Kiwiblog

Famous in Kuwait, a chap named Mark, main author of the popular 248am.com blog, is being sued byJapanese chain restaurant Benihana for giving a bad review of the food.

http://www.248am.com/mark/kuwait/im-being-sued-by-benihana/

The offending blog post (http://www.248am.com/mark/kuwait/my-benihana-experience/) appears incredibly mild in comparison to what might be found in New Zealand (isn’t that right, WhaleOil?) -  he even praises the staff.  Reading through the comments, you’ll find fake posts lauding the restaurant, followed eventually by threats from the restaurant manager, one Mike Servo, including the bizarre and seemingly racist query “BTW, are you Lebanese?” (which, incidentally, Mark is).

Mark’s lawyer has advised it will take two years for a court decision, but it seems to me that’s an optimistic opinion.  I’m curious as to how things will go from a second point of view also – Kuwait’s legal system is a bit behind the times and will not  admit emails as evidence, so I’m wondering how they will deal with the admissibility of blog posts and comments.

It’s well known in Kuwait that you want to avoid publically critising the State, but since when did we have to keep quiet about a bad meal?  Even the attempt to sue sets a disturbing precedent, but it’s fantastic to see just how much support Mark has received from both blogs and mainstream media.

Friends who dine at my house, watch out!

Can’t let this slip by without mention.

Seems like Kuwait has reverted to old school justice, the likes of which haven’t been seen in Europe since WWII, and in Kuwait since the 1980′s apparently.

Hat tip: Desert Girl

Well, its Spring time in Kuwait  (or what passes for Spring over here - read warmer weather, thunder storms, dust storms and surprisingly heavy rain) and there must be something in the air, because while driving to and from work the other day I was hit on no less than three times.  Given the restrictions on socialising between the sexes in this part of the world, the locals have developed new and rather inventive measures for finding love.

The most popular of these seems to be cruising Gulf Road (six lanes, but not quite a highway) in your pimped out car (think an Escalade with an Armani logo in Swarovski crystals) until you spy a likely prospect, then chasing them along at speeds of up to 120km, till you finally box in your prey at a traffic light, where you can proceed to ask for a cigarette, a phone number, or, for the very bold, a date.  It’s wretchedly annoying, because not only can there be some rather dangerous driving (evasive manoeuvers), but frequently two cars full of fellas will settle on either side of a single carful of ladies and mosey along while chatting, which blocks the road for the rest of us who have places to go and people to see.  

I will admit to going on a traffic light date once, but the guy made such an effort it would have been rude not to.  He caught me by surprise singing along to the radio at the top of my lungs and asked where I worked.  I was so surprised I answered, thinking nothing of it.  My firm has no website and the phone directory here in a maze, so I figured it was reasonably anonymous, but somehow he found the number and called me at work, so I eventually agreed to meet him for a (non-alcoholic) drink at my favourite sheesha bar. 

As it turns out, Khaled was a very pleasant chap, with pretty good English- he was perplexed to learn that asking out a random stranger wasn’t so common, and asking out a stranger at the traffic lights unheard of, and wanted to know how Westerners managed to date, which got me thinking about how to meet a man.  I couldn’t help thinking of a friend at home who’s lamenting the lack of suitable partners on the market.  Is organised dating, like speed dating, really that different to meeting someone at the traffic lights?  How about a blind date?  At least you have a friend in common with that I suppose.

It has been interesting seeing the different “dress codes” in the countries so far. In Turkey the vast majority of people are in western dress – suits or casual clothes. A lot of women didn’t wear hijabs at all, or combined them with western clothes – think leather boots, tight jeans an a hijab! Of course Turkey is a secular country.  Almost no one in a burqa.

In Egypt, almost all women wore a hijab, and you started to notice the occassional full burqa.

Kuwait shows off its arabic heritage. Well over 20% of local men wear robes with a keffiyeh. There were very few dressed like that in Egypt.

This is where we had lunch. While Kuwait in places is very dirty and dusty, it does also have some beautiful areas.

These are the Kuwait Towers. Certain expats have given them an unofficial nickname of the Kuwait a**l beads

The towers are primarily water towers, but the large one (187 metres tall) has a viewing platform also.

They have photos up of the damage done to the towers by the Iraqi invaders in 1990. Yep, they even smashed the toilets up.

And they are labelled barbarians for attacking the air conditioning! I would have thought they were barbarians for beatings, electric shocks, burns, mock executions and sexual torture including rape that some locals were put through by the Iraqis.

Most of the photos from the tower are crap, due to the dirty windows. But this one of the water theme park below is ok. I so would have gone, if I had more time.

I had earlier on noted how funny it was that Police cars had the URL of the Police on their sides. And then noticed this car with an e-mail address on the boot. I asked ehy would you do that, and Emily explained quite a few guys do it as a way of picking girls up! The idea is the impressed girls will e-mail them!

On Wednesday night, had dinner and drinks with the netball team.Now alcohol is banned in Kuwait – no sales and no importing, but as this photos shows you can smuggle it in in small packets.

That got me thinking that selling those outside the Wellington Sevens could be a great money making opportunity!

Incidentally pork is also illegal in Kuwait. If you have it with you, it gets confiscated on arrival.

Armed Police behind these are a common sight in Cairo. They are to protect from bomb blasts primarily.Terrorist attacks are fairly regular in Egypt – around once a year.

Flew to Kuwait on Tuesday. Had a couple of hours in the Egypt Air lounge so thought I would kill the time by playing an old computer game, I hadn’t played for a few months – Desert Hawk.

It’s a typical shoot up game. You have a helicopter and blow up buildings, tanks, planes and other choppers with around a dozen different weapons. Anyway I’d never taken much notice of what I was blowing up before – you basically destroy everything.

After quarter of an hour or so playing the game, I had a nagging feeling something was not good. So I looked more closely at the buildings that show between stages. Hmmn they have those skinny tall towers on them. What I now know to be minarets. Oh so that means all those buildings are mosques. Hmmmn. Maybe playing this game in the middle of Cairo Airport is not such a good idea after all!

Flight to Kuwait was pretty ugly – packed full, and the guy next to me fell asleep in a way he was leaning into my seat. It was a very long three hours on board.

Purchased my Visa after getting some local currency. I love how you can just stick your credit card in an ATM in almost any country, and get out cash. I did miscalculate though. I just assumed the Kuwaiti currency was equal to or less than the NZ dollar, so figured 200 Kuwait dinars would be enough to cover any incidentals for a couple of days. Turns out you get five NZ dollars to every Kuwaiti dinar so that is way too much. I’ll exchange some back when I leave. I did actually note all he currency values down before I left, but didn’t have the info on hand.

Emily, whom I’m staying with, met me at the airport. She has adapted well to the local customs – especially the aggressive driving manoeuvres and assorted curses.

This isn’t the car before it rained, but afterwards. There is so much dust here, than when it rains, well it almost rains mud. Yuck. Normally I find the rain refreshing, but not in Kuwait. Have met quite a few Kiwi expats here and they do like it here, but that is one part that takes some getting used to.

Em was playing netball last night, so I went along to that. Mainly expats, but some of the local girls play also. There were five games on, and they ran short of officials, so I ended up scoring one of the games. I enjoyed twittering last night how I went to the netball and ended up scoring

I almost ending up refing also. I actually used to manage a netball team, when I was at university (long story) so do know the rules pretty well.

This is the view from the apartment, which I think is pretty damn good. So much prefer crashing with friends than hotels. Not too much to see in Kuwait, but going to some sightseeing this afternoon.