This isn’t really a topic that’s of super importance. It’s not like there aren’t better things to talk about, but I just wanted to share my views on the new license plates.

The reason we’re told that the plates have changed is because of an agreement that the GCC had to unify the look of the plates. Sadly, I don’t really see that because the only thing that’s similar is that they’re now in English. The overall design varies greatly from GCC country to country.

Now let’s get the first thing out of the way. Yes I know that the number system that the west uses is actually Arabic and that us Arabs decided to shift over to using Hindi numerals. I still don’t understand why we did that, but that’s the way it goes. You could argue that shifting over our license plate numbers back to the original numbering system is our way of claiming back what’s rightfully ours in a passive agressive sort of way, but trust me, you’d be thinking too much.

Back to the topic, here’s a quick image of how the licnese plates in Qatar have evolved. Check out www.worldlicenseplates.com for more.

In 1983, the license plates were actually quite similar to the ones in Bahrain.

Then we changed them in 1997 to what we all became accustomed to. It was quite special because the plate looked organized and used Arabic (Hindi) numbers.

On our facebook page (http://www.facebook.com/iloveqtr) we asked “Which GCC country do you think has the best looking car license plates?” to our 18,000+ page on Nov 9. We actually didn’t know the plates were going to change. What a coincidence! It was a 50-50 split between people voting for Qatar and UAE. Click here to see a dubai plate

Qatar then changed the new plates to look like this:

It kind of makes me feel uncomfortable… It’s like an inverted Qatari flag, the numbers are not centered, there’s a tiny hologram on the side (why… were people making fake plates or something?), and ‘Qatar’ is written in two styles.

I feel like it’s not organized anymore. It’s also sad that we don’t have the Arabic (hindi) numerals, it was a way of possibly educating a predominantly expat population. It probably wasn’t that easy to put together a design (perhaps one of the readers can show us how it’s done ), but I feel like UAE’s one now look’s much nicer

What do you guys think of the new plates?

After doing a bit of searching on KnowYourMeme I presented with another viral sensation call NyanCat many months ago. I’ve now decided that it was time for NyanQat to make an appearance.

Original:

Qatar Version:

Soon after the Big Day Out, we embarked on our next charitable project at ILQ. It was time to go ahead and show the country that gave us Land Cruisers that we appreciate them. Qatar without Land Cruisers just isn’t Qatar! We already did have a booth at the Big Day Out where we raised money for Japan (as well as gave out some awesome freebies like footballs with 2022 on them), but we wanted to do more. So we posted and tweeted that we’d be selling special t-shirts that were had writing in Japanese and Arabic. (I’ve never seen a t-shirt with those two languages before by the way). Our forum user, and the person in charge of the Japanese Society Qatar (JaSoQa), Daisy said that we should use the words Hope, Love, Brave, Happiness, and Peace. She even went as far as making sure that each color chosen was the right one.

Jim, one of the senior managers over at Landmark group went ahead and offered us space at Villaggio and Landmark (we are very thankful to them!) in order to sell the t-shirts; and it was with that we embarked on our mission. There were some fantastic people from ILQ and the Japanese community (thanks to Kasumi, Hiromi, Yoshiko, Joel and his friends, Kinimoto (who was dressed up as Naruto!), Ryan, Ellie, Joann, Zhan, Keiko and family, and Daisy) that manned the various booths.

So far, we’ve managed to raise over 16,000 QR selling the t-shirts and we’ve now been offered space at the Hyatt Plaza to do the same this Thursday and Friday as well. We’ll be giving the money to the Japanese embassy to do as they see fit.

I’d like to thank all of the kind souls out there that donated and helped us! I’m so very glad that everyone left feeling as if they had achieved something important with their time.

Now for my next ultimate challenge… find a someone to wash my car and guarantee it won’t rain the next day. Anyone?

Someone dropped me an email today and I thought that a lot of people might want to benefit from this.

Here are the names of some fish and their arabic names

Grouper – Hamour
White Sea bass – Karoos
Red Snapper – Nahash Ahmar
white Snapper – Nahash Abyadh
Red Tuna – Tuna
Sea Bream – Shiboot

Other tasty fish are:

Chanad
Safi (delicious but small)

What are your favourite fish in Qatar?

Fish in Qatar – Species and Names in Arabic (Original Thread)

Happy Holidays everyone.  Here’s an arabic version of Silent Night.