Hey to all and happy greogrian new year!
Man i witnessed the sickest firework show ever and if a muslim country puts on a firework show like that for a christian holiday then ill like to c wot the hell a proper christian country (uk doesnt count as its secular in reality!) would do it! IT was 5 solid minutes of the most brutally loud, most sparkling fireworks, and i had an amazing view from my hotel
i was thinking of watching it with the masses in KKLL park but thought i wouldnt slum it and jus be with the hotel guests by the swimming pool and watching it from there. I then walked around the city as the masses went bout celebrating/destroying the city,it was pandomium really, but was in good fun which was a nice change to the uk as i remeber there always used to be so much beef between people!
Aneway Malaysia is really techno advanced, clean, and quite modern in terms of society, like everyones pretty trendy, very cosmopolitan and in some ways alot more than the uk. Its weird as you see all these girls with the hijab and then in the same group of people there will be a girl with like a mini shirt and boobtube or something and ur like wot da hell, but its common here i suppose!
Also its like an arab playland i dont know if its like this always or just for new year but the number of arabs makes it feel like ur in the middle east in a way!
Anyway i best go as its late and im off to some mountain tomorrow so inshallah will write more tomrrow!
take care and welcome to 2009 which i dont think to be honest its that bad to celebrate it, i mean if ur not celebrating like 2009 years since crist but ur celebrating that u experienced another year on Gods earth and steped one step closer to life after death so its something to be happy bout i guess (though i get so scared thinking bout life after death and the thought of eternity but lets not get into that!)
aneway adios
Stormy
Wednesday, December 31, 2008
Tuesday, December 30, 2008
Bye bye 2008 hey hey to 2009
Hey,
so this will most likely be my last post of the year as im off to kuala lumpar and singapore in a few hours , i used to be so nervous when i flew and now i couldnt be more chilled, i did my packing in like 15 mins after work, and then got food for the islamic talk at my house and then did the talk today on the topic "choices" within a islamic context, the reason i chose the topic was because for me the concept of choice is something that brought me back to Islam when i went astray, because i used to so much in my faith and i never understood so many aspects like why was i born a muslim and so and so wasnt, but its just a blessing from God, its like u find 1000000 pounds on the floor, your not going to question too much ur blessing ull jus accept it its like the same principle isnt it????
aneway as i previously said i got so many hopes for 2009 and aims, but thats on a personal level, but then there is other things that will happen on a global scale, such as peace between palestian and isreal, the future economy and stuff like that, in the Qu'ran there is something bout how the fturue society will regress and go back to like sword fighting and all this techno stuff will go back, and i think were seeing some of that with the economy becoming messed up and as a result i read the other day like iceland a country really affected by the credit crunch, is telling its citizens to go back to fishing and natural resources and stuff like that, and could be a sign of things to come where we dont have these high profile companies and jobs but fishing and farming become more prominent, then i think what the hell is the use of like working my ass off for a company if the economy will go pear shaped what good is my money?? aneway so i spoke bout my desire to learn arabic and thats something that will become a priority for me along with my wedding hunt, that is also become very important in my life!!
anyway i beta get going inshallah see you in the new year!!
Stormy
so this will most likely be my last post of the year as im off to kuala lumpar and singapore in a few hours , i used to be so nervous when i flew and now i couldnt be more chilled, i did my packing in like 15 mins after work, and then got food for the islamic talk at my house and then did the talk today on the topic "choices" within a islamic context, the reason i chose the topic was because for me the concept of choice is something that brought me back to Islam when i went astray, because i used to so much in my faith and i never understood so many aspects like why was i born a muslim and so and so wasnt, but its just a blessing from God, its like u find 1000000 pounds on the floor, your not going to question too much ur blessing ull jus accept it its like the same principle isnt it????
aneway as i previously said i got so many hopes for 2009 and aims, but thats on a personal level, but then there is other things that will happen on a global scale, such as peace between palestian and isreal, the future economy and stuff like that, in the Qu'ran there is something bout how the fturue society will regress and go back to like sword fighting and all this techno stuff will go back, and i think were seeing some of that with the economy becoming messed up and as a result i read the other day like iceland a country really affected by the credit crunch, is telling its citizens to go back to fishing and natural resources and stuff like that, and could be a sign of things to come where we dont have these high profile companies and jobs but fishing and farming become more prominent, then i think what the hell is the use of like working my ass off for a company if the economy will go pear shaped what good is my money?? aneway so i spoke bout my desire to learn arabic and thats something that will become a priority for me along with my wedding hunt, that is also become very important in my life!!
anyway i beta get going inshallah see you in the new year!!
Stormy
Stormys Guide to His Perfect Hunt
All,
Well after my post yesterday i thought i would follow it up with the most important thing in my life at the moment, my desire to be wed. I have been wanting to get married for a while now, and i have started to take some serious steps in finding a wife, and i have been looking at venues and dates etc lol! The concept i guess of finding a wife might seem quite alien to a number of you, i mean you dont just find a wife, you find a girl, you fall in love, you live together or at least get engaged and then you marry would be the status quo for many of you, however in my culture, its more like you decide its time to get married you either tell your parents or extended family and friends who will propose people for you to get married and then you meet these potentials and get to know them and if you hit it off, before you know it your surrounded by 500 of your closest friends and family and having random sweets stuffed in your mouth! Im taking that route as its alot quicker, more suited to my custom and less sinful in Islam that the other route i mentioned.
I think the other route is a valid route and might be better in the long run but to be honest theirs no saying in either route, you have unsuccesful marriages in both types of societies, and so i think all you can do is pray to God and try to be good people and hope that it works.
I suppose as I mention you need to be good people, it reminds me of one of my key criterias in finding a girl. I want her to have a good heart and good natured, as i want to respect the girl and inshallah her to be a good influence on my children. I need her to be chilled, which is actually quite an important requirement as i believe its something that i strive to be, and remain calm in all situations and so therefore would want my wife to try to be the same. I know people say opposites attract and i think they do to an extent so it causes the relationship to have a balance but i think its also important the relationship has many similar bonds and characteristics between the two people.
I obviously want someone im attracted to but their lies the problem attraction, when people ask me what I find attractive its hard to say theres no 1 set girl and i suppose when people try setting me up with people they find it hard as i cant give them a type, however inshallah ill find one soon where im attracted to, as so far thats been the biggest stumbling block!
I used to say I dont care about how relgious she is, or i even used to say i dont mind if shes not muslim, but i have started to change my mind on this purely on the fact that because i believe as a Muslim i would have a better chance of reaching heaven then say a non-muslim purely because a non-muslim wouldnt have been praying, paying zakat and stuff but that doesnt mean either of us are guranteed of our destinations and i could easily end up in hell and they could end up in heaven but aneway i digress what i am trying to say is that so if i believe i could enter heaven i would like to think i could enter it with my wife and children and so would always be worried about the outcome of my wife if she wasnt muslim as i would fear that she may end up in hell! lol i know a bit dramatic but i dont know its the way my thinking has been going recently...
aneway this year like i said i plan to marry iA and am taking some serious steps to it, and once i find someone who fits me and i see a future with, then i have this book that i brought in the usa like a q+a book that i will inshallah go thru with the prospective person and find out if we are truly compatible, the scariest thing i think for me is my past and the vices i have if the person accepts them, thats the thin g and i guess its the same the other way around but i dont care to be honest on most things and so hope that i can find someone with an equally flippant attitude!
The final thing im considering is the potential future, so i need to find someone who i think will make a good family with and be a good mother and share the same ideals and hopes i do, so for example ideally i want 6 children, 3 of my own and 3 adopted inshallah, i would also if i cant get 6 children like to do fostering, so things like that i would want my wife to be intrested in. Also i want to go and study Arabic at some point in the near future in an intensive way, where i live in a proper arabic and islamic enviorment, where i can also study Islam into much greater detail and i would like a wife who has that same passion, like i said she wouldnt need to be relgious but just have that desire to expand on her belief.
Anyway i best go take care
Stormy
Well after my post yesterday i thought i would follow it up with the most important thing in my life at the moment, my desire to be wed. I have been wanting to get married for a while now, and i have started to take some serious steps in finding a wife, and i have been looking at venues and dates etc lol! The concept i guess of finding a wife might seem quite alien to a number of you, i mean you dont just find a wife, you find a girl, you fall in love, you live together or at least get engaged and then you marry would be the status quo for many of you, however in my culture, its more like you decide its time to get married you either tell your parents or extended family and friends who will propose people for you to get married and then you meet these potentials and get to know them and if you hit it off, before you know it your surrounded by 500 of your closest friends and family and having random sweets stuffed in your mouth! Im taking that route as its alot quicker, more suited to my custom and less sinful in Islam that the other route i mentioned.
I think the other route is a valid route and might be better in the long run but to be honest theirs no saying in either route, you have unsuccesful marriages in both types of societies, and so i think all you can do is pray to God and try to be good people and hope that it works.
I suppose as I mention you need to be good people, it reminds me of one of my key criterias in finding a girl. I want her to have a good heart and good natured, as i want to respect the girl and inshallah her to be a good influence on my children. I need her to be chilled, which is actually quite an important requirement as i believe its something that i strive to be, and remain calm in all situations and so therefore would want my wife to try to be the same. I know people say opposites attract and i think they do to an extent so it causes the relationship to have a balance but i think its also important the relationship has many similar bonds and characteristics between the two people.
I obviously want someone im attracted to but their lies the problem attraction, when people ask me what I find attractive its hard to say theres no 1 set girl and i suppose when people try setting me up with people they find it hard as i cant give them a type, however inshallah ill find one soon where im attracted to, as so far thats been the biggest stumbling block!
I used to say I dont care about how relgious she is, or i even used to say i dont mind if shes not muslim, but i have started to change my mind on this purely on the fact that because i believe as a Muslim i would have a better chance of reaching heaven then say a non-muslim purely because a non-muslim wouldnt have been praying, paying zakat and stuff but that doesnt mean either of us are guranteed of our destinations and i could easily end up in hell and they could end up in heaven but aneway i digress what i am trying to say is that so if i believe i could enter heaven i would like to think i could enter it with my wife and children and so would always be worried about the outcome of my wife if she wasnt muslim as i would fear that she may end up in hell! lol i know a bit dramatic but i dont know its the way my thinking has been going recently...
aneway this year like i said i plan to marry iA and am taking some serious steps to it, and once i find someone who fits me and i see a future with, then i have this book that i brought in the usa like a q+a book that i will inshallah go thru with the prospective person and find out if we are truly compatible, the scariest thing i think for me is my past and the vices i have if the person accepts them, thats the thin g and i guess its the same the other way around but i dont care to be honest on most things and so hope that i can find someone with an equally flippant attitude!
The final thing im considering is the potential future, so i need to find someone who i think will make a good family with and be a good mother and share the same ideals and hopes i do, so for example ideally i want 6 children, 3 of my own and 3 adopted inshallah, i would also if i cant get 6 children like to do fostering, so things like that i would want my wife to be intrested in. Also i want to go and study Arabic at some point in the near future in an intensive way, where i live in a proper arabic and islamic enviorment, where i can also study Islam into much greater detail and i would like a wife who has that same passion, like i said she wouldnt need to be relgious but just have that desire to expand on her belief.
Anyway i best go take care
Stormy
Sunday, December 28, 2008
The Perpetual Motion of Hope....
Hey,
Well the end of 2008 has literally flown by, and im not sure where the year went, it seems like i was getting ready for new years eve in 2007 just yesterday and now im about to enter 2009 inshallah....
Well im going to do a 3 part eiditon of my blog , what i expected from 2008, what i actually got from 2008 and what im hopeing for in 2009..will be my first entry, and the second part will be a look at what im hoping for in marriage... and the final part will be similar to last years with something you never knew about me!
So this entry will start to deal with what i was expecting for 2008, well for a start i was expecting to have been married i guess, as i was hoping my parents would have come around to the idea of me and Shamina. I had also hoped to have started the process of getting into a MBA school or even be at one already, i guess they were the two big things i was expecting for 2008 and the two things that i failed miserably in. As me and Shamina ended right at the start of the year, and the MBA dream died shortly after the summer, where due to financial and desire (I didnt have any desire to do it after doing the GMAT, as i just felt it wasnt for me, all this studying again and for what...there was jus nothing for me and if i was to do it would be for my dad and not me and i cant do that as i would only let everyone down even more if i went down that path).
So 2008 was despite those two big failures an important and happy year mA for myself, i traveled all over the world, this was kinda spured on from the shamina situation if im to be honest, as I jus thought f' it, im off to c the world and do the stuff i wanted to do but never got the chance to, so in that way i was kinda liberated and so this year saw me for the first time in a long time lead my own life without any inhibition, it was almost like i was back at uni in my first year which was one of the best years i have had, expect this year i didnt fail Islamically and masallah actually grew in my relgion in most ways and feel myself finally starting to become more spirtitually involved in my relgion. So the countries i travelled this year, well I went to Spain- Barce, Madrid and Ibiza which was something i always wanted to do, i also went all around Levant -Lebonan (twice), Syria, Jordan, Palestine, Isreal, Egypt, India west cost, USA - east cost, Sri Lanka, Amsterdam, thru out the gulf and the UK so aH i got to c many things and more importantly see 3 wonders of the world! so only 3 more left which inshallah will be done next year.
I also got a niece from my younger sister, and aH she is very beautiful and has grown on my incredibly, I saw my relations with my mum become much stronger and kinda my sisters, which is a good thing iA though we still have many issues as does any family I feel were moving in the right direction.
I became unsettled in my job however i started to become more settled in my job as the year progressed and now aH quite settled and enjoying it.
My Islam as is expected waved throughout from some quite sincere and hardcore to fairly liberal at times and softcore, and i think that was me trying to find my own middle path, for Islam is meant to be the middle way, not the extreme but not the softcore either, and im trying to find whats good for me and where i find i fit within Islam and Islam fits for me, im starting to feel comfatable in my faith however and thats something i havent previously felt so thats a good thing.
Well the final part of what happened in 2008 and what will continue in 2009 is my consilidation of the people in my life, i used to ammas acquantinces without having many real friends, especially when u grow up in a place like manchester were everyone kinda knows or knows of everyone else, u tend to know alot of people but dont have that bond, and the same thing happens at uni, and then in doha again where i meet alot of people and will ahve dinners and stuff with them but not become like good friends, and so my facebook was starting to look like a yellow pages list with just a host of people who i knew but werent really 'friends' so i started to consilidate and delete alot of people and so from ghoing to near 800 im down to 600ish at the moment and hope to go to 500 in the new year. However networking is important and so cant jus delete everyone apart from my closest friends and we all need some acquaintainces however theres some people who i know i wont ever chat to or will be friends with so im allowing them and will be doing the same with people on my phonebook on my phone. Anyway what happened this year was i developed a really good set of friends in Doha and that helped ease the whole Shamina situation, the MBA thing, and wot on paper might have looked like a bad year these people made this year a good one, and they helped me Islamically grow by attending the Islamic halaqa classes that i have been trying to set up in doha and they started at the end of feb/start of march and been doing on every tuesday bar one, which is pretty impressive and wouldnt have been possible by these friends. Also my friends in manchester, london i have consilidated and now have good friends who i tend to hang out with when im back and so each of the cities im in i have good people to be with and its nice.
Bilal also came and stayed with my during his elective and so for the first time in 3-4 years i was living with someone and it felt werid as i guess i developed alot of selfish habits that i realised only when i started to live with someone else, and was a good experience and was nice having someone around and despite the beef and there was a considerable amount of beef i think it did help our friendship and though u may act a fool and write some gay comment to this post he will agree with what i said!
aneway for 2009 what do i hope well this year i am determined to be married, and this i will go into details in my next post, and i also hope to live in Qatar for the next year iA and continue to travel the world and see the wonders of the world before my marriage and to end the year as a Haji with my wife....inshallah
Stormy
Well the end of 2008 has literally flown by, and im not sure where the year went, it seems like i was getting ready for new years eve in 2007 just yesterday and now im about to enter 2009 inshallah....
Well im going to do a 3 part eiditon of my blog , what i expected from 2008, what i actually got from 2008 and what im hopeing for in 2009..will be my first entry, and the second part will be a look at what im hoping for in marriage... and the final part will be similar to last years with something you never knew about me!
So this entry will start to deal with what i was expecting for 2008, well for a start i was expecting to have been married i guess, as i was hoping my parents would have come around to the idea of me and Shamina. I had also hoped to have started the process of getting into a MBA school or even be at one already, i guess they were the two big things i was expecting for 2008 and the two things that i failed miserably in. As me and Shamina ended right at the start of the year, and the MBA dream died shortly after the summer, where due to financial and desire (I didnt have any desire to do it after doing the GMAT, as i just felt it wasnt for me, all this studying again and for what...there was jus nothing for me and if i was to do it would be for my dad and not me and i cant do that as i would only let everyone down even more if i went down that path).
So 2008 was despite those two big failures an important and happy year mA for myself, i traveled all over the world, this was kinda spured on from the shamina situation if im to be honest, as I jus thought f' it, im off to c the world and do the stuff i wanted to do but never got the chance to, so in that way i was kinda liberated and so this year saw me for the first time in a long time lead my own life without any inhibition, it was almost like i was back at uni in my first year which was one of the best years i have had, expect this year i didnt fail Islamically and masallah actually grew in my relgion in most ways and feel myself finally starting to become more spirtitually involved in my relgion. So the countries i travelled this year, well I went to Spain- Barce, Madrid and Ibiza which was something i always wanted to do, i also went all around Levant -Lebonan (twice), Syria, Jordan, Palestine, Isreal, Egypt, India west cost, USA - east cost, Sri Lanka, Amsterdam, thru out the gulf and the UK so aH i got to c many things and more importantly see 3 wonders of the world! so only 3 more left which inshallah will be done next year.
I also got a niece from my younger sister, and aH she is very beautiful and has grown on my incredibly, I saw my relations with my mum become much stronger and kinda my sisters, which is a good thing iA though we still have many issues as does any family I feel were moving in the right direction.
I became unsettled in my job however i started to become more settled in my job as the year progressed and now aH quite settled and enjoying it.
My Islam as is expected waved throughout from some quite sincere and hardcore to fairly liberal at times and softcore, and i think that was me trying to find my own middle path, for Islam is meant to be the middle way, not the extreme but not the softcore either, and im trying to find whats good for me and where i find i fit within Islam and Islam fits for me, im starting to feel comfatable in my faith however and thats something i havent previously felt so thats a good thing.
Well the final part of what happened in 2008 and what will continue in 2009 is my consilidation of the people in my life, i used to ammas acquantinces without having many real friends, especially when u grow up in a place like manchester were everyone kinda knows or knows of everyone else, u tend to know alot of people but dont have that bond, and the same thing happens at uni, and then in doha again where i meet alot of people and will ahve dinners and stuff with them but not become like good friends, and so my facebook was starting to look like a yellow pages list with just a host of people who i knew but werent really 'friends' so i started to consilidate and delete alot of people and so from ghoing to near 800 im down to 600ish at the moment and hope to go to 500 in the new year. However networking is important and so cant jus delete everyone apart from my closest friends and we all need some acquaintainces however theres some people who i know i wont ever chat to or will be friends with so im allowing them and will be doing the same with people on my phonebook on my phone. Anyway what happened this year was i developed a really good set of friends in Doha and that helped ease the whole Shamina situation, the MBA thing, and wot on paper might have looked like a bad year these people made this year a good one, and they helped me Islamically grow by attending the Islamic halaqa classes that i have been trying to set up in doha and they started at the end of feb/start of march and been doing on every tuesday bar one, which is pretty impressive and wouldnt have been possible by these friends. Also my friends in manchester, london i have consilidated and now have good friends who i tend to hang out with when im back and so each of the cities im in i have good people to be with and its nice.
Bilal also came and stayed with my during his elective and so for the first time in 3-4 years i was living with someone and it felt werid as i guess i developed alot of selfish habits that i realised only when i started to live with someone else, and was a good experience and was nice having someone around and despite the beef and there was a considerable amount of beef i think it did help our friendship and though u may act a fool and write some gay comment to this post he will agree with what i said!
aneway for 2009 what do i hope well this year i am determined to be married, and this i will go into details in my next post, and i also hope to live in Qatar for the next year iA and continue to travel the world and see the wonders of the world before my marriage and to end the year as a Haji with my wife....inshallah
Stormy
Friday, December 19, 2008
The one good time it is to be a Muslim...
HEy All,
So had a nice day in Sri Lanka, went to a beautiful beach at this place called Mount Laviorous or something like that, it was recommended to me by my 2 sri lankan friends, Sadia and Muhammad so thoght since it was recommended by 2 different people i should go check it out, and it was really cool. was super clean, the sand was so soft, and the waves were amazing i dont think i ever seen such big waves, i think the reason it was so big was that the hotel kinda like dug the beach so its much higher than the sea and when u go into the water its jus below where the actual beach is so ur kinda into the high water straight away!
I went to the mosque today for Jummah and encounted some problems where they didnt allow my camera inside, supposedly as sri lankans believe taking photos is wrong in Islam...ummm not too sure bout that just think people loving making issues, but the mosque which is the grand mosque of colombo was not the greatest of mosques, as it was marble floored so quite hard to pray on, and it was not very well maintainted at all, though it was fairly large and spread of 3 floors and had cool wudu facilities by having these little pools at the entrance that was open for all to wash themselves!
Ok so the subject of this entry, well in Sri Lanka more than any other country i have visited including palestine/isreal i have had to show my passport at checkpoints, anyway one incident they again took exception to my phototaking though this time i wasnt actually taking any photos jus in a tuk tuk with a camera around my neck and i was called in my the police and militry and normally flashing the brit passport would keep me sweet, however not this time, they were being proper problematic, and in the end being a muslim worked in my favour, as there not worried about muslims or terrorist in the common sense but if i were hindu or tamil man they would have kicked off, so its pretty good relief that for once it benefited me in terms of security.
But despite all this i have got to say that Sri Lanka is one of the most religiously diverse countries i have been to, i have seen so many churches, mosques, temples and Buddas all over the place some right next to each other and seems everyone is fairly ok with it, i spoke to a muslim taxi driver who said the problem is mainly between the hindus and the buddhists (which always surprises me as when i originally learnt about buddhism and i learnt to quite a large exten, i always thought they were the most passive guys and who the hell would they fight with cuz its so entrinched in their relgion the sancticty of life so thought man their countires much be so peaceful, however if u c thailand and sri lakna and burma then guess u got to think otherwise) aneway the driver goes christians and muslims are like brothers here and that was surprising to hear as i not heard anyone say that EVER, was kinda refreshing to hear muslims at peace with some people!
Oh and one other thing i may have spotted a trend which again is quite surprising how sleezy and like thrivin sex industry it is here in Sri Lanka, like every taxi driver asks me if i want sri lankan girl or a 'massage' with 'jiggy jiggy' apart from one who asked me if i wanted a massage and i naturally thought oh no not again but then he goes oh but not jiggy jiggy and i was like thank God and then went on a rant on how disgusting the people are here and how i never realised that its such a sex tourism market, and then i thought of how its like thailand but more undercover as people dont know it, but then i thought wow the 2 countires that i have seen first hand massive sex tourism are both Buddhist countires so again jus surprised me i dont think its correlated but just intresting! lol
So anyway im off tomorrow back to Doha and then my sister comes on sunday with my favourite and only nephew Rayan and his father, my brother in law, anyway so gota plan their trip and when they leave im off to malaysia and singapore for new years much to the annoyance of my manager so u probably wont hear from me until then inshallah!
aneway take care
Asif
So had a nice day in Sri Lanka, went to a beautiful beach at this place called Mount Laviorous or something like that, it was recommended to me by my 2 sri lankan friends, Sadia and Muhammad so thoght since it was recommended by 2 different people i should go check it out, and it was really cool. was super clean, the sand was so soft, and the waves were amazing i dont think i ever seen such big waves, i think the reason it was so big was that the hotel kinda like dug the beach so its much higher than the sea and when u go into the water its jus below where the actual beach is so ur kinda into the high water straight away!
I went to the mosque today for Jummah and encounted some problems where they didnt allow my camera inside, supposedly as sri lankans believe taking photos is wrong in Islam...ummm not too sure bout that just think people loving making issues, but the mosque which is the grand mosque of colombo was not the greatest of mosques, as it was marble floored so quite hard to pray on, and it was not very well maintainted at all, though it was fairly large and spread of 3 floors and had cool wudu facilities by having these little pools at the entrance that was open for all to wash themselves!
Ok so the subject of this entry, well in Sri Lanka more than any other country i have visited including palestine/isreal i have had to show my passport at checkpoints, anyway one incident they again took exception to my phototaking though this time i wasnt actually taking any photos jus in a tuk tuk with a camera around my neck and i was called in my the police and militry and normally flashing the brit passport would keep me sweet, however not this time, they were being proper problematic, and in the end being a muslim worked in my favour, as there not worried about muslims or terrorist in the common sense but if i were hindu or tamil man they would have kicked off, so its pretty good relief that for once it benefited me in terms of security.
But despite all this i have got to say that Sri Lanka is one of the most religiously diverse countries i have been to, i have seen so many churches, mosques, temples and Buddas all over the place some right next to each other and seems everyone is fairly ok with it, i spoke to a muslim taxi driver who said the problem is mainly between the hindus and the buddhists (which always surprises me as when i originally learnt about buddhism and i learnt to quite a large exten, i always thought they were the most passive guys and who the hell would they fight with cuz its so entrinched in their relgion the sancticty of life so thought man their countires much be so peaceful, however if u c thailand and sri lakna and burma then guess u got to think otherwise) aneway the driver goes christians and muslims are like brothers here and that was surprising to hear as i not heard anyone say that EVER, was kinda refreshing to hear muslims at peace with some people!
Oh and one other thing i may have spotted a trend which again is quite surprising how sleezy and like thrivin sex industry it is here in Sri Lanka, like every taxi driver asks me if i want sri lankan girl or a 'massage' with 'jiggy jiggy' apart from one who asked me if i wanted a massage and i naturally thought oh no not again but then he goes oh but not jiggy jiggy and i was like thank God and then went on a rant on how disgusting the people are here and how i never realised that its such a sex tourism market, and then i thought of how its like thailand but more undercover as people dont know it, but then i thought wow the 2 countires that i have seen first hand massive sex tourism are both Buddhist countires so again jus surprised me i dont think its correlated but just intresting! lol
So anyway im off tomorrow back to Doha and then my sister comes on sunday with my favourite and only nephew Rayan and his father, my brother in law, anyway so gota plan their trip and when they leave im off to malaysia and singapore for new years much to the annoyance of my manager so u probably wont hear from me until then inshallah!
aneway take care
Asif
Thursday, December 18, 2008
If you are to help the world...you must see the world!
Hey All,
Its been relatively a bit of a break from the number of posts i was doing whilst in the states!
Well my time in the USA was really good, one of my best hols in recent memory to be honest, though i wasnt the biggest fan of NYE as its quite similar to London in that its really congested and heaving. I mean there is some cool things such as the rockafeller building and M+M store, the brookyln bridge and the usual famous things like the sky scrappers, statue of liberty etc...But the thing is the people are generally stuck up and quite unfriendly, I thought getting the tube was dodge in london, its not a touch on NYE where like everyone is keeping their headtown and it is FULL of weirdos and so poorly maintained that the tube in lodnon looks like a business class/first class form of transport compared to NYC subway system!
It wasnt all bad, the shopping was really good at least in New Jersey, where all the clothes do not have a tax, oh thats something that pissed me off that in the USA they add tax when u go to the till, and each state is different, so like say something is 9.99 it will turn out to be like 10.48 after tax so what da hell is da point in pricing something nicely like 9.99 when u r going to add tax, and its hassles if u pay cash for things, which is probably why cards are so populour in the US i guess.
Anyway since the end of my US trip I went to the UK and spent Eid in manchester, which involved standard missions to wilmslow road. I ended up going to wilmslow road almost every night, i used to go alot but only really to eat one of the worlds best chicken burgers..Kansas! now however they have opened like prob close to 10 all together shisha places along wimmy road and the back streets so its become a much a much more of a chilling destination, so i really like it, its myfavourite probably pasttime, apart from playing footy lol and relgious activities...but im talking bout when socialising with friends rather than shopping, shooting pool, coffee, clubbing etc i jus love smoking up! lol
Every time i go back home to Cheshire/manchester my heart kinda longs to return as though i travel the world there is no city in the world apart from maybe Mecca/Medina and Doha is quite high up there possibly because i know it so well and because its similar to manchester where like people know each other, u can drive from one part of the city to the other in not too much trouble so the whole city is pretty well connected and doesnt inhibit going out, like for example say if ur in west london and theres a dinner in east london u would probably reconsider going, same with dubai, if somethings going on in say Dubai Marina and ur in old dubai, ull prob be like hell no, whereas doha or manchester thats not really an issue which i love! So i got some decisions to make in the future but i think ill want to settle down in one of those 2 citites!
Ok so then after Manchester I went to London for a night, which was good and action packed, met alot of old uni friends which was really good and why though im not the biggest fan of london i keep going back! One thing people sometimes say is when i live in/near Manchester which is a great city, why did i go to london for university, well i had jus spent 7 years in manchester studying at Manchester Grammar and in the last couple of years i might as well have been a uni student as i was going out like one, and i knew if i went to london i would come back regulary to manchester and so still experience it. Also being in london as a student is probably the best time to experience london, u get alot of discounts in london when ur a student and u have so many things to experience and u have alot more time than when you maybe working after u graduate so would recommend everyone to study in a big city and work say in the summer in a placement so u get to experience working life in the city and see if its for u, i would recoomend that way at least thank God it worked for me.
Anyway i went back to doha and work, and i was dredging it and it was everything i imagined on my first day back i got absolutley nailed and just brought back so many bad memories of last year when i was really depressed at work and wanted to leave, but inshallah i learnt last year u have ur bad dAYS and u just got to work urself thru it, its been a big learning curve and the thing is i dont know where its heading but inshallah will work out!
PEople have been going on about how much holiday i get and putting Nazzer or the Evil eye on me, and so now i know im going to get my holidays harder to approve at work, aneway its not that i get alot of holidays but any time off i do get i make the most of it and thats the different between myself and others and the fact i spend my money on my travel while others may spend their money on other things and then complain oh how u get the money to travel just really pisses me off, this is part of the reason for the discontent at work and the subject of the title of this blog entry as i want to see the world and see what else is out there and how other people live, eat and get by and learn things from other cultures and see how Islam is in other parts of the world things like that!
So right now im in Sri Lanka, in Colombo, which is supposedly according to Islam where Adam (the first person and prophet in Islam) (pbuh) first lived and there is a foot step of him, which is like a giant footstep in todays world, however this is like 4-5 hours from colombo so i dont think ill be able to check it out in the short space of time which sucks as i want to c it inshallah another time!
Colombo reminds me a bit of Goa and i was going to say more advanced but probably not as though Goa has more like shacks and dodgy roads i think that it wants to be like that and so decides to kinda be a hippy town whereas sri lanka i think kinda is forced to be slightly more advanced but still has much proverty and lack of drainage. I never realised the beef between india and sri lanka, i been reading the newspapers and theres some serious beef man! lol and i never realised how close sri lanka was with palestine which gave me bare cheapies! lol
Its quite a seady place and alot of pervs lol im sure some of u maybe thinking hey thats my kinda town, lol but nah im jus an innocent guy and shocked by how some of the people are here!
anyway i best go take care
Stormy
Its been relatively a bit of a break from the number of posts i was doing whilst in the states!
Well my time in the USA was really good, one of my best hols in recent memory to be honest, though i wasnt the biggest fan of NYE as its quite similar to London in that its really congested and heaving. I mean there is some cool things such as the rockafeller building and M+M store, the brookyln bridge and the usual famous things like the sky scrappers, statue of liberty etc...But the thing is the people are generally stuck up and quite unfriendly, I thought getting the tube was dodge in london, its not a touch on NYE where like everyone is keeping their headtown and it is FULL of weirdos and so poorly maintained that the tube in lodnon looks like a business class/first class form of transport compared to NYC subway system!
It wasnt all bad, the shopping was really good at least in New Jersey, where all the clothes do not have a tax, oh thats something that pissed me off that in the USA they add tax when u go to the till, and each state is different, so like say something is 9.99 it will turn out to be like 10.48 after tax so what da hell is da point in pricing something nicely like 9.99 when u r going to add tax, and its hassles if u pay cash for things, which is probably why cards are so populour in the US i guess.
Anyway since the end of my US trip I went to the UK and spent Eid in manchester, which involved standard missions to wilmslow road. I ended up going to wilmslow road almost every night, i used to go alot but only really to eat one of the worlds best chicken burgers..Kansas! now however they have opened like prob close to 10 all together shisha places along wimmy road and the back streets so its become a much a much more of a chilling destination, so i really like it, its myfavourite probably pasttime, apart from playing footy lol and relgious activities...but im talking bout when socialising with friends rather than shopping, shooting pool, coffee, clubbing etc i jus love smoking up! lol
Every time i go back home to Cheshire/manchester my heart kinda longs to return as though i travel the world there is no city in the world apart from maybe Mecca/Medina and Doha is quite high up there possibly because i know it so well and because its similar to manchester where like people know each other, u can drive from one part of the city to the other in not too much trouble so the whole city is pretty well connected and doesnt inhibit going out, like for example say if ur in west london and theres a dinner in east london u would probably reconsider going, same with dubai, if somethings going on in say Dubai Marina and ur in old dubai, ull prob be like hell no, whereas doha or manchester thats not really an issue which i love! So i got some decisions to make in the future but i think ill want to settle down in one of those 2 citites!
Ok so then after Manchester I went to London for a night, which was good and action packed, met alot of old uni friends which was really good and why though im not the biggest fan of london i keep going back! One thing people sometimes say is when i live in/near Manchester which is a great city, why did i go to london for university, well i had jus spent 7 years in manchester studying at Manchester Grammar and in the last couple of years i might as well have been a uni student as i was going out like one, and i knew if i went to london i would come back regulary to manchester and so still experience it. Also being in london as a student is probably the best time to experience london, u get alot of discounts in london when ur a student and u have so many things to experience and u have alot more time than when you maybe working after u graduate so would recommend everyone to study in a big city and work say in the summer in a placement so u get to experience working life in the city and see if its for u, i would recoomend that way at least thank God it worked for me.
Anyway i went back to doha and work, and i was dredging it and it was everything i imagined on my first day back i got absolutley nailed and just brought back so many bad memories of last year when i was really depressed at work and wanted to leave, but inshallah i learnt last year u have ur bad dAYS and u just got to work urself thru it, its been a big learning curve and the thing is i dont know where its heading but inshallah will work out!
PEople have been going on about how much holiday i get and putting Nazzer or the Evil eye on me, and so now i know im going to get my holidays harder to approve at work, aneway its not that i get alot of holidays but any time off i do get i make the most of it and thats the different between myself and others and the fact i spend my money on my travel while others may spend their money on other things and then complain oh how u get the money to travel just really pisses me off, this is part of the reason for the discontent at work and the subject of the title of this blog entry as i want to see the world and see what else is out there and how other people live, eat and get by and learn things from other cultures and see how Islam is in other parts of the world things like that!
So right now im in Sri Lanka, in Colombo, which is supposedly according to Islam where Adam (the first person and prophet in Islam) (pbuh) first lived and there is a foot step of him, which is like a giant footstep in todays world, however this is like 4-5 hours from colombo so i dont think ill be able to check it out in the short space of time which sucks as i want to c it inshallah another time!
Colombo reminds me a bit of Goa and i was going to say more advanced but probably not as though Goa has more like shacks and dodgy roads i think that it wants to be like that and so decides to kinda be a hippy town whereas sri lanka i think kinda is forced to be slightly more advanced but still has much proverty and lack of drainage. I never realised the beef between india and sri lanka, i been reading the newspapers and theres some serious beef man! lol and i never realised how close sri lanka was with palestine which gave me bare cheapies! lol
Its quite a seady place and alot of pervs lol im sure some of u maybe thinking hey thats my kinda town, lol but nah im jus an innocent guy and shocked by how some of the people are here!
anyway i best go take care
Stormy
Friday, December 05, 2008
The land of hope and opportunity and currently Stormy...
Hey All,
So let me go into detail about my trip to the USA and my life in general as i write this im on the train between boston and new york, its like a 4-5 hour journey so i got a while, and i want to finish my book whilst im on the journey, sleep a bit and pray so i got to be efficent. Just now as i wrote what I got to do in the space of a few hours made me think of my mum, as you know my mum has been staying with me in Qatar and then we went to India together so she got to c me upclose and c how exactly i live and it proved to be rather irksome to her, i chose to live my life at a certain pace and enjoy it that way as i find peace in knowing that i will be busy and not say comtemplatng or sitting around, i HATE just shitting there, i dont mind chilling if im chatting but like sleeping or jus lazing i hate it, i not always been like this AND those that used to know me growning up know for sure i was a right proper bum, a bum to rival any of the great 'bums' in the world but something in me changed, i dont know if its i became a bit more relgious and so i want to do something for every minute thats God has given me on this planet but then if that was the reason i shud be doing good islamic things in all my spare time and unfortunatly thats not the case so what is it then...ummm i actually dont know but i know i have to multitask alot of the time...
Well Washington as i previously said is really clean and really well looked after understanbly well at least around the centre where all the goverment buildings and president lives, but i went to the watch Wrestling in DC at the Verizon Centre (actually its weird all the stadiums here are named after its sponsor its something i noticed that they advertise here at any opportunity, the way these guys take marketing is a joke, i saw adverts for anyone who wants to turn their personal car into an advert for some companies these companies will pay them and then theres this teacher i read in the 'washington post' who cant afford supplies for his students so has been selling advertising space on his exam papers i mean LOL wonly in America man! however come to think about it the naming of the stadium is getting more common in the uk i mean think about it, MEN Arena (manchester evening news arean) 02 Areana, Emirates stsdium) so i guess i should expect my kids to be taking tests with adverts from toys r us on the tests in the future if we continue down that slippertly slope!
Aneway regarding the wrestling, man it was really diverse crowd, you had people from all sorts of backgrounds da, i was shocked as it was in DC at the nuumber of black people there as it wasnt at all surprising to me if i went by the number of black people working in those musems and goverment buildings that i was visiting that there was going to be a black president actually i would probably wonder what the hell took him so long??? I expected to see alot more hispanics on my trip but i have yet to c a great number and instead been surprised by the number of oriental and black people i met and its so weird meeting a chinese person with a full american accent and not like broken english as u often c in the uk (espec with those dam persistant DVD sellers!)
So after Washington i went to Baltimore and checked out a real american town and went to the cheasecake factory restuarant which is something incredible and though i wanted to try new foods each time whilst in the USA i already been twice as the deserts are just something else!! I didnt spend long in Baltimore at least not long enuff to judge an opinon however i did manage to go and c one of my aims before my trip, the Islamic Bookstore.com warehouse lol its cool and i ordered an absoltu shit load of stuff!
Anyway onto what has so far been my favourite city/place in the US so far Philidelpia, its not as cheesy as i thought it would be nor creamy at all :P but it is as delightful as the its toast topping namesake sugguests! The city hasa certain buzz that i dont think any of the other cities i been had so far, the people are friendly, cool and have a different vibe to the other cities, i think there was something in it that remainded me of manchester, which i love considerbly, and therefore has an effect on my feelings, like london gets all the attention but its manachester that truly rocks as a city, and i think its the same with DC or New York and Phily, where despite it not being as famous as its neighbouring cities its the city that has all the charm! I went to an Ice Hockey game there and the crowd was like ALL white, a few orientals but thats it, i dont think its because phily is a white area but rather that ice hockey is a white sport, all the people in the team were white apart from like one chinese guy, ok to be fair hes probaly korean but you get my jist its like me saying one paki guy when hes indian u know wot im saying....
Aaaaaaaaaaaaanyway ok well i my first couple of interactions with the bengali usa community in phily as well as two of my taxi drivers i had were bengali which was cool, one of em was a prick thou he told me he married a girl from nigura (somewhere in central america) so i imagine shes hot and he was butters so he did well forhimself and the other guy was a bit of a freshy but he was a nice guy he told me how some bengali kid the other day got BATTered by a group of black guys, and that i shud be careful of like the black gangs here in phily,. well Will Smith told me that growing up in the song to Fresh PRince but i thanked him anyway for the advice....
So as usual i found a really cool shisha place in phily, and its not like the uk where the shisha vibe is jus bare chilled but it was like in a bar with a dj and so u had people smoking dancing and drinking and it was a really fun atmosphere and despite it being a tuesday night was relatively busy which i was quite impressed with and the people were really friendly and i was asked to join a number of tables and hang out and meet new people which was really cool and like jus summed up the people of this city where they have that as Lupe fiasco states the coolest of the cool...
I just saw a great scene, it was of the sunset on this lake and the lake was so still that it looked like it was a mirror o the sunset, then i thought about Forest Gump of when he was running around the USA he stated how he saw all the wonders of the mother earth whilst he was running and made me think that whilst i been traveling as i see so many different scenes but as you know im a country bumkin at my heart (knutsford is the architypical queintessentail english village/town) so i really apprciate the nature of the country (as i was going on about why i liked Goa so much recently) and the nature of the USA is really vast and as i travel on the train i get to see America the way hollywood shows us america and i mean by that those quaint little towns that with the autumn sun and browning of the leaves its so pictureesque it couldnt be made up, you see these beautiful little towns with the big timberframed houses that are usually around a lake and its really nice and though i been visiting the cities this is where like proper america lives i guess and the majority of the 300+ million populouaton lives and again like i said its properly why they love their country so much! i mean i know alot of america is under the poverty line and those areas are usually immigrant areas so hopefully inshallah their lives with improve now that an immigrant has taken over the whitehouse but for those living that american dream i dont begrudge them at all and made me think i wouldnt mind maybe one day to live it at least for a few years but who knows what the future holds apart from God...
So anyway from my time in Boston, I learnt that no matter where you are in the world a yuppie is a yuppie, the people here remainded me of everything i hated at UCL (and i loved UCL) and MGS (and yeh i loved MGS as well) (btw ucl and mgs stand for university college london and manachester grammar school respectively) where you have complete utter toffs who think their better than everyone else, it doesnt surprise me i guess considering harvard and MIT are both in boston and aload of other universities that are mostly full of arrogant so-so's. Walking around Harvard felt like back in the day when i used to visit my friends in Cambridge where its such a studious enviorment and the people though maybe friendly can tell they are up themselvles and in their own self-conceited world where they have their lives planned out for them. The way i might be coming across is like im a complete hater, im not at all and everyone is entitled to live their life as they c fit, but what i dont think is right for these people to look down on those that arent as fortunate as them... like theres a guy sitting next to be on the train man hes so public school hes absolutely hammered (as in drunk) and its like lunch time here, and if anyone else was in his condition like a black guy people would be like a hobo or thug but here people find it funny and socially acceptable as a typical rich boy attitude, and hes winning about being in normal class (and before those that travel with me in the uk i do not mind normal class and certainly dont moan about being in it on the train but if i can ill upgrade but here the trains are really good in normal clas and there really isnt a difference at least not one to throw drunken strop!
Anyway about Boston, well its 24percent irish and is where lilke the whole revolutoion against the English started so has strong links to the British and is a very white area more so than any other area i have seen so far in the US. I went to c the boston celtics and i was expecting as most of the team of the celtics is black that alot of the crowd would be black, but nah hardly a black face in the crowd i mean there were a few but hardly any surprisingly its like full of irish and itallien guys who it seemed spoke with like a slight american accent thrown into the irish and itallien accents they had. The people has i have constantly found on my trip are extemly friendly and really polite. I have come across relaltively few people who are rude, and ironically one of the most rudeest people i have met was this Muslim girl who studies at Harvard, I wanted to know where the Mosque was at Harvard to check it out but i couldnt c any muslims and finally i found a girl wearing a hijab so i asked her if she knew where the mosque was and she jus dismissed me and walked offf saying she was too busy??? im like WTF shame man the first muslim i c at Harvard and shes BARE stuck up and rude, hopefully that was an unfortunate coincidence and the other muslim students are nicer at harvard!
Ok so now on to the NYC the big apple and the city never sleeps meets the guy who hates sleep so shud be a good mix! inshallah will let you know how it does soon! take care
Stormy
So let me go into detail about my trip to the USA and my life in general as i write this im on the train between boston and new york, its like a 4-5 hour journey so i got a while, and i want to finish my book whilst im on the journey, sleep a bit and pray so i got to be efficent. Just now as i wrote what I got to do in the space of a few hours made me think of my mum, as you know my mum has been staying with me in Qatar and then we went to India together so she got to c me upclose and c how exactly i live and it proved to be rather irksome to her, i chose to live my life at a certain pace and enjoy it that way as i find peace in knowing that i will be busy and not say comtemplatng or sitting around, i HATE just shitting there, i dont mind chilling if im chatting but like sleeping or jus lazing i hate it, i not always been like this AND those that used to know me growning up know for sure i was a right proper bum, a bum to rival any of the great 'bums' in the world but something in me changed, i dont know if its i became a bit more relgious and so i want to do something for every minute thats God has given me on this planet but then if that was the reason i shud be doing good islamic things in all my spare time and unfortunatly thats not the case so what is it then...ummm i actually dont know but i know i have to multitask alot of the time...
Well Washington as i previously said is really clean and really well looked after understanbly well at least around the centre where all the goverment buildings and president lives, but i went to the watch Wrestling in DC at the Verizon Centre (actually its weird all the stadiums here are named after its sponsor its something i noticed that they advertise here at any opportunity, the way these guys take marketing is a joke, i saw adverts for anyone who wants to turn their personal car into an advert for some companies these companies will pay them and then theres this teacher i read in the 'washington post' who cant afford supplies for his students so has been selling advertising space on his exam papers i mean LOL wonly in America man! however come to think about it the naming of the stadium is getting more common in the uk i mean think about it, MEN Arena (manchester evening news arean) 02 Areana, Emirates stsdium) so i guess i should expect my kids to be taking tests with adverts from toys r us on the tests in the future if we continue down that slippertly slope!
Aneway regarding the wrestling, man it was really diverse crowd, you had people from all sorts of backgrounds da, i was shocked as it was in DC at the nuumber of black people there as it wasnt at all surprising to me if i went by the number of black people working in those musems and goverment buildings that i was visiting that there was going to be a black president actually i would probably wonder what the hell took him so long??? I expected to see alot more hispanics on my trip but i have yet to c a great number and instead been surprised by the number of oriental and black people i met and its so weird meeting a chinese person with a full american accent and not like broken english as u often c in the uk (espec with those dam persistant DVD sellers!)
So after Washington i went to Baltimore and checked out a real american town and went to the cheasecake factory restuarant which is something incredible and though i wanted to try new foods each time whilst in the USA i already been twice as the deserts are just something else!! I didnt spend long in Baltimore at least not long enuff to judge an opinon however i did manage to go and c one of my aims before my trip, the Islamic Bookstore.com warehouse lol its cool and i ordered an absoltu shit load of stuff!
Anyway onto what has so far been my favourite city/place in the US so far Philidelpia, its not as cheesy as i thought it would be nor creamy at all :P but it is as delightful as the its toast topping namesake sugguests! The city hasa certain buzz that i dont think any of the other cities i been had so far, the people are friendly, cool and have a different vibe to the other cities, i think there was something in it that remainded me of manchester, which i love considerbly, and therefore has an effect on my feelings, like london gets all the attention but its manachester that truly rocks as a city, and i think its the same with DC or New York and Phily, where despite it not being as famous as its neighbouring cities its the city that has all the charm! I went to an Ice Hockey game there and the crowd was like ALL white, a few orientals but thats it, i dont think its because phily is a white area but rather that ice hockey is a white sport, all the people in the team were white apart from like one chinese guy, ok to be fair hes probaly korean but you get my jist its like me saying one paki guy when hes indian u know wot im saying....
Aaaaaaaaaaaaanyway ok well i my first couple of interactions with the bengali usa community in phily as well as two of my taxi drivers i had were bengali which was cool, one of em was a prick thou he told me he married a girl from nigura (somewhere in central america) so i imagine shes hot and he was butters so he did well forhimself and the other guy was a bit of a freshy but he was a nice guy he told me how some bengali kid the other day got BATTered by a group of black guys, and that i shud be careful of like the black gangs here in phily,. well Will Smith told me that growing up in the song to Fresh PRince but i thanked him anyway for the advice....
So as usual i found a really cool shisha place in phily, and its not like the uk where the shisha vibe is jus bare chilled but it was like in a bar with a dj and so u had people smoking dancing and drinking and it was a really fun atmosphere and despite it being a tuesday night was relatively busy which i was quite impressed with and the people were really friendly and i was asked to join a number of tables and hang out and meet new people which was really cool and like jus summed up the people of this city where they have that as Lupe fiasco states the coolest of the cool...
I just saw a great scene, it was of the sunset on this lake and the lake was so still that it looked like it was a mirror o the sunset, then i thought about Forest Gump of when he was running around the USA he stated how he saw all the wonders of the mother earth whilst he was running and made me think that whilst i been traveling as i see so many different scenes but as you know im a country bumkin at my heart (knutsford is the architypical queintessentail english village/town) so i really apprciate the nature of the country (as i was going on about why i liked Goa so much recently) and the nature of the USA is really vast and as i travel on the train i get to see America the way hollywood shows us america and i mean by that those quaint little towns that with the autumn sun and browning of the leaves its so pictureesque it couldnt be made up, you see these beautiful little towns with the big timberframed houses that are usually around a lake and its really nice and though i been visiting the cities this is where like proper america lives i guess and the majority of the 300+ million populouaton lives and again like i said its properly why they love their country so much! i mean i know alot of america is under the poverty line and those areas are usually immigrant areas so hopefully inshallah their lives with improve now that an immigrant has taken over the whitehouse but for those living that american dream i dont begrudge them at all and made me think i wouldnt mind maybe one day to live it at least for a few years but who knows what the future holds apart from God...
So anyway from my time in Boston, I learnt that no matter where you are in the world a yuppie is a yuppie, the people here remainded me of everything i hated at UCL (and i loved UCL) and MGS (and yeh i loved MGS as well) (btw ucl and mgs stand for university college london and manachester grammar school respectively) where you have complete utter toffs who think their better than everyone else, it doesnt surprise me i guess considering harvard and MIT are both in boston and aload of other universities that are mostly full of arrogant so-so's. Walking around Harvard felt like back in the day when i used to visit my friends in Cambridge where its such a studious enviorment and the people though maybe friendly can tell they are up themselvles and in their own self-conceited world where they have their lives planned out for them. The way i might be coming across is like im a complete hater, im not at all and everyone is entitled to live their life as they c fit, but what i dont think is right for these people to look down on those that arent as fortunate as them... like theres a guy sitting next to be on the train man hes so public school hes absolutely hammered (as in drunk) and its like lunch time here, and if anyone else was in his condition like a black guy people would be like a hobo or thug but here people find it funny and socially acceptable as a typical rich boy attitude, and hes winning about being in normal class (and before those that travel with me in the uk i do not mind normal class and certainly dont moan about being in it on the train but if i can ill upgrade but here the trains are really good in normal clas and there really isnt a difference at least not one to throw drunken strop!
Anyway about Boston, well its 24percent irish and is where lilke the whole revolutoion against the English started so has strong links to the British and is a very white area more so than any other area i have seen so far in the US. I went to c the boston celtics and i was expecting as most of the team of the celtics is black that alot of the crowd would be black, but nah hardly a black face in the crowd i mean there were a few but hardly any surprisingly its like full of irish and itallien guys who it seemed spoke with like a slight american accent thrown into the irish and itallien accents they had. The people has i have constantly found on my trip are extemly friendly and really polite. I have come across relaltively few people who are rude, and ironically one of the most rudeest people i have met was this Muslim girl who studies at Harvard, I wanted to know where the Mosque was at Harvard to check it out but i couldnt c any muslims and finally i found a girl wearing a hijab so i asked her if she knew where the mosque was and she jus dismissed me and walked offf saying she was too busy??? im like WTF shame man the first muslim i c at Harvard and shes BARE stuck up and rude, hopefully that was an unfortunate coincidence and the other muslim students are nicer at harvard!
Ok so now on to the NYC the big apple and the city never sleeps meets the guy who hates sleep so shud be a good mix! inshallah will let you know how it does soon! take care
Stormy
Uncle Sams Adventures...
Hey All,
Its been a while relatively since the previous few posts where i was posting almost every few days whilst in India, but now as i been so busy in USA not really had the chance..
Ok so ill start up since my lucky escape from the Mumbai attacks, well i was stucky in Mumbai that day on the thursday and was actually arrested by the Mumbai police as i was shopping around the city whilst my mum waited at the airport for me, i went into the city to do some Eid shopping and was doing my usual self and taking aload of picytures and i had bags of shopping so i brought a big black rucksack to put the shopping so it may have looked dodge, anyway i was questioned for a while and it was intresting experience i mean i been questioned by immigration officeirs and other people but with the indian probably because ofthe day they seemed so nervou and were looking into some random things like the book i was reading which was Salman Rushdies new book the 'Enchantees of Florence' which i think went in my favour as they were like ummm whats a supposed muslim activitist doing with one of his books. Then they went thru my photos on my camera and i had some dodgy pics in terms of like random guys praying in the street and stuff like that which obviousoy looked dodgy but then i had some other pics which in the end either make me look like the biggest perv they ever met or some proper fundo anyway eventually they let me go so i jus went straight back to the airport. I didnt choose to tell my mum as i know she would be worried especial qabout any future traveling i did, it wasnt a big things in the end and wouldnt have happened if the attacks didnt happen.
Anyway once i got back to doha, then i went to manchester and came to the usa via amsterdam which was the usually high standards it sets :p
So USA the land of opportunity and hope and supposedly the land of where muslims are at war with is for me after seeing it such a beautiful country. And for those that know me they cant believe probably i just said that but the people are so nice and its a really nice looking country. I arrived in Newark and my friend Tauseef came and met me, we drove down to some restaurant that provided halal food in jersey. ITs supposedly quite hard to find halal restaurants in the USA generally unless ur in a proper islamic area and they are few and far between so alot of americans end up eating anything but pork here and its common whereas for British muslims thats like a big no-no!
Anyway we then subsequently drove down to Washington DC and i ended up sleeping the whole journey which was quiye harsh on Tauseef as he made like the 5 hour journey on his own basically, i never really had a problem with my bodyclock over the last couple of years as i was only ever plus or minus 3 hours from like qatari time, where as this is like 7-8 hours so its harder to deal with but i think my body clock has finally DJUSTED.
So Washington was really beautiful the Goverment area of the mall is really well maintained and nicely done, the musuems are amazing and if you go you would have to check it out even if ur not into musuems.
I have to go now so inshallah will write more later...
Its been a while relatively since the previous few posts where i was posting almost every few days whilst in India, but now as i been so busy in USA not really had the chance..
Ok so ill start up since my lucky escape from the Mumbai attacks, well i was stucky in Mumbai that day on the thursday and was actually arrested by the Mumbai police as i was shopping around the city whilst my mum waited at the airport for me, i went into the city to do some Eid shopping and was doing my usual self and taking aload of picytures and i had bags of shopping so i brought a big black rucksack to put the shopping so it may have looked dodge, anyway i was questioned for a while and it was intresting experience i mean i been questioned by immigration officeirs and other people but with the indian probably because ofthe day they seemed so nervou and were looking into some random things like the book i was reading which was Salman Rushdies new book the 'Enchantees of Florence' which i think went in my favour as they were like ummm whats a supposed muslim activitist doing with one of his books. Then they went thru my photos on my camera and i had some dodgy pics in terms of like random guys praying in the street and stuff like that which obviousoy looked dodgy but then i had some other pics which in the end either make me look like the biggest perv they ever met or some proper fundo anyway eventually they let me go so i jus went straight back to the airport. I didnt choose to tell my mum as i know she would be worried especial qabout any future traveling i did, it wasnt a big things in the end and wouldnt have happened if the attacks didnt happen.
Anyway once i got back to doha, then i went to manchester and came to the usa via amsterdam which was the usually high standards it sets :p
So USA the land of opportunity and hope and supposedly the land of where muslims are at war with is for me after seeing it such a beautiful country. And for those that know me they cant believe probably i just said that but the people are so nice and its a really nice looking country. I arrived in Newark and my friend Tauseef came and met me, we drove down to some restaurant that provided halal food in jersey. ITs supposedly quite hard to find halal restaurants in the USA generally unless ur in a proper islamic area and they are few and far between so alot of americans end up eating anything but pork here and its common whereas for British muslims thats like a big no-no!
Anyway we then subsequently drove down to Washington DC and i ended up sleeping the whole journey which was quiye harsh on Tauseef as he made like the 5 hour journey on his own basically, i never really had a problem with my bodyclock over the last couple of years as i was only ever plus or minus 3 hours from like qatari time, where as this is like 7-8 hours so its harder to deal with but i think my body clock has finally DJUSTED.
So Washington was really beautiful the Goverment area of the mall is really well maintained and nicely done, the musuems are amazing and if you go you would have to check it out even if ur not into musuems.
I have to go now so inshallah will write more later...
Thursday, November 27, 2008
Little decisions can save you your life….
All,
As you all know I was planning on going to Mumbai today, and I had my reservations at the Oberoi hotel, which I heard is a bare nice hotel so got my friend Mr Bilal Anwar (the supposed masterminder of the underworld) to book it for me, however I get loads of txts all night asking if im ok there was some shooting in Mumbai and im like yeh of course I am im in Goa firstly and secondly if theres a shooting whats the chances I would get hit in a city of like 15 million.
Turns out it could be quite likely I would have got hit, as my hotel was overtaken by the attackers, and now there holding some hostages and stuff, man firstly I don’t know what to do, supposedly my flight to Mumbai is still cool, but noone is answering the from the hotel and I don’t know if I should still go to Mumbai and stay at say the Hyatt there or my friend Angali who is the one who called me this morning to tell me my hotel was overtaken has kindly offered to let me and my mum stay with her and her family which is in the suberbs of Mumbai. I feel bad for imposing so maybe just stay in Goa after all I have loved it a lot, I don’t know though I don’t like usually being deterred from visiting somewhere because of such reasons…
Im feeling really blessed right now, as I only decided to stay an extra night in goa as the Golden triangle was so tiring and we liked Goa so it made sense, but Thank God, we did, because I don’t know how it would have been last night in the hotel, I can imagine it being really scarry but kinda enthralling not in a sadistic way but like I don’t know just its quite intriguing as its like everyon is watching the news and watching whats going on so to be there would be like woah…
Aneway I got to go sort out our next steps and inshallah will sort out my next steps and will let you all know for sure :P
Take care
Stormy
As you all know I was planning on going to Mumbai today, and I had my reservations at the Oberoi hotel, which I heard is a bare nice hotel so got my friend Mr Bilal Anwar (the supposed masterminder of the underworld) to book it for me, however I get loads of txts all night asking if im ok there was some shooting in Mumbai and im like yeh of course I am im in Goa firstly and secondly if theres a shooting whats the chances I would get hit in a city of like 15 million.
Turns out it could be quite likely I would have got hit, as my hotel was overtaken by the attackers, and now there holding some hostages and stuff, man firstly I don’t know what to do, supposedly my flight to Mumbai is still cool, but noone is answering the from the hotel and I don’t know if I should still go to Mumbai and stay at say the Hyatt there or my friend Angali who is the one who called me this morning to tell me my hotel was overtaken has kindly offered to let me and my mum stay with her and her family which is in the suberbs of Mumbai. I feel bad for imposing so maybe just stay in Goa after all I have loved it a lot, I don’t know though I don’t like usually being deterred from visiting somewhere because of such reasons…
Im feeling really blessed right now, as I only decided to stay an extra night in goa as the Golden triangle was so tiring and we liked Goa so it made sense, but Thank God, we did, because I don’t know how it would have been last night in the hotel, I can imagine it being really scarry but kinda enthralling not in a sadistic way but like I don’t know just its quite intriguing as its like everyon is watching the news and watching whats going on so to be there would be like woah…
Aneway I got to go sort out our next steps and inshallah will sort out my next steps and will let you all know for sure :P
Take care
Stormy
Wednesday, November 26, 2008
Wheres the line for Metrosexuality????
Hey,
Well I’m in beautiful Goa right now and man its amazing. It helps that im staying at the park hyatt but just driving around the state of Goa is unbelievable. I cant believe its part of India as it feels so free and hippyfied. I went to this flea market today that jus so happens to happen once a week on Wednesdays so I was kinda lucky to be honest but me and my mum both loved it, it was mainly full of tourists and a lot of them kinda hippy ones and it brought back uni days for me and probably the 70’s back for my mother.
Anyway about the subject of my blog, the whole metrosexual thing I believe I have spoken about it in the past where I am a self-confessed metrosexual. However even I may have gone past the line this time, ok well as you know I been getting massages in every city I travel to or at least try to, and I had 4 now in total in India. This time I thought I would splurge as its such a nice place and my mum was getting a facial so I went for some like super-duper 3-4hr session that would make me feel younger and more regunative (this desire may have come about after my much publicized ‘Quarter Life Crisis moment’) anyway so I decided to spend A LOT of money on this treatment, so like I go in and its supposed to be male on male and female on female but there was some sort of mix up lucky me I know ur thinking and it kinda was lol! So I get this pretty fit Nepali girl who tells me to go with her, and Im not used to Nepali girls, I mean theres thousands of guys in Doha that are Nepali but girls not one I met, so chit chat was a little awkward I couldn’t really start off with ohh my houseboy or security guy in my building is Nepali as I felt that was a slightly demeaning way to start a conversation, I mean think about it the only other person u know from that country is basically a servant I don’t know to…but to me its kinda rude or midly offensive.
Anyway she started off with telling me to put my feet in some hot water and then she cleansed them, and then massaged them, at this point I was kinda feelings like Eddie Murphy in ‘Coming to America’ lol anyway I wont go into the details too much but basically I got like a scrub a wrap, a massage and then a facial and there was a fruit platter at some point in the middle of all that and a shower but man it was awesome and what was quite cool is 2 became 1 as I got another girl to come in and do the facial part, who also happened to be a quite attractive nepali girl as there were no other guys available….lol so aneway the experience really was something and I don’t usually go for the whole shebang but I think from now on I will, most guys will testify that they don’t give a shit about their skin or at least their body skin maybe their face they will clean but the rest nah, and I was the same but I started to realize how its good, and I even kinda managed to find an Islamic releation though I don’t think Islam will approve about a woman doing it or maybe spending so much but noones perfect, oh and the Islamic releation is that we should all take care of our appearance and try to look good and clean as it will represent Islam and will show your taking care of Allahs creation.
So next im off to Mumbai or Bombay if ur hip yaaaar tomorrow and I will miss Goa I wont really miss any other place but Goa I love and will want to come back again for sure…
Anyway take care and inshallah will write from Bombay yaaaar!
Stormy
Well I’m in beautiful Goa right now and man its amazing. It helps that im staying at the park hyatt but just driving around the state of Goa is unbelievable. I cant believe its part of India as it feels so free and hippyfied. I went to this flea market today that jus so happens to happen once a week on Wednesdays so I was kinda lucky to be honest but me and my mum both loved it, it was mainly full of tourists and a lot of them kinda hippy ones and it brought back uni days for me and probably the 70’s back for my mother.
Anyway about the subject of my blog, the whole metrosexual thing I believe I have spoken about it in the past where I am a self-confessed metrosexual. However even I may have gone past the line this time, ok well as you know I been getting massages in every city I travel to or at least try to, and I had 4 now in total in India. This time I thought I would splurge as its such a nice place and my mum was getting a facial so I went for some like super-duper 3-4hr session that would make me feel younger and more regunative (this desire may have come about after my much publicized ‘Quarter Life Crisis moment’) anyway so I decided to spend A LOT of money on this treatment, so like I go in and its supposed to be male on male and female on female but there was some sort of mix up lucky me I know ur thinking and it kinda was lol! So I get this pretty fit Nepali girl who tells me to go with her, and Im not used to Nepali girls, I mean theres thousands of guys in Doha that are Nepali but girls not one I met, so chit chat was a little awkward I couldn’t really start off with ohh my houseboy or security guy in my building is Nepali as I felt that was a slightly demeaning way to start a conversation, I mean think about it the only other person u know from that country is basically a servant I don’t know to…but to me its kinda rude or midly offensive.
Anyway she started off with telling me to put my feet in some hot water and then she cleansed them, and then massaged them, at this point I was kinda feelings like Eddie Murphy in ‘Coming to America’ lol anyway I wont go into the details too much but basically I got like a scrub a wrap, a massage and then a facial and there was a fruit platter at some point in the middle of all that and a shower but man it was awesome and what was quite cool is 2 became 1 as I got another girl to come in and do the facial part, who also happened to be a quite attractive nepali girl as there were no other guys available….lol so aneway the experience really was something and I don’t usually go for the whole shebang but I think from now on I will, most guys will testify that they don’t give a shit about their skin or at least their body skin maybe their face they will clean but the rest nah, and I was the same but I started to realize how its good, and I even kinda managed to find an Islamic releation though I don’t think Islam will approve about a woman doing it or maybe spending so much but noones perfect, oh and the Islamic releation is that we should all take care of our appearance and try to look good and clean as it will represent Islam and will show your taking care of Allahs creation.
So next im off to Mumbai or Bombay if ur hip yaaaar tomorrow and I will miss Goa I wont really miss any other place but Goa I love and will want to come back again for sure…
Anyway take care and inshallah will write from Bombay yaaaar!
Stormy
Monday, November 24, 2008
The Pink Effect...
Hey,
So im writing this from jaipur, it is a pretty shitty city in terms of i think a place to live but its got alot of offer in terms of culutre and its beauty. The reason i think its a shit place to live, i havent seen much stuff for people to do, like cafes and nice reasaurants the whole place baring the tourist areas seems like a proper dive!
Anyway about the tourist stuff, well its really nice, theres this palace on the water that is amazing, ill be inshallah putting pics on facebook so u can c, and the pink buildings are cool cuz its so different and a really nice contrast to the city, as i said its a bit of a shit hole otherwise so having these nice pink buildings and random bits of grand and beautiful architecture is really nice.
The last post i wrote about Akbar in my title but never went into it, well Akbar used to be one of the mogul emperors of india, and he set up base between agra and jaipur i believe in a place called fattipur sakri or something liek that, aneway its again a pretty cool place, and im reading a book right now kinda to do with Akbar, called The Enchantress of Florence by Salman Rushdie, and its a pretty cool book and since im traveling around the moggul ends i kinda can relate to some of the descriptions in the book about the places which is pretty cool as wel. I will try to review the book once im done but i only jus started abouta fifth thru the book so its unfair to judge so far but im enjoying it.
Anyway tomorw im off to Goa, which should be intresting with my mum, but i doubt its like Ibiza or Sharm el Sheikh or at least i hope not, though i not been to Sharm, if it attracts people like Bilal Anwar then you got to be sceptical of places like that.
I found a shisha place right next to the hotel that this girl in the hotel told me about man its a sick place, its on this roof top of some office building and is so nice as u look over Jaipur and theres not many tall buildings in jaipur so u can see the stars and the whole city pretty well , and i was having Paan flavoured shisha which i only ever heard of in india i dont think u can get it anywhere else but its some serious smokking material!
I spent almost the last month with my mum which i have touched on before is quite unusual for myself as i dont tend to spend much time with my parents or family that much apart from fleeting visits every few months so its been pretty weird but kinda cool as i hope it has given my mum kinda hope that i aint that bad a son as she might have thought i was or used to be lol! Some people are really close to their family and its really nice while others are quite distant which is also ok if ur happy with it but i know some people who are distant because they think its cool or something which i think is pretty gay, as ur family or at least ur parents brought u up and did all they could for u to be the person you are, yeh fine they would have made mistakes but were human and im sure ill make mistakes with my kids and inshallah they will learn to forgive me for them, but in the end the love the family has for u cant be matched, thats not to say you should do as everything your parents say no not at all, as i have said there only humans and they can make wrong decisions that u maybe shouldnt follow but know that the decisions they make for you have ur best intrests at heart...
I guess what u know im getting at is what happened earlier in the year with me, it took me time to accept what happend and i dont know if i completely have yet to be honest, because it was kinda out of my hands but life moves on and inshallah i have to move with it, and i have no resentment towards my parents or family as all they wanted was the best for me...
When people ask me what i want in my future wife, i always reply that i want someone hot well when i go traveling i always see hot girls so they cant be a prerequireste to marriage or least my only condition i obviously do have others but ill go into them another time...aneway off to bed and prepare for Goa! inshallah will write again soon
take care
Stormy
So im writing this from jaipur, it is a pretty shitty city in terms of i think a place to live but its got alot of offer in terms of culutre and its beauty. The reason i think its a shit place to live, i havent seen much stuff for people to do, like cafes and nice reasaurants the whole place baring the tourist areas seems like a proper dive!
Anyway about the tourist stuff, well its really nice, theres this palace on the water that is amazing, ill be inshallah putting pics on facebook so u can c, and the pink buildings are cool cuz its so different and a really nice contrast to the city, as i said its a bit of a shit hole otherwise so having these nice pink buildings and random bits of grand and beautiful architecture is really nice.
The last post i wrote about Akbar in my title but never went into it, well Akbar used to be one of the mogul emperors of india, and he set up base between agra and jaipur i believe in a place called fattipur sakri or something liek that, aneway its again a pretty cool place, and im reading a book right now kinda to do with Akbar, called The Enchantress of Florence by Salman Rushdie, and its a pretty cool book and since im traveling around the moggul ends i kinda can relate to some of the descriptions in the book about the places which is pretty cool as wel. I will try to review the book once im done but i only jus started abouta fifth thru the book so its unfair to judge so far but im enjoying it.
Anyway tomorw im off to Goa, which should be intresting with my mum, but i doubt its like Ibiza or Sharm el Sheikh or at least i hope not, though i not been to Sharm, if it attracts people like Bilal Anwar then you got to be sceptical of places like that.
I found a shisha place right next to the hotel that this girl in the hotel told me about man its a sick place, its on this roof top of some office building and is so nice as u look over Jaipur and theres not many tall buildings in jaipur so u can see the stars and the whole city pretty well , and i was having Paan flavoured shisha which i only ever heard of in india i dont think u can get it anywhere else but its some serious smokking material!
I spent almost the last month with my mum which i have touched on before is quite unusual for myself as i dont tend to spend much time with my parents or family that much apart from fleeting visits every few months so its been pretty weird but kinda cool as i hope it has given my mum kinda hope that i aint that bad a son as she might have thought i was or used to be lol! Some people are really close to their family and its really nice while others are quite distant which is also ok if ur happy with it but i know some people who are distant because they think its cool or something which i think is pretty gay, as ur family or at least ur parents brought u up and did all they could for u to be the person you are, yeh fine they would have made mistakes but were human and im sure ill make mistakes with my kids and inshallah they will learn to forgive me for them, but in the end the love the family has for u cant be matched, thats not to say you should do as everything your parents say no not at all, as i have said there only humans and they can make wrong decisions that u maybe shouldnt follow but know that the decisions they make for you have ur best intrests at heart...
I guess what u know im getting at is what happened earlier in the year with me, it took me time to accept what happend and i dont know if i completely have yet to be honest, because it was kinda out of my hands but life moves on and inshallah i have to move with it, and i have no resentment towards my parents or family as all they wanted was the best for me...
When people ask me what i want in my future wife, i always reply that i want someone hot well when i go traveling i always see hot girls so they cant be a prerequireste to marriage or least my only condition i obviously do have others but ill go into them another time...aneway off to bed and prepare for Goa! inshallah will write again soon
take care
Stormy
Sunday, November 23, 2008
Akbars ends and the drive to Jaipur!
Hey all,
Im writing this from country inns hotel or soemthing which in the centre of jaipur, jaipur from what i seen so far is a bit of a shit hole, though has some western shops and stuff it seems it was all built TIME ago and this is one of the few decent hotels i seen in the whole place but still the delhi hotel smacked it out of all of them!
Ok so in each city im staying im getting a massage in the hotel, and the one in delhi is winning so far, you know when people say you got knots in you back due to stress well i actually had them, i dont think i ever had them before in my life, anyway the massuese got rid of most of them i think but india is really stresseful with the constant badgering (it doesnt help that im gonig to all the tourist sites i know but still! ) aneway i could have met my friends father in Delhi but it was getting late and by the time she got back to me with his details it was a choice between him and a tibetan 24year old and unfortuntly the tibetan won....anyway the one i had in Agra was really bad and just a bad experience, lets hop jaipur will be better!!
aneway i best go will write more soon inshallah
take care
Stormy
Im writing this from country inns hotel or soemthing which in the centre of jaipur, jaipur from what i seen so far is a bit of a shit hole, though has some western shops and stuff it seems it was all built TIME ago and this is one of the few decent hotels i seen in the whole place but still the delhi hotel smacked it out of all of them!
Ok so in each city im staying im getting a massage in the hotel, and the one in delhi is winning so far, you know when people say you got knots in you back due to stress well i actually had them, i dont think i ever had them before in my life, anyway the massuese got rid of most of them i think but india is really stresseful with the constant badgering (it doesnt help that im gonig to all the tourist sites i know but still! ) aneway i could have met my friends father in Delhi but it was getting late and by the time she got back to me with his details it was a choice between him and a tibetan 24year old and unfortuntly the tibetan won....anyway the one i had in Agra was really bad and just a bad experience, lets hop jaipur will be better!!
aneway i best go will write more soon inshallah
take care
Stormy
Saturday, November 22, 2008
Awesome Agra 4th Wonder of the World DONE!
Hey guys,
Well im writing from the hotel called Jaypee Palace Hotel in Agra, which is a pretty old school hotel but you can tell used to be BARE nice like 10-15 years ago and now is trying to be nice in an antiquey kinda way!
Anyway today was the main reason i came to India, to see the Taj Mahal, and it was really beautiful, i mean you hear it alot and when you see it in pics you have like ohhh thats nice, but when you see it in its majesty, its massive, beautifully planned out and for me because of the Islamic influence can releate to it more so than the other wonders of the world that I have seen. Also because of the history that surounds the Taj Mahal (for those that dont know wikipedia it, but essential the king built it for his deadwife in her honour and to hold her body ) so obviously has all of us metrosexuals already instrested because of the love surrounding the building but i think even the most macho guy would appreciate what went into the building. The guide was saying back then it cost 4 billion rupes and rupes back then were BUCKS so you can imagine just how much he wasted well wasted is the wrong word but spent.
Im sure now the indian goverment is making like 4 billion ruppes every 10 years probably off it in some way or another so hes given back to his country. Anyway Agra is much more touristy than Delhi however its also alot more rural and you see alot more animals in the streets and more street people, its weird because i would have thought as so many people come here they would try to hide the poverty but they havent really done so, which is a good thing as it elevates the situation to the outside world. Tomorrow i was told the turkish primem minster is coming to see the Taj, the architect for the Taj was from turkey and has alot of turkish and persian influences so im sure that will be raised, but the reason i was mentioning it was when you get world leaders coming im surprised as most countries try to hide their poverty from other countries India acknoledges it. Lets hope inshallah over time though that the wealth in this country will be better distributed.
Anyway tomorrow im off to jaipur, so inshallah will write from there! take care
Stormy
Well im writing from the hotel called Jaypee Palace Hotel in Agra, which is a pretty old school hotel but you can tell used to be BARE nice like 10-15 years ago and now is trying to be nice in an antiquey kinda way!
Anyway today was the main reason i came to India, to see the Taj Mahal, and it was really beautiful, i mean you hear it alot and when you see it in pics you have like ohhh thats nice, but when you see it in its majesty, its massive, beautifully planned out and for me because of the Islamic influence can releate to it more so than the other wonders of the world that I have seen. Also because of the history that surounds the Taj Mahal (for those that dont know wikipedia it, but essential the king built it for his deadwife in her honour and to hold her body ) so obviously has all of us metrosexuals already instrested because of the love surrounding the building but i think even the most macho guy would appreciate what went into the building. The guide was saying back then it cost 4 billion rupes and rupes back then were BUCKS so you can imagine just how much he wasted well wasted is the wrong word but spent.
Im sure now the indian goverment is making like 4 billion ruppes every 10 years probably off it in some way or another so hes given back to his country. Anyway Agra is much more touristy than Delhi however its also alot more rural and you see alot more animals in the streets and more street people, its weird because i would have thought as so many people come here they would try to hide the poverty but they havent really done so, which is a good thing as it elevates the situation to the outside world. Tomorrow i was told the turkish primem minster is coming to see the Taj, the architect for the Taj was from turkey and has alot of turkish and persian influences so im sure that will be raised, but the reason i was mentioning it was when you get world leaders coming im surprised as most countries try to hide their poverty from other countries India acknoledges it. Lets hope inshallah over time though that the wealth in this country will be better distributed.
Anyway tomorrow im off to jaipur, so inshallah will write from there! take care
Stormy
Thursday, November 20, 2008
Delhi delights
Hey hey,
Im in the indian capital and man was it crazy when we landed we had no clue me nor my mum what was going on, but man were stayingin a sick hotel thats costing me bucks to write this!lol so ill have to keep it short and sweet as i restart my blog, well the weather is really shit here! its really cloudy and had no clue when we were going to land as the pilot felt it was too foogy to land and he was right because when he eventually did it was on the shittest landings i had in my life! Me and mum though were ok as we were not mixing it with the rif-raf as i booked buisness class as its the first hols properly me and my mum had in time, so thought i would try at least to treat her.
The driving is the same as the uk ways and the same standard as Bangladesh ie a complete mess though you can turn the country has money you can also say its got some serious issues it needs to deal with first and thats just after being int he country for an hour!
Anyway i best go but inshallah will write more on the host city for the commenwealth games of 2010 and tomorrow im off for the main reason of my visit the 4th wonder in my list the Taj Mahal! come on! and i got alot of stuff that has happened over the past few months since my last entries so will inshallah be updating on that front as well!
aneway i really best go cuz it is costing me BARE! lol
aneway take care and inshallah you will here from me soon.
Stormy
Im in the indian capital and man was it crazy when we landed we had no clue me nor my mum what was going on, but man were stayingin a sick hotel thats costing me bucks to write this!lol so ill have to keep it short and sweet as i restart my blog, well the weather is really shit here! its really cloudy and had no clue when we were going to land as the pilot felt it was too foogy to land and he was right because when he eventually did it was on the shittest landings i had in my life! Me and mum though were ok as we were not mixing it with the rif-raf as i booked buisness class as its the first hols properly me and my mum had in time, so thought i would try at least to treat her.
The driving is the same as the uk ways and the same standard as Bangladesh ie a complete mess though you can turn the country has money you can also say its got some serious issues it needs to deal with first and thats just after being int he country for an hour!
Anyway i best go but inshallah will write more on the host city for the commenwealth games of 2010 and tomorrow im off for the main reason of my visit the 4th wonder in my list the Taj Mahal! come on! and i got alot of stuff that has happened over the past few months since my last entries so will inshallah be updating on that front as well!
aneway i really best go cuz it is costing me BARE! lol
aneway take care and inshallah you will here from me soon.
Stormy
Wednesday, August 06, 2008
Can you be selfish and selfless at the same time?
Sometimes life with throw up opportunities or rather situations at you where you have to make a decision where you think the solution that is the best for you and sometimes what’s the best solution for someone else. The next paragraph doesn’t make sense as I cant go into it but im trying to process the thoughts in my head and so just writing down for myself.
Well I had such a situation where I really wanted to act in such a way but I know only I would profit, and I acted in such a way however it opened a can of worms and then I was forced to make a series of selfless choices however they have come across as selfless and I just messed a hell of a lot of things up! I’m still involved in the situation and so I’m not able to review in hindsight which is slightly unfortunate as I could really do with being at the end of my current predicament.
I don’t understand how life can be so balanced, I mean the pains and aches of love, and yet those bad feelings are compensated by the feelings of love and hope, and I speak to people and the number of people who understand what I am going through astounds me. Its like everyone has this feeling of equilibrium that exists in life, where you feel good in one aspect of ur time or time in ur life u felt crap in an equal measure on the other. Well now im feeling the negative side, and no matter what I do I cant get out of it, I try to do good actions for others hoping that somehow I would get like ‘karma’ back or ‘reward’ but I end up messing things up.
People are telling me u know its good that ur single and I was like yeh its awesome when I first became single, but then the freedom dies and you want that love and compassion that u used to have and you realize single life sucks so bad and the people who say that are either in shitty relationships or jus manwhores or whores because they enjoy the promiscuity of being single. However those that are in loving and caring relationships will tell you otherwise and that’s what I want.
For some people relationships, love etc are all overspoken and over-priortised but I don’t understand those people, because for me it’s the most important thing, human interaction after spiritual interaction is the most important thing in this life, and that’s why to love is the most important feeling, the love you have your neighbour, friend, brother, wife, is a feeling that cannot be surpassed, im trying to ground myself as some days im super happy and some days im super sad but inshallah in time the my mood at least on the negative side will simmer!
Aneway I know this has just been a random rant and very incoherent but it was important for me to write it.
Thanks
Asif
Well I had such a situation where I really wanted to act in such a way but I know only I would profit, and I acted in such a way however it opened a can of worms and then I was forced to make a series of selfless choices however they have come across as selfless and I just messed a hell of a lot of things up! I’m still involved in the situation and so I’m not able to review in hindsight which is slightly unfortunate as I could really do with being at the end of my current predicament.
I don’t understand how life can be so balanced, I mean the pains and aches of love, and yet those bad feelings are compensated by the feelings of love and hope, and I speak to people and the number of people who understand what I am going through astounds me. Its like everyone has this feeling of equilibrium that exists in life, where you feel good in one aspect of ur time or time in ur life u felt crap in an equal measure on the other. Well now im feeling the negative side, and no matter what I do I cant get out of it, I try to do good actions for others hoping that somehow I would get like ‘karma’ back or ‘reward’ but I end up messing things up.
People are telling me u know its good that ur single and I was like yeh its awesome when I first became single, but then the freedom dies and you want that love and compassion that u used to have and you realize single life sucks so bad and the people who say that are either in shitty relationships or jus manwhores or whores because they enjoy the promiscuity of being single. However those that are in loving and caring relationships will tell you otherwise and that’s what I want.
For some people relationships, love etc are all overspoken and over-priortised but I don’t understand those people, because for me it’s the most important thing, human interaction after spiritual interaction is the most important thing in this life, and that’s why to love is the most important feeling, the love you have your neighbour, friend, brother, wife, is a feeling that cannot be surpassed, im trying to ground myself as some days im super happy and some days im super sad but inshallah in time the my mood at least on the negative side will simmer!
Aneway I know this has just been a random rant and very incoherent but it was important for me to write it.
Thanks
Asif
Wednesday, July 30, 2008
Around the world in 18 months!
I have starting writing a post then just scrapped it a number of times over the last few weeks, I guess it’s a reflection of my feelings where I feel something then I try to rid myself of that feeling, then I feel something different or the same feeling again, im going through something I never been through before. I have broken up with a partner before, and I haven’t just broken up with someone or anything, but the girl I was thinking of marrying could be and inshallah will marry someone else. The reason for my choice of word inshallah, is that I want her to be happy and with Gods will see will be.
Its often said that if you truly love something then you will want the best for that person even if that persons future lies away from you, I used to think bollocks that’s only in fairly tales, and I still do as its so freaking hard to have such a self-less feeling, its so natural to look out for yourself and want the best for yourself, but you need to fight that urge and that desire and try to do what is better for everyone including the person you care for. I know in my heart how I feel and that’s all that should matter, someone once told me that to love and not be loved back (like a unrelenqeshed love) is like being a Shaheed (a term which has become quite famous in the west for what suicide bombers wish to be ie a martyr for God) and it really does hurt but to know that God understands the pain makes it a lot better, after all for me Islam is a way of life, and its just like go to mosque and pray then forget about it, it affects all aspects of my life and for the kinda guy I am even more so in the love and matters of the heart!
During the last few weeks I have had a lot going on in my life, I had my GMAT exam, where I got a score of 560 which isn’t the best, and I surprisingly f’ed up in the maths part, where I got like 38% ! I know ! for those who know me well, will know maths has always kinda been my strong side so to f’up in it, was shocking and the thing was during the test I knew I was f’ing up and I didn’t know what to do, I was jus like no way is this happening! Anyway by some miracle of God, the English part saved me where I got 69% and in the essay part 80% (but that doesn’t go to my score unfortunately) anyway my score is just about enough for Manchester Uni which is the place I want to go to but I still need to do a heft application form, however I think im going to re-do the test and hope inshallah to get a better score for myself and just to make the application state a bit easier.
I also been really busy planning my holidays as I have been making many personal goals in my life, and as such one of them is to see the remaining 7 wonders of the world that I haven’t seen by 1st January 2010! This has resulted in a hectic travel plan over the next 18 months, I will in addition to the 7 wonders aim to hit 30 cities in the world that I want to see, so far from now til 1st January 2009 I have planned, Madrid, Barcelona, Ibiza, Cairo, New York, Washington, Philidelphia, Boston, Mumbai, Agra, Jaipur, Delhi, Tehran and Kuala Lumpa. However this list includes cities I been to before, but I loved so wanted to re-visit, and it only includes 2 cities (Agra and Cairo) which has the wonders of the world, therefore along with the Great Wall and Petra I would have done all of the wonders that are in the eastern side of the world. The remaining 3 all in central and south America will inshallah be visited next year as I plan 2 trips, one trip to south America, and one trip to central America and west cost USA. I also want to visit Austraila at some point as well as new Zealand, however im thinking of possibly doing that as part of a honeymoon thing, or maybe I should go Africa for a honeymoon thing, I don’t know however I made this as one of my targets over the next few months to organize and inshallah plan to visit the 30 cities and see the 7 wonders by 2010!
Aneway I best go and get on with my life until next time!
Take care
Its often said that if you truly love something then you will want the best for that person even if that persons future lies away from you, I used to think bollocks that’s only in fairly tales, and I still do as its so freaking hard to have such a self-less feeling, its so natural to look out for yourself and want the best for yourself, but you need to fight that urge and that desire and try to do what is better for everyone including the person you care for. I know in my heart how I feel and that’s all that should matter, someone once told me that to love and not be loved back (like a unrelenqeshed love) is like being a Shaheed (a term which has become quite famous in the west for what suicide bombers wish to be ie a martyr for God) and it really does hurt but to know that God understands the pain makes it a lot better, after all for me Islam is a way of life, and its just like go to mosque and pray then forget about it, it affects all aspects of my life and for the kinda guy I am even more so in the love and matters of the heart!
During the last few weeks I have had a lot going on in my life, I had my GMAT exam, where I got a score of 560 which isn’t the best, and I surprisingly f’ed up in the maths part, where I got like 38% ! I know ! for those who know me well, will know maths has always kinda been my strong side so to f’up in it, was shocking and the thing was during the test I knew I was f’ing up and I didn’t know what to do, I was jus like no way is this happening! Anyway by some miracle of God, the English part saved me where I got 69% and in the essay part 80% (but that doesn’t go to my score unfortunately) anyway my score is just about enough for Manchester Uni which is the place I want to go to but I still need to do a heft application form, however I think im going to re-do the test and hope inshallah to get a better score for myself and just to make the application state a bit easier.
I also been really busy planning my holidays as I have been making many personal goals in my life, and as such one of them is to see the remaining 7 wonders of the world that I haven’t seen by 1st January 2010! This has resulted in a hectic travel plan over the next 18 months, I will in addition to the 7 wonders aim to hit 30 cities in the world that I want to see, so far from now til 1st January 2009 I have planned, Madrid, Barcelona, Ibiza, Cairo, New York, Washington, Philidelphia, Boston, Mumbai, Agra, Jaipur, Delhi, Tehran and Kuala Lumpa. However this list includes cities I been to before, but I loved so wanted to re-visit, and it only includes 2 cities (Agra and Cairo) which has the wonders of the world, therefore along with the Great Wall and Petra I would have done all of the wonders that are in the eastern side of the world. The remaining 3 all in central and south America will inshallah be visited next year as I plan 2 trips, one trip to south America, and one trip to central America and west cost USA. I also want to visit Austraila at some point as well as new Zealand, however im thinking of possibly doing that as part of a honeymoon thing, or maybe I should go Africa for a honeymoon thing, I don’t know however I made this as one of my targets over the next few months to organize and inshallah plan to visit the 30 cities and see the 7 wonders by 2010!
Aneway I best go and get on with my life until next time!
Take care
Monday, June 30, 2008
A few of my gripes with the world....
All,
Due to a really good reception ive had with my blog, i have decided to continue it even if my posts will be sporadic..
So im back in sunny Doha after my holiday and i feel really refreshed. Its weird as I get so many holidays with my job, yet i havent really been on a proper holiday for 2 years since my China travels, its because i been going back to the UK every opportunity i get. Well since things changed in my life it has allowed me to explore of Gods green earth and i am loving it.
I had such an amazing time away, and i have uploaded what i thought were the best 300 or so photos out of like 2000 pictures onto facebook so check them out. I tried to capture the feel of the cities i was in, and the feel of the cities is rarely in the scenery but the people of the country that is why so many of my pictures have random people in!
A couple of things have been bothering me so much, earlier today at work, this guy who will remain anonymous takes his job SUPER seriously, which im sure on paper all companies will love, but when in reality you see the impact people like that have on other people in the company then that desire and commitment will be seen s a detriment as they push people away and don't work in an effective manner, this guy is picking on this woman who is like one of the kindest and gentlist people in the office to the brink of tears, seeing a middle aged women crying due to some punk 30 something year old guys bullying is discussing and you cant get involved because its work related and will look even worse for her, but i just hate bullying and people who take their job super serious, as i always say you work to live and not live to work.
The other thing that has been bothering me was brought up by another friend and fellow blogger who said how he left facebook because of the things he saw on that regarding his friends and that he felt let down by it, and i thought it was nonsense and that you shouldn't be so judgemental and that if people are doing stuff you don't like or don't approve on facebook then you should try speaking to them rather than turning a blind eye, however i have recently been in that situation of where i saw some stuff on someone i had alot of respect for and was shocked to find some information on someone and was quite upset or more let down by that person and not sure what to say to be honest, i havent brought it up as i don't know how to or even if its my place to bring up, but its such a bad feeling having that where your disappointed in someone and im trying not to judge and there could be numerous explanations behind things, so its best not to but its a natural human emotion that is very hard to devoid from....
Anyway other updates in my life, well alot of my friends have recently left Doha, and so I am back to the situation of where i have some random friends like from this part of my life or that but no core- nucleus like i used, however it means i can spend some more time with myself, like reading and updating stuff on my files and photos and little things that i actually love doing, so in a way i am happy, and plus i have exams coming up for my mba so i gota start nailing the work! I been reading up on like if you dont do well what happens, and that will universitys know and they do so its shit me up even more, however inshallah my revision is going well so I wont mess up!
I read this thing the other day that was quite funny and quite true, well it says how like people say its cool to travel on your own and you find yourself etc etc and im one of those people that says all that, well they go its bull, and that really your just sitting in your hotel room wondering which mate to ring back home and txt and stuff, and its so true in my case, well its not really friend but its more like a partner but when you dont have one of them then it becomes a friend lol! The best kinda traveling i think is as a couple, because you get to share the memorable moments together and you also hopefully have similar intrests and so get to see everything you want which isnt always the case with mates!
aneway i best leave now, however inshallah ill write again soon!
Asif
Due to a really good reception ive had with my blog, i have decided to continue it even if my posts will be sporadic..
So im back in sunny Doha after my holiday and i feel really refreshed. Its weird as I get so many holidays with my job, yet i havent really been on a proper holiday for 2 years since my China travels, its because i been going back to the UK every opportunity i get. Well since things changed in my life it has allowed me to explore of Gods green earth and i am loving it.
I had such an amazing time away, and i have uploaded what i thought were the best 300 or so photos out of like 2000 pictures onto facebook so check them out. I tried to capture the feel of the cities i was in, and the feel of the cities is rarely in the scenery but the people of the country that is why so many of my pictures have random people in!
A couple of things have been bothering me so much, earlier today at work, this guy who will remain anonymous takes his job SUPER seriously, which im sure on paper all companies will love, but when in reality you see the impact people like that have on other people in the company then that desire and commitment will be seen s a detriment as they push people away and don't work in an effective manner, this guy is picking on this woman who is like one of the kindest and gentlist people in the office to the brink of tears, seeing a middle aged women crying due to some punk 30 something year old guys bullying is discussing and you cant get involved because its work related and will look even worse for her, but i just hate bullying and people who take their job super serious, as i always say you work to live and not live to work.
The other thing that has been bothering me was brought up by another friend and fellow blogger who said how he left facebook because of the things he saw on that regarding his friends and that he felt let down by it, and i thought it was nonsense and that you shouldn't be so judgemental and that if people are doing stuff you don't like or don't approve on facebook then you should try speaking to them rather than turning a blind eye, however i have recently been in that situation of where i saw some stuff on someone i had alot of respect for and was shocked to find some information on someone and was quite upset or more let down by that person and not sure what to say to be honest, i havent brought it up as i don't know how to or even if its my place to bring up, but its such a bad feeling having that where your disappointed in someone and im trying not to judge and there could be numerous explanations behind things, so its best not to but its a natural human emotion that is very hard to devoid from....
Anyway other updates in my life, well alot of my friends have recently left Doha, and so I am back to the situation of where i have some random friends like from this part of my life or that but no core- nucleus like i used, however it means i can spend some more time with myself, like reading and updating stuff on my files and photos and little things that i actually love doing, so in a way i am happy, and plus i have exams coming up for my mba so i gota start nailing the work! I been reading up on like if you dont do well what happens, and that will universitys know and they do so its shit me up even more, however inshallah my revision is going well so I wont mess up!
I read this thing the other day that was quite funny and quite true, well it says how like people say its cool to travel on your own and you find yourself etc etc and im one of those people that says all that, well they go its bull, and that really your just sitting in your hotel room wondering which mate to ring back home and txt and stuff, and its so true in my case, well its not really friend but its more like a partner but when you dont have one of them then it becomes a friend lol! The best kinda traveling i think is as a couple, because you get to share the memorable moments together and you also hopefully have similar intrests and so get to see everything you want which isnt always the case with mates!
aneway i best leave now, however inshallah ill write again soon!
Asif
Sunday, June 22, 2008
Part 2 of the Homelands adventure...
Ok well I prayed my Friday prayer and took about a gazillion photos which i probably will upload onto facebook.
Anyway after finishing the prayer and taking the photos i tried to find my driver, and with the help of people speaking to my driver I was able to find him, he then took me to the mount of the olives, which wasn’t anything great however the views from the top were breathtaking, where you got to see the whole city, and she the old city walls and the religious sites and tombs it was just amazing!
Then we went to the west bank and drove pretty much straight through security which i thought was a bit odd but then i realised the secuitry didn’t care who goes into the west bank just who comes from it, and its sad as their is no protection. This one guy from Bethleham was telling me that if an Isreali arab had him in his car in occupied Palestine, the isreali arab would get 6 months in prision, a fine and license taking away, he goes its worse to have a Palestine in your car than drugs, and that hit home. Then i saw the much publicised ‘Wall’ and it brought tears almost to my eyes, the messages people wrote saying like ‘you stood by while they built this’ and ‘is anyone watching what is happing’things along these lines, its so heartbraking, people often say its a prison but until you go and see you don’t realise how much, i mean some of the areas look fairly vibrant in the west bank like Bethleham but you go near the boarders and the outskirts and you see exactly what is going on, and the west bank is supposed to be semi-allied with Isreal so to imagine how bad it is in Gaza isn’t even worth mentioning. You feel so helpless and thats probably the worst feeling, it has to offer so much, you have Nazerth and Bethleham truly important sites for Islam and Cristianty and you have other areas where if opened up would be hiving with activity like Rumallah and Hebron but they don’t have that opportunity...
Then when we were leaving the west bank, we went through the security checkpoints and it was so weird seeing the solderis, you have these really young girls who look like proper jewish princess (those from Manchester will know what type im taking about) and they have these massive Guns and security vests, but then when you speak to them you get so infuriated because their just as ‘blonde’ she goes to me wheres ur visa, i go it was on a paper but they took it at the crossing, and she was like why was it on paper (its common for people to get Isreali stamps on a piece of paper as otherwise you wont be able to visit many Muslim countries with an isreali stamp) and all the security personal know the reasons why people ask for a stamp on a paper but their just being difficult. Anyway she then goes does Qatar not like isreal, whyyyy? And i go no they like but then i blagged i had to go to Saudi as well thinking thats obvious, and she goes does Saudi not like Isreal but whyyyy? And i thought u dumb b!tch i very rarely use such words but this was just a joke, and go no they don’t like and i don’t know why and she was like oh, at the end, then her general guy comes and he obviously knew and just said ok.. but its astonishing
Then i went back to my hotel which wasn’t the greatest espec for a supposed 4 star Golden Tulip hotel, its very good for those like me who just came to pray at Al Aqsa as its about a 10 mins walk and so in that sense is a perfect but in any other situation it is a joke! I had to go back anwway as my camera battery died,(like i said a gazillion photos!)
Aneway my plane has been called for Doha so will write the rest back in Doha inshallah...
ASif
Anyway after finishing the prayer and taking the photos i tried to find my driver, and with the help of people speaking to my driver I was able to find him, he then took me to the mount of the olives, which wasn’t anything great however the views from the top were breathtaking, where you got to see the whole city, and she the old city walls and the religious sites and tombs it was just amazing!
Then we went to the west bank and drove pretty much straight through security which i thought was a bit odd but then i realised the secuitry didn’t care who goes into the west bank just who comes from it, and its sad as their is no protection. This one guy from Bethleham was telling me that if an Isreali arab had him in his car in occupied Palestine, the isreali arab would get 6 months in prision, a fine and license taking away, he goes its worse to have a Palestine in your car than drugs, and that hit home. Then i saw the much publicised ‘Wall’ and it brought tears almost to my eyes, the messages people wrote saying like ‘you stood by while they built this’ and ‘is anyone watching what is happing’things along these lines, its so heartbraking, people often say its a prison but until you go and see you don’t realise how much, i mean some of the areas look fairly vibrant in the west bank like Bethleham but you go near the boarders and the outskirts and you see exactly what is going on, and the west bank is supposed to be semi-allied with Isreal so to imagine how bad it is in Gaza isn’t even worth mentioning. You feel so helpless and thats probably the worst feeling, it has to offer so much, you have Nazerth and Bethleham truly important sites for Islam and Cristianty and you have other areas where if opened up would be hiving with activity like Rumallah and Hebron but they don’t have that opportunity...
Then when we were leaving the west bank, we went through the security checkpoints and it was so weird seeing the solderis, you have these really young girls who look like proper jewish princess (those from Manchester will know what type im taking about) and they have these massive Guns and security vests, but then when you speak to them you get so infuriated because their just as ‘blonde’ she goes to me wheres ur visa, i go it was on a paper but they took it at the crossing, and she was like why was it on paper (its common for people to get Isreali stamps on a piece of paper as otherwise you wont be able to visit many Muslim countries with an isreali stamp) and all the security personal know the reasons why people ask for a stamp on a paper but their just being difficult. Anyway she then goes does Qatar not like isreal, whyyyy? And i go no they like but then i blagged i had to go to Saudi as well thinking thats obvious, and she goes does Saudi not like Isreal but whyyyy? And i thought u dumb b!tch i very rarely use such words but this was just a joke, and go no they don’t like and i don’t know why and she was like oh, at the end, then her general guy comes and he obviously knew and just said ok.. but its astonishing
Then i went back to my hotel which wasn’t the greatest espec for a supposed 4 star Golden Tulip hotel, its very good for those like me who just came to pray at Al Aqsa as its about a 10 mins walk and so in that sense is a perfect but in any other situation it is a joke! I had to go back anwway as my camera battery died,(like i said a gazillion photos!)
Aneway my plane has been called for Doha so will write the rest back in Doha inshallah...
ASif
Saturday, June 21, 2008
Palestine the home land...part 1
All,
I went to the home land of the main monotheistic faiths in the world (yes, even in Islam, where the land is considered sacred) Jerusalem, it was an experience that i will never forget for so many reasons. Let me tell you from the start because i want to share everything with you all...
Well a taxi came to pick me up at 6.30am and we went to King Hussein Bridge, which is the crossing to Palestine and is right next to the dead sea, there it was fairly straightforward and took about an hour in all to read the Palestian side, however thats where the problems started,..
The dreaded Isreali immigration police came into action and after hearing so much i was expecting the worst so i was pleasantly surprised that it wasn’t so bad, i mean it was bad and in any other situation or country it really wouldn’t have been acceptable but in this country there is not much else you can do. After being interrogated for about 30 mins following an hours weight i was told to weight a further 2 hours whilst the investigated everything i told them, in the end when i finally got my passport back 4 and a half hours had passed!!They wanted to hold me up even further as i went through one gate the next gate asked if i had been spoken to, what a joke , they were proper taking the piss, but the sly thing was they sent out this really nice women they send out who is really pleasant and she asks all the questions in a nice way, so you don’t feel unjust, but man in reflection u feel it! Oh iforgot to say i went through some sort of machine that blew air onto you, it was so weird but they certainly had all the latest technology. Though i spent a lot of time more than most,(prob because of the lebo and Syria part of my trip) this one guy i spoke to he was from South Africa, but looked like a religious Pakistani guy, with the beard, glasses, tupi and the Shalwar, and ask soon as he got of the bus they told him to follow them, forget the machines forget his baggage and they took him to some room and grilled him for time! Whilst his wife and mother in law got the bags and waited, i suppose he shouldn’t have worn what he did but at the same time talk about typecasting someone!
Aneway as I finally left the crossing departure point, someone was waiting for me with a sign with my name and a sick car, so off we went to Jersulam i thought i had missed Friday prayer (the main purpose behind my trip but turned out i was lucky Thank God, as i made it just in time! I was so happy, and felt really blessed as it was the whole point of what I went for...
Aneway im feeling tired so I will write the next part later...
I went to the home land of the main monotheistic faiths in the world (yes, even in Islam, where the land is considered sacred) Jerusalem, it was an experience that i will never forget for so many reasons. Let me tell you from the start because i want to share everything with you all...
Well a taxi came to pick me up at 6.30am and we went to King Hussein Bridge, which is the crossing to Palestine and is right next to the dead sea, there it was fairly straightforward and took about an hour in all to read the Palestian side, however thats where the problems started,..
The dreaded Isreali immigration police came into action and after hearing so much i was expecting the worst so i was pleasantly surprised that it wasn’t so bad, i mean it was bad and in any other situation or country it really wouldn’t have been acceptable but in this country there is not much else you can do. After being interrogated for about 30 mins following an hours weight i was told to weight a further 2 hours whilst the investigated everything i told them, in the end when i finally got my passport back 4 and a half hours had passed!!They wanted to hold me up even further as i went through one gate the next gate asked if i had been spoken to, what a joke , they were proper taking the piss, but the sly thing was they sent out this really nice women they send out who is really pleasant and she asks all the questions in a nice way, so you don’t feel unjust, but man in reflection u feel it! Oh iforgot to say i went through some sort of machine that blew air onto you, it was so weird but they certainly had all the latest technology. Though i spent a lot of time more than most,(prob because of the lebo and Syria part of my trip) this one guy i spoke to he was from South Africa, but looked like a religious Pakistani guy, with the beard, glasses, tupi and the Shalwar, and ask soon as he got of the bus they told him to follow them, forget the machines forget his baggage and they took him to some room and grilled him for time! Whilst his wife and mother in law got the bags and waited, i suppose he shouldn’t have worn what he did but at the same time talk about typecasting someone!
Aneway as I finally left the crossing departure point, someone was waiting for me with a sign with my name and a sick car, so off we went to Jersulam i thought i had missed Friday prayer (the main purpose behind my trip but turned out i was lucky Thank God, as i made it just in time! I was so happy, and felt really blessed as it was the whole point of what I went for...
Aneway im feeling tired so I will write the next part later...
Jordan the Republic of Palestine part 1
After my time in Syria i went back to Beirut where i was going to join a lebo tour group to Syria however i find out the roads are too dangerous to travel because the day before fighting occurred near the Syrian border between Sunnis and Shias and the tour group felt it was too dangerous to conduct the trip in such a situation.. So i was a bit stuck but slightly relieved as i never been a fan of tour groups purely because of the lack of freedom and the claustrophobic nature i have.
So i booked a flight to Amman, which i don’t regret now as it was an enjoyable experience! :P! Enough said use your imagination! Anyway after arriving and going to the Crowne Plaza, i hit the ‘down town’ and it was actually alot better than i thought, i never been a fan of Jordan, i just thought it didn’t offer much, but after spending a number of days here, i have began to see it in a completely different light. Geographically its in such an interesting position, its land boarders Palestine, Iraq, Saudi and Syria and also has its southern tip near Egypt across the water, its river provides all the water to Palestine and Occupied Palestine and the most impressive thing is that there are 4 million Palestine living in Jordan with a Jordanese passport and only 3 million Jordanese of Jordanese heritage, i think thats really impressive, if only the GCC countries would do something similar to alleviate the problems of the people of Palestine.
Anyway in the downtown area you will see a really dirty and grimey side of Jordan but i would say its one of the best sides, full of culture and commotion, you see all sorts of charachters and can get some real bargains, one of the funniest things was the number of illegal dvd shops there is there its so rife and for a country that’s so pro west its quiet surprising.
I would liken Jordan to Dubai, i think Dubai is the GCC revision of Amman, where it is modern but also trying to keep some Islamic identity however little...
Anyway the next day I went to Jeresh which is like an old Roman town, im not one for stuff like that but it was quite cool, and then went to the dead sea which was really cool, you cant swim for shit there and if you get anything in your eye your proper screwed, however despite all that its an experience that you need to encounter. I went to put the mud stuff on myself which is supposed to be really therapeutic, however i fell in one of the holes that someone made and i cut my knee, however because the water was so salty my wound healed within a few minutes it was amazing!
I was planning on doing other tours in Jordan and take it easy however as i was walking back to my hotel from a morning stroll i saw a travel tour company i went inside and saw they had trips to Palestine, they were really expensive but it was do-able, i was so excited, i transferred some money into my account and went ahead with it, i thought though i planned to do it i should not let this opportunity pass and i didn’t i took it and now i can’t wait to go to the holy land!
Anyway inshallah my next post will be on the holy land...
So i booked a flight to Amman, which i don’t regret now as it was an enjoyable experience! :P! Enough said use your imagination! Anyway after arriving and going to the Crowne Plaza, i hit the ‘down town’ and it was actually alot better than i thought, i never been a fan of Jordan, i just thought it didn’t offer much, but after spending a number of days here, i have began to see it in a completely different light. Geographically its in such an interesting position, its land boarders Palestine, Iraq, Saudi and Syria and also has its southern tip near Egypt across the water, its river provides all the water to Palestine and Occupied Palestine and the most impressive thing is that there are 4 million Palestine living in Jordan with a Jordanese passport and only 3 million Jordanese of Jordanese heritage, i think thats really impressive, if only the GCC countries would do something similar to alleviate the problems of the people of Palestine.
Anyway in the downtown area you will see a really dirty and grimey side of Jordan but i would say its one of the best sides, full of culture and commotion, you see all sorts of charachters and can get some real bargains, one of the funniest things was the number of illegal dvd shops there is there its so rife and for a country that’s so pro west its quiet surprising.
I would liken Jordan to Dubai, i think Dubai is the GCC revision of Amman, where it is modern but also trying to keep some Islamic identity however little...
Anyway the next day I went to Jeresh which is like an old Roman town, im not one for stuff like that but it was quite cool, and then went to the dead sea which was really cool, you cant swim for shit there and if you get anything in your eye your proper screwed, however despite all that its an experience that you need to encounter. I went to put the mud stuff on myself which is supposed to be really therapeutic, however i fell in one of the holes that someone made and i cut my knee, however because the water was so salty my wound healed within a few minutes it was amazing!
I was planning on doing other tours in Jordan and take it easy however as i was walking back to my hotel from a morning stroll i saw a travel tour company i went inside and saw they had trips to Palestine, they were really expensive but it was do-able, i was so excited, i transferred some money into my account and went ahead with it, i thought though i planned to do it i should not let this opportunity pass and i didn’t i took it and now i can’t wait to go to the holy land!
Anyway inshallah my next post will be on the holy land...
Thursday, June 19, 2008
Syrity of Contrasts
All,
I would have written during my time in Syria but unfortunately facebook and alot of other webpages were blocked so instead you will be getting a monster post...
Well ill talk about my last days in Beirut, where Dala left on Sunday and we went to an area called Beit Mary, as you can tell from its name a Christian area, and from what i could tell the majority of the Christian neighbour hoods were fairly prominent i wouldn’t want to draw into it, but i don’t find it very surprising from my experience with Muslims as they tend to be so lazy, im one of the them, but if it wasn’t for the natural wealth that God has blessed the Muslims then the wealth of the 1.5 billion muslims in this world will be ridiculously low, i mean if u took the GCC nations wealth out of the equation then you wouldn’t even want to imagine how poor the Muslim world would be...
Anyway onto my trip to Syria, it started off ridiculously early at like 7.30am or something like that! Aneway we drove through some really picturesque scenes on our drive to the boarder. We went through numerous checkpoints, thankfully me and Mohammad managed to make it into Syria and then we went on our way to the Shereton in Damascus, where a collegue of Mohammad was meeting us whos Syrian, and he sepnt the next few days with us taking us out and getting cheap taki fayres and getting cheap Syrian goods!Man the shopping was so good in Syria, i hardly brought a thing in lebo land but in Syria i couldn’t almost stop, i loved it so many little souveniors, and things i didn’t go crazy but i did buy a number of little things!
In the evenings we went to the mountainous areas overlooked the whole city, and if you go up there you will see loads and loads of little green lights and each of those represents a mosque, and i was told Damascus is called the City of a Thousand mosques and i qute lietteraly thing it does have a thousand mosques! However when your up there you will also meet the other sides of Damascus, when loads of families take picnics and bring the kids, but then you will find the dirty side, with a girl coming up to me who asked to have a photo with me who i am sure is a prostitute, then i had an incredibly attractive hijabi girl asking me in Arabic basically “how am i doin” but i didn’t understand so i jus carried on walking, i asked my friend if he thought maybe she was also a prostitute but he said most likely not, and she was just curious to speak to a foreigner. Anyway i never seen such forward behaviour, but it didn’t stop there, one night i was on the internet reading news articles on bbc as i couldn’t sleep in the lobby of the hotel and a women was in the check-in desk and then she turned around a couple of times, then she got up and nodded at me, and then did it again, i thought maybe im missing something, or seeing something that wasn’t there, but she made it clear once she was in the lift with her telling me to get in, clearly i didn’t otherwise i wouldn’t be speaking about it lol! But im saying it to illustrate two things firstly how bad things are in supposedly Islamic states and secondly and more arguably more importantly how desireable i am!:P
Anyway i did like Damascus but i much preferred Lebanon because i think you know what your expecting in Lebanon but in Syria it tries to be something it isn’t like on the surface you see it as a practising Islamic state but in reality, people need to be careful their not mugged, prostitution is rife, alcohol consumption is widespread and it jus seems a much dirtier country..
Aneway i best go as i have a busy few days, but will keep you updated!
Take care
I would have written during my time in Syria but unfortunately facebook and alot of other webpages were blocked so instead you will be getting a monster post...
Well ill talk about my last days in Beirut, where Dala left on Sunday and we went to an area called Beit Mary, as you can tell from its name a Christian area, and from what i could tell the majority of the Christian neighbour hoods were fairly prominent i wouldn’t want to draw into it, but i don’t find it very surprising from my experience with Muslims as they tend to be so lazy, im one of the them, but if it wasn’t for the natural wealth that God has blessed the Muslims then the wealth of the 1.5 billion muslims in this world will be ridiculously low, i mean if u took the GCC nations wealth out of the equation then you wouldn’t even want to imagine how poor the Muslim world would be...
Anyway onto my trip to Syria, it started off ridiculously early at like 7.30am or something like that! Aneway we drove through some really picturesque scenes on our drive to the boarder. We went through numerous checkpoints, thankfully me and Mohammad managed to make it into Syria and then we went on our way to the Shereton in Damascus, where a collegue of Mohammad was meeting us whos Syrian, and he sepnt the next few days with us taking us out and getting cheap taki fayres and getting cheap Syrian goods!Man the shopping was so good in Syria, i hardly brought a thing in lebo land but in Syria i couldn’t almost stop, i loved it so many little souveniors, and things i didn’t go crazy but i did buy a number of little things!
In the evenings we went to the mountainous areas overlooked the whole city, and if you go up there you will see loads and loads of little green lights and each of those represents a mosque, and i was told Damascus is called the City of a Thousand mosques and i qute lietteraly thing it does have a thousand mosques! However when your up there you will also meet the other sides of Damascus, when loads of families take picnics and bring the kids, but then you will find the dirty side, with a girl coming up to me who asked to have a photo with me who i am sure is a prostitute, then i had an incredibly attractive hijabi girl asking me in Arabic basically “how am i doin” but i didn’t understand so i jus carried on walking, i asked my friend if he thought maybe she was also a prostitute but he said most likely not, and she was just curious to speak to a foreigner. Anyway i never seen such forward behaviour, but it didn’t stop there, one night i was on the internet reading news articles on bbc as i couldn’t sleep in the lobby of the hotel and a women was in the check-in desk and then she turned around a couple of times, then she got up and nodded at me, and then did it again, i thought maybe im missing something, or seeing something that wasn’t there, but she made it clear once she was in the lift with her telling me to get in, clearly i didn’t otherwise i wouldn’t be speaking about it lol! But im saying it to illustrate two things firstly how bad things are in supposedly Islamic states and secondly and more arguably more importantly how desireable i am!:P
Anyway i did like Damascus but i much preferred Lebanon because i think you know what your expecting in Lebanon but in Syria it tries to be something it isn’t like on the surface you see it as a practising Islamic state but in reality, people need to be careful their not mugged, prostitution is rife, alcohol consumption is widespread and it jus seems a much dirtier country..
Aneway i best go as i have a busy few days, but will keep you updated!
Take care
Monday, June 16, 2008
Lebo Land Part 4
All,
Im writing this in a slight blur from the previous night where i returned to my infamous Red-Bull days for those that witnessed those times of my life will declare that I truly was a mess when i went sick on the Bull...and last night man i was on it!
I went to a show where they perform French, English and Arabic songs and it was a proper Lebo environment, full of everything i love and hate about this country, you had the show-offs the people so up themselves it boarded on the ridiculous, and then you had the care-free loving nation that is epitomised by my friend Dala. I had a good night and hadn’t been to such an environment for a long time, the last concert show thing i went to must have been like Usher or something ridiculous like that.
I keep forgetting to mention what happened at Jummah (Friday prayer), well i went to pray at this famous mosque called Omari, which was formally a Church and turned into a mosque i believe under the Ottomans, it is believed to have Yaya(John the Baptaists) arm in it, and also it had a hair from the Prophet Muhammad (pbuh) however this hair was stolen during the civil war. Anyway after the prayer, me and Mohammad went to the man leading the prayer, the Iman to offer peace and blessings and got speaking, turned out he knew some people in the UK that i knew, a guy was there who was filming the prayer and he asked to speak to me, so after speaking to the Sheikh(another word for Imam kind of) i spoke to the film guy, who asked if i minded being part of a film documentary and answer in a few questions and everyone who knows me knows i love my 15mins!So i duly obliged and will inshallah be appearing on a film documentary near you soon!lol!
I am almost ready to go to Syria tomorrow however im pretty nervous though thankfully ill have Mohammad with me, i feel you cant be completely at ease in alot of these countries and you constantly have to be careful, like for example i took a picture of a picture of Nasrallah the Hizbollah leader here that is almost everywhere in the south and I was told that I should delete it incase the police check my pictures and stuff and im thinking come on, firstly im Sunni (sorry to label myself, because i hate it, i prefer to be known as Muslim but i suppose in situations like this its important to make the distinction) and so from what i believe the majority of Sunnis are against him, so that wouldn’t make sense, secondly its jus a photo of a photo and its not like pics of me and him getting wasted on red bull together or anything, i haven’t deleted it as i see it as ridiculous and inshallah it will be otherwise my next post might be from a Syrian or Jordanian prision!lol
Take care
Asif
Im writing this in a slight blur from the previous night where i returned to my infamous Red-Bull days for those that witnessed those times of my life will declare that I truly was a mess when i went sick on the Bull...and last night man i was on it!
I went to a show where they perform French, English and Arabic songs and it was a proper Lebo environment, full of everything i love and hate about this country, you had the show-offs the people so up themselves it boarded on the ridiculous, and then you had the care-free loving nation that is epitomised by my friend Dala. I had a good night and hadn’t been to such an environment for a long time, the last concert show thing i went to must have been like Usher or something ridiculous like that.
I keep forgetting to mention what happened at Jummah (Friday prayer), well i went to pray at this famous mosque called Omari, which was formally a Church and turned into a mosque i believe under the Ottomans, it is believed to have Yaya(John the Baptaists) arm in it, and also it had a hair from the Prophet Muhammad (pbuh) however this hair was stolen during the civil war. Anyway after the prayer, me and Mohammad went to the man leading the prayer, the Iman to offer peace and blessings and got speaking, turned out he knew some people in the UK that i knew, a guy was there who was filming the prayer and he asked to speak to me, so after speaking to the Sheikh(another word for Imam kind of) i spoke to the film guy, who asked if i minded being part of a film documentary and answer in a few questions and everyone who knows me knows i love my 15mins!So i duly obliged and will inshallah be appearing on a film documentary near you soon!lol!
I am almost ready to go to Syria tomorrow however im pretty nervous though thankfully ill have Mohammad with me, i feel you cant be completely at ease in alot of these countries and you constantly have to be careful, like for example i took a picture of a picture of Nasrallah the Hizbollah leader here that is almost everywhere in the south and I was told that I should delete it incase the police check my pictures and stuff and im thinking come on, firstly im Sunni (sorry to label myself, because i hate it, i prefer to be known as Muslim but i suppose in situations like this its important to make the distinction) and so from what i believe the majority of Sunnis are against him, so that wouldn’t make sense, secondly its jus a photo of a photo and its not like pics of me and him getting wasted on red bull together or anything, i haven’t deleted it as i see it as ridiculous and inshallah it will be otherwise my next post might be from a Syrian or Jordanian prision!lol
Take care
Asif
Lebo Land Part 3
All,
I am writing this in the car on the way back from sepnding most of th days ip in the mountains, Dala tells me its a very atypical lebo day, and if so this is the side of lebo culture that i admire. I went with Dala, Mohammad and Mohammads mother, Ma’aam as Mohammads has instructed me to call her, which is weird because for friends mothers in my usual culture of indo-bengali its common to call your friends mum as Auntie, so it feels a bit weird. Anyway regardless of what I call her, I think shes brilliant! So friendly and welcoming, you hear of Arab hospitality but you really see it with her and her family. Mohammad has a house in a small village called Ainab which is in the mountains of Lebanon, and his whole family come here every weekend and Dala told me her family do the same, the Grandparents kinda own the homes but all the children from all sides of the family come and its a really family atmosphere, and the spend the whole day from young to old, eating, smoking shisha, playing badminton, walking about and just talking.
I saw so many animals, one hell of a scary dog that surprising to me Dala was less scared than me but then again for the people who have seen me with dogs will know how shit scared i get! There were rabbits, roosters and rumours of snakes though im pretty sure Mo was referring to Jts infamous reference to snakes...
I went camera crazy today as did Dala and ended up takingover 200 photos in the space of a few hours which boarders on the ridiculous really lol but there was jus so many wicked photos to be had, especially ones captain the animated Lebanese characters!
I also met this guy whos Mohammads friend who was a Maronite and then reverted to Islam. He had some stories and told me how he couldn’t tell his parents at first and that even now 12 years on they don’t acknowledge it and he has to becareful who seems him at the mosque, inshallah the effort he is putting in will be rewarded because it seems like he has alot tribulations. HE told me it took his brother who is also a revert to speak to him for only 3 days of talking with his brother to believe he was following what wasn’t right for him and what is right for him, its reallt amazing always to speak to reverts, as they are often so passionate but the ones i met in the UK have most of the time don’t need to hide their new faith but in a country which is so divided by what is in your heart that any betraly in this aspect really is like a death curcse!
Aneway I best go but will keep u updated inshallah as I head to Syria in a couple of days!
I am writing this in the car on the way back from sepnding most of th days ip in the mountains, Dala tells me its a very atypical lebo day, and if so this is the side of lebo culture that i admire. I went with Dala, Mohammad and Mohammads mother, Ma’aam as Mohammads has instructed me to call her, which is weird because for friends mothers in my usual culture of indo-bengali its common to call your friends mum as Auntie, so it feels a bit weird. Anyway regardless of what I call her, I think shes brilliant! So friendly and welcoming, you hear of Arab hospitality but you really see it with her and her family. Mohammad has a house in a small village called Ainab which is in the mountains of Lebanon, and his whole family come here every weekend and Dala told me her family do the same, the Grandparents kinda own the homes but all the children from all sides of the family come and its a really family atmosphere, and the spend the whole day from young to old, eating, smoking shisha, playing badminton, walking about and just talking.
I saw so many animals, one hell of a scary dog that surprising to me Dala was less scared than me but then again for the people who have seen me with dogs will know how shit scared i get! There were rabbits, roosters and rumours of snakes though im pretty sure Mo was referring to Jts infamous reference to snakes...
I went camera crazy today as did Dala and ended up takingover 200 photos in the space of a few hours which boarders on the ridiculous really lol but there was jus so many wicked photos to be had, especially ones captain the animated Lebanese characters!
I also met this guy whos Mohammads friend who was a Maronite and then reverted to Islam. He had some stories and told me how he couldn’t tell his parents at first and that even now 12 years on they don’t acknowledge it and he has to becareful who seems him at the mosque, inshallah the effort he is putting in will be rewarded because it seems like he has alot tribulations. HE told me it took his brother who is also a revert to speak to him for only 3 days of talking with his brother to believe he was following what wasn’t right for him and what is right for him, its reallt amazing always to speak to reverts, as they are often so passionate but the ones i met in the UK have most of the time don’t need to hide their new faith but in a country which is so divided by what is in your heart that any betraly in this aspect really is like a death curcse!
Aneway I best go but will keep u updated inshallah as I head to Syria in a couple of days!
Saturday, June 14, 2008
Lebo Land Part 2
The second instalment in my lebo adventures and its been as eventful as my previous few days! I am currently at a internet cafe that serves shisha and gives the net for free while u smoke! U got to love it!
Well the food i been munching has been excellent, i suppose living in Qatar has built me up quite well for my desire of Lebanese food obviously with the addition of my frequential visits to Edgewear road. Talking of which, it really has gone down hill with the smoking ban, even with the beautiful weather that London and the uk is experiencing i feel its lost its edge. Whereas i feel east London has stepped up in particular brick lane/Shoreditch, where i had bare jokes with Jay during my one night in London before my levant travels.
Also after spending several days on Whilmslow road in Manchester i am convinced more than ever is being colonised by the Arabs, its becoming almost a epidemic!I mean soon it was easily be 50-50 with the Indian restaurants, which for me is a shame as i was brought up with that being the asian playground and its sad to see it being shared with others...
Right i been away since the above, and now im in a downtown restaurant cafe, in a blistering Saturday midmorning heat, its so french, yet with the Azan playing in the blackground thats what i love about this land of mixed relgions!
Aneway im off to the mountains for lunch!
Well the food i been munching has been excellent, i suppose living in Qatar has built me up quite well for my desire of Lebanese food obviously with the addition of my frequential visits to Edgewear road. Talking of which, it really has gone down hill with the smoking ban, even with the beautiful weather that London and the uk is experiencing i feel its lost its edge. Whereas i feel east London has stepped up in particular brick lane/Shoreditch, where i had bare jokes with Jay during my one night in London before my levant travels.
Also after spending several days on Whilmslow road in Manchester i am convinced more than ever is being colonised by the Arabs, its becoming almost a epidemic!I mean soon it was easily be 50-50 with the Indian restaurants, which for me is a shame as i was brought up with that being the asian playground and its sad to see it being shared with others...
Right i been away since the above, and now im in a downtown restaurant cafe, in a blistering Saturday midmorning heat, its so french, yet with the Azan playing in the blackground thats what i love about this land of mixed relgions!
Aneway im off to the mountains for lunch!
Lebo Land Part 1
All,
I thought I would do some more on the blog and keep you all updated on my Levant Travels, well I arrived into Beirut almost 2 days ago, and it’s been non-stop really, from the moment of successfully securing a visa and meeting Dala and Mohammad at the airport to me writing this whilst watching Croatia hammer the Germans.
I arrived at night, and after dropping my stuff off at Mohammad’s I made my way with Moe and Dala to Beirut downtown and I found a city that is truly of vast contrasts. One minute will be driving by some beautiful European esque grand building then I’ll be next to some shacks that wouldn’t look out of place in my mothers homeland of Bangladesh...Then I’ll be looking at this grand beautiful mosque, which will be placed next to Church that if I wasn’t mistaken has a twin in Western Europe!
Today I had the freshest fish I have had in a long time and it was so nice, we went to this seaside town in the south of Lebanon near the Israel boarder, the food was just amazing and the people in the south were really nice, I was surprised I mean I heard they were nice in the south but they really were, and man the people were so beautiful, not just the girls but the guys as well, I know it might sound gay, but I’m just saying this lebo land is FULL of good looking people! I fit quite nicely in lol!! It’s like everywhere I’m looking there is a hottie around the corner, however in Beirut is where you meet the lebos u know and hate, where they are very unapproachable to like I’m approaching I’m jus enjoying my time with my friends but I been witnessing it.
To be honest the biggest thing I noticed was how all the different fractions get on and the role the army is playing in the country with all the checkpoints! Today I saw some of the UNfil people and tanks and was quite cool but scary to think that presence was around, thats the problem I have with lebo-land with all these constant reminders I’m not in safe hands, it makes u feel slightly trapped, and though those who live here think it’s great that the police and army have checkpoints and are around most corners but it just shocks me to c such a military presence in civil situations.
Anyway I better head out but inshallah I will write again soon...
I thought I would do some more on the blog and keep you all updated on my Levant Travels, well I arrived into Beirut almost 2 days ago, and it’s been non-stop really, from the moment of successfully securing a visa and meeting Dala and Mohammad at the airport to me writing this whilst watching Croatia hammer the Germans.
I arrived at night, and after dropping my stuff off at Mohammad’s I made my way with Moe and Dala to Beirut downtown and I found a city that is truly of vast contrasts. One minute will be driving by some beautiful European esque grand building then I’ll be next to some shacks that wouldn’t look out of place in my mothers homeland of Bangladesh...Then I’ll be looking at this grand beautiful mosque, which will be placed next to Church that if I wasn’t mistaken has a twin in Western Europe!
Today I had the freshest fish I have had in a long time and it was so nice, we went to this seaside town in the south of Lebanon near the Israel boarder, the food was just amazing and the people in the south were really nice, I was surprised I mean I heard they were nice in the south but they really were, and man the people were so beautiful, not just the girls but the guys as well, I know it might sound gay, but I’m just saying this lebo land is FULL of good looking people! I fit quite nicely in lol!! It’s like everywhere I’m looking there is a hottie around the corner, however in Beirut is where you meet the lebos u know and hate, where they are very unapproachable to like I’m approaching I’m jus enjoying my time with my friends but I been witnessing it.
To be honest the biggest thing I noticed was how all the different fractions get on and the role the army is playing in the country with all the checkpoints! Today I saw some of the UNfil people and tanks and was quite cool but scary to think that presence was around, thats the problem I have with lebo-land with all these constant reminders I’m not in safe hands, it makes u feel slightly trapped, and though those who live here think it’s great that the police and army have checkpoints and are around most corners but it just shocks me to c such a military presence in civil situations.
Anyway I better head out but inshallah I will write again soon...
Saturday, March 29, 2008
Reversion...
All,
As I watch the destruction of Villa by Man utd, all i can think of is how i love Rooney, its jus his commitment his passion and his love for the game, how can you not love the guy! I would love it if he was muslim, then he would have respect all around and not just for his skills in football.
What i am saying is not disrespectful to non-muslims on the contradictory i am praising people regardless of their origins,its more about having a profound respect on people who revert, (not convert, as in Islam we believe all people are born innocent and if they were to continue to grow in a natural state without being affected by worldly things like society, family) as they managed to find what I believe to be the truth whereas people like me were given it on a silver platter and manage to waste it...
Aneway lets just say its my dream to one day call wayne rooney my brother....in Islam..
As I watch the destruction of Villa by Man utd, all i can think of is how i love Rooney, its jus his commitment his passion and his love for the game, how can you not love the guy! I would love it if he was muslim, then he would have respect all around and not just for his skills in football.
What i am saying is not disrespectful to non-muslims on the contradictory i am praising people regardless of their origins,its more about having a profound respect on people who revert, (not convert, as in Islam we believe all people are born innocent and if they were to continue to grow in a natural state without being affected by worldly things like society, family) as they managed to find what I believe to be the truth whereas people like me were given it on a silver platter and manage to waste it...
Aneway lets just say its my dream to one day call wayne rooney my brother....in Islam..
Friday, March 28, 2008
Returnin to my roots on the day of Jummah...
All,
I have just got back from a 3 hour early morning session of fishing, i caught my first ever fish on my own, i was so proud and happy.
It was easier in some ways than i imagined, as i thought it would be a lot more complex trying to get the fishing rod ready and getting fish, however the hard part was actually not getting the fish but getting the fish out of the water. I got 2 fish altogether and i got a further 2 more, however as i tried to pull them up i couldnt do it, and they got away, it was so annoying, However i think it will become part of my daily,
Now i am off to friday prayer, which is one of my favorite moments of the day...
I just got back from a mad rushed prayer, I normally pray at this mosque called fanaar which i beleive translates to light house, however i maybe wrong, anyway today i couldnt make it as i was bumming about after fishing, and started watching face-off, i know lame reason, aneway i went to a few mosques but they all had jus finsihed friday prayer, then i drove past one of the largest mosques in doha, ABu Bakr al Siddiqui mosque and fortunatly they had just started so i tried to find parking but i couldnt as it was packed out, so what i love bout this country is that it stops for prayer, and so i just parked up like loads of other people in the middle of the road and jus started praying, no worries bout traffic wardens jus raggoah parking, u got to love it!
Aneway im off to football now...
I just got back from football we played in the searing heat, it was a good game then ended with my team losing by 3 goals, however i set up 3 of our goals and in the dying seconds I had a 30 yard shot saved off the line, which would have caped a wonderful display!! lol! if i say so myself!
Its only 3.30pm and I have done so much already...
So I am back and its the end of my favourite day of the week, after my last writing, i went and had a shower and had an Arabic class with my teacher Mohammad, who incidently has become like my new sidekick, as we have a lot of common interests mainly pro evo and footy so we been spending alot of time together. Which is even more surprising since he is from Lebanon, which is one my most disliked countries in the respect the people who come from it and so for me to like him is quiet amazing.
Aneway then I spent the evening jud chillin and it was really nice, especially as i had previous night, as i was getting through some personal stuff, and i didn’t manage to sleep very well but inshallah (God willin)
Aneway thats enough for today inshallah ill write again soon...
So I am back and its the end of my favourite day of the week, after my last writing, i went and had a shower and had an Arabic class with my teacher Mohammad, who incidently has become like my new sidekick, as we have a lot of common interests mainly pro evo and footy so we been spending alot of time together. Which is even more surprising since he is from Lebanon, which is one my most disliked countries in the respect the people who come from it and so for me to like him is quiet amazing.
Aneway then I spent the evening jud chillin and it was really nice, especially as i had previous night, as i was getting through some personal stuff, and i didn’t manage to sleep very well but inshallah (God willin)
Aneway thats enough for today inshallah ill write again soon...
I have just got back from a 3 hour early morning session of fishing, i caught my first ever fish on my own, i was so proud and happy.
It was easier in some ways than i imagined, as i thought it would be a lot more complex trying to get the fishing rod ready and getting fish, however the hard part was actually not getting the fish but getting the fish out of the water. I got 2 fish altogether and i got a further 2 more, however as i tried to pull them up i couldnt do it, and they got away, it was so annoying, However i think it will become part of my daily,
Now i am off to friday prayer, which is one of my favorite moments of the day...
I just got back from a mad rushed prayer, I normally pray at this mosque called fanaar which i beleive translates to light house, however i maybe wrong, anyway today i couldnt make it as i was bumming about after fishing, and started watching face-off, i know lame reason, aneway i went to a few mosques but they all had jus finsihed friday prayer, then i drove past one of the largest mosques in doha, ABu Bakr al Siddiqui mosque and fortunatly they had just started so i tried to find parking but i couldnt as it was packed out, so what i love bout this country is that it stops for prayer, and so i just parked up like loads of other people in the middle of the road and jus started praying, no worries bout traffic wardens jus raggoah parking, u got to love it!
Aneway im off to football now...
I just got back from football we played in the searing heat, it was a good game then ended with my team losing by 3 goals, however i set up 3 of our goals and in the dying seconds I had a 30 yard shot saved off the line, which would have caped a wonderful display!! lol! if i say so myself!
Its only 3.30pm and I have done so much already...
So I am back and its the end of my favourite day of the week, after my last writing, i went and had a shower and had an Arabic class with my teacher Mohammad, who incidently has become like my new sidekick, as we have a lot of common interests mainly pro evo and footy so we been spending alot of time together. Which is even more surprising since he is from Lebanon, which is one my most disliked countries in the respect the people who come from it and so for me to like him is quiet amazing.
Aneway then I spent the evening jud chillin and it was really nice, especially as i had previous night, as i was getting through some personal stuff, and i didn’t manage to sleep very well but inshallah (God willin)
Aneway thats enough for today inshallah ill write again soon...
So I am back and its the end of my favourite day of the week, after my last writing, i went and had a shower and had an Arabic class with my teacher Mohammad, who incidently has become like my new sidekick, as we have a lot of common interests mainly pro evo and footy so we been spending alot of time together. Which is even more surprising since he is from Lebanon, which is one my most disliked countries in the respect the people who come from it and so for me to like him is quiet amazing.
Aneway then I spent the evening jud chillin and it was really nice, especially as i had previous night, as i was getting through some personal stuff, and i didn’t manage to sleep very well but inshallah (God willin)
Aneway thats enough for today inshallah ill write again soon...
Saturday, March 22, 2008
Another week passes by...
All,
Its been a pretty hectic week for me since my last post, well I started a new Islamic study circle on Tuesday nights at my house, which had its first speaker on tuesday and i hope inshallah (God willing) that it will continue and not fade out like so many other things i start much to my own fault as well as the people who are part of the group or event...well heres hoping.
I been also planning my holidays this summer, now that my life has been forced to take a profound meaning and way, at present im in the search of that new way, however i have come up with some possible solutions or things that i would like to do with my life, one of which is to complete an MBA, visit Al-Aqsa and pray a friday prayer there, drive from Doha to London, and thats jus some of the intital targets I have had or ways to find some fullfillment in my life, i know there is no real fullfillement in life without love, and that Love is found for me with God, the Prophets and my family. I have the first two not to the extent i would like but i do, but i dont have the third, which may surprise some, but i dont mean my parents and sister but i mean my own family where im the head of the family however i have no idea when i will reach this target or part of my life...
Talking of love, and relationships, well I know in my relgion it states its wrong to go out with a girl/guy of even socialise with the opposite sex in a playful way, i understand the reasoning behind this and its a preventative measure to ensure that illicit relations to not start and therefore sex before marriage does not occur, however its not so black and white and relationships are very difficult, I was listening to an Islamic CD where it was stating how because of complexities in our society and traditions means that getting a marriage is a lot harder than it used to be and so people are bound to go into relationships because of the situation which doesnt make it right but at least there is reasoning behind it...I will elaborate more soon on this topic especially as its so close to my heart...
Take care
Asif
Its been a pretty hectic week for me since my last post, well I started a new Islamic study circle on Tuesday nights at my house, which had its first speaker on tuesday and i hope inshallah (God willing) that it will continue and not fade out like so many other things i start much to my own fault as well as the people who are part of the group or event...well heres hoping.
I been also planning my holidays this summer, now that my life has been forced to take a profound meaning and way, at present im in the search of that new way, however i have come up with some possible solutions or things that i would like to do with my life, one of which is to complete an MBA, visit Al-Aqsa and pray a friday prayer there, drive from Doha to London, and thats jus some of the intital targets I have had or ways to find some fullfillment in my life, i know there is no real fullfillement in life without love, and that Love is found for me with God, the Prophets and my family. I have the first two not to the extent i would like but i do, but i dont have the third, which may surprise some, but i dont mean my parents and sister but i mean my own family where im the head of the family however i have no idea when i will reach this target or part of my life...
Talking of love, and relationships, well I know in my relgion it states its wrong to go out with a girl/guy of even socialise with the opposite sex in a playful way, i understand the reasoning behind this and its a preventative measure to ensure that illicit relations to not start and therefore sex before marriage does not occur, however its not so black and white and relationships are very difficult, I was listening to an Islamic CD where it was stating how because of complexities in our society and traditions means that getting a marriage is a lot harder than it used to be and so people are bound to go into relationships because of the situation which doesnt make it right but at least there is reasoning behind it...I will elaborate more soon on this topic especially as its so close to my heart...
Take care
Asif
Saturday, March 15, 2008
Islamic View on Judging and Hardships...
All,
It is hard sometimes to not Judge and when we do judge its even harder to judge in a positive manner as we are so often to quick to say this person is like or this person is like that...Especially when it goes to think this person has it easy or hard. Hardship can be found in many different ways, not just monetary but also in terms of friendship and relationship...
Someone sent the below to me which may help you to understand how Judging and hardship should be seen in Islam:
The Prophet (saw) said, "On the Day of Judgement the Scales will be placed
and the people of prayer will be brought forward and they will be
compensated according to the Scales; then the people of fasting will be
brought forward and they will be compensated according to the Scales; then
the people of hajj will be brought forward and they will be compensated
according to the Scales; and then the people afflicted with hardships and
calamities [in the dunya] will be brought forward and the Scales will not
be used for them nor will their records be brought out, and they will be
given their reward without any account, so much so that the people who used
to be free of worries and calamities would wish that they were in their
position, such is the immensity of their reward from Allah the Exalted."
--------------------------------------------------------------------
Umar (ra) said, "I swear by Allah! I have never been tested by hardship
except that Allah bestowed upon me due to it four blessings - the first is
that I was not tested through a sin; the second, that the hardship was not
greater than it was; the third, I wasn't deprived of being contented with
it; the fourth, I hope that I will be rewarded for it."
- both from Imam Ibn Hajr's book on Preparing for the Day of Judgement.
-------------------------------------------------------------------------------
When we look at those who are achieving all that they wish for, we should remember the verse in the Quran that tells us - their enjoyment may not benefit them, in fact it may be the greatest loss that they experience. In the next life, or even years from now, you will realise that the way things happened was so much better for you than the way they could have happened. As for the resulting bitterness you may feel right now, I know it may not seem like it at the moment, but every trial places within us a humility and a sense of detachment from the world, which reminds us of who we truly are, and what place we have in the universe. Strength can only develop in your character when you go through difficult times, and these times are preparing you and making you a stronger, more resilient, wiser and mature human being inshaAllah. If any person hurts us, if a thorn pricks us, we are the ones rewarded. You are being granted many precious gifts by the grace of Allah. Every moment of sadness brings us closer to Allah, and we are reminded that He tests those whom He loves. What could be more precious than the love of our Creator.
Adios for now...
It is hard sometimes to not Judge and when we do judge its even harder to judge in a positive manner as we are so often to quick to say this person is like or this person is like that...Especially when it goes to think this person has it easy or hard. Hardship can be found in many different ways, not just monetary but also in terms of friendship and relationship...
Someone sent the below to me which may help you to understand how Judging and hardship should be seen in Islam:
The Prophet (saw) said, "On the Day of Judgement the Scales will be placed
and the people of prayer will be brought forward and they will be
compensated according to the Scales; then the people of fasting will be
brought forward and they will be compensated according to the Scales; then
the people of hajj will be brought forward and they will be compensated
according to the Scales; and then the people afflicted with hardships and
calamities [in the dunya] will be brought forward and the Scales will not
be used for them nor will their records be brought out, and they will be
given their reward without any account, so much so that the people who used
to be free of worries and calamities would wish that they were in their
position, such is the immensity of their reward from Allah the Exalted."
--------------------------------------------------------------------
Umar (ra) said, "I swear by Allah! I have never been tested by hardship
except that Allah bestowed upon me due to it four blessings - the first is
that I was not tested through a sin; the second, that the hardship was not
greater than it was; the third, I wasn't deprived of being contented with
it; the fourth, I hope that I will be rewarded for it."
- both from Imam Ibn Hajr's book on Preparing for the Day of Judgement.
-------------------------------------------------------------------------------
When we look at those who are achieving all that they wish for, we should remember the verse in the Quran that tells us - their enjoyment may not benefit them, in fact it may be the greatest loss that they experience. In the next life, or even years from now, you will realise that the way things happened was so much better for you than the way they could have happened. As for the resulting bitterness you may feel right now, I know it may not seem like it at the moment, but every trial places within us a humility and a sense of detachment from the world, which reminds us of who we truly are, and what place we have in the universe. Strength can only develop in your character when you go through difficult times, and these times are preparing you and making you a stronger, more resilient, wiser and mature human being inshaAllah. If any person hurts us, if a thorn pricks us, we are the ones rewarded. You are being granted many precious gifts by the grace of Allah. Every moment of sadness brings us closer to Allah, and we are reminded that He tests those whom He loves. What could be more precious than the love of our Creator.
Adios for now...
Wednesday, March 12, 2008
The Balance of Life...Karma vs God.
All,
Well last night saw Liverpool qualify for the Champions League and Inter, oh my beloved Inter get knocked out, i was so annoyed, they got someone sent off in both legs for some gay referee decisions, but that happens all the time and though it does annoy me you can benefit, like Utd got screwed on Saturday against Portsmouth but the ref and linesman saved us against Tottenham last year with that goal that was disallowed even though it went over the line... So much like life i believe things in football eventually even themselves out...
I dont know how Islam and Karma fit intogether but i believe myself that everything you do and happens to you will result in a consequence, like for example if I steal some money den i think at some point in my life i will lose that or greater sum of money, by such means as a bad investment, physical loss, its stolen from me as well, it can be anything however the difference i think between Islam and Karma is that Islam deems that as being God being Just whereas Karma believes its the universe in action... so like this i would never cheat on someone as i feel someone could cheat on me and i would hate that and as far as i know noone has so i been blessed at least in that department! lol blessed as in cheating is so common now days...at least in my walk of life...
So there you have it for today...take care
Well last night saw Liverpool qualify for the Champions League and Inter, oh my beloved Inter get knocked out, i was so annoyed, they got someone sent off in both legs for some gay referee decisions, but that happens all the time and though it does annoy me you can benefit, like Utd got screwed on Saturday against Portsmouth but the ref and linesman saved us against Tottenham last year with that goal that was disallowed even though it went over the line... So much like life i believe things in football eventually even themselves out...
I dont know how Islam and Karma fit intogether but i believe myself that everything you do and happens to you will result in a consequence, like for example if I steal some money den i think at some point in my life i will lose that or greater sum of money, by such means as a bad investment, physical loss, its stolen from me as well, it can be anything however the difference i think between Islam and Karma is that Islam deems that as being God being Just whereas Karma believes its the universe in action... so like this i would never cheat on someone as i feel someone could cheat on me and i would hate that and as far as i know noone has so i been blessed at least in that department! lol blessed as in cheating is so common now days...at least in my walk of life...
So there you have it for today...take care
Tuesday, March 11, 2008
Start of something special...
All,
I have muchos to say about my life and where it is at the moment but i do not want to get into it to much not aqll now but slowly over time, i have decided to try to write at least once a week on the blog which wont be as hardcore as it used to be where i used to do 9 a month, not with all my restrictions on my time...
So I jus got back from my rest and relaxation trip and a lot happened in it, and i did alot of things and my life though in many ways seems in tatters seems more certain on things and i feel i have much more direction in my life despite being in a precarious position in some aspects of my life...
aneway enuff for now, i will expand next time...
I have muchos to say about my life and where it is at the moment but i do not want to get into it to much not aqll now but slowly over time, i have decided to try to write at least once a week on the blog which wont be as hardcore as it used to be where i used to do 9 a month, not with all my restrictions on my time...
So I jus got back from my rest and relaxation trip and a lot happened in it, and i did alot of things and my life though in many ways seems in tatters seems more certain on things and i feel i have much more direction in my life despite being in a precarious position in some aspects of my life...
aneway enuff for now, i will expand next time...
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