Kuwait-for-it! Day 3 (Training day 2)

Day 2 breakfast I skipped, being still full from previous day. Actually I didn't get up til about 08:00. Training went OK, my technology-assisted voice struggling on. I skipped lunch too. That tells you something. But they did have a few nibbles in the room.
Finished training and decided to take the hotel shuttle bus to the Mall - well, it beats just staying in. View of the outside of the mall from a cafe:

Can you guess this place. Blue and yellow colour scheme helps. I HAD to go see if the stuff here was different to UK...

Which it partially was...

awwwwww. no I didn't buy it. prices in Kuwait are roughly DOUBLE UK prices for everything

Back at the hotel I felt the barber-shops calling. This is the BACK of the hotel and the red light is the actual scene of the most amazing haircut I have ever had:

I need to get down the details before I forget them. Started simply enough: chair, water spray, scissors, trimmer, blah blah blah.

AFTER the cut the treatment really began:

• Lotions on my face
• Hot wax thing on ears AND nose (furthest I'm going with THAT treatment)
• Steam thing aimed at my face
• More creams -cucumber? orange?
• More steam with towel over head for about 10 minutes
• Left for 10 minutes with face-pack on and...
• a STRONG... coffee Turkish (I chose it of course, but I blame a Certain Someone's influence...), with hint of chilli or cardamon seed. BLIMEY that was strong
• More steam
• More ointments
• Trimming in various places!

Then I was free. I paid 8KWD (about £30) and left feeling a million dollars. I looked at the time. It said 0:07. Oh yes. I'm sauntering away until I realise I left my shirt behind and then half trip over a kerb stone. Daniel Craig is safe for the moment.

My forehead and cheeks are smoother than... a REALLY smooth thing. Or things. Hope it lasts til at least Friday :)

And now I'm blogging before bedtime...

Goodnight readers. Everywhere

PS. The driver of the taxi on the way back from the mall to the hotel was a nice, cheerful Bangladeshi chap, about 40ish. He had been in Kuwait for a while and was going back home for the first time 4 YEARS to see his wife and son, his 5 brothers and his aging father, who had been a farmer but wasn't able to work anymore.

4 years.

I'll have been away from my new home for 4 nights this trip.

Makes you think.

Kuwait-a-minute-longer! Day 2 (Training day 1)

Woke at a reasonable hour and had a nice multi-course breakfast. Feeling rather full got to the training room... to find there was MORE breakfast there - even I declined that. Bit of a cold and voice not 100%, so they mic'd me up like Britney Spears! (ish). Lunch was nice and filling. Again. Spot the pattern yet? Finished course and retired to room momentarily and headed off to the gym for a 30-ish minute jog. before dinner. This is the restaurant I ate at - Lebanese. Called Ayam Zaman - and I certainly was. I was sat in that tented-looking room in the middle. How very grand...

...and this is the view from the inside...

This is electric lemonade. So there

I am nothing if not adventurous in various departments, including food. Spotting the starter of 'raw lambs cubes with salad' I promptly ordered it. The waiter said "but it's RAW lamb". I thought if you put something on a menu you shouldn't be surprised if people order it. Just to be safe I ordered another mixed starter and a mixed grill thing. The lamb arrived, duly raw...

followed by the other courses, which was slightly overwhelming...

The salad needs a special mention, being leaves, green bell pepper, another more firce-looking pepper, a courgette, a lemon and a tomato. I ate the tomato:

After that I was strangely full. So I went for a walk along a main road and saw lots of little shops (and some big ones) open until almost 23:00. Chief among these stay-up-lates were the barber shops. About 35 of them! More on that tomorrow. I retired for the night...

Kuwait-a-minute!!!

Hello dear reader. I have been despatched to Kuwait to train 10 people. Who are they? No idea! Where will they be? In a meeting room on the 2nd floor of this hotel, so I have to trek all the way to the lift and down 4 floors to meet them. Sigh.

First things first. Up at 4am (mildly disturbing a Certain Someone who's getting used to my strange ways).

Taxi to station - check
Train to office - check (have to exchange exam papers and hand in expenses stuff)
Passcard to get INTO office at 06:15 - OOPS it doesn't work.
Surely, surely, I have the RIGHT one in my bag, just within easy reach...?
YES! In we go...
Coach to Heathrow - check.
Checked in - check.
Moved to a very nice seat on the A300 - 23A - I recommend it. Window seat behind emergency door so LOTS of leg room and enhanced chance of survival - every little helps.

Only one english-speaking film playing. Wall-E. Twice. Maybe more but I drifted away with the fairies.

Landed smoothly and obtained visa - pop upstairs, show passport, pay 3 KD and bob's your uncle. The guy next to me said his bags were going round on the carousel and could they hurry? HA HA HA serves him right. Mustn't scoff, must I?

Then it all took a nice turn...
Crowne Plaza Kuwait hotel guy spotted me (the hapless Englishman abroad) and said I was already checked in, gave me hotel room card, and showed me to a car that took me to the hotel!

Hotel room is nice and the training company contact phoned me about 8 seconds after I got into my room to check/confirm things for tomorrow.

Things are NEVER this organised. So now I'm suspicious and wonder if they are really expecting a session on rocket science or neurosurgery rather than my stuff.

Never mind - there are 4 nice-looking restaurants here and I'll hit them all before I go. And the pool's open til midnight!!

When you sit in 23A, the view outside is like this...

and the leg-room is like THIS...

the hotel lobby looks like the Empire conference thing from Phantom Menace

share my elevator with staff? the very idea!!

I am somewhere

but not the BEASTly room, of course!

Solihull

By a twist of fate (and the planning of the office admin staff) my next assignment was just a few miles from Birmingham International Airport, so I jumped in a taxi and headed to this hotel. Yes, readers, the very one I am sitting in now typing this blog entry.

I came, I saw, I ate a bit, I went to the gym and lived to tell the tale.

My bed(s). Both of them

More bedroom. Tea, Coffee, Trouser press!!!

Very nice bathroom

One does have certain standards, don't you know?

Leaving Riyadh

...was a LONG process. Flight was moved from 01:05 18/11 to 02:10 due to Air France issues, and took longer as paused in Jeddah. Then connection was 12:55 instead of 07:30. Bah.

Mark and Tan dropped me at the airport where there was a LONG queue for initial scanning (for pork, alcohol, plans to hijack Saudi oil-tankers, that sort of thing) but I was soon shown the right way. After hanging around in the departure lounge we were up up and away. I was in an aisle seat behind the emergency doors, so had LOADS of room and a VERY GOOD chance of leaving the plane if needs arose, but hopefully not BEFORE then.

I saw the first half of X-Files 2, second half of Hancock, and middle bit of something else.

Paris was fun, if your idea of fun is spending at LEAST an hour getting from plane 1 to the right gate for plane 2. It did allow me to pop into the airport shop, though, and things shall be revealed about that in a special 'things I got in Riyadh/Paris' post later.

Charle de Gaulle Terminal 1 - the concrete doughnut

A plane to Birmingham! I was in seat 17F, the row at the very back, and sat by myself. Just as well, as my 'bonhomie' was by this time somewhat 'je ne sais qoi'. Actually I mostly slept (missing a free can of something!) and was no bother to anybody.

Riyadh course 2

...was rather similar to Riyadh course 1, so I won't go into that...

Lift on 7th floor of Sky Towers, where training sessions held

INSIDE of lift. When I took the picture, the lift STOPPED for a few seconds.

Abruptly. So I didn't try that again

Behind the Sky Towers after the last session

Lots of construction going on.

Lots of big holes in the ground.

Some more stable than others

Riyadh 'weekend' - Friday

Very little happens on a Friday in Riyadh before 1pm, so I HAD to have another lie-in, and room service :)

After that we three Englishmen set off for adventure. Hurrah!!

Actually we went to what is colloquially called 'chop-chop square' where various kinds of severe punishment are meted out regularly (but never on a Friday, of course)

'chop-chop square' mercifully empty (literally)

Mark stood lookout while I took this single picture

A famous old fort near the 'square'

sandy rock-formations, or rocky sand-formations, on a road SW

There's a camel. Look VERY closely, go on! Just above and to the left of the rightmost post

Suspension bridge, and a massive car graveyard

Riyadh 'weekend' - Thursday

Thursday and Friday in Saudi Arabia equate to Saturday and Sunday in UK, so had day off today :)

Atop the Al Faisaliah Tower, looking north to Kingdom Tower

Just Tan (left), Mark (right) and myself there

Looking down to part of complex

There is a restaurant in there!

Nice reflections of the city

Yes! It's me!!

Riyadh course 1 day 3 of 3

It was a good start to the day when the taxi driver knew the way to the office.

We reviewed the first sample paper, finished the syllabus, complete the second sample paper and they were raring to go, so I started/finished the exam early. All done and dusted by 15:00

Off to ANOTHER shopping mall (but didn't buy anything) and to a park (which was closed as it was being 'reconstructed'). There's a LOT of construction and development in Riyadh. What credit crunch?

Back to hotel, and out to dinner for an encounter with the biggest ribs I have ever seen.

The office! on top of the centre bit is a little cafe,

with Men's and Ladies' sections

OK... see the semi-circular corridor above the central section? See where it meets the main building on the left? Our training room was there, just below the corridor, so I could see down onto the circular cafe. Back there again Sat-Mon. The 'weekend' here is Thu, Fri.

Another fine building. No idea what.

More construction, as I walked south towards Al Faisaliah Tower.
Many taxi drivers hoot their horns, enticing me,
but I press on, an Englishman abroad,
soaking up the atmosphere,
obviously bonkers

Looking north back to the tower/mall complex I visited,
and left to the Chinese Quarter
(3+ restaurants means a 'Quarter' to my mind)

The Enigma coffee house. Why is it an enigma?
I don't know... therefore it MUST be.
Q.E.D

A peanut-butter and banana milkshake.
Tan had Strawberry, Mark had Mocha,
so of course I just HAD to be different
gorgeous, but one's enough per week

I ordered ribs, but to my surprise they looked much
BIGGER
on the plate than in the menu photo.
Isn't that against some law of the Universe?

I demolished one but the second beat me.

For interested parties, no chips were consumed

during the filming (or eating) of this meal