Just to put things into perspective. Here’s my typical schedule.

6am – Wakeup
7am – Office
7:30 – Reply to emails
8:30 – Meeting
9am – Head off to pic up breifcase and PS images for office
10am – Chase up with mortgage guy and get nowhere
11am – Phonecalls
11:30 – Call up Ministry and try to organize ‘Minute of Silence’ for expat community
1pm – Start to feel hungry from fasting
2:30pm – Meeting for ILQ
4pm – go to Damac to deal with investments and slam a few lieing salesman
5:30 – Drop of car at Lexus for service
6:30 – Get home and take uncle’s car (it’s out of battery)
7pm – it’s charged so I need to drive it around to top off the battery
7:30pm – Finally eat
8pm – Yoga (I need it if I’m going to be healthy and breathe properly)
9pm – Work on ILQ and reply to any extra emails

*tired* People usually ask me where I get the time. It’s just proper time management and optimism.

Well here’s a weird one. I was scouring the Qatar Airways website and just wanted to see how much it would cost to go from Doha to Tokyo.

At the moment Doha goes to Tokyo via Osaka.

I noticed that Tokyo wasn’t on the list. First I thought it was my browser issue. I refreshed. Nope no Tokyo.

So I decided to give Qatar Airways a call. I asked if they stopped traveling to Tokyo and he said, no we didn’t cancel it, we still do. I explained that it wasn’t on the website and he tried to put me through to someone who could help but the line got disconnected.

I tried calling reservations again (I go through the Arabic section) and nobody was answering. I thought I’d test the waters so I hung up, called again and this time tried to go through the English section. I got an answer. However the woman, who sounded African sounded as if she wanted to committ suicide. She was depressing. She did give me the number to the internet division.

4203015 if someone wants it.

A philipino woman answered and SHE is what I expected from a 5 star airline. Amazingly friendly, helpfull and she got me the answer fast.

She explained that you can no longer book a trip to Tokyo through the website because they’re undergoing some major changes within the next few months and that it was only implemented yesterday.

I thanked her, she offered any assistance and that was that.

I went to the website again to check if Osaka was on the list but it wasn’t. It seems that you can’t book any trips between Japan online and have to do it through a Qatar Airways office. (Did you know the 5% charge is only in Qatar by the way?)

Anyway, just thought I’d help out.

On a side note, it’s kind of funny seeing that it was only in Sept 2007 that QR went through HEAVY promotion of the airline in Japan and trained some new Japanese staff. See article here

Update: 6/9/2008

Tokyo’s back on the website again, HOWEVER you always get the ‘no reservation available’ message no matter what dates you choose. Sneaky sneaky.

This is the type of news that usually get’s the backpage of British press. To be honest, I don’t even know if it’s making the news. Give me a second to go check Sky news *runs off for a moment*

Alright I’m back. It took a bit of digging on the website, the news is there but you’ll have to search for it.  To be honest, I’m reading it and it looks very similar to The Peninsula’s article. In fact, I think The Peninsula may have borrowed a bit from it… tsk tsk.

This poor boy was ganged up on, beaten up, and Read the rest of this entry »

This is a subject that I’m really annoyed about with BOTH The Peninsula and Gulf-Times.

Headers like “Expats feeling the burn due to inflation”, “Soaring inflation hits expats lifestyles”, and “OMG! Expats! Inflations! Oh My!”.

Alright so I made up the last one, but it’s annoying. While it is correct to say that expats are affected by inflation, it implies that Qataris aren’t. Do they think we have some special ‘inflation immunity card’? Perhaps they think that Qataris are so amazingly rich that we don’t need to care.

1) Let’s say Qataris are ALL fantastically rich. Inflation still affects the rich.

2) Let’s be REALISTIC since most Qataris are struggling just as expats are. Qataris are people too!

I mean common now. Many of my friends get less than 15k a month. They don’t even get housing allowance and have to live with their parents. These are graduates and very capable. In fact, expats usually get more allowances compared to Qataris. Qataris don’t get homes, we don’t get a housing allowance,  (we do actually, it’s 1,000 QR, anyone want to find a home for 1,000 QR for me?), and we get a lower base salary.

Point of my little rant? The news needs to stop dividing us as “expats and Qataris”. They’re causing a rift. EVERYONE is affected by inflation.

It’s kind of tiring having people try to generalize and stereotype people into ONE group. If someone in Saudi says “Birthdays shouldn’t be celebrated”, the whole world assumes that all Muslims accept it. If an Egyptian guy says that Alcohol in small minute amounts is fine, it doesn’t mean that all Muslims accept it.

We’re divided into small groups within the religion, then you factor in families, then you factor in countries and individuality. There is just so much that putting us into one group is just ignorance!

Remember, Islam is supposed to teach tolerance, understanding and acceptance. I’m far from a religious person at all. However I do understand what I’m taught quite clearly. I’m just highlighting this post to show some people that you can’t generalize.

See picture

Update: 27/8/2008. I have not named anyone and just want to clearly point out that I wanted to share my feelings at the time so that this doesn’t happen in the future to someone else. I had no intention of insulting anyone in return. So I apologize to that person if they felt that this blog post was inappropriate. Again, this is a blog where I discuss, criticize, rant, share, etc… If there is something that offends anyone, please send me a message with a kind request to remove the offending material and it’ll be considered seriously.

I was initially going to post about yesterdays meeting and talk about what happened but I had to get this off my chest.

Guys, if you’re an expat, and you don’t understand Qatari culture, don’t assume. Just ask. I know it’s hard because different people have different requirements. Yesterday I was having a good time but I was embarassed by someone. She came up to me, shook my hand and leaned forward for the hello pecks (peck on the cheek not my huge muscular pecks of course), and as I leaned forward she pulls back and says, “oh you’re Qatari” and after an awkward smile she walks off. I imagine that the best solution would be to decide whether you are going to lean forward or not before saying hello lol.

I will not say this anymore clearer, that is amazingly insulting. If someone is leaning forward or extending their hand you don’t say ‘NO’ unless it’s against YOUR culture. Some Qatari women who are religious will not shake hands, most will. In our culture you do a cheek to cheek to say hello to a good friend (men with men, women with women) but it’s become more common for men and women to also give each other a cheek to cheek. (on a side note it’s THREE WITH THE RIGHT CHEEK! DONT MAKE A MISTAKE).

Oh well, hopefully someone’s learned from this. If you’re not sure, just ask, otherwise if someone extends their hand or even offers a hello peck, a rejection is extremely insulting to Qataris.

On a side note here’s the pattern of kissing in different gulf countries so you don’t have some ‘close’ moments.

Qatar: Three on the right.
Bahrain: Right, Left, Right
Kuwait: Right, Left, Left
Saudi: Right, Left
Everyone (safe way): Right, Left

Don’t ask me why, that’s just culture.

Just thought I’d share a photo of iLoveQatar.net’s very own photographer “ThatGuy”.

It’s awesome!

Click to expand

Well this is a bit of a concern. Qatar’s Lekhwiya is a form of “Elite” police force, they’re internal security to protect us (Like Japan’s Self Defence Force). We don’t really have any crime in Qatar, but they’re here to protect us against terrorists and anything in general if I think about it. They drive the red Land Cruisers in Qatar, they train hard and are tough, and they do some incredibly hard training. I think they’re great and they’re doing a great job, however I do wish that there were more traffic police out there enforcing the laws.

Anyway, I was on facebook and I don’t know if this was the actual Lekhwiya or a person on the force, but there was an advert for them there. That either means someone really likes the Lekhwiya or they’re on facebook, which kind of makes me wonder what they’re monitoring.

Here’s a video

They had a bunch of other videos and pictures but I also loved watching this particularly Read the rest of this entry »

Now that Ramadan is coming, click here for link, a lot of expats don’t know what to expect here in Doha. During the day, things are usually calm and quite, work hours are usually cut short, and people are more laid back.

However this doesn’t mean that things are dead and nothings going on! Not at all! A great thing about Ramadan is it’s a time to taste some amazing food and see some great designs. At night, all the major places will have tents set up so that you can have a great dinner and some entertainment.

Be prepared to see how the Ritz see’s Ramadan, enjoy traditional Qatari food with a Four Season’s Twist, walk around the festive Souq Wagif, and just take it easy! You’ll enjoy all the different coloured lanterns and hear some fireworks going off in Doha. Lay back, sit at your favourite Sheesha by the sea and stare into the starry sky.

You’ll have some great things to see. Now although Ramadan is a religious time, there are those who prefer to party a bit at night, so there’ll be stuff for them to do too. Just don’t go too wild alright?

Here’s some lovely rubbish courtesy of the Gulf-Times. Sometimes I don’t know if the writers of that newspaper even have any logical congnative skills. In this little post we’re going to talk about an article quite artistically entitled “Residents begin stocking up on essential items”.

The Gulf Times feeds on ambigious and vague sentences. They rely on the average person’s power of assumption in order to pass on a message which isn’t clear. I’m going to dissect this magical piece of parchment.

“Qatar residents have started stocking up on essential commodities, anticipating a big rush in the hypermarkets before Ramadan.”

You’d think it was judgement day! Is the world ending? Is there something the Gulf Time’s knows that we don’t? Come now, don’t you think ‘Judgement Day Arriving’ would be a great headliner? How many Qatar residents have they surveyed? 2? 200? Is everything going to run out during Ramadan?

NO! Don’t panic! Read the rest of this entry »