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
Friday, December 05, 2008
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
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