I posted my interview with James Williams on the blog for my sportscasting class. You can read it here: http://wp.me/p2H4Hv-i4
I thought I would not be able to blog before leaving but here's a short post. We leave the hotel tomorrow at 4:30 am. It's 11:20 right now and I'm fully packed. We fly Kuwait to Amman to Chicago to Memphis then take a van from Memphis to Jonesboro. Today we visited a resort club and spent some time on the beach and also played a little pool inside. We stopped by the iconic Kuwait Towers for a few pictures before we visited an area of town that has a handful of hookah shops. A few people purchased hookah kits but I refrained as I didn't want to deal with the luggage. I'm sure I will regret that at a later date but it's too late now. I have plenty of souvenirs anyways. Photos and memories and these blog posts are all the souvenirs I really need. When we return home to the states I will write a post that summarizes my thoughts on our trip. Here are a few photos from today in the slideshow Friday, Nov 8, 2013 Today we visited Failaka Island which is located about 40 minutes off of the Kuwait City coastline. Failaka Island is full of history tracing back over 3,000 years. Alexander the Great once visited Failaka Island and it has been used as a major port over the course of history in several different eras. Our boat ride was relatively smooth, I have some photos below in the slideshow. Once we arrived to Failaka we each had a short camel ride. I'll save those pictures for next Wednesday so I can have the best Hump Day post of all time. When we were finished meeting Joe the Camel we had lunch before going to ride jet skis. We were only given ten minutes to ride the jet skis but it was really funny and refreshing to taste some salt water for the first time in over 4 years I believe. After that small taste of salt water I think I'll be looking for a Gulf of Mexico trip real soon. The first half of our day was composed of fun and touristy things but when our jet ski rides were over we wandered into an area of Failaka that is composed of abandoned houses. Houses, streets, and entire neighborhoods are empty and decaying because of the Iraq invasion in the early 90s. The abandoned houses are ridden with bullet holes and the area felt like being on set of The Walking Dead. Failaka once had over 10,000 people who lived there before the invasion but now it's primarily a tourist spot. I have several photos in the slideshow that really illustrate the eeriness of the ghost town. It's certainly a conflict of emotions going from carefree jet skiing to seeing a town abandoned because of war but that dynamic is similar to how this entire trip has been. One minute you can be in a fancy mall full of designer fashion outlets and the next you can see migrant workers picking up trash and sweeping the streets. These kind of scenes are not unique to Kuwait but they can't be ignored. Still, it's been a great trip and a chance of a lifetime to come here on behalf of my university. I'll have more things to say about the trip-in-review in my next post. I'm unsure if I'll have anything to update again until we return to the states, but I'll try to post tomorrow and perhaps from the Amman airport on Sunday. Here are some photos from today Today was awesome. We toured the United Nations office building that is located here in Kuwait City and learned about the operations of some agencies such as IOM, UNDP, and UNHCR and their efforts in the Middle East. After our tour of the UN we went to a big shopping center where we met James Williams, a 2012 Political Science graduate of Arkansas State University and a former offensive lineman for the football team. He is currently the head coach of the Kuwait Gridiron National Football team. You can check out their Facebook page here https://www.facebook.com/U19KuwaitFootball We spoke with James and hung out for a bit at the shopping center. He had some really interesting things to say about his experiences living here for the past 5 months that I'll write about later on. It's getting a bit late but I wanted to get something posted before bed. Here are a few photos from today as well in the slideshow A lot of things happened today. We began with breakfast as we have every day during our time here so I thought I'd mention that in at least one blog post. The breakfast has a variety of food to choose from but now that we've been here for over a week I believe I have tried everything twice. I'm not saying that I'm tired of the breakfast but I will say that it's good that breakfast is the only part of the trip that has become monotonous in nature. Lunch and dinner and snacks are always an adventure. For lunch today we actually ate at Carino's which is a chain Italian restaurant available in the states. We all chose to visit Carino's because of its prime location on the gulf, and you can see several of my photos in the slideshow below that I took from the pier near the restaurant. Sadly I do not have any photos in the slideshow from our visit at the US Embassy as they do not allow cameras or phones on the compound premises. While I was not able to capture any photos for Instagram I was able to meet a US Ambassador for the first time and listen to him talk about his job and duties. Ambassador Tueller has served in his current role since 2011 and before that had a long career in the senior foreign service. He is a BYU alum but I couldn't find an appropriate time to ask him if he's keeping up with Cougars football this season. I did however ask him how it feels to be confirmed by the US Senate. He said that it was a humbling experience but that he really just appreciated being able to witness the workings of our constitutional form of government firsthand. Ambassador Tueller also mentioned that he's been in the Oval Office before and that's certainly something that I wish I could say. After visiting with the Ambassador we spoke with several officers at the Embassy and listened to them talk about their experiences working in the foreign service. I'm not really sure what information they'd feel comfortable with us divulging so I won't say much. Lunch at Carino's followed our visit to the Embassy and directly after Carino's we traveled to Al Rai TV for a tour and to be interviewed and followed by a camera the entire time. It was an awesome afternoon that I'll always remember as we were able to get a behind the scenes look at the day to day operations of a major television station. Al Rai's building also houses a major newspaper of the same name and we were able to talk with the managing editor of the paper about his experiences working in print in the Middle East. Al Rai has permanent sets for most of their shows. We saw the sets for a children's show, legal show, game show, and talk show. We sat on the couch of the talk show and were interviewed for what I assume will be a documentary or show on the station about the American students who toured Al Rai. After our tour was over each of us were interviewed by our tour guide and during the entire tour a camera followed us as we visited each different room. The archive room stood out in particular. Overall it was a great trip to Al Rai and I hope we can see whatever video or film is made about our visit. When we left Al Rai we went to find the football practice for the Kuwait Gridiron National Football team coached by James Williams, an A-State football alum. We were unable to find the practice but we will be meeting up with James tomorrow at the City Center in Salmiya. I'll have photos and a recap about that experience tomorrow night. We're halfway across the world and get to meet a fellow Red Wolf so that's a pretty unique opportunity. I have photos from Al Rai and the coastline near Carino's below. Again, no photos from the Embassy due to national security rules or something of that nature Not much to report about today. We visited The Avenues, which is supposedly the second largest mall in the entire world. It was apparently the largest mall at one time but a group in Dubai built an even bigger one just to beat this Kuwait mall. The Avenues had thousands of people there today as it was a holiday for all Muslims. This week marks the New Year, 1435 in the traditional Islamic calendar and Tuesday was the national holiday here in Kuwait. Since Kuwait is a dry country and people don't visit clubs and bars they visit malls and theaters. In the past two days we've been to a theater and a few malls and there were people of all varieties at every place. At The Avenues today we were told to look to see if people were carrying shopping bags, as the locals usually just go up to the mall to hang out and don't really buy anything. I spent a good portion of time people-watching and looking to see who was carrying a shopping bag and who wasn't. That is supposed to be a sign of who is a local and who is a tourist, but I didn't really notice anything. We had a great dinner at the Turkish restaurant Emirgan Sutis and I have a photo of my plate below. After dinner we walked around the mall a bit more before heading back to the hotel. Several members of our group went out again but I stayed in to catch up on some research and homework for the whole "real life" thing that awaits me when we return to the United States this coming Sunday. There will be much more to update tomorrow as we visit the US Embassy, a major television station Al Rai, and also meet up with a former A-State football player who now coaches a team here in Kuwait. A few photos are below, I didn't have many today, as mall security told me to stop taking pictures on a couple of different occasions Today consisted of two tours of different media companies. Today was a day where I really felt like we were accomplishing what we set out to do on this trip, which is study the media structure and business models here in Kuwait. Kuwait Times is one of two English language daily newspapers in Kuwait along with Arab Times. Our tour this morning was led by the press manager and a few other staff members such as one guy whose job consists of reading and scanning through Arabic language newspapers to find stories worth translating to an English paper. The paper's photographer also took several photos of our group so we will be looking for our pictures in the paper soon. We visited the commercial printing press and also the paper's printing press and got some great photos and a look at how Kuwait Times delivers their product to readers. We talked a little bit about how things have changed for newspapers recently and our guides said that the same issues facing most papers in the US are relevant in Kuwait. Kuwait Times depends on advertising for profit, as their subscriptions and sales from daily papers are not enough to sustain a business. Advertising has fallen some since the economic collapse in 2008, and several papers in Kuwait have folded but now two English language dailies remain. Advertising and sales can be particularly difficult at times for a paper such as KT because their target audience is not the majority population of their area. British and American expatriates and readers of that variety make up much of the target reading audience and thus much of the target advertising audience. Our guide said that papers in Kuwait have not gone behind pay walls on their websites yet and he doesn't foresee it happening anytime soon. The majority of today was spent at Marina Mall where we had an outstanding lunch. I have a good photo of my dessert in the slideshow below. Our friend Ali Najim led us on a tour of the Marina FM 88.8 studio before we appeared as guests on his show. His show is the most popular radio program not only in Kuwait but the entire gulf region and I am grateful to have been able to watch him in his natural environment behind the mic. On our tour of Marina FM we spoke with the music director of the station who said that he primarily uses Pro Tools. Another guy said he depends most heavily on Adobe Audition. It was interesting to see that the professionals at the top of the business use the same software that ASU students are taught to use. After Ali's show we went to the theater to watch Captain Phillips. The movie was in English with French, English, and Arabic subtitles. That's the first and likely only time I'll ever watch a movie in three different languages of subtitles but I thoroughly enjoyed that unique experience. I have several photos from today in the slideshow here We visited KNPC, Kuwait National Petroleum Company, today and spoke for a good amount of time with one of the main members of their communication team. It was interesting to hear about the PR and crisis management strategies in place and also how large companies develop these kind of things. We listened to two engineers talk about how KNPC's refineries work. Their presentation was detailed and I'm glad they were so gracious in hosting a group of random American students who just wanted to learn a little bit about oil in Kuwait. Oil is the reason Kuwait exists as it does today and KNPC is one of the major places that people want to work. We were able to go into the Diwan, or meeting room of KNPC and it was one of the nicest rooms I've ever been in, right up there with the meeting room in the back of the US Senate chambers. I've had Starbucks more often in Kuwait than I have in the US. Later we visited the fish market and it was chaotic and full of sights and sounds and smells I will never forget. I got some great photos that are in the slideshow below but also got some great video which I will post when I'm back in Jonesboro and able to do some post production. After the fish market we went to the mall next door and I also walked out onto the pier that extends into the gulf. Of course Otis Redding popped into my mind and it was quite a relaxing moment of zen. When we left the mall and pier we went back to the hotel but later found a great little place for dinner that was cheap but just as delicious and authentic as most places we've eaten. I'd compare it somewhat to Blackwood's in Conway. Some great photos from the fish market are below Today we had a special tour of Kuwait's Memorial Museum which focuses on the history of the Gulf War. The official name of the museum is the Kuwait House of National Works Memorial Museum. The first room details the history of Kuwait's rulers, followed by a room covering the major events in the history of modern Kuwait. The rest of the museum focuses on the Gulf War,which Kuwaitis sometimes call "The Mother of All Crimes" when referring to Saddam Hussein's regime's invasion of Iraq and his use of chemical weapons and torture. The museum has several different rooms with unique exhibits that gave me chills. One room has toy-sized replica models of war time Kuwait with scenes from different events during the Iraqi occupation. It is narrated in English and made the hair on my neck stand up. Another room features a 60 foot mural detailing the history of the war. Photos of both are in my slideshow below. The most notable parts of the museum were all of the photos or portraits of martyrs, or people who died during the Iraqi occupation. Women and men, Kuwaitis and non-Kuwaitis, died in opposition to Saddam's tyranny. The museum also features exhibits for every allied nation who helped Kuwait. I have some photos in the slideshow of the US exhibit. In the last room of the museum tour, there is a decapitated, bullet-ridden statue head of Saddam Hussein. The statue was once the largest statue of Saddam and was located in his hometown of Tikrit. When it was torn down in 2003 after the US invasion of Iraq the head was given to the Kuwaitis who placed it in this museum. The museum is on display in an exhibit that mimics the spider hole he was found in. The museum was a great learning experience and I believe it is an important cultural location that needs to remain open. People should always remember the bravery and sacrifice of previous generations. I will write about this more at a later time. I'm a bit tired now. We also visited more shopping centers and walked around several car dealerships. I saw a Rolls-Royce for the first time in my life today. Photos below |
Josh C. Bramlett - Arkansas State University |
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