NicoleB's blog ^pro

Let's play another game.

Let's call it around the world.

I will start with one country and you add one picture (let's say in medium size) that shares a border with this picture. The next picture should then share a border with the second picture and so on.

(If we get to the U.S. we can use State borders as well, so we don't get stuck, or the country borders to get out of there again. Ocenas count as a bridge)

Let's use the reply buttons, so the game keeps rolling, ok?

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Lasst uns ein Spiel spielen.

Wir nennen es rund um die Welt.

Ich werde mit einem Land anfangen, dann kann einer von Euch ein Bild einfuegen (sagen wir in medium Groesse), dass eine Landesgrenze mit diesem Bild teilt, das naechste Bild dann eine mit dem zweiten, etc.

(Wenn wir in den USA landen, koennen wir auch Staatengrenzen verwenden, damit wir nicht steckenbleiben oder die Landesgrenzen, um wieder dort raus zu kommen. Ozeane gelten als Bruecken)

Lasst uns den Antwort-button benutzen, auf dass das Spiel in Gnag bleibt, ok?

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Let's play

Germany

The weather was great today, so I decided to take a tour. Miss A. had to run some errands and we wanted to meet later (didn't work out, my fault - see ya Thursday though :) ). I decided to go to green island. Still Springtime, nice weather, good idea. So I thought. Had a good / cheap taxi driver from Iran (I gotta tell his story another day) and he delivered me without problems. He was even willing to wait, just in case they were still closed. I said no. Took a few pictures from the outside, was already NOT impressed. Like with almost everything, even if I try not to, I expected a bit more. Was willing to pay my 1 KD entrance fee, even with my unimpressedness, got to the guard in his little house. He looks at me, tells me to wait please (I think, it was in Arabic) and made a phone call. I thought, maybe he asks someone if I can already get in, it was only 9 a.m. Got my money out and waited. He gets of the phone and tells me (with hand signals) that I am not allowed to take any pictures on the island. Pardon me? Nope, no pictures. I could have said, "ok", went in and shoot anyway, there was noone around, but I was so speechless, not even angry, that I just grabbed my stuff, turned around and left.

Walked towards the towers and got some more pictures (I will make a post for that another day), tried to catch a taxi to go to the war museum. No taxi. Kept walking and taking pictures (I only had one extra battery with me and yeah, guess what, the one in my camera went dead after 5 pictures....pretty odd, usually they last forever). Tried it half way to the towers again with a taxi. 2 taxis with passengers and one that didn't see me. Walked all the way to the towers, took some more pictures. Finally got a taxi, but that guy didn't know the museum I was talking about, we would have found it, but I let him drop me off at the Sadu house. Was on my list anyway and the National museum is right beside it too.

Guess what. No, it was open, but NO pictures either. I took them anyway, there was noone around, only later in one of the halls I met a few guys. One gave me a brochure, explained me the way (Dude, I have seen it all already) and told me "no photos" (yeah right, too late, so sorry). Was not too impressed of this one either. Heck, the exhibition in the Red Fort in Jahra is better than what they did there. A beautiful house and beautiful rooms though (one day a post on this one will come too ;) ). The National museum looks like they are renovating big time. Went the wrong way around and was after I finally got close to the entrance not in the mood no more to go in. Will do so on a rainy dusty day ;)

Went to Souq Mubarakiya instead and strolled around for the longest time. I was actually looking for the shops where I saw those old cameras and war medals (that's an old post on my old blog, I think) - but I couldn't find them.

Found whole new other areas that I've never been too though.

Got hubby some salted peanuts and a little surprise.

Had some tea (and food and more tea) for free, because that guy there seems to like me. He didn't get his picture though. I dropped of some pictures a while back and one was his, but he was on vacation. I'll get him a copy one of these days. Left him some money under the plate too, I don't want him to get into trouble. Went around on the Gold Souq, just to check the prices, but they are still pretty ridiculous. Oh well. Maybe I'll get me a little anklet anyway the next time I go. Took a taxi home and am dead tired and a tiny bit sunburned now. But no time to rest. I NEEDED to blog and now I need to prep hubby's food for tomorrow and then finally get my butt out again to sell more pictures ;) It was Payday after all :P

Yesterday was my anniversary in Kuwait - and I forgot ;) No wonder in that weather. Well, I remembered today. One year. If I wouldn't know that that miserable summer is coming I would say, that year wasn't too bad. I met a few great people, most of them wandered different paths after a short while, but I am still thankful to them for helping me out, showing me around, driving me around, meeting me and bearing with "picture bug" me :) Thanks to those people Kuwait was actually pretty easy to get settled in. I visited a lot of places that most Kuwaitis don't even know exist (*grins at Linus* :) ) There are still a lot of places on my list though. - Sadu House of weaving - the museum right beside that - the war museum - the place where they did build the Dhows - Dunes in the desert - Failaka one more time - the place where there are the Flamingos I'm sure there are more. These are just the ones I remember now. I just checked, I even have a post from last year. I'll copy it from my old blog over here though. Want to do that anyway with all my posts (I know, you know THAT already in abundance). ~ Here you go ~ And now, here we are 1 year later.

I'm ready to move on, wouldn't mind another tour in Korea. Still so much to see. Doesn't seem that that will happen though. Oh well. I guess we have some hot months ahead of us ;)

Today hubby and I met Miss A. to go to a Kuwaiti Restaurant (that's a story for tomorrow, with some yummie food). On our way there, I saw a bunch of fancy, expensive cars. I swear I have NOT seen so many of them on any other day. Altogether I counted at least 7 Jaguars, 2 or 3 Porsche, 1 high speed Corvette, 1 Thunderbird, 1 high speed Ferrari, 4 Hummers (one of them the expensive type - nope, I don't like those), a bazillion various BMW and Mercedes and whatnot. Maybe I was blind the other days, but today was extreme :)

Also named "The Palace" or "Old town". Don't let the names fool you. In Dubai is no City Center and no such thing as old town ;) The people delegating the money around in Dubai just decided last year that every city in the West seems to have an old part of town and they needed one too. So they distributed a couple of millions of Dollars into this project. Seems to work, it looks nice so far - not really old, but it's a nice try ;) (We got that information from one of the guys working in the Hotel)

A quick shot out of the cab - Hotel entrance

Entrance Hall - Flower fountain

A big Bar area with outside balcony

The Sofitel sure as heck is worth the money you pay. It's a beautiful complex, with lots of flowers, green and fountains. I'm not a big fan of huge steel buildings. Even though it is still surrounded by construction Sites you barely hear anything of that. Our room was nice, big and quiet. Internet wireless and free of charge, connection quite alright.

Hotel room

Hotel room

The bathroom - toilet with door and bathtub plus extra shower

The balcony

The "lake" as seen from our balcony

The service at any part of the Hotel awesome. Attentive and friendly. The food is excellent and the value for your money is good. They have one Restaurant with all kinds of food, an Argentinian Restaurant and a bar - all three with an Air conditioned inside area and tables outside. The whole Hotel is Non-smoking inside, except for certain Hotel rooms. The main Restaurant has a Shisha service and the Pool has it's own Bar.

The garden, before getting to the Pool and main Restaurant - smells delicious!

The outside area of the main Restaurant

Pool area

Shisha service

I would not want to stay anywhere else if I would go to Dubai again (and no, I don't have any stock in the company, even though I worked for Accor a few years :P )

I have posted this originally in December 2004. It was a tour through Daegu a friend of mine and I did that day. We visited the Confucius school in town (there's another, bigger one farther out). We were lucky to get there in time to see a tea ceremony.

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Ein alter Blogpost von mir, den ich grade rausgekramt habe. Die Bilder sind zwar auch hier auf Ipernity - irgendwo, aber ich bin zu faul zum suchen und habe mal nur den Blogeintrag kopiert.

Mal gucken, ob das funktioniert ;)

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Das isser, der Konfuzius

Das ist ein Teil der Schule

Wir kamen puenktlich um noch einen Teil einer Teezeremonie zu sehen. Und viele Damen und ein Herr in Originaltrachten.

Der einzelne Herr ist der Lehrer. Toller Job ;-)

Wunderschoene Gingko-Baeume

Gruppenfoto

Aron war mal wieder sehr beliebt :-)

Mittagessen ;-)

Nein, Spass, das Huhn war nicht das Mittagessen. Hier ist das wirkliche Essen.

Das Schulgebaeude

Und auch hier wieder wunderschoen verzierte Decken

Das ist so eine Art Clubraum scheint's.

Und das ist der Chef vom Ganzen

Sein Sohn studiert in Frankfurt und er hat sich so gefreut, uns kenn zu lernen, dass er fuer jeden ein Geschenk rausgekramt hat

Ein Paar Socken von der WM 2002 :-))))

Most of you know that I am one ;)

Now, what does an Internet junkie do when you take a way the Internet?

That's right - scream and cry ;)

Thanks to some Morons wherever in whatever Ocean out there I have some severe trouble in accessing most pages.

Some load normal, I can even log in and then....white....nada......nix.

At least Ipernity is still working. For today.

You probably think, I’m insane for loving the rain.
But after 9 months with about 3, max. 4 days of rain I embrace every bit of it

And it’s the nice kind of Spring rain. Not so cold, fresh and not pouring too much

Love it!

Ich wusste gar nicht, dass die hier einen Aldi Sued haben ;)

Gefunden in meinem 1,- KD Laden.

Erklaerung des netten Verkaeufers: Hergestellt werden die wohl in Sri Lanka (oder war's woanders?) und dann........den Rest hab ich nicht kapiert.

Ich sag, die Dinger fallen von irgendwelchen Lastwagen oder Frachtschiffen ;)

Ich hatte jedenfalls den Lacher des Tages :P

OK,ok, a "bit" late, but here is part 2 from our Bahrain tour in October (and yes, there will be at least one more part ;) )

This time when we arrived at the airport, we didn't forget to pick up our luggage, but when we got out of the airport there was Noone to pick us up either. A few Phone calls and 20 minutes later the guy from the Novotel Al-Dana Resort picked us up. Better late then never ;). We had a pleasant and quick ride to the Hotel, a quick Check-In and a beautiful room to rest in. (Not my Best pictures ever...oh well.... ;) )

Once again we had a great view to the little Hotel beach and the ocean (well, and the Fish restaurant at the other side, but that didn't bug me).

Beach with Bar (where I had an interesting conversation with a Hotel employee who was running around with a neat Nikon D40 I think. He was shooting for the Hotel brochure, but didn't really have a clue and asked ME for Tips, grin...... )

The Hotel areal is gorgeous. Entrance

A beautiful Pool area, lots of flowers, a big Fitness Center, good Restaurants & two Bars (one at the Beach and one at the Pool), friendly staff (a little understaffed though, especially during breakfast times, coughcough). We had a great time though :). Met a lot of interesting people as well. Saudis and Kuwaitis mainly. Interesting conversations as well.

This one's early morning Saturday at the Hotel beach

Views from the back of our Hotel

Golden bridge It was early morning and humid - the original shot was pretty grey, so I played a bit ;)

Fuer die Stunden, die ich reingesteckt habe, habe ich nocht nicht viel vorzuweisen, aber ich arbeite dran :)

Ich versuche alles selber zu machen, dann kapier ich wenigstens auch, was ich da mache, aber das DAUERT.....

Seid nicht zu hart zu mir ;)

www.nicoleb.org

Don't be to harsh to me, there's not much there yet, but I do everything from scratch so I know (maybe) one day what the heck I'm doing ;)

I just did it. I got me an account with hostmonster (yes, I know, same owner as Bluehost, just cheaper ;)) and a lot more toys for your value.

I still don't know if I really "NEED" it, but it's nagging me since so long and one day I have to get my lazy butt going and DO IT, no? ;) Now, setting the domain name free will take up to two days and it will take me AT LEAST that long to get something going there and get anything up anyway.

Another way to spend my time.....

Today I've sent an email to team Ipernity.

For one about the Issue about my double comments and second about the Issue with Pixrat.com

Here's the email:

Hello there,

two things that are bugging me:

1. I have the issue that after posting a comment it sometimes shows up double. I have this now on and off since around two months.

No big deal, just to let you know.

2. I'm sure someone (or a bunch of people) might have contacted you already about a site called Pixrat?

pixrat.ibibo.com

They are "using" pictures from Ipernity users. They have two of mine, which are and have been "All rights reserved". The backlink is proper, it leads back to my page.

I just don't know if they do this with your guys permission.

Thanks, Nicole

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Does anyone know the deeper purpose of Pixrat???

Is it possible that this is just something similar to "dig it" ???

Update:

Team Ipernity is already looking into this!

Yesterdays news in the Arab Times leaves me with mixed emotions.

KOC (Kuwait Oil Company) organized a beach clean up at Abu Halifa Beach. The Kuwait Autism Center and a number of special needs schools participated in the exercise and it was supervised by KOC and the UAE diving society. The event was held simultaneously in the UAE, Qatar, Bahrain and Oman as well. It will be held once a year.

You have Litterbugs all over the world. But I rarely see a beach for example where people just leave all their fast food bags and other Leftovers only because there's a trash guy paid to pick trash up.

Btw. I have never seen a beach without trash cans or containers either. Mainly it gets collected in a big hole in the ground and either burned or picked up later. The small beaches like in Mangaf simply don't have trash cans.

Or I have not seen it that at a construction site all kinds of trash just piles up. And I mean PILE UP when I say that.

Don't get me wrong, I wholeheartedly support cleaning activities like the one from KOC, but there needs something to get rolling. The mind frame of people needs to be changed. It will not work with fines. We all know how that works here in Kuwait.

So, how will we be able to do this? Honestly I have no idea. I'll probably keep cleaning up "my" part of the beach once a week and try to live with the rest?

Any ideas welcome.

I was never really a handbag girl and I still don't care about them too much.

But being in Kuwait AND going to the Friday market will change almost every girls mind about handbags.

I think, for now I DO have enough handbags though, cough cough......

You really can get good deals there though. I got two real leather ones and finally big enough t get all my camera stuff in there. Nice. So I don't have to run around no more with my backpack, shudder.

Do I get stylish?

Oh my....!

I'm in Kuwait too long :P

I am used to the country of no havy, which was Korea.

Going into a shop, looking for a certain product you often got the answer “No havy”.
Getting deeper into the subject you sometimes managed to get the employee check for you at another shop of that chain, if they have the product. But most times you just go with “No havy”.

Now I live in the country of “Tomorrow never comes”. The standard answer for an unavailable product is “tomorrow”.
But going there the next day just leaves you empty handed with another “tomorrow”.

Which never comes.

Is pretty much what I do lately. Wonder how things work in this place. Wonder why not everything just falls apart ;) Things work quite different here than anywhere else. Must be with so many mixed cultures. There are 2 million Expatriates here and 1 million Kuwaitis. I mean, take for example all the lowly paid workers, I'm not talking about the guys that take your trash or drive the taxi, I mean the ones that clean the malls and keep the toilets tidy.

Thursday, we were having a coffee at Al Kout mall. Outside of the Sultan Center. There's trash laying around on the floor (a rare sight), one of those cleaners leaning against the wall, chitchatting with another guy. The he started , no not, getting the trash, he started, splashing water on the ground, little dips, and scrubbing it a bit with a broom. He did that for a few minutes, then went This is a short Video of it, but wordpress seems to have Issues now with my Videos hosted on Ipernity as well :(

Or yesterday, a cleaning lady in of the public mall toilets (I'm not going to say which one, because she's a nice and sweet lady), was laying on top of the hand wash basins, deep asleep.

And talking to one young guy in a Sports shop about people in general here and work, etc., he told me that he actually had a job in the Scientific Center to feed the animals and do stuff there, but his work Visa got transferred to this job, selling sports clothes and shoes.

And you wonder why you get a shitty service here? Having people work in jobs, they a) absolutely didn't want and b) where they have no freaking clue what the hell they are doing?! He didn't have a clue about running shoes.

The last experience really got me thinking. I mean, I know that most people are here, because the money is better than at home. No matter who you take. But Westerners at least can choose their job. Or work in what they have learned to do. Here it seems that they a) just get put in ANY job AND are paid quite shitty.