PhotoBlogging from Kuwait for 365 days with 1 picture for every day.
I spent new years at home with my wife and a good friend of mine. We watched Videodrome by David Cronenberg and had allot of chocolate and popcorn. The movie was incredible. It came out in 1983 so I imagine it must of have fucking shocked the hell out of everyone. David Cronenberg is such an incredible imaginative director.
Since my wife starts work at 8 and I don't have to be at my office till 9, I have a lot of time to kill in the morning after I drop her off. I have enough time to go have a decent breakfast at Mc Donalds, read the morning paper and still have enough time to go around taking pictures. This picture was taken at the end of the Souk Sharq pier. I went out to the end to take a picture of the Kuwait City skyline but I didn't like the result so I proceeded to shoot what was on top of me.
During my lunch breaks I am doing a lot of urban exploring. Kuwait City is great, much more interesting then Salmiya. Its deeper, has more back alleys and a whole different style of people. There are tons of places to go and a tons of things to see. Since I started working at the new agency which is located in Kuwait City, I spend most of my lunches walking around like a tourist trying to visit places I have never been to. Even the places I have visited during the night look completely different during the day. There is a lot of architecture to absorb from old broken down buildings to tall dominating sky scrapers.
I thought I would take a picture of this sign since it soon won't be there anymore. They are going to demolish this building in the next few days I think because the shops below started clearing out there stuff and moving to adjacent buildings. Its pretty sad to see the old buildings come down. I would rather they do what they did in Beirut and that is to renovate the old buildings. The new buildings all look the same thats what I have noticed. They don't have a personality. Anyway Goodbye large Canon sign.
What happened to normal jeans? And why is Diesel suddenly so expensive. I remember Diesel before they opened in Marina Mall. They were at this other crappy mall next to Layla Gallery and there stuff was cheap and they werent selling a lot. Then one day they open up in Marina Mall and multiply there prices by 3. Even if they were cheap they don't have 1 pair of decent normal jeans. All their jeans is either rusted, partly stone washed or wrinkled (not the type you can iron out). Why can't I find normal jeans? And what type of guy/faggot/transvestite would wear these jeans in the picture?
I went to Burger King for lunch. While ordering there was this guy who was staring at me. I don't know why, I don't know if he was staring at me or past me but it was just freaking me out. There aren't that many fast food joints next to my office. There is a Burger King, Pizza Hut, KFC and a Mc Donalds, although Mc Donalds is like a 20 minute walk away. There are tons of Indian and Chinese restaurants though and one day when I get the balls I will try one of them.
I went to Souk Sharq today. It had been a while since I went there. I used to like the place a lot before but ever since Marina Mall opened Souk Sharq looks small, dark and ugly. When I parked my car I noticed the pier and I had to take a picture of it. The lines in this picture are beautiful.
Today everyone unwrapped their Christmas gifts. I only got one gift since my other one hadn't arrived yet. My wife was supposed to get me a 50mm lens for my Nikon D70, but when we past by the Nikon dealer he told us that he didn't have any in stock. So we had to order one from Amazon like 2 days ago which means it should be here next week. I like Christmas but it passes by too quick. 5 minutes and the gifts are all unwrapped and Christmas is over.
First day at work. Was really nervous coming in. I was worried the creative director wasn't going to be there and I would have to sit all alone. Luckily, unlike my old boss, the creative director didn't make me wait and in-fact got to work early today just so I don't have to sit and wait alone. So far things are looking good. I can't believe I started working in a new agency, its hard to believe I took such a risk.
Today was the last day at work. Tomorrow I start work at my new agency. I am pretty sad and nervous but I am hoping I made the right move. Goodbye desk, goodbye chair.. goodbye agency.
Tim Hortons is opening soon in Kuwait. I don't drink coffee but their sandwiches and donuts are great. The location though is pretty jinxed. All the previous restaurants that opened there failed from Long John Silvers to a whole list of no brand places. I hope they open Wendys again also.
Hmmmm I love Subway. I love their variety, I love the food and I love the fact when I am done eating a sandwich 1 foot long, I don't feel bloated or fat. Subway has had a troubled history here in Kuwait and even in Lebanon. In Kuwait I think it was owned by The Sultan Center before and the place was really crap and it failed badly. Then it was reopened under new management and the place is doing great. In Lebanon I used to eat at Subway like every other day, then one day I noticed they started replacing the olives with this other weirder tasting one, and then I noticed the chicken stopped tasting or looking the same, and the place kept getting worst and worst till it shut down. Turned out the owner was replacing some of the ingredients with ones bought on the local market to save money and so Subway took the franchise off him.
I was in the elevator tonight leaving a building when this Indian lady started talking to me. She was telling me about how cold the weather is. I replied telling her the cold is great, I love it when its cold. She replied telling me that yeah because you can buy nice jackets to keep you warm. The elevator reached the ground floor and she got out and went her way and I went mine. What she said though got stuck in my head. Yeah I was wearing my nice Tommy Hilfiger jacket and was all nice and warm, but surely you can find cheap jackets that would keep you as warm just without the style and the brand.. right? Then I started thinking about the Janitor in the office, how every-time he sees me with a different jacket he asks me how much I paid for it. So I was walking to my car when I took this picture of some low wage workers walking home or something. They look warm don't they? I don't know, maybe the chick was right..
I was telling my wife how I have a fear of drainage inlets on the streets. I am always afraid I will drop something down the drain and I won't be able to get it back. Also have the same issue with elevators, you know the gap between the elevator and the floor you are on. I am always afraid I will drop something down there. Turns out my wife has a fear of escalators. Not all of it, just the part at the end. She is always afraid something she is wearing will get stuck there and she will get pulled down.
Some Friday's I like to visit the Wholesale Sultan Center in Shuwaikh. It reminds me a lot of Costco in the States and Canada. Speaking of which I think it would be great if they opened one here.
There was a parade next to my office today. They closed the Salmiya shopping street and everyone was on the street, people were dressed up as cartoon characters, there were people playing music, food stands, balloons everywhere, even had pony and horse rides. It was really fun to walk past all those to get to Subway for lunch, but I did notice the security was high. Probably because of a fear of a terrorist attack.
I woke up in the morning and Kuwait was flooded, no really flooded! I looked outside the window and it was raining. I looked down at the street and there was a river where a road was before. Through out the whole day everyone I spoke to was like you should have been here for the "Great Flood of 97", it was much worst, the water was this high and reached all the way up there. People were going around in Jet Ski's and even trucks drowned. I was like yeah, wish I was here. Anyway this picture is of a parking lot of this building near mine. Seems they had a terrible drainage system since the parking and underground pool/internet cafe drowned. Really drowned. They had 4 pumps pumping out water all day long. A friend of my dad lives in that building, his car drowned. If you look at the picture you can actually tell how high the water had reached by the marks on the wall.
The One, what a wonderful place. I know there are other places with much more trendier furniture but none of them are this affordable. Before all we had was IKEA but now we have another option, a bit more expensive then IKEA but at-least you know that your best friend, your brother, your boss and your waiter at Chilis don't all own the same table or lamp.
You would think this was put up for Christmas but the fact is these light displays having been popping up everywhere through out the year. There seems to be some fascination with these light trees. I have seen them outside hotels, supermarkets, homes and even around the airport. I actually heard there was a controversy surrounding the airport ones. Seems they cost the government like 1 million Kuwaiti Dinars (3 million dollars) or something which is just ridicules.
If it wasn't for Aramex I dont think I would have lasted this long in Kuwait. They have a service (I am sure most of you have heard about it) called Shop and Ship. Basically for a one time fee they create for you a US mail forwarding mailbox. Any mail sent to your mailbox in the States gets forwarded automatically to Kuwait and you just pay the shipping fees. Because of this service I am able to order all my stuff off Amazon like electronics, cds, magazine subscriptions, whatever I want and they get to Kuwait within a few days after they arrive to my US mailbox.
Tonight me and my wife went to the new Volvo S40 launch. I think it must have been the most boring launch ever. They had some roller-bladders perform a show at the beginning of the event but instead of it being all cool and crazy the show looked more like a ballet number. I don't know what they were trying to do.. synchronized roller-bladding? maybe.. whatever they call what they were doing, it was basically pretty lame.
Me, my wife and my best friend went urban exploring today. We do this every now and then where we either visit this old abandoned building or just visit the city and try to explore and go places we never went to before. Today we went to two places. The first was an old abandoned government building across from the Souk Sharq shopping mall. The second place was the financial district in Kuwait City. When we finish we sat at Second Cup and that when I took this picture of the Stock Exchange building. When I came home and checked out the pictures I noticed this picture looks like a face of a giant angry robot.
Today is Thursday which means I finish work at 2, so when i get back home the sun is still up. I don't like coming home when the sun is up since thats when you can see how dusty the house has gotten. Luckily I got a Roomba a year ago and it helps me out with the house work. I can't wait until they invent a more advanced Roomba that will also take the dust of the tables and then clean the bathrooms.
I put up this sign in our office since things were getting really messy. The cutting area always had tools lying around and was just always a total mess. So I took it upon myself to clean up the area. I got a box filled it up with our tools and called it the "Tool Box", I then got a trash can and put it right next to the cutting area so the other designers could throw away the excess papers after they are done cutting. Finally I put up this sign just to remind them to clean up. Two weeks later the place is still as messy and the tools are still lying about. If that wasn't bad enough, turns out someone lost the cutter's cover!! Why do I even bother..
I came back from the office late today because I had to finish working on something. When I was on the way up to my flat in the elevator I realized I hadn't taken my picture of the day yet. So I decided to take the easy way out and shoot the elevator ceiling. I quickly got out my camera when the elevator got to my floor and opened its doors. So I went and put one foot out to keep the door open and proceeded to set my camera up to take a shot. Suddenly the door closed and my foot got caught in it. Under normal circumstances the door is supposed to open again but my foot got caught below the elevator door's pressure censor thingy, so the door stayed closed on my foot. Suddenly if things couldn't get worst, my phone rang in my pocket, I knew who it was since I was expecting an important call from the new agency I just signed up with. Keep in mind through out all this I was trying to get my shot set up. In the end I was like fuck all this, quickly took this picture, slipped my hand between the elevator doors, pushed the censor in, the door opened and I went out and I answered the phone. All this to take this cheap ass shot.
Since I am leaving my job before the end of the month I need to start packing my stuff. I have been working here for over 3 years now, it seriously was like my home. I have allot of junk lying everywhere.. just like I do at home. One of my coolest things though is my Speed Racer toy. He is like my good luck charm or something. I have it on a shelf on top of my monitor and it just sits there watching me. Although its pretty sad leaving my job here, I think it will turn out for the best.
I called JWT today, the new advertising agency I will be moving to, they told me my contract was ready and I could pass by at any time. So i passed by after work and signed my contract. I can't wait till I start work, I think I am over excited which is a good thing since my current job has been depressing me. JWT stands for J. Walter Thompson and is the world's oldest advertising agency. I parked in the parking lot close to the JWT office. The parking lot belongs to this shopping center I used to visit a lot when I was younger. My parents used to always park the car in section 1, the red section, so i always park there now.
As I was saying the other day, nearly any picture you take when there is a nice sky turns out to be nice. Today the sky was incredible (for Kuwait standards). The sky was very blue and the clouds looked as if they were painted onto the sky. So I couldn't not take a picture of this. I think I will probably be shooting a lot of sky related pictures during the winter. The summer skies are the most boring here in Kuwait with no clouds and non of the deep blues you get to see during winter.
Christmas shopping officially begins today for me. Yeah its still the beginning of December but I like to get done with the shopping early in the month for two reasons. First being that I order most of my stuff from Amazon.com and it takes up to 10 days for my stuff to arrive to Kuwait. Second reason is I like to shop when I still have the money and thats usually the first couple of days in the month.
Today I was in my bosses office waiting for him to get off the phone when I took a look outside the window. To my amazement the sky was a very deep blue and filled with some really nice white fluffy clouds. So right after I left my bosses office I got my camera and decided to take a picture. I opened one of the windows and looked up and found this one bird just sitting alone. So I took a picture of it. I have this theory I go by with, and thats if the sky is blue and full of clouds, then no matter what picture you take outside it is bound to come out good. Its hard to go wrong when the sky is so beaufitufl.
My current job is pretty boring. Not that I don't have a lot of work to do but because of the fact they are the same kind of jobs I have been doing everyday for the past three years! I went into design because I loved the field, but now things have gotten so bad and boring here that I was seriously considering changing careers and becoming a videogame salesman. Around a week ago though I got a job offer from another bigger more established agency here in Kuwait. I accepted it of-course but only because I wanted to try something new. When I joined my current agency I didnt join it because of the money, or because it was big. I joined it because it was local, small, and very low profile. I had some good times here and the management were always great with me. But, I feel I have grown all I can here and this is why now I have to move on.
