It’s hard to believe that we really only have a couple of months left in Kuwait. The last time we left, I had a feeling that we may return one day {though I had no idea it’d be so soon}, but that’s not happening this time around. Our time here is nearly done and there will not be a round three. So, with that in mind, we’ve been trying to get out and enjoy Kuwait as much as possible in these final months.
For a brief period of time, I told myself that I could make it through the last few months of our time in Kuwait without a Hilton membership once it expired. Then I came to my senses, visited the manager to arrange for a pass that would take us through to the summer, paid the ridiculous fee, and breathed a sigh of relief. I also arranged for a pass for Brad’s mom to use while visiting, and I’m so glad I did. It sounds dramatic, but this place is our sanity in what can be a somewhat chaotic country. It’s where we escape the unbearable heat and spend hours in a chilled pool. It’s where we come to use a safe and clean playground. It’s where I come to spend some ‘me time’ walking at night. It feels normal and oftentimes, that’s exactly what we need.
The weather forecast called for rain and a dust storm, but we did let that come in the way of the beach day we’d planned with friends. Instead, we packed up family-sized bento of snacks and our bag of beach toys, convoyed out to Khiran, and hoped for the best. The afternoon worked out perfectly – the weather was warm but not too hot, the kids played happily, and the rain held out just until we were packing up to leave around 5 o’clock. It was a lovely day that ended with a filthy munchkin and a long bath, but all good days should end that way, shouldn’t they?
After months and months and months of wanting to go, we finally made it out to Yarmouk Recycled Art Park this morning. I’d love to say that it was due to my motivation to get out and see all of the things we want to see before leaving Kuwait in June, but we actually were invited to a birthday party in the park which provided all the motivation we needed. {Friends, a cool park, and sunshine? Yes please.}
Oh my goodness… Grae and I had the loveliest morning today. After an unsuccessful attempt at getting out to the Al Farsi International Kite Festival yesterday, this morning Miss G and got ready, jumped into our SUV, and headed south into the desert. We saw a huge herd of camels along the way, which is always exciting, but Miss G was extra impressed by the fact that there were two that were so light that they looked bright white. ☺ Not long after the camels, we spotted a group of huge, colourful kites on the opposite side of the highway and we knew that we’d found what we were looking for.
Despite the fact that we arrived an hour later than we intended to (an hour after opening), we were some of the first people to arrive and Miss G loved the fact that we pretty much had the entire place to ourselves. Arabic music was bumping, new kites were being put up by the kite team one after the other, and all sorts of bouncy castles were begging to be jumped in. It was a blast.
We ended up staying for a couple of hours, and Miss G was treated like a little queen the entire time. Everywhere we went, she got smiles, hellos, offers of face painting, and invitations to colour, and she actually ended up leaving with a mylar balloon, a Kuwait kite, and a wrapped gift. We also ended up sharing an order of french fries, which in our family, is pretty much the treat of the century.
Here’s our morning in photos…
Without question, one of the things we miss most about home while in Kuwait is not being able to just get up and walk to a park or playground. Not only is walking to a park simply out of the question where we live, but in general, finding playgrounds that are clean, safe, and well-kept is a bit of a challenge here. What we’ve found during our many years in Kuwait is that a playground will pop up and be really nice for a short period of time before being destroyed and becoming filthy. I’m not sure why there’s not more focus on maintaining what is already in place, but our strategy is normally to find a couple of great playgrounds, use them a ton while they’re in good condition, and then find a new ones when the old ones are no longer nice/safe/in full working order. It’s not ideal, but it works.
And so, one of our current favourites is the fairly new and fully covered playground at Anjafa Beach. While it’s got low, easily accessible areas for younger kids, it’s also got a teeter totter, a bike merry-go-round, and a rocking boat, which Miss G loves. It’s also right in front of the beach and fully covered, so it should be doable even when the weather begins to get hot {ugh – not looking forward to that after such a lovely cool winter}. The playground’s only downside would be the fact that it’s only got one working swing, but hey – here in Kuwait, I’ve found that a working swing period is quite a score!
Kuwait friends, you can find Anjafa Beach here.
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This morning was what I like to call a ‘Kuwait morning’. What does that mean? Well, while living in Kuwait comes with many lovely perks {hello, beach days, cheap gas, and lovely sunsets!}, it also comes with many challenges. In general, I find that most things just aren’t as ‘easy’ as they are elsewhere. From getting places to grocery shopping to government procedures to finding out information about things – it can all be a little bit difficult, and that was certainly the case today.
As I’ve mentioned before, Grae and I are lucky to be part of a wonderful play school co-op here, and while our usual meet-ups happen at the beginning of the week, we also often meet on Thursdays for some sort of outing around the country. Well, since we’d heard that there was some sort of ice sculpture exhibit happening for Hala February {ice sculptures in the desert?!}, we decided that that would be our destination for this morning’s outing. We weren’t surprised to find that there was very little information about the event online, but after a fellow mom asked about it in an expat moms forum, we found out that the event was taking place at the International Fair Grounds and opened at 10 a.m. Perfect!
Except… When we arrived, we didn’t know where the actual exhibit was happening {nor did anyone else who was there} and when we did find Snow City, the area where the ice sculptures apparently are, it was closed. Of course, by this time our munchkins had been in the car a good long while and they had trekked all though the carnival looking for the right area, so since nobody around seemed to mind, we decided we’d just have a little peek inside. ☺
Gracen and I quite like The Scientific Center here in Kuwait… It’s an aquarium, discovery centre {much like a science centre back home}, and IMAX theatre all in one, and a great place to visit when you’re wanting to avoid the inevitable dust and heat that comes with living in the desert. We usually make a morning of it and arrive for opening {I love that it opens for 9 instead of 10 like most places do}. We roam slowly through the aquarium, then move onto Discovery Place, and finish off with a walk outside to see the dhow boats and a stop at Starbucks at the end. Ooh – and then a stop at the gift shop on the way out of course – this may just be my favourite part as they have all kinds of really cool things. It’s sort of sad to say, but unlike many places in Kuwait, The Scientific Center is very well-kept and always clean, which is a nice change {and why we’re happy to go so regularly}. We enjoy it so much, in fact, that we just buy the annual memberships and visit once a month to every 6 weeks or so. For us, if all we do is the aquarium and Discovery Place, we’ve paid for our memberships in just 5 visits, so it’s well worth it. Not to mention that having a membership gives you 20% off of all the very cool things in the gift shop, which is a pretty big deal if you love non-fiction books, miniature creatures, magnets, and other awesome things.
Here’s today’s visit in photos… The Discovery Place was closed due to an exhibit change, but we still had a great time and will be back to check out what all the ‘Bon Appetit’ theme will include very soon.
Living in Kuwait comes with many challenges, one of which is the traffic / driving. Road rules are certainly not for everyone here, and it’s not at all unusual to have someone just a couple of feet off of your bumper flashing their {obnoxiously bright} high beams at you as you cruise down the highway at 130 kilometres an hour. Add into that the fact that many people are texting, taking selfies, and watching YouTube videos {not joking – seen it many times} while driving, and the roads are an interesting place. To say the least. That being said, driving in Kuwait is much more sane now than when we first arrived in 2007 {congestion = slower moving traffic}, and for that I’m thankful.
What hasn’t changed, however, is the fact that the majority of people seem to have no regard for child car safety. It kills me. Kids teetering out of sunroofs while parents race through crowded roundabouts, children piled on top of one another in SUV hatchbacks, babies in the arms of nannies as cars weave their way in and out of traffic along the highways – it’s all a daily sight. Very, very rarely do you see non-Western expat kids in carseats. So, when I learned that December was ‘Kid Car Safety’ month at AUK and that students are working to educate people in Kuwait about car safety for kids, I was thoroughly impressed. We stopped by their booth at the Qout Market today and the girls running it were really lovely. They had a colouring station for kids, a pledge wall for those willing to commit to buckling up their kids, and a foam cut-out car for photo ops. They’ve also been spreading the word via the aukause instagram page and the hashtag #BeKauseImLoved, so hopefully word will spread. If you checkout the hashtag, you’ll see that there’s still lots of educating to be done {especially when it comes to the fact that carseat straps need to be done up / pulled tightly, newborns need to be rear-facing, and booster seats are truly only safe for children of a certain size}, but it’s a start and a definite step in the right direction. I’ll take it.
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Today we kicked off Brad’s week long Eid vacation with a family trip out to Khiran. We love it out there. It’s peaceful and beautiful and you really don’t feel like you’re in Kuwait while there, which makes for a nice break from the everyday. Of all of our visits, today was by far the busiest with around 25 others spread between several groups {great minds think alike, apparently}, but it was chill and lovely, as always.
While driving all the way out to 4th Ring Road and the 55 to pick-up groceries isn’t my favourite thing {especially when the drive takes an hour and 25 minutes like it did today!}, gosh do I ever enjoy shopping at Saveco… The bright white interior, the wide aisles, the specialty and organic selection… It’s all so lovely and civil. Gracen loves it too. Not only are there adorable mini shopping carts for munchkins to push around, but there is also a pretty awesome indoor play area for munchkins upstairs. It’s part of the Hamad & Shahad toy store and it’s very much like the Hilton’s playground that Miss G loves so much.
Besides nature and long days outdoors, one of the things we miss most while living in Kuwait is hanging out in libraries and bookstores. Back home in Canada, Miss G and I visited our local library weekly. We’d make a morning of it, curling up to read several books before selecting 25 or so to take home. She’d sign them out at the check-out computer herself using her very own library card and then we’d do it all again the next week. We loved our library routine. On top of that, many rainy mornings were spent visiting our local bookstores. We’d browse, play, read books, and then pick one or two favourites to take home to add to our collection – a pretty fine way to spend our soggy days, I’d say. Here in Kuwait it’s not quite the same. While there are {some} bookstores and small libraries, most are filled primarily with Arabic books {rightfully so} and the English books that do exist are often of the cheap, generic variety. There is, however, Q8books, a very cool little used bookshop we finally made time to find and this afternoon.
Since Kuwait is so hot for much of the year, I’m always on the lookout for fun indoor play spaces that give Miss G the freedom to play and burn off some energy while keeping us cool and out of the sun. Since returning for the current school year, we’ve visited Fun City in Gate Mall a couple of times, and my guess is that we’ll be back again. Gate Mall, which officially opened not that long ago, is located in Egaila and is therefore nearby and easy to get to. The mall itself is pretty impressive… Much more so than I expect it to be. It’s got a ton of shops, many of which are ones we visit regularly, and many of which are brand new to me. As with most shopping malls in Kuwait, however, the downfall is the parking. If I’m being honest, it’s an absolute disaster. The mall seems to share one medium sized lot with 2 or 3 other surrounding malls, which means there’s not nearly enough spots and people park wherever they like, even if it means blocking in several cars in the process. Ugh.
Though we had an early doctor-themed birthday party with our families back in Canada a couple of weeks ago, I thought it would be nice to get a few of our Kuwait friends together for a real birthday celebration after a long summer apart. Since we’d already done the big party thing, I knew I wanted to keep this one small, super low-key, and easy to put together, which preferably meant not hosting it in our apartment {oh the disaster that can be created by a clan of little ones in a short amount of time!} While I did consider hosting it on the beach at the Hilton, it’s simply too hot to do that right now – even early in the morning. So when the opportunity to have it at Play {a fun indoor play space in the city} came up, we jumped on it! We love Play and visit regularly, so we already knew that we could expect a fun {and clean!} play space that all of our guests {aged 18 months to 6 years} would enjoy.
This morning as my little love and I snuggled in bed as we always do, I asked her what she’d like to do today. Her response? ‘Go to a farm!!’ Oh dear. While I do know of one organic farm in Kuwait that I’d actually really like to visit, I wasn’t prepared for today being the day. After taking a moment to give it some thought, I remembered the horses I’ve seen at the 207 exit while travelling down the 30 recently… Luckily Miss G thought visiting horses on the side of a highway was close enough to a day spent at a farm, so that was that.