Dining Out and About in Kuwait

Al Mayass

               R and I were introduced to this restaurant by one of his coworkers. They serve some delicious Lebanese and Armenian food! All three times I have been since arriving have been wonderful meals with great company. We typically will order one dish for each person at the table and then family-style share the dishes with each other. 

Delicious Food (and the blue mocktail tasted like a Sonic Ocean Water slush)

More delicious food with a mocktail mojito

400 Gradi

             This restaurant is located in the Forum section of the Avenues mall. (SIde note: I have since learned this is a chain restaurant, available through at least the Middle East, potentially other areas as well). Has a nice mix of Italian and Arabian dishes. We have not been for lunch yet, only brunch. Brunch was so good, and I was so hungry that I only got this picture of my beverages (An Affogato along with some orange juice). Oh, and the restaurant is located across from the largest H and M store in the world: 

Madison and Heig

Prime and Toast

A little Eggs Benedict with a Cappucino

Friday morning walk along the Marina crescent after brunch

Katsuya

Watermelon mocktail and Blackberry Fizz mocktail

         I had no idea this was a worldwide chain restaurant until I was looking for restaurant website links for this post. So, if you happen to be in Glendale, AZ, South Beach, or the greater Los Angeles area and would like some delicious sushi or sashimi options, check this place out. 

Friday afternoon date during Lent: Sushi and Sashimi!

               We ate at the Arabella location which has nice views of the gulf and has decent parking (or valet parking for even easier access). Randomly, there is also a Pei Wei, Cheesecake Factory, and a Five Guys(!) all located in this restaurant/shopping center among the other restaurants. 

Restaurant iPad menu

               A lot of the restaurants here use iPads for their menus which allows you to see pictures of the different options along with the description. I find this really helpful and a nice touch. 

Babel

              Babel is a Lebanese style restaurant. They offer a Prix Fixe option for a table of 6, or you can order a la carte for individuals. The food was very good and the service was excellent. This restaurant is on the fancier side, and I would encourage one to have reservations in order to eat here. They have outside seating right on the Gulf for nice views (when it is daylight, obviously).

Memorial Day

These videos and songs do an excellent job of sharing my thoughts for this day.

Have a blessed and safe Memorial Day! Enjoy the day while remembering the reason we have it as a holiday. 

Ramadan Iftar

            I was invited to go to an Iftar dinner a few days ago. Iftar is the meal that is shared after the sunset prayer to break the daily fast for Muslims during Ramadan. There was one held at the White House the other day. 

                 I recently learned that there is a Ramadan tradition of firing a cannon to signal the time for Iftar. The story has it that this particular tradition started by accident. Sultan Khashukdume in Cairo around the years 865/872 Hijri (middle to late 1400s AD). He had a new cannon and he wanted to test-fire it. The test firing exercise happened at exactly the moment when Maghreb prayers were happening during the month of Ramadan. This prayer happens at sunset, so it is the one that signifies the time to break the daily fast. Local residents all thought it was done on purpose to signify this time of day, so the tradition began. 

           This tradition continues and happens every day at Naif Palace during the month of Ramadan. 

Photo by Yasser Al-Zayyat for Kuwait Times

Secretary of State visited Kuwait

Diplomatic Visit: March 2019

               While I was on my trip home to visit with family and friends, I learned that our Secretary of State visited Kuwait and posed for photos with several friends. He and our Ambassador even posed with one friend who was holding on to "Flat Stanley" from one of her relatives back in the States. :) Unfamiliar with Flat Stanley? Check the story out here.

Here's a short video from Secretary of State Mike Pompeo's Instagram account:

Dubai Girls Trip Part 3!

Dubai Miracle Garden

              For how short of a trip we took, we filled it with a lot of activities! Not to mention, we also had time to relax on the beach and at the pool of our hotel. Our last morning and afternoon in Dubai, we were able to take a taxi over to the Dubai Miracle Garden. I found out about it from this post. So many things made of flowers! They even had an Emirates plane covered in flowers.

  

Mickey

    

Minnie

Flower Lady

Emirates plane covered in flowers

Evil Knievel on a rollercoaster at DubaiLand (next door to Miracle Garden)

Dubai Girls Trip Part 2!

Friday Brunch

         I already mentioned in a previous post how popular Friday Brunch is here in the Middle East. One of the friends with me had specifically mentioned the brunch at Al Qasr. This brunch is located at Jumeirah Al Qasr at Madinat. It is a beautiful hotel! Reminded me of the Hilton Waikoloa on the Big Island of Hawaii that you can take a river boat in order to get around the property.

            On a side note, from the Jumeirah hotel grounds you can also see the Burj Al Arab. This hotel is billed as one of the world's most luxurious hotels. There are only suites, no other room styles. If you would like to read more about the Burj Al Arab, go check out Expat Panda's post here.

Burj Al Arab

           Back to Brunch at Al Qasr. The hotel grounds are beautiful. There are also quite a number of expensive and fancy cars parked outside the front lobby area. I happened to really like this chandelier:

Chandelier in main lobby

            Brunch here has multiple levels, depending on what you would like to drink with your brunch. We chose the champagne brunch. There were 4 different rooms of food, and an outside area that had more food and drinks.

Smoked Old Fashioned

       

Fruits and Desserts Station

Carrot Cake anyone?

SO much food. . . this was my course #3

After Brunch: Celebrating the Downing of the Sun and Vibrant Nights

Around 5pm, we hailed a taxi over to the Marriott Marquis and took an elevator up to Vault. Vault is located on the 71st and 72nd floors of the hotel. The views were amazing!

My mom thought it was hilarious that it uses the phrase "more exciting prices" = Happy Hour prices

Bar at Vault

View of Dubai from the 71st floor

             The company was great, the drinks were delicious, and we had a good time! Part 3 continues with our visit to the Dubai Miracle Garden. 

Girl's Trip to Dubai! Part 1

Burj Khalifa in Dubai

March 2019

Flight map courtesy of Emirates Airlines

                    I was invited to go with 3 of my friends on a short girls trip to Dubai! We had so much fun! It was a great mini-vacation, and after having been once, I think I'd like to go back for another visit. The plane ride was only about 2.5 hours, so fairly easy to get to from Kuwait. The above map shows the countries in the area with their names written in Arabic. Arabic is read from the right to the left, as opposed to Germanic and Latin based languages that are read from left to right.

Spoon works!

Engineered spoon

                   We were given a very nice brunch meal on Emirates Air, however, the pilot must have been trying to make up lost time due to a delay leaving Kuwait. Our flight time did not seem as long as it had been predicted. They had a wonderful staff of flight attendants! We had all of 5 minutes to start eating, before they came back through the aisles to pick up the trays of food. So, my engineer friend designed a spoon from the yogurt lid, and then was able to actually use that as a spoon to finish eating the yogurt.

View from our hotel room window

If you zoom in on the above photo, you'll notice a camel being walked down the beach (look toward the left side). We stayed at the Hilton Jumeirah, and it was a pretty great deal. Beautiful hotel and highly recommended if you ever travel to Dubai! They picked us up from the airport and drove us to the hotel for free, and then gave us a room upgrade! The ferris wheel in the background is under construction and looks be a copy of the London Eye.

Dinosaurs in Dubai!

Neat sculpture in Dubai Mall

Some of the Dubai Metro cabins are for women and children only.

Burj Khalifa (tallest building in the world)

              We were able to go watch the Dubai Fountain show. If you've ever seen or heard about the Bellagio Fountain in Las Vegas, Nevada, it is similar. This one, though, changes the show AND the music the show is timed to every 30 minutes, beginning at 7:00 PM. It was beautiful. I only filmed a short snippet of it, and then just put my phone down and enjoyed the show. Can you tell what the soundtrack for this show is from? (Hint: think Polynesian Disney)

April 2019: Around the World 5k and Air Quality

Around the World 5K

                   There is a charity race that is held each spring around the world within the foreign service community. Team Kuwait participated, and we completed our run along the Marina Crescent Walk off of Gulf Road. This year, the charity recipient was Stone Soup PDX. Go check out their mission and website!

Photo Credit: LF

Air Quality

                We also happened to make a list of a different type: We hit the top of a list for the worst air quality in the world when the measured AQI hit 450s a couple weeks ago. It happened due to a dust storm that had blown in that morning. The air is not usually that badly polluted/ filled with dust. The next day, we were back in the yellow/orange (moderate levels). By the way, that air quality app is top-notch, and I have it on my phone as well.

Source: Teacher.Mom.KW via Air Visual phone app

What I get to wear around on days like that. 

Liberation Tower and Other Feats of Engineering in Kuwait

December 2018

On the right, is a picture of
His Highness Sheikh Sabah IV Al-Ahmad Al-Jaber Al-Sabah, the Amir if Kuwait.
On the left, is a picture of
His Highness, the Crown Prince, Sheikh Nawaf Al-Ahmad Al-Jaber Al-Sabah

We were given an opportunity to take a tour up into the Liberation Tower (Kuwait Telecom Tower). The observation deck moves, albeit very slowly, but if you look closely, you can see the buildings in different spots behind our heads in the photos posted below.

History and height of the Liberation Tower

Note: I took this picture as a passenger, R was driving. 

A view of Safat square
and the
Sheikh Jaber Al-Ahmad Al-Sabah Causeway
in the far background

You can just barely see the Kuwait Towers
from this angle (top far left)

I have not had a chance to visit the Kuwait Towers yet, only seen them from the ground. Safat Square has a neat history from what I've been able to gather dating back to the 1920s. The Causeway was just inaugurated on 1 May of this year and is currently the 4th longest bridge in the world! It crosses the Kuwait Bay. This is a very impressive feat of engineering, in my humble opinion. I'd like to find a friend willing to drive the span of the bridge with me. I'll keep you updated.

Source: The Times Kuwait