Gate to the North Pole

Posted on April 30, 2012 by Rohaizan

The Arctic Cruise we went on in the summer of 2008 was truly memorable for so many reasons. It was our first time on the cruise ship Prinsendam on a very interesting route which began from Dover, England. We stayed in Dover for a few days and celebrated our wedding anniversary there before boarding the cruise ship which took us to Oslo, Kristiansand, Bergen and Alesund in Norway, Akureyri, Isafjorður and Reykjavik in Iceland, Qaqortoq and Nuuk in Greenland, Lerwick in the Shetland Islands, back to Edinburgh in Scotland before finishing in Amsterdam, the Netherlands.

We met so many interesting people on this cruise, enjoyed all the activities on the ship and of course, the excursions at the various ports of call. Crossing the Arctic Circle was a historic once-in-a-lifetime event for us and cruising the fjords was simply exciting.

The magic was yet to come.

Heading towards Qaqortoq in Greenland, our ship cruised the 55-mile long fjord called the Prins Christian Sund. While we busied ourselves with photography of the many icebergs we saw for the first time in our lives, nothing could’ve prepared us for what we were about to see next.

The gigantic iceberg that presented itself was the most magnificent creation I had ever seen so close up front. It was like a floating arch to somewhere magical. I have no words to describe it. Only our photographs captured the magic we felt as our ship sailed slowly by it. Leaving it further and further behind, melting more and more as it floated along in the Arctic summer. To eventually disappear in the cool of the turquoise waters of the Arctic Ocean.

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If there were ONE image that encapsulated our Arctic Cruise, it was the one of this iceberg.

We call it the Gate to the North Pole and decided to make it one of our entries in the Qatar Airways Reflections Photo Contest and we think its going to be a winner – with your help.

Please vote for it by clicking the voting box above.

And we thank you in advance!

Campeones…campeones…Ole! Ole! Ole!

Posted on April 14, 2012 by Rohaizan

It was Friday the 13th and I told hubby this was going to be our lucky day and indeed it was! We participated in the first-ever paella cooking competition in Kuwait AND WE WON!

Our award-winning paella!

Much as we both enjoyed cooking, neither hubby nor I had ever participated in a cooking competition before, more so a PAELLA cooking competition, so naturally we were very, very elated that our paella was judged the winning paella that day.

We couldn’t believe it at first….they announced the second prize winner and as we watched the team receiving their prize and jumping for joy, I kept my fingers crossed. We waited for them to announce the winner, and I could feel the whole team wondering: Could it be us? Or maybe we didn’t win anything. And when they called out “Los Soles”, we just screamed…”We won! We won!”

Campeones! Campeones!

Hubby had told me, just over a couple of weeks before, that a group of Spanish friends were organizing a paella cooking competition and a friend and colleague of his, Carolina, was trying to form a group. She had asked him if we wanted to join. Of course I jumped with glee, exclaiming, “Let’s participate! It’ll be fun!” Our team turned out to be the smallest team – only five people – and probably the most international – four different countries among the five of us!

The competition was held in the grounds of a Chalet by the beach belonging to the Kuwaiti friends of one of the organisers. The rules were simple: the paella had to be cooked on-site and all the ingredients could be cleaned and cut etc at home, but absolutely no pre-cooking of anything except the broth or caldo which was traditionally used in making paella. Doors opened at 10:30 am and the paella had to be ready by 2:30pm for the judging. We could choose to also participate in the tortilla de patatas competition and the tortilla could be cooked at home and brought to the Chalet. This wasn’t a spectator event and one could only go as a member of one of the participating teams.

Few people I know have never heard of paella – the quintessential dish of Spain. One of the first things hubby did when we got married was to teach me how to cook paella. He said it was his interpretation of how his late grandmother used to make paella for them when they were children. The thing is, he cooked just like my mum – intuitively! No recipe, no measures – just a bit of this and a bit of that and the whole dish came together. (He still cooks like this to this day!) Which was fine. Except, I also wanted to be able to make the dish on my own so I forced him to “recipise” his paella.

So one day we measured everything and I wrote it out in a recipe card. And THAT was the last time hubby ever made paella in our kitchen LOL!

I’ve made paella many times since I learned how to do it from hubby but never ever without referring to my recipe card – I guess you could say that since it wasn’t a dish common to my own culture, I was always conscious about getting it right. Thankfully, hubby loved it every time I made it. We have cooked our paella everywhere we have ever lived – in Malaysia, in England, in Dubai and of course in Kuwait! We always manage to find the ingredients somehow. One year I even cooked paella for Eid when many Malaysian households prepare special dishes to serve their friends and family during the traditional “open house”. Needless to say, its a hit because it was something different from the traditional Malaysian Eid fare. That Eid I cooked paella every day for four days!

Making paella is already a laborious task, what more when you have to cook it outside your kitchen! So from the moment we decided to enter this outdoor paella competition, I knew we had a lot to do. We had to figure out the size of paella pan to use, on what kind of burner to cook the paella and most of all, how to make sure our recipe worked in a larger quantity. We also had to make sure that ALL the ingredients, especially the seafood, required were available the day before the event.

We had a 40 cm diameter non-stick paella pan – a paellera – with a cover, which we had never used before since we always cooked smaller portions of paella for 2 to 4 people. As per our recipe. Since there were five people in our team, and we had to cook enough to feed the team and also for the judges to sample, we knew this paellera was the right size. But how much rice goes in there? How much liquid with the type of rice we were using here?

Not wanting to take any chances, we did a dry-run the weekend before the event, cooking a double portion of our paella recipe in our paellera on the largest burner of our gas cooker at home. We cooked it exactly the way we would during the competition and timed the whole duration so we knew exactly when we had to start cooking on the day.

It was the best thing we ever did because we went to the event feeling confident that our paella would turn out exactly the way we wanted it to – no surprises!

The event was very well-organised and the atmosphere at the Chalet was like a fiesta. Kudos to the organising committee! The costumes attracted my attention first – I gasped at how creative some of them were. We found out later that there was also a prize for the best costume and Eva and Gabriel’s team won!

The fiesta atmosphere continued throughout the day as we cooked. Spanish music blared in the background. Every team had brought their own refreshments and snacks and we brought our alcohol-free sangria which was another one of hubby’s invention. Some people started dancing and there was even a live guitar performance organised by one of the teams.

Dancing the traditional Sevillanas

Habanera performance by one of the teams

We started cooking at 12:30 pm using our brand new single gas burner which we bought after the dry run. There were all kinds of burners used by the teams, many used a large gas ring and one team used a wood fire. It was really interesting to watch how every team went about cooking their paella.

Everyone aimed for the same result yet went about it their own way.

Hubby cooking our paella

Our workstation

Cooking paella on a gas ring

One team cooked their paella on a traditional fire

Everywhere around us, everybody’s paella started to take shape and at the end we saw that every paella looked different from the other. And why not?

Our paella taking shape!

Another group's paella in the making

The paella of another group

Me putting the finishing touches to our paella

Even though there was always a basic way to cook anything, one has to agree that everybody had their own special touch which always differentiated their cooking from someone else. And the same goes for paella.

Hubby said our paella was now an “award-winning paella” and well, it did look good and it certainly tasted good. Actually, it tasted just like we make it every time, only better! LOL

I’ll treasure our recipe and we’ll certainly treasure this experience. All the seven teams that participated cooked their best paella that day and one man’s paella – OURS – was judged the winning paella – campeones…campeones…ole! ole! ole!

Two of the judges

Food, glorious Malaysian food!

Posted on April 4, 2012 by Rohaizan

Dining out is one of the two things hot on the list of every expatriate in Kuwait. And, in case you didn’t know, the other is shopping!

If you love food and eating, dining out in Kuwait is very easy to enjoy since there are many good restaurants around. Sadly, there is NO Malaysian restaurant! The “Malaysian Char Kuey Teow with Beef” at the Noodle Factory in the Avenues Mall is as close as you’ll get to anything Malaysian around here. If you’re really desperate.

So it must have been a Godsend for many, Malaysians and non-Malaysians-who-love-Malaysian-food alike, when the Malaysian Embassy in Kuwait, in collaboration with the Association of Malaysian Ladies of the Ministry of Foreign Affairs (PERWAKILAN) of Kuwait organised and held the inaugural Malaysian Food Bazaar at the grounds of the Malaysian Embassy in Kuwait recently.

The striking banner at the gates of the Malaysian Embassy

I understood that it had taken many weeks of planning and organising by the Embassy and PERWAKILAN members. Although the event was only four hours – from 12 noon to 4pm on a Saturday afternoon it isn’t hard to imagine the amount of work involved in organising any food-sale event. Deciding what to sell, who’s going to prepare what and when to prepare what are things that are easily done at a meeting table but the real work has to be in the preparation of the ingredients, marinades, sauces and gravies. Many of the dishes also involve condiments and accompaniments like cucumber, onions, bean sprouts, carrots, cabbage etc and these need to be cleaned, cubed, sliced, julienned etc.

Many signature dishes that make up our exotic Malaysian cuisine had been planned for sale that day – many, like nasi lemak, nasi kerabu, nasi dagang, mee rebus, mee soto, asam laksa, would be prepared at home in the private kitchens of Malaysians and brought to the Bazaar to be served hot when purchased. Others like satay, mee goreng, and kuey teow goreng must be cooked on-site. So there was a lot of preparation to do.

Nasi lemak with all its condiments

The Malaysian Ambassador’s wife and President of PERWAKILAN Kuwait, H.E. Datin Azlinda Rosli spearheaded the preparation work for what was always the most popular Malaysian signature dish – satay. All in all, 20 kilograms of beef and 40 kilograms of chicken breast were purchased to make the 2000 sticks of satay. There was a lot of work involved in making satay the traditional way. The meat had to be sliced, then marinated overnight before painstakingly skewered into individual bamboo sticks. The ingredients for the marinade and the traditional satay sauce – a piquant peanut-based sauce – also required tedious preparation.

How else to accomplish this and a lot more except in the true Malaysian spirit of gotong royong – for which I have to say there is no direct translation into English.

Gotong royong (or sometimes gotong-royong) is a phrase commonly used in Malaysia which I would translate to mean “voluntarily working together on a task or tasks to accomplish a specific goal”. I’ve heard this phrase gotong royong used all my life since my childhood days and no one ever translated it for me! Throughout my adult life, the phrase always conjured a picture of people – men, women, children – of all races, from all walks of life doing something together – at an appointed time, in an appointed place – for a specific reason, purpose or goal.

All set to prepare the satay

Gotong royong: Many hands make light work

Busy travelling in and out of Kuwait since December 2011, I did not make it to join as a member of the association but I was glad when my BFF, Zaharah did the right thing and volunteered me to help out with some of the preparation work at the Embassy a couple of days before the event. So there we were in the Embassy kitchen (I didn’t count how many there were of us), skewering the marinated beef and chicken, then weighing, counting, packing and freezing the satay sticks ready for the traditional grilling over a charcoal fire on Bazaar day.

More chicken was purchased then sliced and marinated that day ready for skewering the next day. The satay sauce was also cooked that day.

Zaharah and I had been assigned by Datin Azlinda to man the satay stall and I had promised to come bright and early on Bazaar day to prepare the satay condiments – slices of cucumbers, and cubes of onions and compressed rice. I was intent on being at the Embassy by 8am as Datin recommended and virtually crept out of our apartment so hubby could sleep in a little extra on his day off! LOL

The Embassy grounds were abuzz as we got closer and closer to the time the Food Bazaar would start. Colourful banners in the colours of the Malaysian flag decorated the covered area where most of the stalls were and the various food stalls looked very attractive with the batik fabrics used as table covers and the creative presentation of the various food.

Including our satay stall’s…ahem!

Our satay presentation

We were all given bright red aprons with the Bazaar logo and the words “ Malaysian Food Bazaar” to wear. At around12 noon, I caught our Ambassador, H.E. Dato’ Adnan Othman, himself donning an apron like his wife and the rest of us, kicking off the Bazaar buying his coupons.

Here we go! No coupons, no food!

The DJ started playing some popular Malaysian music and the Bazaar had begun. Some Ambassadors from various embassies were the first to arrive with their family and friends. I recognised several faces of Ambassadors’ wives from the International Women’s Group and it was great to see them supporting the Bazaar. Many of the 600 or so guests that came that day had been to Malaysia before on holiday or business, and others had tasted Malaysian food elsewhere or in Kuwait.

At least where satay was concerned, we found it needed little introduction! The queue seemed endless and the satay team had little respite serving its customers.

The crowd at the Bazaar

The satay was cooked “live” at the satay grill manned by six hardy Malaysians right next to us. They did really well to keep the satay coming to make sure we never ran out of supply. Needless to say, the satay station attracted many spectators curious to see where the smoke and the unfamiliar aroma of a satay barbeque was coming from!

The Satay Brigade

Freshly grilled satay

It was busy everywhere. The rice station, noodles, drinks, munchies, cookies and Malaysian kuih muih (sweets and desserts) had their share of busy-ness.

Malaysian Food Bazaar 2012 008

Colourful Malaysian sweets and savoury curry puffs

Mee Rebus, Soto and Asam Laksa at the noodles station

Which wasn’t a surprise. Malaysian food is so varied and whether for the familiar or adventurous, you can’t have just one dish and say you’ve eaten Malaysian cuisine! No way. You’d have had to taste a bit of everything.

Well, like many other Malaysians who were there that day, I could have eaten everything – satay, char kuey teow, asam laksa, keropok lekor, rojak buah….mmmm yumm yumm..and I wanted to! No diets for me today, I thought!

Unfortunately it wasn’t to be. We were too busy taking care of business. As soon as I had a moment, I sneaked off to the noodles station to grab some asam laksa – alas, like many other dishes that day, they were sold out! Good for the bazaar but not good for me LOL

Hubby enjoyed himself sampling the dishes he loved (including the satay of course) and catching up with friends, new and old. And I really enjoyed being the satay seller! And the satay was really so good that one customer asked us, AND he was very serious: “Can you tell me, please, where is your restaurant in Kuwait?” LOL

This satay is the bestest!

It was a great day, this inaugural charity event at the Malaysian Embassy grounds. H.E. the Ambassador and his wife were very pleased with the success of the Bazaar, as were I think all the Association’s members, volunteers and spouses, and all Malaysians in Kuwait.

There’s talk that the Malaysian Food Bazaar will be an annual event from now on and next year, it will be held in the month of February to take advantage of the cooler weather and to partake in Kuwait’s annual Hala February festival.

So food, glorious Malaysian food, we look forward to the annual event, and next year, I’ll be sure to sneak away early during the Bazaar to grab my goodies!

In the dark: Earth Hour 2012

Posted on April 2, 2012 by Rohaizan

I actually forgot about Earth Hour this year. I’m not supposed to but I did. I only realised one hour before, so thankfully I could still do my bit.

I don’t know how many of us go around thinking, “I’m only one person. How could me switching off my lights for one hour possibly have any kind of impact on global warming?” Probably a lot of people.

Don’t get confused, Earth Hour DOES NOT aim at conserving power – the goal of Earth Hour is to raise awareness about the need to take action on climate change. The event was conceived by World Wide Fund for Nature (WWF) and The Sydney Morning Herald, and first took place in 2007, when 2.2 million residents of Sydney participated by turning off all non-essential lights. Following Sydney’s lead, many other cities around the world adopted the event in 2008. Today, Earth Hour is a worldwide event organized by the WWF and is held on the last Saturday of March annually

My son, Danial, is really good at this. I remember I was in Malaysia in March 2009 and we were going to have pasta for dinner at home when he reminded me, “Hey Mum, by the way, its Earth Hour tonight!”

We did it “by the book” – not only did we eat by candlelight, we cooked by candlelight!

Cooking during Earth Hour

At 8:30 pm sharp that night, the skyline changed. The view from our balcony was different from the usual view. The Petronas Twin Towers were dark and so was the KL Tower. Many other buildings had also switched off their lights.

It was an unfamiliar skyline.

Last year we were in Kuwait during Earth Hour. We happened to be out that night relaxing on the terrace with a drink at the Movenpick Hotel nearby in Al-Bidaa. Five minutes before 8:30pm, we saw some hotel staff placing some oil lamps on a bamboo stalk on the beach around where we were sitting and at Earth Hour all the non-essential hotel lights went off. There were already tea lamps on all the tables where we were so it was really cosy on the terrace. I have to say I was quite surprised at the effort.

So this year, we were at home and I told hubby,”In one hour we’ll switch off all non-essential lights in our apartment, OK?” And he said OK. I looked outside and saw that the terrace and garage lights were on, of course. The building haris (janitor) always turned them on at dusk and off at 10:30pm. Surprisingly, on seeing that, my dear husband opened the front door and went outside to switch them off.

So there we were, commemorating Earth Hour doing our bit for global warming. Unfortunately at 9:10pm, the haris turned the outside lights back on! Oh well…

In the rest of Kuwait this year, the official celebration of this year’s Earth Hour was organised by the “Kuwait Team for Global Warming” group at the Sahara Resort and Golf Club in Subhan. Around the city, more than fifty locations went dark for one hour from 8:30pm to 9:30pm and these included some well-known buildings and landmarks like the spanking new AlHamra Tower, the Avenues Mall, Marina Mall, Kuwait Towers, Liberation Tower, United Tijaria Tower, Souq Sharq etc.

Around the world, hundreds of millions of people, in thousands of cities, at hundreds of landmarks, on all seven continents, switched off their lights for one hour to display a universal commitment to protect the one thing that unites us all — the planet.

Lets hope this action sends a powerful message for action on climate change and a commitment to go beyond the hour to commit to lasting action for the planet.

Believe it or not, things can change when people come together for a common cause.

After the rain

Posted on March 11, 2012 by Rohaizan

So this was the last day of my month at home in Malaysia.

It flew by so fast I couldn’t believe it was already time to go back to Kuwait. I told my son Danial that I didn’t mind staying another two weeks. It seemed I never had enough time whenever I went back home.

I was busy everyday. My days were so tight that I’d try and fit in as much as I could everyday. I spent the greater part of every day at my mum’s and fit in errands, home improvement, friends and fire-fighting around my time at Mum’s. I spent most evenings with Danial. Some days I’d meet a girlfriend early in the morning for breakfast then run an errand then off to Mum’s till almost tea time. And then home to cook dinner. Some days I’d be at Mum’s early in the morning, dash off to meet a friend for lunch then back to Mum’s in the afternoon. And sometimes when Danial had an evening appointment, it was the complete reverse. I’d be at Mum’s all day and in the evening I’d catch up with a girlfriend over dinner.

So while I brought my MacBook home with me, hopeful that during my “free time” I could catch up on all those projects I had, like cleaning up my photo library, catching up on my blogging, preparing for my painting classes back in Kuwait etc, it didn’t happen. All I used my MacBook for was Skyping with hubby. I just did not have any time to do any of those things.

I’ll say it again – I’m always so busy when I go home. One of these days, I really want to go home for a holiday.

So back to today. It’s a nice day at Mum’s. Everyone is here. Three of my brothers and their family came over and everyone is in a good mood. It rained hard and heavy for a while so we all stayed indoors and chatted and what not. After the rain – and I love the fresh smell of the grass – we all went outside and sat around on the terrace. Mum’s nurse wheeled her out to enjoy the fresh air.

Raindrop on a leaf

One of my brothers noticed this drop of rain on a leaf on one of my Mum’s many, many potted plants in and around the terrace. And as soon as he had said, “Hey, look at this…”, everyone scrambled around the little plant, phones in hand and started snapping away. Everyone was very careful not to touch the leaf lest the drop of water trickled away.

Tomorrow I fly back to Kuwait. And despite having been here a month, the picture that will remain most vivid in my mind is this drop of rainwater on a leaf after the rain. I can’t really say why. There’s just a poignancy about it and I don’t really want to get mushy. Lets just agree that it’s a very nice pic taken with my iPhone 4S.

Flash mob hits Kuwait

Posted on February 5, 2012 by Rohaizan

Never heard of a flash mob? No need to be shy if you haven’t, because many people have not. Wikipedia says that a flash mob (or flashmob) is a “group of people who assemble suddenly in a public place, perform an unusual and seemingly pointless act for a brief time, then disperse, often for the purposes of entertainment, satire, and artistic expression.” The first ever flash mob was attempted in Manhattan in 2003, by Bill Wasik, the senior editor of Harper’s Magazine.

In one of the interviews Wasik gave, he said that “the mobs started as a kind of playful social experiment meant to encourage spontaneity and big gatherings to temporarily take over commercial and public areas simply to show that they could“.

Flashmob under the glass pyramid of the Louvre in Paris

Flash mobs have since become a popular activity across the globe with all kinds of an apparently spontaneous group activity in a public place causing surprise and amusement amongst its viewers. Most of the flash mob events are captured on video and posted on YouTube.

Flash mobs are certainly a 21st century phenomenon because while they don’t happen online they are often initiated and organised using social media, viral emails, or websites in general. Typically the organizers set up a website, mailing list, and/or a viral message that provides all necessary instructions for potential participants. This includes the date, time, and meeting point in the real world. A YouTube link to a video of the dance moves or actions to be performed usually accompanies the instructions. Sometimes an optional rehearsal is organised before the big day.

The term “flash mob” is not supposed to be used to describe “organised” events created by PR firms as publicity stunts or advertisement – these are supposed to be called “smart mobs” because they are well-planned and rehearsed.

They are usually a brief dance where the participants, usually a fairly large group, gather loosely at a public place to perform the moves they have rehearsed. Usually an introductory bit of music is played to signal the start of the event and one person starts the “dance”. A few more join him as if unplanned and then bit by bit more participants join. At the end of the dance, participants stop abruptly and disperse rapidly in different directions and mill with the crowd. And life goes on as if it never happened.

Whatever it is, the term that is commonly used today is flash mob and I haven’t heard the term smart mob used at all.

I’ve read about flash mobs happening all over the world but I have yet to find myself in the middle of a live flash mob anywhere in the world! On land or at sea. While on a Caribbean cruise on the Allure of the Seas in 2011, we had a ball participating in several sessions of training for a flash mob. Disappointingly, we had to miss participating in the actual flash mob event because of conflicting appointments we couldn’t avoid! We managed to see the last 30 seconds or so of the flash mob event.

And because of the conservative Kuwaiti culture I certainly did not expect there to be any chance of seeing a flash mob in Kuwait so I never thought I’d miss the opportunity to witness one here.

But I did! First flash mob ever in Kuwait, and I missed it.

Worse still we had been right there in the Avenues Mall that day having our usual Friday lunch, doing a little bit of window- and real shopping followed by food-shopping. Much, much worse, the event had been sponsored by the company hubby works for, Zain Kuwait!

In fact we had passed by the exact spot where the flash mob had been held and hubby pointed out someone near the Zain kiosk to me. He had told me that that was the lady from Zain’s corporate PR department whom I had been dealing with in a charity project some time back. He never suspected there was any promotional activity going on. When I showed him a video of the flash mob someone had posted on Facebook he exclaimed, “So that was why she was there!”

I was really upset that we missed it but that didn’t mean I couldn’t blog about it. LOL I believe the event had been organised as part of the “Hala February” celebrations that are held every year in the month of February which is the month Kuwaitis celebrate their National Day and Liberation Day.

I was impressed when I saw the video – it was the real thing. A flash mob like any other I had seen on various YouTube videos. Except, notice that its a men-only flash mob. In fact, one of the Kuwait bloggers who wrote about the event wondered what the reaction among conservative Kuwaitis would have been had some women spontaneously joined in the dancing.

A flash mob event to look forward to this year is the Worldwide Flash Mob “Thrill The World”, a tribute to Michael Jackson which will be held in countries around the world on Saturday, October 27th, 2012. This event has been held since 2006 on the weekend before Halloween and this year the organisers will attempt to break a Guinness World Record.

It will be interesting to see Kuwait participating now that the ice is broken.

Voting in Kuwait today

Posted on February 2, 2012 by Rohaizan

Kuwaitis go out to vote today and as is the tradition, it is a public holiday and so a long weekend for many.

From Islamists who want the rule of Islamic law to Western-style liberals, several political groups are contesting for Kuwait’s 50-seat parliament.

About 400,000 Kuwaitis, including women, who had been given the right to vote and run for office in 2005, are registered to vote in what will be the second election in a three-year period. Kuwait had voted on seven occasions between 1991 and 2012.

The Kuwaiti emir, Sheikh Sabah Al Ahmad Al Sabah, dissolved the outgoing conversatives-dominated parliament and called elections in December after months of political showdowns that included opposition lawmakers demanding to question the prime minister over an alleged payoff scandal and protests that culminated in anti-government mobs storming parliament.

Kuwait s Parliamet House on Gulf Road

Kuwait’s parliamentary system is very unique: political parties are banned and candidates contest elections individually. The government is normally formed from outside parliament. Its unelected ministers automatically become members of parliament and can vote like elected members.

Although Kuwait’s key government posts are firmly in the hands of the ruling Al Sabah family, the parliament is one of the most outspoken elected bodies in the Gulf that openly confront the leadership over issues such as cronyism, free expression and alleged corruption.

The main political groups, acting as de facto parties fielding candidates in today’s polls are:

– The Islamic Constitutional Movement (ICM), the political arm of Kuwait’s Sunni Muslim Brotherhood. The ICM has called for political and economic reforms despite advocating a stricter social order. It has officially endorsed four candidates and is backing several others.

– The Islamic Salafi Alliance (ISA), an affiliate of the Heritage Revival Society, a purist Sunni religious group with hardline views on morality. It has fielded four candidates but is also supporting several others.

– The National Islamic Alliance, a Shiite group. It is fielding two candidates and is backing others.

– The Justice and Peace Alliance, a Shiite group that is fielding one candidate and is backing a few others.

– The Popular Action Bloc, which brings together former legislators headed by veteran former speaker Ahmad al-Saadun. The group focuses on populist issues such as housing and salary increases. It is fielding five candidates.

– The Democratic Forum, a liberal group and strong advocate of political and economic reforms, with a priority on development. It has fielded four candidates and is backing several others.

There are 23 women (including re-election bids by four lawmakers who were the first women in the assembly) among the more than 280 candidates in today’s parliamentary elections.

Acil Al Awadi

Thank you for removing your shoes…

Posted on January 30, 2012 by Rohaizan

One of my expatriate friends – now happily repatriated back to Canada – wrote an interesting post on her blog about the issue of shoes-on or shoes-off in the home among various cultures. I started to write a comment and I think it was getting a bit long so I decided to turn it into a blog post!

For as long as I can remember, I have lived in a shoes-off environment because its a very Malaysian tradition. Its taboo to wear the same shoes you wear on the street inside your house.

When visiting another Malaysian’s house, we take off our shoes at the entrance without ever being told to. Its very unusual that our host tells us to keep our shoes on. Its also not a practice to provide guests with house slippers to put on after they take off their shoes, although I sometimes ask guests if they would like a pair of sandals to put on. But people take their shoes off without as much as a questioning glance. I hate the feel of the cold floor on my feet so I always wear a pair of specially dedicated sandals whenever I’m at home. I use a separate one in the kitchen because obviously there is where you may step on fat etc.

Shoe sign

I remember bringing guests from abroad to our home in Malaysia or inviting Western friends over for a meal and those who are culture-savvy have somehow read up about local practices or they are very observant: its not uncommon for friends who step in with their shoes and seeing that their Malaysian host is barefooted, exclaim: “Oh, I should take off my shoes.” And sometimes, we say to them, “Its OK, keep them on.” Then they say “No, we’ll take them off” and we insist they keep them on, and finally they come in, with or without their shoes depending on which option they’re more comfortable with!

When we lived in England for a while, we noticed that people kept their shoes on at home and although we didn’t wear our shoes indoors we found it difficult to tell others to remove their shoes. I hated carpets inside the home for this reason and we put in a wooden laminated floor in the house we bought so that it was easier to clean. In Dubai and now in Kuwait, my Malaysian friends and visitors usually take their shoes off automatically. Sometimes when we have a women-only gathering and everybody wants to look elegant, we all keep our heels and stilettos on. Afterwards, my maid helps me to clean the floors, of course! Its the same thing when I visit them or when they have a gathering. When I visit my Kuwaiti and other Arab friends I always ask if I should take my shoes off and am always told to keep them on.

Shoes-on or shoes-off?

There is research which shows that 87% of the dirt found in our homes are tracked in. Mats by the door and inside the door to wipe shoes help to reduce the dirt on shoes but don’t keep all the dirt out. Taking outdoor shoes off at the door is intended to solve the problem of tracking dirt in from the outside. It helps to keep the home environment clean.

But its not the easiest thing to tell all your guests to remove their shoes. I once thought of painting a pretty sign (well, more subtle than the one above LOL) instead I decided to just be very tolerant.

I’ve gotten used to the idea that, depending on their own practices at home, some of my guests will take their shoes off when they come into my home and others will keep them on. Some will ask and some just look for the signs (pun intended!) like other people’s shoes at the door or whether we’re wearing shoes or not.

Signs...
But not delivery men or workers etc – I always tell them to remove their shoes at the door. Sometimes they don’t speak English so I look at their shoes, wave my index finger and tell them, “No shoes.” They usually understand. Our janitor is familiar with this by now and he tells the workers he brings to our apartment to remove their shoes!

There is a lot of discussion about the shoes-off or shoe-on issue and obviously the views go both ways. And a Blog called “Shoes Off at the Door, Plea se” lists 37 reasons for a shoes-off policy.

Japanese "room shoes"
The Japanese have been practicing this since somewhere between the 8th and 12th centuries and Japanese homes have a shoe rack for guests to put their shoes and provide house slippers for them to wear. The Indians and Swedes also practise this and so do the people of Canada, Iceland, Finland and many more, I’m sure. In Finland, I understand its common practice for people going to someone’s home to bring with them a pair of their own shoes which are used specifically for indoors. There you go.

Personally I think its important to understand that it probably started with good reasons in various countries around the world which practise the shoe-off policy. Today, many people may think of it as purely a cultural thing but I think its not. Its a lifestyle choice and I think the best thing to do is best explained by the adage “when in Rome, do as the Romans do”.

If we ourselves keep our outside shoes on in our home and allow guests to keep their shoes on when they visit, fine. But when we go to someone else’s home, we should be decent enough to see what our hosts practice and not be offended if we need to take our shoes off.

Its the right thing to do, don’t you think? It mightn’t be elegant but its the right thing.

Shooting in Kuwait

Posted on January 21, 2012 by Rohaizan

I had my first shooting experience at a public shooting range in Kuwait today!

It had been a weekend of “fooding” on the occasion of our son Danial visiting Kuwait for the first time since January 2008, so the shooting “excursion” was a welcome change!

The Mayadeen Public Shooting Range or NRC is located in the Mubarak al-Kabeer area of Kuwait near the Sahara Golf and Country Club and opens from 5pm to 9pm on a Saturday. We made our way there just before 6pm.

Hubby had already been there after he discovered it last year but all of us were really excited about it. Danial, most of all. Of course, I was very excited as well, although when we got there, I wasn’t really sure if I would be shooting at all. Suddenly, it seemed a little daunting. I also wondered if women actually went there shooting!

It was one of the coldest days so far this winter in Kuwait and the wind was cold, cold, cold, as we ran from the car to the entrance of the building that housed the shooting range.

Mayadeen Public Shooting Range

The man at the reception asked for our Civil IDs and Danial’s passport. He scanned our documents, retained them and sent us on our way. We didn’t get anything in return, like a receipt or a pass, and I wondered how he would make sure he gave everyone the right documents back! I guess we would have to make sure he did. The chap must have a great memory for faces.

The shooting galleries were all downstairs as was a restaurant / cafe that served hot and cold drinks, cakes and sandwiches.

I looked at the shooting gallery for handguns and actually saw women there. So, ok, I WAS going to shoot after all! No doubt about that. This was going to be one experience I wasn’t going to miss.

Hubby knew the ropes as he went to a counter where a cheerful gentlemen sat and showed him the “menu” for guns and rifles. On the table he had this display of the different sizes of bullets – hubby had told me we weren’t allowed to take photographs so I didn’t. This image is courtesy of another website.

Bullets

Hubby and Danial chose the Beretta 9mm which were big guns and since I didn’t know anything about guns, hubby, my military man, chose an “appropriate” one for me. I was going to shoot a smaller gun, a .38 calibre. A large calibre gun actually, which was used by the police in the US before 1990! Anyway, we were surprised later that they had given me this Taurus 82S.

The Taurus 82S .38 Revolver I used

Perhaps the smaller Smith & Wesson (the kind women carried for protection in their purse, like Bree in Desperate Housewives!) would have been more appropriate.

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The full range of guns offered to customers at the shooting range is quite impressive and the prices were very reasonable. We paid KD6 for 20 rounds for each of the handguns.

Hubby put on the ear protection and went inside the shooting gallery to hand in our papers after he paid for the revolver and we had to wait outside until they called us. It was very well-organised. The instructors were experienced and qualified Filipino professionals. Once they had prepared our guns they called us in. We all put on our ear protection and waited. We were assigned instructors and one of the 10 shooting stalls in the 25-metre shooting range. Danial started first in Stall 3 and I stood waiting gleefully with hubby for my turn. I was getting nervous and told him to please wait and go with me.

As if that was going to happen. We didn’t really know if they would let him stay with me.

The target sheet being positioned mechanically

We had to wait behind a yellow line as as my target sheet was installed. An instructor prepared a gun in Stall 4. Then he called me and hubby had to stay behind the line. Everything went fuzzy after that. I had never been THIS CLOSE to a gun before, let alone handle one.

These things kill people! OMG….here we go..

I forgot to ask his name but my instructor was very good.

Him: “Have you ever used a gun before, ma’am?”

Me: “No…”

Him: “Ok first time…”

He started to explain the parts of the gun to me, then the rules. Safety is a big thing at the shooting range of course. The most important one being that the muzzle of the gun is to stay pointed towards MY paper target in MY stall in the shooting range and NOWHERE ELSE at all times. Certainly the loaded gun cannot be pointed at anyone in the range at any time. THESE ARE REAL BULLETS – LIVE AMMUNITION – AFTER ALL. After loading the bullets, my trigger finger should rest horizontally above the trigger UNTIL I’m ready to shoot. He then showed me how to load the bullets, loaded the first six rounds, showed me how to aim and then gave me the gun.

My palms started to sweat. The gun was quite heavy and I had no idea what kind of recoil, if any, I would experience. He didn’t say anything about it to me so it must not be a big deal. So I did as he explained. He stood on my left. I held the gun with both hands, pointed it at my target, closed one eye, aligned the front sight and rear sight of the gun to the target as he had explained and pull the trigger.

Phew! I had fired my first shot. Scary.

I had aimed too high and the bullet hit outside the target range! He said to aim lower and explained how to align the gun to the centre of the target again. To hit the 10.

I fired my second shot and this time I hit somewhere within the target. Yaaay! I’m getting this. Then I tried the other way of shooting the gun – by cocking the hammer down, which made the trigger softer. It was indeed softer and much better. I tried again and I actually hit the 10! My instructor was very happy as he pointed it out to me. Then he moved back and left me to shoot on my own.

He helped me to remove the spent shells and showed me to how to reload the next 6 rounds. Release the latch and push the cylinder out. Insert the bullets one by one and push the cylinder back in. I had seen this being done in movies all the time and now I was doing it! I couldn’t believe it!

And I didn’t do so bad with the shooting from there on. Nervous still but I was doing it! I reloaded the next 6 rounds on my own as he watched. I really didn’t do too badly at all. I hit the 10, the bulls’ eye, three times. I got a few 9’s too!

My target sheet: 3 tens!

Hubby and Danial were impressed! I was impressed! LOL Shaking from the experience but impressed!

We had a drink and compared experiences then hubby and Danial went to choose their rifles. Hubby chose an American rifle (Remington, I think) and Danial got the Russian. This cost an KD7 and KD8 respectively. I sat this one out because the recoil from the rifle would hurt my little shoulder and I was happy to watch from the gallery. My two guys did really well! And I was sure that Danial would brag about this experience to all his mates at home.

So that was it. We talked about it later and I told hubby that I wouldn’t mind going again now, at least to have a go with the Smith & Wesson .38.

Just for the experience you know, not that I think I would ever buy my own gun.

Mayadeen Public Shooting Range (NRC)
Mubarak Al-Kabeer Kuwait
+965 2475 9999

Shocked!

Posted on January 14, 2012 by Rohaizan

Up bright and early on our last day in Dubai we watched CNN in horror – something had happened to a Costa cruise ship, the Concordia, just off the coast of Italy. A couple of minutes later it had started to list!

Costa Concordia tragedy

Having just come off a cruise ship 10 days before, I watched, horrified, unbelieving, questioning: what’s going on..what happened..how did it happen..how COULD it happen?

Hubby reminded me that 2012 marked the hundredth anniversary of the Titanic tragedy and of course I was twice horrified! But then, this is the 21st century. Its not supposed to happen. Technology is so much more advanced and regulation is tight. This shouldn’t happen. Cruising is safer than flying.

It must be human error. That’s the only explanation right now.

Five facts about the Concordia

We had never been on the Costa Concordia but in the summer of 2010 we went on a Costa ship, the Pacifica, for the first time. I remember we chose the cruise for its itinerary but after that cruise, for various reasons, we said “That was it!”, we would never go on another Costa cruise ever again.

We waited anxiously for more news about what happened with the Costa Concordia and all we got was speculation. It was early days yet and we would hear more as the day went by. All we knew was that there were about 4200 passengers and crew aboard and our hearts went out to them.

I couldn’t help but imagine what they must be going through right now. Pictures of all those times we had been at a lifeboat drill on board a cruise ship flashed through my mind.

Lifeboat drill on the Prinsendam

The calm, controlled reaction to the sounds of the horn. The order and organization. I couldn’t help imagining what was going on in the ship.

Later during the day when we had access to internet at the Dubai Mall, hubby showed me a picture of the ship. Its gone. It had taken in water and in the shallow waters of the Isola del Giglio off the coast of Tuscany, lay helpless on its side.

The Costa Concordia on its side

The Costa Concordia aground

As we waited for more information about the tragedy, I prayed for the safety of those on board the Concordia and I thought about our friends who were still on the Seabourn Odyssey on their cruise around the world. What must be going through their minds?

I couldn’t help wondering how this tragedy would change the face of cruising. Would we go cruising again? And if we did, will it ever be the same?

Here. There. Everywhere.

Our life at home and away from home. Our travels. Our adventures.