post while I’m here. So far I like this place.

I’m going to be leaving to Jordan in a couple of hours on a work related trip and I will be back Saturday night. Its my first time in Jordan not counting the cross country drive I had to take during the 1990 invasion. Not sure what to expect of the place, hows the night life?

I am at the Dubai Airport waiting for my Emirates flight back to Kuwait. The drive from Fujaihrah was exhausting even though it was only an hour and a half drive. There is free WiFI at the Dubai Airport so I am just killing time now surfing the web although the Internet Connection is kinda slow.

Talk about cheap, Jazeera Airways has an offer where you can buy tickets from Kuwait to either Beirut, Dubai or Bahrain for just KD1. Even when you add the taxes thats still really cheap. [Link]

Update: For the non believers, here is proof you can find tickets for KD1

I first heard about this from Marzouqs blog and today a friend of mine sent me this video from YouTube. The e-gate smart card basically allows you to go through the immigration process at the Dubai airport A LOT quicker. Once I watched the YouTube video on how practical the e-Gate card can be I was instantly convinced to get one. I travel to Dubai on average 5 times a year and this could save me a lot of time. It supposedly take 10 minutes and costs KD15 to get card which makes it even more enticing.

Here is the video showing the e-Gate (skip to 2 minutes). [YouTube]
Here is some more info on the e-Gate [Link 1] [Link 2]

Picture from Airport International

Mark wouldn’t give us access yesterday cause my picture was so much better than his.

Thats from Antalya – Turkey

We decided to pass by the London Zoo today since its in Camden Town close to where we wanted to do some shopping. The zoo is larger than the Kuwait Zoo (duh) but much smaller than the San Diego Zoo. They have an incredible gorilla exhibit surprisingly with around 3 gorillas. The zoo looks like it was built in a forest, the whole area around the zoo is a huge green park with hills and trees and the inside of the zoo is the same. The zoo is actually split in two with a canal passing through, you need to cross a bridge to get to the other side, very cool. There are a couple of more pictures if you click on continue.

Well for some reason today my credit card just stopped working. It didn’t get canceled or anything of the sort, machines just don’t read the card anymore. I think the chip on my credit card got damaged somehow. Now I have to walk around with cash, sucks!

We left Paris today and got back to London but not without going on one hell of a ride.

We got to the Eurostar train station in Paris around 5PM which was around an hour before our train was set to leave. When we got to the automatic check in the machine rejected our tickets. I couldn’t understand why until an employee there arrived to help us and explained to us the problem. Our train had left over an hour earlier!

I am not one to make a lot of mistakes, I am usually the extremely reliable guy who plays it really safe and always tries to arrive earlier than the recommended time. Somehow, for some fucked up reason, I read our London arrival time as our Paris departure time. I can’t understand how that happened, looking at my non refundable non exchangeable ticket now I can’t imagine how I mixed up the departure and arrival times. Its right up on my list of dumbest things I have done in my life. We had missed our train out of Paris and that was just the beginning of our adventure.

There was another train leaving to London in around 2 hours so we headed to the really long cue queue to buy tickets and waited. While in line I tried calling NBK on 801801 to try and move money onto my credit card. I didn’t know how much I had left on the card and I didn’t know how much the tickets would cost so I figured I would play it safe and move some more money onto my visa. I spent 15 minutes trying to call Kuwait without any luck when suddenly I got through and got a hold of the NBK operator and explained to her that I wanted to move money onto my card. After 10 minutes of trying the NBK operator told me there was a problem with the NBK automated system and I should call back in 15 minutes.

We got up to the ticket counter and we asked for 2 one way tickets out of Paris. The employee told us we could get on the next train, price was 236 Euros per person which amounted to a total of 472 for the two of us. That was more than DOUBLE what I had paid for 3 weeks ago for our two way tickets! We didn’t have any other option so we asked for the tickets but when we tried paying for them both my credit card and Nat’s got rejected. Our cards were maxed out, it just wasn’t our luck.

Now you are probably thinking why didn’t I just withdraw money from an ATM machine and pay for the tickets with cash? Well the problem is when I travel I don’t keep a lot of money in my ATM card account so that just in case I get mugged at an ATM machine I can only withdraw a certain amount of money (I watch a lot of movies). It’s never been a problem before because I always use my credit card for my purchases and if I needed more money than whats available on my ATM card I just transfer more onto it.

So here was the situation, my Macbook had no battery and I didn’t have the charger so I couldn’t connect to a wifi network at the train station. There was also no Internet cafe at the station but even if there was I didn’t want to access my bank account from a public computer. I couldn’t get a hold of NBK, the answering machine never came on it just kept ringing and no one was picking up. Since I couldn’t connect to my NBK account I couldn’t use my credit card and I couldn’t withdraw any money so I was pretty much fucked.

I decided to call my sister and have her log into my NBK account and transfer money, problem was she wasn’t at home and the line kept breaking up. I then started calling my friends one by one to see if they were near an Internet connection including Bader, Marzouq and Khalid but no one was near a computer. It was just freaking frustrating. I had the money to buy the fucking tickets to get the hell out of Paris but I just couldn’t get that money onto my ATM or credit card! Time was running out by now and I needed to buy the tickets.

We decided to leave the station and head out around town looking for a place to get Internet access. After around 30 minutes of exploring and asking people we finally found an Internet cafe. I asked the guy if I could connect with my macbook but he told me it wouldn’t be possible. I looked at his computers, they had Windows XP on it… I had no clue if there were any trojans or softwares that would read and store my bank account info and passwords on the machines but I didn’t have an option, I was desperate and I just needed Internet. In literally 2 minutes I had logged into my bank account, transferred money onto my ATM and credit card and was out of the cafe. Thats all I needed, 2 fucking minutes of Internet to change the direction of my life.

We ran back to the train station with 45 minutes to spare but now we were back in the cue queue to buy tickets. 30 minutes later we purchased the tickets. The employee told us something about how our seats would be pull down seats but we didn’t care we just wanted to get on the train. We checked in, passed through passport and security check which luckily was empty and ran towards our train. If we had just been 1 minute late we would have missed the train again.

When we finally got on the train and the doors shut and we started moving, it was just the most amazing feeling of relief. Our fold down seats were these tiny seats located between the carriage cars (pictures above). They weren’t really that bad, it was kinda cozy sitting in between the carriage cars alone.

I can’t believe how an average day turned into such a mess. First thing I did when I got to my hotel room here in London was log on to the internet and change my NBK online banking password. Also when I get back to Kuwait I am going to take out another credit card and keep it aside just in case of emergencies like today. Finally Nat is going to be taking care of our traveling from now on, I am losing it!

I thought I sent a post earlier in the day from my phone saying I was in Paris but I just checked and it didn’t get posted. We arrived here today morning and we will be leaving tomorrow night. Its kinda like speed shopping/tourism. Being here makes me miss the London Underground. The Metro here in Paris is moldy and fugly.

We were at the supermarket picking up some munchies when on our way to the cashier we noticed a bunch of self checkout counters. It was hard to grasp the concept at first, I check out my stuff? Who will check and see if I was honest and didn’t skip anything? I still don’t know how they make sure people don’t cheat (probably monitor them with CCTV’s) but the idea of having customers check themselves out is unreal.

Its a pretty easy process, you take your items one by one, scan them on the machine and place them in the bag. Then you have a number of ways to pay, I chose credit card and just placed my card in the machine and that was it. Its the coolest thing ever.

The coins! So many fucking coins! The smallest note is like 5 pounds and everything else below is just coins. My wallet doesn’t even have a coin pocket so I am walking around with all these coins in my jeans and I am jingling the whole time like one of Santas reindeer’s.

Cheese burger, Ceaser salad, fries, onion rings, 2 beers and a coke.
Total: KD17

I know a lot of people will be traveling to Europe during the Eid so I just wanted to share some handy travel software that will work on Nokia phones and in some cases other smartphones, iPods and PDA’s.

I already previously posted about A-Z Maps which I purchased before I traveled to London for the first time last month. It was an incredibly easy to use software which allowed me to navigate London very easily as if I had been there before. The company has maps for other cities also including Paris, Barcelona and Helsinki. The map starts up instantly when you run it and then you just type the name of the street you are in and the software will show you where you are on the map. It’s also not expensive costing around KD10. More details on this software is available on the publishers website. https://www.lumisoft.net/

Another software I recently purchased in my preparation for my London trip later this month is Tube 2. When I was in Paris last month I had a hard time navigating the underground subway system and this software will be making my life a lot easier this time around. I purchased two versions of the software, the Tube 2 London and Tube 2 Paris. How it works is you type the name of the station you are in and then type the name of the station you want to go to and the software will visually show you your route on the underground map AND it will also give you step by step instructions. Here is an example of a trip from the Marble Arch to Waterloo station:

Marble Arch to Waterloo
Time: 13 minutes
Changes: 1

1. Marble Arch to Bond Street
Depart Marble Arch via the Central line (Eastbound) towards Epping for 1 stop.
Service runs every 5 minutes.

2. Bond Street to Waterloo
At Bond Street change to the Jubilee line (Southbound) towards Stratford for 3 stops.
Service runs every 5 minutes.

3. Waterloo
Arrive at Waterloo.

As you can see it makes things a lot easier. The software costs like KD3 and its available for the London, Paris and New York subway system. You can get more information from the software publishers website. They also have versions that work on iPods but they work differently. https://visualit.co.uk/

I am in Lebanon now and the weather isn’t as cool as I hoped it would be. Its good enough to drive around in a convertible or on a motorbike but not cool enough for long walks. Its kinda humid, not Dubai kind of humidity but still enough to make you feel icky after a short walk. I can’t believe how hot it still is in Kuwait!