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...
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