My brother once told me not to try any chinese restaurants outside of Kuwait. He said that the chinese restaurants in Kuwait are very careful when cooking the dishes, they don’t want to alienate their Kuwaiti customers by cooking real chinese food, coz sometimes its too much for them to handle. My Brother basically said that in Kuwait they cook Kuwaiti friendly chinese dishes.
My brother’s favorite chinese restaurant in the world is Peacock in SAS Hotel, since Peacock is highly overrated in my opinion, I tried to take his advice with a grain of salt. I wanted to prove and make a point to myself, that there are good chinese restaurants out there, somewhere.
Today, I was out by myself, and I like to try new places when there is no one around. The reason I don’t prefer eating at new places with people with me is coz I don’t like the disappointed look and the “its all your fault” stare when the food turns out to be inedible (which often is the case). Anyway, As I was saying, I was out by myself and wanted to try a chinese restaurant, to prove a point. I entered the first restaurant I saw. Its called Chez Leung. There was no one inside besides the 2 chinese guys eating at a table near the kitchen and talking with the waitress, they were her friends, I think.
I chose a table and sat. I inspected the place for awhile, thinking to myself “this looks like a nice authentic restaurant. Look at the plants, the frames, the little plastic kitty waving, the plants again, the music… err.. the music?!” the Eagles “Hotel california” was playing from the speakers. Not so authentic. I was expecting some whiny girls singing words I don’t know. The waitress came, very friendly, took my order then went to the kitchen, all the while smiling like she’s just seen a friend. I took out my laptop, no wifi signal, returned the laptop back only to find the waiter standing next to me with my starters. The dish came out fast, definitely not a good sign. My starter was chicken on toast with sesame. It tastes bland, I couldn’t really taste the chicken, it tasted like a dessert called Samsamiya, Which I hated since I was little. My brother was half right by that now. But there was still hope, a chance for me to be right for doubting my brother. Not so long after she took my first dish, she came back with the main course, Hot & Sour chicken. It did not look very appetizing, and the mood they’re trying to set with the music is not working out well. By now George Michael’s “Careless whisper” was playing, followed by “you take my breath away”, Savag Garden’s “I knew I loved You”, Bryan Adams’ “Everything I do”. At first I was blaming the radio for playing all those songs, but after hearing them all back to back it was clear now that it wasn’t the radio playing all those songs, it was a them.. the restaurant! coz no radio would risk its reputation by playing all these sappy songs consecutively! (unless its 99.7 RKFM).
I finished eating and asked for the check. I couldn’t have been more off with the restaurant choice. The food was horrible, The place was not as authentic as I hoped for (I saw a ketchup bottle) and the music selection was… no comment.
I paid and headed to the door, A song started playing as I was stepping out the door, I couldn’t really catch it, it went something like this “If… I.. Shoould stay.. I would only… be in..”
I just read an interesting article on one of my favorite blogs, intlxpatr’s blog, the article is taken from BBC news and it says that a veiled Muslim woman was denied citizenship in france coz she, allegedly, practices “radical” islam.
Guys and Girls, Tell me, enlighten me please, Isn’t this story and countless other stories where we read that girls are not allowed to wear Hijabs to schools in certain european countries are prime examples of pure hatred and discrimination?
If I wear to say the N word I would’ve been called a racist, if I wear to say women belonged in the kitchen I would’ve been shunned by women and most men, if I were ever to say, God forbid, AC Milan suck and Qadsiya rules, I would’ve been assassinated by Milan fans. We’re always called out, without tolerance, always stopped mid sentence when something wrong is about to be said. Yet, we see the same self righteous people publicly displaying their hypocrisy without being called out often enough.
France, being the country that it is, which was responsible for so many constitution and has influence on most of the world’s constitutions as well, I think it the country I hate the most for being so hypocrite and racist. I googled and found that the french people are against the veil for 2 main reasons, the reasons are:
1-Wearing the veil symbolizes a woman’s submission to men.
2-women who wear the veil display their religious and community affiliation, which harms the unity.
My reply, respectively, to any person who believes in those 2 reasons:
1-Denying any woman education coz she wears a veil would make her even more submissive to men, coz she’ll end up with no education and no personal freedom to practice her faith, her choice of clothing and the school she wants to join.
2-So, by this reasoning, Unity will only be enforced by discriminating against minorities and their personal beliefs? is this some sort of an oxymoron? or just plain ignorance & stupidity?
This video say it best.
“Freedom of religion is guaranteed in France by the constitutional rights set forth in the 1789 Declaration of the Rights of Man and of the Citizen.
However, in recent years, some legislation and government actions were taken against some groups considered to be dangerous or criminal. Officials and associations fighting excesses of such groups, justified these measures by the need to have appropriate legal tools and the need to fight criminal organizations masquerading as legitimate religious groups. Critics contended that those actions unfairly targeted minority religions, jeopardized freedom of religion, and were motivated by prejudice.” – from wikipedia
Sure, yeah, now I understand their stance on the Hijab, I was so out of line with this post, coz you see.. France is a big nation that should put it’s national security and it’s people’s safety first, and those little school girls wearing the Hijab can be very dangerous! don’t be deceived by the cute faces, those girls are a threat to their national security! especially with their little scarfs on! they can smuggle weapons of mass destruction and nobody would be able to tell! You don’t want to happen, now do you!?
I received an email today from Swisscom telling me the 3G iPhone is going to be released the day after tomorrow. I read their page and I think it says that I can’t buy one without subscribing with their service. How am I supposed to buy this thing without letting them charge my visa for 12 or 24 months? I know there must be a way but at the moment I just don’t get the whole thing. Read their subscription’s details HERE.
I like how sometimes its “I don’t need this piece of chocolate, I can totally live without chocolates” and some other times “I want chocolates. Any kind. Now.“
I don’t care much for desserts. Normally I would just buy chocolate bars from the supermarket and leave them. My passion lies in the savory dishes. But when I have those very few and far between cravings for dessert, mainly chocolates, I stop paying attention to quantities. Bad habbit, I’m aware. Oh well.
Am I the only one who still listens to the Aladdin soundtrack? I especially enjoy it when I can’t sleep, I just put it on and try to sleep and it usually works.. I love this soundtrack. To date I think it hasn’t lost it’s touch and is still fresh.
Speaking of sleeplessness.. Don’t you hate people who can’t sleep while the TV is on? I have a friend who cannot sleep with the TV or ANYTHING else on. Let me explain further more.. This friend of mine cannot sleep if the receiver displays the time, the bathroom-boiler’s light is on, the space under the door is letting light in, the mobile’s tiny light is blinking or the window’s shutter is not fully shut. Now, in all honesty, don’t you think people, like my friend, should get a training course on how to properly use their eyelids?
Every year Mom goes to the botanic shop near us and buys some more hydrangea plants to replace the old and dying ones. Sometimes she buys 2 and sometimes more, depending on how bad/good last year’s plants are holding up. When I’m here when and we go to the botanic, I always try my best to steer her away from buying the same flowers, I try and try AND try! but to no avail. I don’t know what is it with these flowers and I don’t know why all the other gardens around us have this same flowers. these and the lavender. Once the mission to buy a different plant this year failed (failed miserably. We bought 3 new hydrangeas!) I insisted on buying these little dividers/partitions just so I would feel like I made a tiny difference this time
Going to the hospital all through last week in this country made me realize how lucky we are in Kuwait. We’re beyond lucky, We’re blessed in Kuwait and we don’t even know it.
We had to go to hospitals many times during last week and every hospital, doctor or waiting room we’ve seen (and smelt) was an eye opener to us all. Not only they’re understaffed, overcrowded, inefficient, stupid and retarded, but they also suffer from a serious lack of TIME-awarness! they don’t give a damn about the time the patients spend waiting inline. I mean.. we were in a hurry to get an injection, almost a routine injection, yet we had to wait inline for 3 hours just to get this done. 3 hours for a simple injection. Had the same thing happened in Kuwait we would’ve been in and out of the hospital in 10 minutes.
The other hospital we’ve been to was something else, the doctor whom my brother waited so long to see was an english illiterate doctor. She knew nothing about english, english was an alien language to her. She couldn’t treat a goat if her life depended on it! let a lone a human being! which made my brother get up and leave, without getting the proper med care he waited hours for.
You can’t go and get treated for a flu, cold, fever, broken arm, broken neck without waiting inline for hours. and I literally means HOURS.
We’re very lucky in Kuwait. Very. I’m not saying there is no room for improvement, I’m just saying that every once in awhile we need to stop and realize how fortunate we really are.
I forgot the wallet in one of my pant’s 6 pockets and threw the pant in the laundry basket. After searching everywhere, we finally found the wallet at the bottom of the washing machine soaking wet and soapy. The money didn’t take much time in the sun to dry up.. I wish I could say the same thing about my wallet.
I think this been going on for awhile now and not only to our posts, other blogs’ posts too aren’t showing on Safat. I don’t know how long this is going to take.. Does this mean that this is a beginning for the transition to Salwa.kuwaitblogs.com?
Oh and I Just now realized that with us changing hosts from wordpress.com to our own server we’re no longer listed on wordpress and their tag system. Great timing to lose 2 sources of visitors, dontcha think?
We pay for the DSL service the whole year nonstop just to be able to enjoy the month or so we spend here without the need of interacting with their ISP (France Telecom). But they NEVER fail to let us down and they always meet our expectations of bad service and incompetency. As I said before in another post, the internet has been cut off, as of yet, for unknown reasons, and its been like this for 5 days now. No internet for 5 days, save for the random cafes and mcdonald’s here and there. Wifi begging is so not what I want to be doing while I’m on vacation. Allah yakhith il french o their service o takhalofhom!!!!
I used my wide angle lens again, I took this picture of the church (completed in 1272) while holding the camera well below my knees just to be able to capture the whole church, and I still managed to miss the top cross. oh well.
Now, photography gurus, I have a question for you, I can’t get the fuzziness out of the trees, and any moving object for that matter. I tried to sharpen the image, did the smart sharpen thingy but it didn’t help. Any advice? and yeah I’m asking coz I’m using HDR without a tripod.
The area where we’re staying are having some problems with the internet service and I’ve been cut off since yesterday. I can’t live without going online whenever I want to! I’m in Mcdonald’s now writing this post (Allah yadinya) I have only 30 minutes (7azarat ilfaranseyeen). I went to 2 nice places and took many pictures, I’ll post them whenever we get our internet back. for the time being I uploaded the picture above just coz it was my first decent pic of a bird. It’s flying over Lac Léman, in Evian to be specific.
It’s been raining nonstop here for a while. My immune system ran as hard and as long as it could, trying to take the cold weather, the rain and the fatigue of sleeping less than usual, and then finally, the day before yesterday, it gave up!
All day yesterday I was either asleep or trying hard to fall back asleep. Sleeping all day surely did its magic, coz I woke up today feeling good as new. I think the amount I slept yesterday really helped.
Couple days ago me and Yousef decided to transfer our blog to wordpress.org so that we get more control and options on our blog but Yousef faced some issues such as the old posts?! How could we transfer them .. (( i mean the text and pictures)) coz now i think the only way we could is to transfer the text and uploading the pics manually for the old posts which will takes ages! So any one tried it? i mean to transfer from .COM to .ORG? whats the steps? and for the hosting we’re considering DreamHost.
Note: At first I thought this incident happened in Kuwait, But I just read on another blog that it might’ve happened in the UAE. We don’t know where it happened, just enjoy the video, feel disgusted and move on!
We went to Nino and ordered 2 of their certified angus beef, and we asked for a medium cook. we got 2 well done steaks instead. My friend started eating his and I returned mine. after waiting 10 more minutes I got a rare steak.. so I sent it back again. My friend was half way through his steak when they finally brought my medium cooked steak.
Things I don’t understand:
1- Why do restaurants always hear welldone when I say medium? 2- Why do restaurants punish customers who return steaks? 3- why did my friend eat his well done steak when his original order was a medium steak? 4- if it doesn’t really matter what kind of steak he ends up eating, why then did he specify? 5- How come I return my dish twice and end up eating after my friend’s done eating and get nothing more than a little lame apology from the waiter? 6- Why are people considered difficult when they refuse to eat things they did not order?
If we all became indifferent to what kind of steaks we end up eating then the whole steak-cooking system would become obsolete! I won’t let that happen!
