NicoleB's blog/

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 )

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 :)

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 ;)

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