Strolling Along the Corniche



Oil will inevitably come to an end in the region. How will the small emirate in the corner of the Arabian Gulf look in, say 30 years? As compared to Bahrain and Qatar, not to mention Dubai, Kuwait has definitely fallen behind as regards to developing alternatives. Endeavors are, however, considerable. Never having really been a touristic hub, Kuwait now tries hard to catch up.

The Waterfront Project has considerably beautified the seaside to the East and South of the Kuwait Towers, Bneid Al Qar, Sha’ab, East Hawalli, and Salmiya, but also to the North and West, up to Shuwaikh. The Corniche now roughly stretches between the famous Kuwaiti Towers and the Scientific Center in Salmiya, some ten km. Ninety percent of all expats of Kuwait are living in booming Salmiya. Salam Al Mubarak St., Kuwait's buzzing, but still somewhat cozy, main shopping street, is (and it is not a joke) called by many The Sultan Center St., since the city's main grocery store is located here. Besides typical American housewifes, rich Kuwaiti families are seen here, together with their house maids, shopping with already incredible amounts of food and stuff in their shopping carts. Towers are raised here and in other parts of the State of Kuwait at a fast pace, and whenever you return after long summer holidays, the view has changed.

Salmiya has become a major attraction for the Kuwaiti youths and tourists as well. The seaside is famous for the mighty Marina Mall, plenty of fancy restaurants, playing and sporting grounds, artificial harbors, five-star hotels, an excellent conference center, and the Scientific Center.
It can be very pleasant to stroll along the Corniche on a sunny Friday at the end of November when the very high temperatures during almost endless summer have dropped to bearable levels, and people meet for sport activities, hiking, or just enjoying life in Kuwait.


























Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

Lady Shatita

Image
In order to learn more about Shi’a Islam and the piety of ordinary people it would have been most helpful to visit at least some of the plenty of Emamzadehs (holy sites) all over Iran. So, it was a most welcome opportunity and, in fact, great honor when my Kuwaiti friends invited me to accompany them on their several bus trips in Khorasan on the occasion of their 2006 pilgrimage to the Holy City of Mashhad. Achaemenid, Parthian, and Sasanian Empires each embraced half of the then known world when they climaxed. And even when Iran was under the reign of Seleucids, Arabs, Seljuks, or Mongols, the Iranians imprinted their lifestyle and culture on the non-welcome invaders, who in any sense immensely benefited. So, the austere new religion Islam, which replaced Iran’s state religion Zoroastrianism, was fundamentally reorganized, and, as I see it as an outsider, filled with life. The rapid and shocking decline of the Sasanid Empire at the end of a century-long fight with Byzantium, and the
Read more

Persianization

Image
Kuwait’s Arab Times had attracted my attention to Esfahan’s gorgeous Great Mosque in an article in 2003. Unfortunately, I couldn’t find so far a webpage of the article which praised the wonders of Iran’s largest mosque and one of the most significant and finest buildings of the Islamic world. I visited the site the first time at my second trip to Esfahan in late spring of 2004. I took some pictures in the vast courtyard, soaked the peaceful atmosphere there, and watched the few visitors from Iran and elsewhere. I had forgotten about the many details of the article and faintly had read some of the notes in my travel guide. My second visit in late 2007 was driven by scientific interest. I had recently posted (at Freelance ) my rather amateurish studies and thoughts about a suggested ‘conceptual breakthrough’ in Islamic architecture and art in the late 15th century, i.e., quasi-crystalline tessellations, which had led to world-wide attention due to its publication in the Science magazine
Read more

Buyid Architecture in Esfahan

Image
Older than what is now visible in Esfahan’s Great Mosque (although the first mosque there was built in the 7th century) is what has remained of the Jurjir Mosque . The fragmentary façade of the Jurjir Mosque had been discovered during restoration work at Masjed-e Hakim in 1955. The fragment had been hidden for centuries behind a mud wall. The beautiful Hakim mosque itself is a Safavid mosque from the 17th century. The Jurjir façade is the only remains of a 10th century mosque which was commissioned by the Buyid (Buwayhid) vizier Al-Sahib ibn Abbad (d. 995), a Mutazilite scholar. The Buyid Dynasty, who ruled in Iraq and Iran, effectively brought the Abbasids era in Baghdad to an end. Although the Abbasids retained the caliphate, they were deprived of all secular power. Buyids were originally Zaydi, or Fiver Shi'as. They later began to lean closer to the nowadays dominating Twelver Shi'a branch of Islam. In general tolerant in religious matters, the Buyid rulers in Baghdad even
Read more