Travel

Genny and I flew back from Chicago departing Thursday evening and arriving into Doha Friday night.  We slept for a few hours and then headed to Kuwait - where I'm currently working. 

These long distance trips really aren't much fun, but at least Qatar Airways has a PVR so you can watch whatever movies, TV shows, or music videos you want. You can even play video games or listen to a bunch of albums. 

We're both looking forward to finally settling in Doha and leaving Kuwait. Kuwait is an "all-mall" city. People drive to go to a mall. People eat at malls. People meet people at malls. People give directions by malls. I'm not a big fan of malls, but I find myself there all too often. Oh well.

I sense the quickly arriving demise of my laid back, non-working out days.  Ever since we've been in Kuwait, I've been working out (real working out, not just sitting in a pool - or shooting baskets) every day.  I guess both of us have learned a lot about the heart recently with my dad's medical situation, so I'm more motivated to stay in shape.

So that's my brain dump of what's on my mind.

In Kuwait, the parliament elections occur in 2006. There are around 350 candidates that are running for election. It's an interesting process because there is candidate flooding.

But I'm not writing about the candidate flooding - that's in the newspapers every day.

In Kuwait, votes can be bought - and pretty easily. At the voting booths, there are shady areas where you can go if you want to sell your vote for money.

The going rate is 2,000 KD ($6920) for a male vote and 1,500 KD ($5190) for a female vote.

It's probably on the same order as greasing a bouncer $20 in the US. But over here, a Kuwaiti has immense wealth as a birthright.  So 20 bucks isn't going to go very far. 

There are political cartoons making fun of vote-sellers as sheep.  There are comments in the newspapers and radios saying that anyone who would buy a vote has no ethics and will run the country accordingly (obviously).  But I don't think it'll matter. 

If there are 300 candidates, and the majority wins, I'd guess 30% of the votes would would create a victor.  At 1.2 million Kuwaitis, you're looking at about 400,000 votes.  If you end up buying every single vote (say it is possible and that you have no "real" votes), it would cost 800,000,000 KD or about 3 Billion USD.  I've gotta imagine that some Sheikh has that in his sleeve somewhere.

This week's excessive travel plans:

Doha to Kuwait tomorrow.
Kuwait to Dubai tomorrow evening.
Dubai to Kuwait on Tuesday evening.
Kuwait to Dubai on Wednesday.

At least they're all very short flights, but travelling internationally fills up your passport very quickly.  Each round trip takes up a page on your passport.  I've got an E-gate pass for Dubai which is tied to my fingerprint, so I at least save pages when travelling there.  Oh well. 

I'm currently in Kuwait right now, so the image you see will change based upon where you actually are.  Anyways, this is pretty cool. The map should be kinda close to where you really are. The quick code is from dnsstuff (called Geolocation), a site I use often in my profession.

Genny published the pictures of our trip to London.

° Tea at Fortnum and Mason. It was all fancy ladies with their tea and crumpets, but the tea was still amazing.° Shopping at Portobello Road.  This road went on forever with many, many different trinkets, clothing, and artifacts. Part of the walk included the famous colored houses.  I'm sure they have a name, but I don't know what it is.
° Dinner at an Italian restaurant with a pepper shaker bigger than my head.
° Walking through Hyde Park and Kensington Gardens, we came to this cafe on the lake and took some pictures after eating.  There was also a tribute to Prince Charles (I think) with a massive statue collection.
° We actually walked through the park to visit a tea shop on the other side of it.  It was a Asian tea spot with excellent varieties of tea.  I think it was called Kandy Tea Room.
° However, possibly the entire dining highlight of the trip was the place Genny and I (as well as a few others in the store) called "Heaven on Earth".  Everything was to die for.  Amazing pastries, sweets and in general things that are horrible for you.  It is right across the street (on Holland Street) from the Kandy.  If you ever are in Kensington, make sure to stop by Ottolenghi for some desert.  I guarantee you will leave happy.

Btw - if you ever are asking for directions, it's better to try and say it with a fake British accent than an American one.  We asked 10-15 people where Holland street was.  No one seemed to know.  Then we went into a store with a map and the guy asked how we spelled it.  With an "A" or an "E"?  Click!  Not Allen, but Holland with a long o.

Brij skiied here when he came to Dubai in December.  He said it was pretty sweet. 

Anyhow, it is alreayd getting hot in Dubai.  It was 81°F/27.2°C today, so yes I my brow got a little glisten-y.  Yes, I'm going to burn to a crisp this summer. 

Anyhow, I knew it would be hot.  I'm getting scared of people telling me things like, "You have no idea how hot it really will be" and whatnot.  But I stopped by the Mall of the Emirates yesterday while looking for a pair of jeans and finally saw the 4Km indoor Ski Dubai park.  There are full-on ski lodges and artificially generated snow. 

For the environmentally conscious, all energy is re-used 4x, so that it uses much less energy than a warehouse of equivalent size.  Regardless, in this part of the world, energy conservation always takes a back seat to "bling". 

It costs 130 Dirham ($35) for a two hour pass.  Each additional hour is 30 Dirham ($8).  Or a full-day pass is 220 Dirham ($60).  It includes rentals of skis or snowboard equipment.  Not a bad deal for a day of fun. 

I'll have to give it a shot one day.

I've now worked in a number of Microsoft offices for a period of time. I've been to a number of them for a day here or there as well. The Dubai office is the only one I've seen so far with palm trees and waterfalls as decoration.

I'm impressed.

The inside is stereotypical MS though.

The Burj Al-Arab is an amazing hotel.  Unforunately, it's extermely pricey and you need a reservation to book it.  So I went as close as I could and took a picture at night.  It's in the shape of a billowing sail, and there is a parallel hotel next to it in the shape of a wave. 

Tiger Woods launched some golf balls from the helicopter pad on top.  Agassi and Federer played tennis there. 

Most of these massive projects are started with the "if you build it, they will come" mentality.  But most are built, and then some really high profile figure shows it off.  When you're the Burj Al-Arab, it's easy to do.

They're making the Burj Dubai, which is supposed to be the world's tallest building.  On the top floor will be a restaurant with seating for two.  The restaurant is already sold out for a number of years.  Construction hasn't even started on the building - amazing.

I'm trying to upload pictures to flickr.com, but apparently I've been censored by the government of UAE. While Dubai is very open, I guess the rest of the country isn't quite there. I'd like to post a picture of the blocked page when I get back to Qatar.

There are a ton of other sites here that are banned. These are very safe for work (SFW) sites in the US, but apparently don't fit the religious tones of the UAE.

edit: I finally got a second to post the picture.

I'm off to the UAE to go do some work in Dubai.  I'll be there for 11 days.  Does anyone know if there is a good online map of Dubai?  Something maybe with business names?