I’m going to Japan in July and so I need to apply for a visa, but half way reading through the requirements, it hit me. It’s simply not fair!

For a Japanese person to come to Qatar, they just need to arrive at the airport and get their passport stamped along with a visa charge. For a Qatari to go to Japan, we have to do so much more.

Now here’s my problem:
1. You need to provide three months bank statement; my new account is only a month and a half old..
2. You need to give them a CONFIRMED ticket and hotel reservation; but what if the visa is rejected?
3. You need to give them a salary certificate; sadly my work place isn’t exactly the fastest place for issuing certificates.
4. You must give them your daily schedule in Japan; common now WTF?! I wanted to just go around, enjoy the views (as I did many times before), and take it easy.

I guess the only thing missing is that they ask me for a stool sample.

It’s not fair… To make matters worse, let’s look at the visa pricing.

It varies depending on nationality!
Indian - 27QR
British - 37QR
Iranian - 160QR
Others - 97QR

Discrimination? Sadly yes.

One of the things that I advise anyone whenever thinking about making a move to Qatar is to make sure that you weigh your options. Today I’m going to stress on the fact that there are too many bullshitters out there. Yes. I said it. I’m being right out there.

The fact of the matter is, a smart person will be able to see through the truth and through a bitter person’s biased opinions.

Let’s get a few things out in the open shall we?

I want to highlight a post by a member from QatarLiving. Don’t get me wrong, that person probably wanted to help out people from the goodness of his heart. However if someone really wants to help, they need to be completely truthful, attempt to be unbiased, and make sure that fact and opinion are divided clearly.

Here’s a couple of points that he mentioned:

He said Qatar’s normal summer temperature is in the 50s, that’s CELSIUS. No it’s not… the average in fact is the high 30s but I’d say that it feels like around 42 most of the time. Two years ago it hit 52c and it was in the news. That’s how ‘exciting’ it was.

He said that the minimum cost for a 1bedroom apartment around the city (what does that mean? Doha is city) is 6,000QR. Let’s look in the forums. There’s a guy listing a TWO bedroom apartment for 6,500QR. I’ve helped people find apartments for 5,000. Now if he wanted to be specific he’d say 6,000QR average and near a certain area he’d be correct, but sadly, he’s not being completely honest here.

At the end of the day, remember what I’m about to say. Different people have different experiences in any country they go to. Some are inherently negative (I’m not saying that this poster was), and some take the good side.

Smile, take the good side, and make some Qatari friends. They’ll help you out when you did it.

Will insert info later.

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Qatar is definately a night city. Looking at the contruction of the westbay while driving down the corniche can be a marvel. It’s a great sight. Pumping up some arabian remixes, top down, and driving at a cruising speed is awesome.

Take a look at this great view.

Take a drive to one of the awesome chill spots like Al Sharq, Al Dana, or any of the others and you’ve got the making of an awesome night. As the clock hits 11, it’s time to head off to a great club and dance your heart out!

All in all it was a pretty good day. We were around 10 people that were supposed to meet up however different people had different issues and a few were not able to make it.

We met up at the City Center and ate at Pizza Express. I had this chicago pizza which was delicious. There was a mix of mozzarella and cheddar. After a bit of walking around it was time to go to the movie. We watched Iron Man. I didn’t know what to expect because most of the comic movies weren’t that great. I can say without a doubt that this was one of the better ones. I really enjoyed it and the movie was surreal but left you with “Hey that could happen” in the back of your mind.

After finishing we went of to Suhaim stadium. The olympic athletes from around the world came to Doha to practice for the Beijing 2008 Olympics. There were some hot athletes! We chilled, relaxed and all boasted how we could run faster, jump higher, and throw farther than any of them. (of course that’s what guys do!)

We then headed off to Al Sharq Village. It’s a village thats designed to look like a modern and elegant souq. Very very nice. The pool had some sparkling leds at the bottom which looked amazing. Dinner there and some sheesha was simply relaxing.

A really great day out for ILQers.

I have to say that one of the first things expats ask me about is sheesha; when it comes to night time activities. Going to a sheesha is the equivelant of going to a pub. Yep. It’s somewhere to socialize, relax, date, or in some cases, watch the footie. (note: Sheesha refers to the place and the actually smoking pipe. e.g. I’m going to the Sheesha to smoke some sheesha). Some people in England call it Hubbly Bubbly, some Americans decided that they wanted to give it a ‘new’ name and call it Hookah (it’s the football - soccer thing all over again). I say, call it what the original name is, SHEESHA.

There’s a large variety of sheeshas so don’t think that all sheesha bottles or the same. You’ll find Shamee, Egyptian and the Khaleeji (thats us Khaleej = Gulf). The Khaleeji sheesha is usually quite long, has a flexible pipe and can come in a wide array of designs.

Sheesha is basically flavoured tobacco. It’s combined with a type of molases and filtered through water. Smoking it (depending on the strength) can give you a light headed feeling or some have described it as a relaxed feeling.

Different sheesha’s have different specialities. One of the latest mixes I’ve tried at Wadi was a blend of Grape and Mint. Tastes cool on your lips.

I could go on and on about it but I’ll just add some interesting facts and tips.

• You can ask for sheesha mixes even though they’re not on the menu
• Ask for ice in your sheesha’s water. It gives the smoke a cool feeling on your lips.
• You can get some strange variations, the last strange one was called ‘Jingle Bells’ and had fruit juice instead of water in the sheesha.
• Sheesha usually costs around 20-50QR depending on the place.
• There are two forms of sheesha spots, the modern ones and the traditional ones.

Let’s talk about traffic. Let’s talk about the current state of chaos on the roads. Oooh I used the word chaos! That should please a few anarchists that might be reading this blog.

Before beginning, there are TWO sides to a coin(actually my theory is that there is three, but thats the way the saying goes). People need to understand that just because one country’s driving style isn’t the same as another’s, it doesn’t mean that it’s necessarily wrong.

There are a great number of factors that we need to discuss but here are just a few because I don’t want this blog post to be longer than a page. Distribution of licenses, unorganized roads, lack of courtesy, lax police, and lack of basic driving skills by some people.

Now one thing every driver is supposed to have is patience. I feel that there are alot of stressed out people on the roads. Take a deep breath and relax. Let’s start with basic driving skills. Keep in lane and signal. That’s it. That’s all I ask for. When on a round about and you see someone veering into your lane, give them a honk and force them to drive correctly. Yes! Be a renegade cop!

Courtesy. When someone lets you buy, give them a smile or a wave! Don’t act like you did it on your own because you’re such a king of a driver! GIVE A DAMN WAVE! I’ve had disrespect by all nationalities, but most of them look Lebanese to me. I love Lebanon. I love Lebanese women. But sadly the drivers aren’t friendly at all. I say they go to ‘kindness school’.

The roads. It’s quite simple really. Some of the roads are just not shaped correctly. You’re kind of FORCED to switch lanes because of the sudden change or the angle of the intersection. The government has to do something about this. How many times have you been on a three lane road… no wait it’s two now… no wait it’s three… Don’t worry you’re not losing your mind.

Police. The police need to lead by example, sadly some don’t. Alot of the police are very good. In fact I’d go as far as saying that some are excellent. They’re friendly and help out, but when it comes to driving they don’t show us how it’s supposed to be done. Let’s take today for example. A copy overtook me on the wrong lane, almost clipping someone, and didn’t signal. Nope there was no rush, he just wanted to go through. When we reach the roundabout, he didn’t signal, and finally went 5km over the speed limit. No there was no emergency I guarantee you of that.

Sometimes I don’t understand how some people get licenses but if you ask me, if the cops started giving people tickets for veering off lane and not signalling, people would be much more cautious.

Oh and stop giving those labourers licenses if they don’t know how to drive *sighs* How many times have I almost been hit by Indian looking (I said looking, they could be from Sri Lanka, Pakistan or any other country which I’m not good at distinguishing the different on) person for suddenly turning on me? Let me count…. no wait.. I’d rather not relive that experience.

Now after mentioning all of this, I STILL say that the roads aren’t as bad as people say they are. Be a bit cautious, relax, move out the way for people flashing you, and take it easy and you’ll be safe.

Something that kind of always annoyed me was the fact that people don’t have consistency when deciding whether they want to talk about cities or countries. There has been many occasions when I’ve been sitting with a person who’d say something like “I’ve been to China, Tokyo, Qatar, and Dubai”.

Let’s talk about this. I understand that some people like to be specific about certain things but let’s try to be uniform in our discussions! Look at Simmons&Simmons website. Their office listings include London, Tokyo, Shanghai, Rome, Paris, Qatar, Madrid, Lisbon… wait… did you spot the odd one out? If you said Qatar you’re right! Ding Ding Ding~~ Have a cookie.

Yes I know that Qatar isn’t that big, but size doesn’t matter (a bit of de ja vu there). We either use all cities or countries. For those that are confused, Doha is the capital of Qatar.

So next time somebody says “I’m going to Qatar then Dubai”, stop them, pull them to the side, smile, whisper gently in their ear in a manner that might almost be considered arousing and say “Doha and Dubai or Qatar and the Emirates”. As they pause to wonder why you’ve mentioned it in that fashion, give them a little pat on the bum and walk away.

Consistency people! Consistency….

One thing that really gets to me is inflation when it comes to real estate and accommodation. A lot of people want to put the blame on one factor; landlords. While I agree that landlords are increasing the price of both, I want to emphasize a bit on real estate agents (a.k.a resellers; a.k.a “price jacker uppers”).

First of all I want to point out that they might be very nice people, but as we’re all human, one of the easiest sins to fall for is greed. Now when I run any of my businesses, I think about the economy, I think about making a profit reasonably, and I also think about customer services. Most of these issues can be solved by quality control and more competition but that’s a different subject.

Now let us look at one place called HomeStyle on C-Ring road. Very professional office, very nice models, and a cheery attitude, however they overcharge! In one case I was looking at a flat and the woman said “I charge 3% from the buyer and 3% from the seller”. Wait.. so she takes 6%?! I brought it up to her saying that it’s too much since standard practice is 1% from both ends, and in most cases it’s 2% from the seller. Her reply was “No there is no such thing as standard practice, and I usually charge 5% from both sides.” Wait what? 10%?! So for an apartment that costs 2million QR, she gets 200,000 just to introduce me to a seller?

If that wasn’t enough, a lot f these sellers pull another lovely trick. Let’s say that I have an apartment for sale which costs 1.8 million. The sales woman will market it at a higher rate of around 2million and make it ‘look’ like she’s getting you a discount. That in itself bumps up market value. If we look deeper into this, you’ll notice that some will offer it for around 2million; lets say that as a buyer I’m fine with that and I don’t try to negotiate, what the agent does is he/she BUYS the apartment for 1.8 (takes his/her commission), then re-sells it to the buyer at 2 million and takes a juicy profit. Fair? Not at all.

My advice to the government is to try and impose a public and transparent general guide to properties. These estate agents are harming the economy. No matter how much oil money we might have in Qatar, we’ll suffer as individuals.