A Night Out

I will apologize up front. My camera takes terrible night pictures and even some of the day pictures are getting worse.

I went with a group tonight to downtown Doha to eat and do a little shopping at the souqs. One of the places a lot of groups stop at is a restaurant called "Kabob King." It's pretty awesome. Good food, prices are decent and the staff appreciates our steady business.

Dinner....mutton, lamb and chicken platter with garlic naan, 3 types of hummus, chicken "lollipos" and butter chicken (a little Indian mixed with Arabic)

For those that have never been to the Middle East, they're not big on toilet paper...as in...they don't use toilet paper, nor do they offer it in most establishments. I won't get into the gory details but apparently they've had issues with westerners using paper towels as TP and clogging the toilets. I thought this was kinda funny. Let's just say...it's best practice to use the facilities BEFORE leaving home, at all cost.

The souqs are kind of a flea market if you're not familiar. There are themed souqs, like the gold souq, the electronic souq etc. The one we went to is called the "New Souq" and they sell mostly kitschy things like fabrics, arabic clothing, some food and spices, tea and pets... There's allegedly a part of this souq that sells falcons. I don't think Hannah would be happy if I brought home a bird of prey. She prefers to be the only hunter in the house. Here are some of the sights.

This picture is terrible, I know...sorry. This is one of the aisles, selling fabrics.

More fabrics

This is a cool tower...not sure of the significance, as it's definitely not the prayer tower (minaret).

There was a little song and dance thingy going on. These guys were bouncing up and down like a middle eastern Lord of the Dance

The souqs are open late at night because in the summer no one shops during the day. It will routinely get up to 120-130 degrees with 80+ percent humidity. Apparently this is one of the most miserable places in the middle east in the summertime. It's still pretty cool out at night here right now..but we've already seen 90 during the day in the last week.

This is the Islamic Cultural center. I didn't know it until after I took a picture that we're not supposed to photograph it...oops. It's a cool looking building.

An open air seating area with a couple of restaurants to sit and have tea/desert and....

Hookah!!

When in Qatar, do as the Qataris do....