Adventures with Ethan and Rain
Ethan came to visit! This was meant to be a surprise trip, but the day before Ethan flew in, I saw the flight itinerary on our Google Calendar 🙈 Let me just say that waiting 24 hours for him was so. hard. We loved having him here for the week!
We explored somethings for ourselves for the first time with Ethan too. Here are some of the adventures:
The Souk
We have heard all about the Souk since we first got here, but we had never been because we live pretty far away from it (50 minutes ish). However on Thursday right after school, we went up there. It was amazing! It is like how you picture the Middle East when you watch Aladdin (Thank you Liz for that description!) There are a lot of places to eat as well as TONS of shops that sell everything you could possibly imagine for very cheap. We didn't get to explore all of it, but we will definitely be back up there!
As you might remember from a previous blog post, I am all about fish markets (not even joking) I LOVE going in them so of course we had to walk through their fresh fish market!
Rain
Wow. Kuwait has been getting SO. MUCH. RAIN. It started a few weeks ago when down here in Southern Kuwait got hit with a huge rainstorm. Nothing flooded too badly, but as we drove up to school, it was clear that the rest of Kuwait hadn't experienced the same storm that we had. Then, about 2 weeks later, there was a HUGE storm. It was so bad that school was cancelled (a very welcomed day off!) It wasn't too bad for us down here so we were a little confused as to why school was cancelled, until we saw videos of the flooding that happened in other parts of Kuwait. We had definitely not had the same storm. Streets, apartments and other buildings were flooded, which I'm sure as you can imagine, caused many problems. Now, we have experienced torrential downpours because we lived in Singapore for 3.5 years, but Kuwait does not have the same infrastructure to deal with such large amounts of rain. The drainage system was not prepared for all of this rain.
Like I said, we live in the Southern part of Kuwait, in Mangaf (pretty much as South as people live here). On Friday night, we got hit. Hard. We went out to see what the conditions of the streets were like, and they were flooded. The water got up to our knees at some points. A very kind police officer offered to take us home, but we told him we were out here just playing and having a fun time! As we kept walking, some people even shouted from their windows to go inside with them. We were amazed at the genuine kindness of people and how they were worried about us!
When we got back to our apartment, the power was out. It wasn't out for too long (by the time we got back). However when we went on Facebook, we saw some absolutely insane videos of what was going on in Mangaf and the neighboring town of Fahaheel. The flooding was intense (I shared a video on my Facebook if you want to see what it was like).
Thank you to everyone who was texting, calling and messaging us making sure we were okay; you all are the best! Luckily, we were safe the entire time.
The Grand Mosque
We got ANOTHER rain day! We took advantage of it and went on a tour of the Grand Mosque here in Kuwait. It is currently the 7th biggest Mosque in the world. It cost 14 million KD (over 47 million USD) to build back in the 1980s...not sure how much that equates to now, but it is a lot! It is a beautiful mosque with amazing architectural designs.
Overall, it was an incredible cultural experience. They dressed my mom and me in a hijab and abaya and put a hijab on Syd. We walked around the mosque and learned a lot about the design as well as the religion. Pictures were encouraged so of course we took a lot of those!
Like I said, we LOVED having Ethan here. We had a blast, even if we did fit 6 people in a car meant for 5 people for a whole week (we were all in seatbelts, don't worry. Adam and Syd got to double-buckle the entire time. I'm sure you can imagine how much they loved that. They were really good sports though!)
We got to explore so much of Kuwait that we hadn't gotten around to yet. Overall, an amazing, fun-filled week!
We explored somethings for ourselves for the first time with Ethan too. Here are some of the adventures:
The Souk
We have heard all about the Souk since we first got here, but we had never been because we live pretty far away from it (50 minutes ish). However on Thursday right after school, we went up there. It was amazing! It is like how you picture the Middle East when you watch Aladdin (Thank you Liz for that description!) There are a lot of places to eat as well as TONS of shops that sell everything you could possibly imagine for very cheap. We didn't get to explore all of it, but we will definitely be back up there!
As you might remember from a previous blog post, I am all about fish markets (not even joking) I LOVE going in them so of course we had to walk through their fresh fish market!
After we explored the Souk, we drove about 10 minutes away to look at the Kuwait towers. These pictures were taken from a boardwalk over the ocean near them! It was only 6:00 PM when I took this pictures, but it was pitch black!
Rain
Wow. Kuwait has been getting SO. MUCH. RAIN. It started a few weeks ago when down here in Southern Kuwait got hit with a huge rainstorm. Nothing flooded too badly, but as we drove up to school, it was clear that the rest of Kuwait hadn't experienced the same storm that we had. Then, about 2 weeks later, there was a HUGE storm. It was so bad that school was cancelled (a very welcomed day off!) It wasn't too bad for us down here so we were a little confused as to why school was cancelled, until we saw videos of the flooding that happened in other parts of Kuwait. We had definitely not had the same storm. Streets, apartments and other buildings were flooded, which I'm sure as you can imagine, caused many problems. Now, we have experienced torrential downpours because we lived in Singapore for 3.5 years, but Kuwait does not have the same infrastructure to deal with such large amounts of rain. The drainage system was not prepared for all of this rain.
Like I said, we live in the Southern part of Kuwait, in Mangaf (pretty much as South as people live here). On Friday night, we got hit. Hard. We went out to see what the conditions of the streets were like, and they were flooded. The water got up to our knees at some points. A very kind police officer offered to take us home, but we told him we were out here just playing and having a fun time! As we kept walking, some people even shouted from their windows to go inside with them. We were amazed at the genuine kindness of people and how they were worried about us!
When we got back to our apartment, the power was out. It wasn't out for too long (by the time we got back). However when we went on Facebook, we saw some absolutely insane videos of what was going on in Mangaf and the neighboring town of Fahaheel. The flooding was intense (I shared a video on my Facebook if you want to see what it was like).
Thank you to everyone who was texting, calling and messaging us making sure we were okay; you all are the best! Luckily, we were safe the entire time.
The Grand Mosque
We got ANOTHER rain day! We took advantage of it and went on a tour of the Grand Mosque here in Kuwait. It is currently the 7th biggest Mosque in the world. It cost 14 million KD (over 47 million USD) to build back in the 1980s...not sure how much that equates to now, but it is a lot! It is a beautiful mosque with amazing architectural designs.
Overall, it was an incredible cultural experience. They dressed my mom and me in a hijab and abaya and put a hijab on Syd. We walked around the mosque and learned a lot about the design as well as the religion. Pictures were encouraged so of course we took a lot of those!
Like I said, we LOVED having Ethan here. We had a blast, even if we did fit 6 people in a car meant for 5 people for a whole week (we were all in seatbelts, don't worry. Adam and Syd got to double-buckle the entire time. I'm sure you can imagine how much they loved that. They were really good sports though!)
We got to explore so much of Kuwait that we hadn't gotten around to yet. Overall, an amazing, fun-filled week!
Wow, 2 rain days while Ethan was there! What a gift. Your pictures are super cool, Jordan.
ReplyDeleteWe were so grateful for it! We had a blast. Thank you!
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