Category: Travel

Just booked a flight for me and Nat to Beirut. Will be leaving on the 27th and coming back January 1st. I booked with Jazeera Airways and was expecting not to find any places but it seems the current political situation in Lebanon has led to a lot of cancellations. Last time I celebrated New Years in Lebanon was in 2000 so it should be fun.

I love Montreal. Its my favorite place on the planet. Since Christmas is nonexistent in Kuwait and since Nat has never been anywhere other then Lebanon and Kuwait I figured we would spend Christmas and New Years in Montreal. I was looking forward to binging on Labatt Blue while stuffing myself with poutine. Nat on the other hand was looking forward to the Tiesto concert on New Years night. We had everything planned and ready, only thing missing was Nats visa to Canada. I don’t need a visa because I have the Canadian citizenship.

Around a week ago we sent Nats passport and all the forms and papers needed to the Canadian Embassy in Abu Dhabi (local embassy don’t do visas). Visa costs like KD18 while DHL with a return airway bill costs KD55. So thats KD73 for a one time entry visa.

Today Nat got her passport back and guess what? They refused to give her a visa! Their reason was the following:

You have not satisfied me that you meet the requirements of Regulation 179; that you would leave Canada at the end of the temporary period if you were authorized to enter. In reaching this decision I considered your ties to your country of residence/citzenship balanced against factors which might motivate you to stay in Canada.

In summary, they think Nat will basically go to Canada, tear up her passport and request asylum. How did they come up with this conclusion? Its because she is Lebanese. How much more discriminating can they be? No one called her to talk to her, no one called her in for an interview, they didn’t even care that her husband is a Canadian.

I am extremely pissed off now because it basically means I can no longer go to Canada unless I am alone, which isn’t going to happen as long as I am married. Tomorrow I will be calling up the embassy and giving someone there a piece of my mind. No way am I gonna accept the fact that some stranger all the way in the UAE is going to ruin my Christmas!

I found out last minute I had to go down to Dubai for work and since Gitex had just started, finding a room was practically impossible. Finally though the travel agent came through and found me an empty room and booked it. I have to say it was the crappiest hotel I had ever been to. The whole place looked like a bathroom and smelled like one that had just been cleaned. They had these air fresheners that spray perfume automatically located all over the hotel but they just reminded me too much of bathrooms.

If the look of the hotel wasn’t enough to put me off, before we got the room key they made us sign a paper which said if any of our stuff goes missing in the rooms that they wouldn’t be responsible for it. Not only that but inside the room there was a framed photocopy of a similar paper stating the same thing and another A4 sheet located on the table also saying the same thing. As you can imagine I didn’t want to leave anything in the room and I didn’t, I kept my backpack with me the whole time.

Traffic in Dubai because of Gitex was just a disaster. It was always at a complete standstill, a real mess. One cab driver told me things get even worse in February during the shopping festival.

The weather in Dubai was also a lot hotter then Kuwait. Its currently freezing here. Froze my ass off tonight while leaving Maki at Marina, even had a jacket on and it wasn’t enough!

I wanted to visit Gitex but I finished my work around 8PM and Gitex closes at 7. Why can’t they stay open till like 10 or something like exhibitions that are held in Kuwait? Its like people need to take a day off work to pass by them.

I went to Ibn Battuta mall. Its not as big as Mall of the Emirates but its still a lot bigger then Marina Mall and the whole thing felt very Las Vegasishy.

I still can’t believe I was in Dubai and didn’t get to pass by Gitex!

I found this at the Dubai Duty Free. If beer was legal in Kuwait I would definitely setup a draught beer system at home. This one cost only $250.

I think everyone in the Dubai Duty Free figured I lived in Kuwait because I was walking around taking pictures of the bottles of alcohol. Moskovskaya is my favorite brand of vodka. Its the only one I can drink straight up without mixing it with anything.

So I am about to board the plane when the guy who checks the boarding pass takes mine and scribbles over my seat number which was 6F and starts writing another seat number somewhere back in the 20s. So I was like hey how come you are changing my seat? He replied telling me they were trying to balance the plane. While doing that he shook his hand side to side as if representing the plane thats wobbling. I was like o….k….. that can’t be good. So I told the guy listen its not fair if you change my seat now, I don’t want to , he was like fine and scribbled back 6F on my pass. I found this incident very strange.

Just finished checking in to my flight. Airport security today is just overboard. Jazeera Airways and British Airways check in stations are located in the same area and it seems because of British Airways security was extremely tough… not the usual laid back chatting with friends while ignoring the metal detector beeps. I had to actually take off my belt while some other guys were told to remove their shoes. Had to wait over 30 minutes in the security check line. Usually the lack of decent security at the Kuwait Airport pisses me off, but after seeing what good security involves, I am glad we lack security “most of the time”.

Just found out I have to leave to Dubai tomorrow morning for one night which means I will be back on Monday night. I am traveling with Kuwait Airways so pray for me.

update: Luckily Jazeera Airways have a better timed flight, so I am going to be flying with them instead.

Watching Nip/Tuck, browsing the web and chatting with Nat on MSN.

Its just one shock after another here. I was expecting Bahrain Airport to be crap but guess what? They have a really nice Duty Free, I actually prefer it over Dubai’s. The departure area is also huge, and its really packed with people from all over the world. Its feels like an airport in Europe. Internet is also cheap here, 1 hour for 700 Kuwaiti fils. My flight is in an hour.

So after my last post I decided to go check out Seef Mall. I don’t know if its bigger then Marina Mall, I mean the corridors are tighter but it could be longer, anyway thats not what this post is about. I got bored at Seef Mall because it was too similar to Marina Mall, they had the exact same shops which made things really boring.

Anyway I left the place, took a cab and went to Traders Vic. What a place, its total crap. Its like a upper class snobbish restaurant/pub. I soooo hate those places. Reminded me a lot of a couple of places in Lebanon which I hate. Anyway after walking in and not finding a place at the bar to sit I called a cab and was planning on coming back to the hotel. On the way I told the cab driver that I was looking for a pub that wasn’t as upper class, something more down to earth and cool and shit. He told me he would take me to City Center where there are a lot of places and if I dont like one I can go to another. I was like cool pub jumping, I used to do that a lot in Lebanon.

Cab driver drops me off in front of City Center Hotel and tells me to go upstairs. I was like fuck no I am not going into another place like Traders Vic. So I decide to walk around and find my own pub. I find a place called Diggers and I walk in. I was like fuck, this is my place. They were playing rock music and there was a huge bar and the place was filling with British looking guys. I ordered half a pint of Heineken draft beer and started looking around. Then I realized wait, 80% of the occupants were British looking dudes, the other 20% were Asian girls just hanging around in groups around the bar. I was like fuck, these are hookers. How do I know? Because I just know, they were hookers and guys were walking up to them whispering something in their ears then the girls would whisper something back and the guys would walk away. I finished my beer and walked out of the place.

I walk down maybe 10 meters and I see something that looks like an Indian restaurant or something. I don’t know why but I was like let me walk in. I walked in and automatically I realized I had walked into a brothel. Not any brothel mind you, the really low end brothel filled with overweight Indian girls with pimples all over their faces. I turned around and started walking back out when a woman asked me where I was going and I should come in and have a drink. I was like no thank you and walked out.

So then I walked another 10 meters to another place and this place was like a restaurant but had like this asian girl band playing and it was full of Gulf nationals sitting chatting up Asian girls. I again walked out and started walking around the area. I found a massage parlor and I looked through the glass window and guess what I found… Asian shemales just sitting around waiting for customers.

I then spent over an hour walking around the area going into hotels. Each and every hotel I went into had hookers. Each and everyone one of them. One hotel I went to had a different pub on every floor for 4 floors. Each pub was full of hookers but each a different nationality. One floor Asians, one floor Indians, one floor Arabs and one floor African. It was just crazy, I never expected Bahrain to be like this. I went to at least 6 or 8 hotels checking them out and they ALL had hookers. It was just really shocking.

Finally I got bored and really sweaty from all the walking so I found a cab (a pickup truck) and asked him to drop me off at my hotel. It was really fun hotel jumping and seeing all these old European guys trying to get some from all these Asian hookers but it was also really exhausting. I am now back in my hotel room and I am going to ordered some room service. I haven’t had dinner yet.

update: OK what kind of hotel runs out of burgers? I had to order a hotdog off the kids menu. SUCKS!

update 2: I forgot to ask, can anyone recommend a decent pub minus the hookers. I am just looking for a decent place to have some beer and listen to music.

I have to say I have been in Bahrain for like 30 minutes and I am already pretty impressed. Firstly I have a really huge hotel room which is really cool. Secondly there is 1 mall right behind the hotel, another mall right on the side of the hotel and a third mall right in front of the hotel. The one on the side, Seef Mall looks a lot bigger then Marina Mall. On my way to the hotel I found out Bahrain is made up of 33 islands. Why didn’t I know this from before? At night Bahrain is looking like a mini version of Dubai which is again not what I was expecting. Lots of construction and tall cool looking glass office towers. I don’t know why I had a completely different idea on Bahrain, so far it looks like a lot of fun.

Now I need to stop blogging and go get drunk.

I am at the airport now sitting at Mc Cafe drinking some tea. When Nat came back from Lebanon early in the week she came back coughing and with the flu. It seems I am getting sick now. The airport is super packed, never seen it like this before. I am taking Gulf Air to Bahrain which I am not too excited about. I have heard a lot of terrible stuff about Gulf Air and didn’t they also have like a plane or two crash a few years ago?

I am leaving to Bahrain for some work related stuff on Wednesday afternoon and coming back Friday night. Its my first time there so I was checking Lonely Planet to see what there is to do in Bahrain and I couldn’t find anything.

I heard Bahrain has good restaurants does anyone know anything about them? Any recommendations? How about malls, do they have like a shopping mall in Bahrain? Will I actually find something to do or should I expect to spend all my time in the hotel room watching TV?

update: just remembered Michael Jackson lives there now so it can’t be that bad

Mobile phone prices are like the same price as Kuwait. Rent is wayyyyy more expensive. They don’t build one building, they build them in large clusters all at once. Drivers are worst then Kuwait. Girls are all like half naked. Kuwait is greener. Emirates mall is like Marina Mall times ten. They have larger variety of restaurants. Finally, consumers are not treated like idiots, they are valued.