Kuwait National & Liberation day celebrations

Hello everyone,

As promised , I'm sharing pictures of this year's Kuwait National & Liberation day celebrations . 
I would like to share very interesting fact about Kuwait National day. Normally most countries celebrate their national day on the same date they gained independence. In Kuwait, this would have meant National Day would be on 19th June, marking the date of independence in 1961. On 19 June 1961, Kuwait became independent with the end of the British protectorate and Sheikh Abdullah Al-Salim Al-Sabah became the Emir.
However, it was felt that the holiday should be moved due to the extreme heat in June, and so from 1963, the National Day was moved to 25th February, marking the date that the Sheikh Abdullah Al-Salem Al-Sabah came to power in 1950.
Kuwait Liberation Day is celebrated on 26 February. This holiday marks the day when Kuwait was liberated from Iraqi occupation in 1991.

Liberation Tower as seen from Souk Mubarakiya

The month of February is celebrated as Hala Feb. There are concerts, cultural shows , exhibitions throughout the month. The most beautiful part is use of electric lights to beautify the country , most of the installations/decorations are using colors of the flag .

Al-Sief Palace

Every year, I visit two areas famous for its light art.
The Ahmadi lights (light art in Ahmadi) are decorations put up by Kuwait oldest and biggest oil company KOC. Ahmadi is a governorate south of Kuwait city , here are some pictures.

The celebrations of Hala Feb won't be complete if one doesn't visit Souq Mubarakiya. Souq is a arabic term for bazaars , most of them are covered with wooden roofs with carvings . If you ever want to see what life in Middle east was before oil was discovered, visit a souk. Souq Mubarakiya is one of my favourite places in Kuwait.Here are some pictures.

Most souks will have multiple entrances , with  cobbled streets , selling everything from fruits to electronics.

This year as we were exploring the souk, we ended up in a part where we saw this monument. 

A little roaming around and after reading the plaques we gathered that the square is called Safat Square. It is a  historical commercial square  where the seafarers of Kuwait would gather and trade goods with businessmen coming from Persia, India and other sea routes .Read more  about it here .

February is my favourite month to explore Kuwait , you can see why...
I hope you like this picture tour of National & Liberation day celebrations in Kuwait.

IHSW February Check-in

Hello dear friends,

It's time to show what I stitched for International Hermit & Stitch weekend . If you don't know what  IHSW is, its a SAL which was started by Joysze at Random Ramblings .Here is how she describes it "International Hermit and Stitch Weekend takes place every 3rd full weekend of each month, from Friday till Sunday. In our very busy and hectic lives, IHSW is a chance for us to squirrel some time away for ourselves and "Hermit and Stitch." It is a time set aside to take care of us and our love for stitching."

Weekend in my part of the world is on Friday & Saturday, so I will be stitching from Thursday to Saturday and post on Sundays whenever I participate in IHSW.

Very happy to be showing you a new WIP for this post, I'm sure everyone was bored to see the same project -my nemesis project for 2 years now.

I picked up my new year new start for 2017 on Tuesday after stitching some smalls . This was also my project for Work That WIP 2018 - February SAL on Stitch Maynia. Here is how the project looked like on Wednesday 

Progress over the weekend

After working on 25 count evenweave for last few months, it feels different to work on Aida, the squares on fabric look so big , working with two threads is clumsy as the threads keep twisting and have to railroad for the stitches to lie flat. But then there is progress which is visible.I'm trying to do one color at a time, which I find very satisfying.

If you are wondering why the progress is less for a full weekend of stitching , its because Murphy's law came into play. You see I rarely go out on weekends or have any social life apart from my bi monthly craft gatherings. But I have observed that for IHSW , I will have social visits or will have to go out.This Friday we had a distant family member come over for dinner , on Saturday I met a bunch of expat ladies for breakfast whom I met thru Instagram.
Here a few pictures of the arabic food we had at Ayyame, all delicious.

Cheese & herbed Tabliya

Falafel with arabic bread

Gerse Ogaily

Though I must confess I'm not complaining about lack of stitching time , I love cooking , meeting new people and trying new food ☺.

I would like to thank you all for the comments on my last post, it felt like we all were celebrating my finish together. 

Trip to Mirror House, Kuwait

Hello Friends,

Winter has come to an end here in Kuwait and the temperature has started rising..some people call it spring though.

We completed 3 years of living in Kuwait recently and this winter was the best of all years we have been here. The temperature touched 0 deg C and below this year, something I always prefer over 55 deg C. This was also the busiest of season for us, my husband jokingly said that the petrol expenses have doubled in last two months. We have been attending crafty meetups, book club meetings, exhibition, fairs and lastly exploring tourist places when my family visited.

This post is dedicated to one such outing to Mirror House,Kuwait. We visited the Mirror House on 24th Feb for a evening tour.  The House of Mirrors or Mirror House, also known as the Khalifa & Lidia Qattan Art Museum is like a wonderland where every wall, floor and nook of the house is covered with mirrors. Mrs. Lidia Qattan single-handedly transformed an old house into piece of art which is now open to public to admire.  Mrs. Qattan gives you a personal tour of the house , with stories of how she started making one wall for her daughter's room in 1966, how supplies were difficult to get in those days , how termite destroyed the mirror work and it was built again.

Front wall of the house

Entrance 

Main entrance of the house

Mrs Qattan, originally from Italy has passion for art, world peace, humanity which is aptly reflected in her work.

The museum has been divided into sections to experience a magical journey into a world of fantasy, science, mental stimulation and spiritual enlightenment. The journey thru the house is an experience guaranteed to illuminate your heart and soul with its enchanting, energetic, and heart warming host, the artist and creator of this magical place, Lidia Qattan.

Stairs to the upper floor

The hostess has a knack for recycling objects we use in our day to day life like tube lights, water filters, pots and you can find many interesting decorations made of recycled stuff.

Decorations made out of recycled stuff

Close up of one of the painting using buttons

At the start of tour , you are greeted by Mrs. Qattan lovely granddaughter and treated to world's best ginger tea ,cakes and other home made snacks. The best thing about the tour apart from the mirror art is the personal touch Mrs. Qattan adds to the tour by narrating stories of old Kuwait and her life. It is extremely kind of her to give a personal tour instead of hiring a employee to do so.

The museum also houses Mr. Qattan's paintings which are a visual treat .

If you are in Kuwait or plan to visit in near future, a visit to Mirror House is highly recommended.All the info can be found on http://www.mirrorhouseq8.com . Booking a tour just requires a phone call and you can pay when you reach the museum.

P.S. I'm writing this post as a thank you to my fellow expat bloggers who have helped me explore Kuwait in last three years thru their informative posts abt expat life specially in Kuwait.Being in Kuwait , I know from experience that adequate information is not available online and it is thru these blogs that we find tips how to make our lives easier and more enjoyable in this country.I hope this blog post will be useful to new expats in Kuwait who want to explore the country.

Exploring Kuwait

I just realized that its been almost one and half years that I moved to Kuwait for better career opportunities and never have written a post dedicated to my experiences here about the food/travel and other interests of mine .

To tell you the truth when I was shifting here I never made any queries about the country :its culture, food, society . I was more than happy to know that I will be able to work here and wear the type of clothes I want to ...which not many middle eastern countries allow for.

Kuwait being a desert doesn't have bountiful nature, which leaves Shopping Malls as the main places of attraction. I am not a  brand shopper so that kept me away from the big Shopping malls here. However, I never stopped looking for places of my interest and now that I have found some, thanks to internet and social network, I have started liking this place more than I used to like it last year :)

While roaming around in one of the sea side malls, I stumbled upon on this café called "Color me Mine". The café has a collection of plain ceramic/POP figurines/vases/bowls etc. The idea is to select a piece and paint it there with poster colors. Once the piece is painted, it is baked to add shine and then the person can take it home. The Café mainly attracts kids, who paint the pieces with help of lady instructor of the café, while having muffins or cakes. Isn't that cute? The Café  also displayed few pieces to be sold for charity and I was able to pick some lovely stuff .

One of the walls of the Café



Below paintings were displayed in the covered bridge connecting the mall and the marina.



Medium scale model of Dhow

Last Thursday I attended Eid celebration at TIES center and visited the Second chance charity and handmade shop there. I can now guess what charity shops and thrift stores in the UK & USA would be like. I was able to find some nice stuff there-small table ware items , stationery and beautiful crochet doilies which some of the local ladies had donated for charity. Sorry I didn't take any pictures.

Now about my second passion food

Me & DH were treated in a contemporary Indian restaurant Asha's few days back.This is a chain of restaurant at multiple locations around the world run by famous Bollywood Singer Asha Bhonsale.



Ordered Mai's favourite.Image courtesy:Internet

The food quality was up to my expectations, a bit spicy though, however I feel they should offer more vegetarian options being an Indian restaurant.

On Sunday , B&B had a sudden urge to eat Thai food and search for Thai restaurants in Kuwait began. We were so surprised to find a branch of famous Thai chain Sabaidee  near our house..




Som Tum



Pad Thai & Pad Wood Sen

The food was delicious and great value for money. They won my heart by making a vegetarian version of Pad Thai. 

The idea of this post is not to review any food or shopping joint. Its my way of sharing my life here in Kuwait and also to help new expats . I am thankful to many local bloggers about providing useful information about the country on their blogs from which I have benefited.

Do you guys like exploring new places? Do you search for online reviews of restaurants/cities/tourist places before you visit them?