A fun evening out in Kuwait City

One of the reasons we came to Kuwait City is because two of the women in our Mauritania train ride group last year are from Kuwait. And they had said that "if you are ever in Kuwait, look us up!".

So we did!

They offered to pick us up at our hotel at 7:30pm and take us out for a Kuwaiti dinner!

Here is the way we ended the evening...

First though, we had some breakfast. Because of Ramadan, the restaurant here at the hotel is closed, but they supply room service breakfast.

Not bad, for 3.5 dinar ($11.40 USD, $15.40 CAD) each.

During the day, we explored more of the city itself. There are so many interesting skyscrapers, and we find the architecture stunning.

There are quite a few buildings like this one where one side of the building is entirely different from the other side.

I wonder what this one will look like...?

Very different!

One side of the building.

And the other side of the same building.

All of those photos were taken during our 2.5 km (1 mile) walk to the Kuwait City Grand Mosque. I had read that while the outside of the Grand Mosque is nothing special, the interior is worth seeing. Unfortunately, it is closed to visitors until the end of Ramadan on April 9th.

Kuwait City Grand Mosque.

Sief Square. Which is kind of funny, because it's actually a roundabout.

We walked down to the waterfront and found the fish market building. Unfortunately we weren't there to see the actual fish being sold, but it was still interesting wandering around.

Huge watermelons!

Live chickens for sale.

Fishing equipment.

We then went into a big grocery store at the waterfront. We found out later that this is one of the more expensive places to buy groceries, and based on the prices we saw that must certainly be true!

12 large strawberries. 

1.895 dinar ($6.20 USD, $8.40 CAD).

Broccoli.

3 dinar ($9.75 USD, $13.25 CAD) per kilo.

It was a big store.

A small section of watermelon.

2.515 dinar ($8.20 USD, $11.10 CAD). Yikes!

Pure maple syrup.

I didn't really take the photo because of the price, but we thought it was funny that on the front it says U.S. Grade A Amber, but on the back it said that it was a product of Canada.

Then we walked along the waterfront to the Kuwaiti Towers.

Another view of the Kuwait City skyline.

A few steps further, and an entirely different view.

Nobody at the beach.

The Kuwaiti Towers.

They are fairly impressive.

But they wanted 3 dinar ($9.75 USD, $13.25 CAD) to go to the top, and we decided we had a good enough view just from our hotel room.

Another part of the beach.

An American made travel trailer!

This building is being demolished.

Look up at the roof.

How did they get this heavy equipment up there??

Back to the hotel for a rest, and then our friends Anfal and Muna arrived at 7:30pm to pick us up. They brought us to the big downtown market area. Really busy place, but there was something odd about it.

There were NO tourists! 

Anywhere else in the world, there would be a mix of both tourists and locals at a place like this. But as I said yesterday, Kuwait is not high on the tourist destination list. It was actually really neat being the only tourists there and just watching the locals.

Muna, Ruth, and Anfal.

Muna has four adult children and is a retired school teacher. Anfal works in the private banking sector. They both love traveling, and Anfal is off to Peru next week.

One of the many sections to the downtown market.

Lots of different types of dates!

They took us to the popular Freej Swaeleh Restaurant.

Part of the menu.

We let them choose the dishes, keeping in mind Ruth's gluten allergy.

This is only the appetizers... two more plates of main course showed up!

A thorn between two roses!

Ruth, Kevin, and Anfal.

Muna, Anfal, Ruth, and Kevin.

We are drinking some kind of local yogurt drink with almond milk and rosewater.

I took a couple of short videos for you. Turn your volume up...

After dinner, we wandered around some more and then headed to a coffee shop where we met up with a friend of theirs who is another world traveler.

The Women's Market.

Ruth, as the saleswoman, and Anfal as the prospective buyer!

All lit up at night.

Scenery along the way.

There's no money in the oil business.

We met up with their friend Zed. 

Anfal had mentioned that Zed has done a lot of traveling, but he's far ahead of us. And a bit more adventurous. He's also well known in the Arab world as being the first Arab to climb Mount Everest. He has also successfully climbed the seven highest peaks on the continents, and the 46th person in the world to do so, having completed the task back in 2005. We didn't know any of this until I did some research this morning.

Isn't it odd that we now know two different people who have climbed "the seven summits".

They presented us each with a local gift.

The headwear that a lot of men use here is not a religious item. It's simply to help keep the sun off you. The head cover itself is called a ghutra, the black band is the egal, and there is a knitted cap that goes underneath called a gahfeyya. The head gear is often accompanied by a men's long white dress called a dishdasha.

Ruth's outfit is called a dara'a.

Ruth, Kevin, Anfal, and Muna.

Anfal, Zed, and Muna.

Hard to believe that this guy has been at the top of Mount Everest!

He's also a successful businessman who went to school in the U.S.. He speaks four languages... Arabic, English, Spanish, and French. What an interesting guy!

What a fun evening out we had. Really glad we came to Kuwait, even if for such a short visit. Thank you so much for looking after us, Anfal and Muna!

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