Here There and Everywhere

Today on Good Morning America, they hit the 3rd of America’s Seven Natural Wonders. It is the Grand Canyon, and they broadcast from the new skywalk that they built cantilevered out over the Canyon. It has a glass floor, and you walk out 4,000 feet above the bottom of the canyon.

I almost threw up.

Just looking at it makes my blood pressure jump; my heart is beating fast and my palms start to sweat.

I have a mild case of fear-of-heights. (Acrophobia) I feel unbalanced looking down, I feel like I could fall right over.

AdventureMan, thank God, has the same sensitivity, so he doesn’t tease me. I know we will visit this skywalk one day, and I wonder if he will be able to force himself to walk out on it. I already know I won’t be doing it. It’s just too stressful for me. . . . Even watching it on Good Morning America, I feel all stressed out!

On our way downtown the other day, I glumly told my friends I miss the true-blue skies we see in Kuwait in the winter time. All we get these days is this white haze, or at best, a light blue haze. I shot a few photos - and to my surprise, when I uploaded them, we had a genuine blue sky in the background!

Here is one of the renovated minarets - have you noticed a lot of the historical locations are getting a facelift?

For my friends who think we live in tents and drive our camels to work, a nice shot of downtown Kuwait:

Graceful shoppers exiting the Manshar Mall in Fehaheel:

The Grand Mosque in downtown Kuwait:

A saucer-topped building (and the sky is indeed blue):

Last, but not least, a boat on the gulf - and no horizon, no delineation between sea and sky:

My friend and I were driving by this mosque when she sighed.

“We used to think this mosque was huge,” she said. “You could see it from far away. Slowly, slowly, it just disappeared.”

The mosque is now surrounded by tall buildings, and, indeed, if it weren’t for it’s unusual shape, you might barely notice it across from the Holiday Inn, while driving on Gulf road. There are all kinds of buildings along Gulf road, apartments, hospitals, office buildings. They are doing amazing things, twisting glass and concrete spires up into the heavens. The pyramid mosque is dwarfed by these towering buildings.

We also saw these amazing signs along Gulf Road:

If there were one or two, I would not have taken a photo, but there are like EIGHT of these, four on each side of the road, and a lot of flashing lights. I checked the red sign - remember my Arabic is basic - and I could see two “mamnuas” (forbidden) but I didn’t see “foto” or “suraa” so if it says “no photos” will someone please tell me right away so I can take this photo out?

On the same road as the earlier photo taken in Mubarak Al Kebir, just along the road (I think it is 250) was this mosque. It has writing on it, around the top, but the dome is not green. It has lights at night. Is this a Shiite mosque?

This mosque in Fehaheel doesn’t have writing, so I think it is a Sunni mosque, but it is so PINK and so pretty - and mostly the more delicate mosques are Shiite. Is this one Sunni or Shiia?

I’ve been dreaming lately of the house I want in my future. I’ve visited a couple houses in Kuwait lately, houses I liked a lot, with beautiful spaces, intimate dining rooms, a variety of ceiling heights, cozy seating areas that invited conversation and large, light bedrooms that also had seating areas, grown up retreats with Jacuzzi style bathtubs and places to curl up and read, along with a whole lot of closet space.

I told you a while back about a book we were told about, Sarah Susanka’s The Not So Big House Book. The book is about making every part of your house work the way your lifestyle needs it to - cutting out space wasted on impressing other people and maximizing areas of the house where people actually hang out.

As she introduces the book, she talks about how you throw a party and everybody ends up hanging out in the kitchen, that the living rooms we create are not welcoming, and she has good ideas how to make all the spaces in your house more welcoming.

She emphasizes also the use of high quality materials and workmanship.

I know that a little bit of heaven for me is getting up every day and looking out on the Gulf. I know that when I am working, I work facing the same view. It gives me such joy. I might get some of the same satisfaction overlooking a forest with wild animals (I know AdventureMan would love to have that not-so-big house be in Africa! Imagine! You’re sorting through your books and an elephant sticks his trunk in!) or the Puget Sound with the Olympics in the background. I know I am addicted to big windows and watching the weather change.

I need privacy. I don’t want other people looking in my windows.

My best friend has a round dining room table, and my sister, and my Chinese friend tells me those are the best for family “energy.” I want a big round family dining table, in wood, like my sister and like my friend.

I love glass brick, and would love to have it in bathrooms and entries and have walls of it letting light stream into and through my home.

I love glass tile, especially the watery shades of aqua blue and aqua green.

(photo courtesy Bedrock Industries)

I love light wood floors, honey oak, birch, even knotty pine planks I had in an old German house where I once lived. I love the feeling of wood underfoot; it is gentle and forgiving, and so classically good looking.

(Photo courtesy Pennington Hardwoods)

I love second floor loft libraries, overlooking the lower living areas of a house.

Dream along with me.

Think about YOUR house. Now, close your eyes and think about what goes into making a house your very own special hideaway. What makes it special for you? What would you do with your living space if time and energy and money were of no importance?

Hmmm, let’s see . . . plans drawn up, billions allocated for renovation and restoration and blah blah blah and nothing happens. Good ol’ Kuwait? Nope! The tragic quagmire of post-Katrina New Orleans. You can read the entire article at The New York Times.

By ADAM NOSSITER
Published: April 1, 2008

The city official in charge of the recovery effort, Edward J. Blakely, said the public’s frustration was understandable, but he suggested that bureaucratic hurdles had made moving faster impossible. Mr. Blakely said crucial federal money had only recently become available, the process of designing reconstruction projects within the 17 zones was time-consuming, and ethics constraints on free spending were acute, given a local history of corruption.

Twice in the last year, I have seen new mosques, or mosques undergoing renovation, like this one, stop, the first new minarets torn down and newer, longer, thinner minarets go up. Literally about twice the size of what went up originally. This is the end result of the Fehaheel mosque along Gulf Road - actually, I find these minarets very elegant.

In Qatar, we used to go looking for the older, state-built mosques. Most of them, the little area mosques (there is supposed to be a mosque within a five minute walk for every person) are still working mosques in Qatar. In old Kuwait city, they recently renovated some minarets that I see in very old photos of Kuwait.

You’d think I would pick up on things sooner, but here’s the problem. When you don’t know something, you often don’t even know you don’t know. In a recent post on an Al Ahmadi minaret one of my commenters asked if I couldn’t tell it was a Shiite minaret. At first, I thought he was being funny, but it nagged at me, so I started asking around.

It turns out almost everone except me can tell the difference. Most say, as I would, “oh you just kind of know, it looks more Iranian” but occasionally someone will say something concrete, like “if it has a green roof on the minaret, it is Shiite” or “if the windows look like keyholes, it is Shiite.”

Who would know? Not me! But I am learning.

So, help me out here. This mosque near City Center on 5th ring. Definitely Shiite?

This mosque is in Qurain - I love the very purpleness of it. Is this a Sunni mosque? I ask because the windows look kind of like keyholes.

Now - services. I’m an Episcopalian, a sub-sect of Christianity, and I can walk into almost any Anglican/ Lutheran/ Catholic church in the world and even if it is in another language, I have a pretty good idea what is going on, because we are liturgical, we follow a pattern of worship, and the three services are very similar, with very subtle difference. In fact so subtle I probably couldn’t even tell you what the differences are. Islamic services are also considered liturgical - having a set pattern of worship.

So if you were Sunni or Shiia, and walked into a service, could you tell a Sunni service from a Shiia service? Are there differences?

I am sorry to be so ignorant; help me be less so!

Yesterday on 5th ring, we saw the beginnings of the new pedestrian overpasses, which are anything but pedestrian in their design.

Look at that! Not only do they honor the architectural element of the wind tower tradition in Kuwait, but they will also allow pedestrians to cross safely to the other side. For all the derision we heap on highway planners here, they deserve a big pat on the back for these.

From Wikipedia on Windcatchers: A Wind Tower (Persian: badgir, Arabic: “barjeel” or badghir(from Persian)) is a structure seen on ancient buildings of the Middle East, particularly Iran and Bahrain. This acted like a natural air conditioner creating a soothing effect in the harsh conditions of the desert.

From today’s BBC News:

Saudis open hotel for women only
The Middle East’s first women-only hotel has opened in Saudi Arabia.
It will cater primarily to businesswomen, who work completely covered from head to toe in public and have to observe strict segregation.

It is the first spa hotel in the kingdom available to women all the time - pools in other hotels are only open to women on certain fixed days or hours.

You can read more about the hotel HERE