{ Owhh we're not going shopping. Just ritual market visit. Mummy ran out of chicken.Yawnnn!}

They also have cinema called Cinescape. Price range around KD 3 - KD 6 ( RM 30- RM 72) but I heard they have some promotion on Monday where price went down to KD 1.5 ( around RM 18). Never try so far, will try in future. Not near future though. I've waited or Eclipse. However luck was not on my side and they're not showing it anymore. After Eclipse, so far, no movie successfully tempted me enough to dig out RM 30 from my thin pocket and spent on them. I can get 1 Zara top for with that amount of money. After all, husband had subscribe Rapid-share yeayyy.. So thank you very much Cinescape. You can make someone else KD 3 poorer.

{ Cinescape. Hellooo..anybody home? }

{ The interior plus the cleaner plus Erin's back side }

{ I have thing with big red posters, written with giant capital letters SALE. I felt as if the poster was shouting and calling out my name. It is just rude not to reply and ignore when "someone" calling you, U know. At least that's what my mother taught me :). I had to, I repeat, I had to respond to them. I dun wanna be rude. }

{ See how big my smile. U won't see the same smile at the other side of Al-Kout kah kah kah}

{ Owh I forgot to mentioned this shop earlier above. For that, they deserved a picture. I swear I heard the mannequin calling my name when I passed "them". So disturbing *cough* *cough* }

{ Hi Ms Red, would you like to be mine? }

As much as I'm enjoying myself to the max at the mall side, at some point, eventually I'll get stare and sign from husband to make a move to the other side of Al-Kout. To where less interesting side where my eyes goes less smaller and my mouth less wider.

Well... here goes the boring part..... Once upon a time...

Al-Kout market was divided into 3 main sections. 1st is the vegetable and other stuff section. I'll explain " other stuff " shortly. 2nd was wet market where fresh fish, seafoods and chicken and meat and lamb waiting and calling your name asked to be picked. As weird as it can be, I dun hear any of them calling my name. So mystery ! 3rdly was household stuff.

This is where we get our vegetables, fruits, spices, nuts, almond, cheese, olive, sushis, bread, oil and others. They only selling 2 types of cooking oil here, which is sunflower seed's oil or Corn oil. If back home Mazolla is luxurious stuff, here you had no choice. However, they had local brands that comes with cheaper price tag. Other than vege, everything was " other stuffs" i mentioned earlier. See I promise to explained, I explained already. Hahaha...

Here, in this section also sells varieties of frozen food from burgers, meatball, chicken wing, fries, corn cob to whole grilled frozen turkey and chicken..and of course many many more. One thing I learn here, being in non-alcoholic country doesn't mean everything is halal. During my early days, I just pick any frozen food that I like without bother to check. I was like hello, they won't allow alcohol here, I'm pretty sure they have same rules for swine. Luckily, my husband told me, not everything here is Halal, we had to keep an eye on Halal signage and where the products originate from. So far, for frozen foods, Americana brands was confirmed Halal as the meat was slaughtered in Kuwait. You can also trust some local brand like Al-Areesh. There are some products from US or NZ with suspicious status, which are best to avoid since in Islam, if you're suspicious about some foods, it is best not to eat it. To prevent from eating something haram or came from unknown resources. Since they also have quite a number of Mat salleh, Minah Salleh who mostly US Army as a customer, importing goods from US, are considered marketing strategies and also for customer's satisfaction.

Living in country where none of the brands are familiar, you have to trust on your instinct and guts. Play trial and error is what we did. If one brand you tried doesn't taste nice, try other brand and so on till you found the brand that suits your taste bud most. But don't forget to remember each brand you've tried unless you wanna go in circle. For breads, the best is from Kuwait Flour Mills & Co. Their product always off the rack fast. They're like star in bread world here. Just like Gardenia. Their burger bread and white bread are the best so far. Sadly, their quality not yet reached Gardenia level. Till now, I haven't found bread soft enough, I can make Sardine rolls. Even bread I normally buy from Kuwait Flour Mills is quite soft, it tend to break when I tried to roll them. So husband have to satisfied with whatever shape the bread allowed me to everytime he desired for sardine roll hahaha.

Where you can get ur shampoo, ur kids shampoo, creams, cotton buds, duvette, bedsheets, pillow case, toiletries, toys, kitchen utensils, canned food, towels ..you know.. whatever your house needs. I had some funny yet mind-boggling experience here which make me more determined to enroll myself into Arabic class someday.

I was facing kid's shampoo and body wash rack, trying to decide which one to choose for my girls. Johnson & Johnson or Pureen or Schwarkopftz ( forget the spelling ) when suddenly one late 50's Kuwaitis man came to me with 2 tubes of nappy rashes cream. One was from Sebamed and another on is Johnson & Johnson. He was speaking Arabic to me and shoving off those 2 tubes to my face. Clearly, he was asking me which one is better of those 2 brands so I pointed at Sebamed and making thumb up sign, hopefully he gets what I wanted to say. Not enough with my signs, he kept talking and shoving those tubes to me.. I kept saying " Ana La' fahman Arabic ( Saya tak paham bahasa Arab/I dun understand Arabic) " but he kept talking in high tone. Pfffttt... I tried in English then : "Me, Arabic no good ! "... complete with hand and head movement I swear if other consumers saw us from distance, they will think I was speaking to deaf people. But he kept talking and talking. I just dunno what else to do. I wanted to leave him just like that but even 5 years know it's rude to do that. I stood there listening to him while kept trying to make him understand that I dun speak Arabic. My misery ends when my husband came by my side I felt like hugging him there hehe. I left the man and his issue to my husband. I guess he settled it then because the men left us with Sebamed nappy rashes cream in his hand. That's all ??? And didn't I show him that same tube in the first place?? Duhhhh...

Since Erin not yet 100 % potty trained, one of must buy thing is diapers. Before I arrived, my husband had made some research ( Okay, I forced him to actually ) and told me they sell Huggies here. We used Huggies in Malaysia. So mummy relieved, mummy not worry anymore. When we put that Huggies to real test, it proven that Huggies for Gulf Market was doubled in price but half in quality wise. It's too thin, it tend to leak and I think the absorbent doesn't really works coz Erin smelled "hancing" even I just changed her diapers less than hour before that. Frustrated, we changed to Pampers brand. There's only 2 familiar brands here anyway. Too bad, No Mamipoko here. Others are local brand like Darling and etc. 2 months using Pampers, I can safely say, the quality was okay, tolerable, no more unpleasant smell whatsoever. However, diapers back home still score highest point.

Things I like about wet market here was, the cleanliness and dry-ness. You won't go back with feet smelling like rotten fish, and soaked shoes. They wash the floor every 2-3 hours with soap water, trust me. It smells nice and look nice. Even the seller will wash their shop, counter top and glass door from any trace of blood frequently. The chicken was sell alive here. We get to pick which one of many chicken there that's going to be our dinner and they will slaughtered, cleaned, chopped and processed, all there. It took maybe around 10 minutes for them to prepare your chicken. They also sell fresh eggs from poultry.

{ Waiting for poor-scared chicken being process. Alis always get scared during this time. Look at her terrified face. She look as terrified as the chicken behind her. }

{ See the rooster on top of the rack. He was like " taiko" here we seen him regularly. He's definitely not for sale but I think as a guardian to other chicken. The owner will let him walk freely around the market where he will walk chest upfront and "berkokok" to passer by. So eksyennn la this one. }

Most of seller here are Egyptian or Syrian, I think, and all almost all are Muslim. It's their behaviour to greet customer with Assalamualaikum and then they'll ask for our name. When my husband told his name Mohd RXXX, they will go like "Masya allah, Mohammad, masya allah... U muslim? Yesss....Alhamdulillah...." . They also like to touch kids head and kiss their hands. At first it caused a little confusion to Alis and Erin as they were taught to kiss elders hand during salam, but here worked other way around. After some explanation, they get used to it already. When asked for the girls name, my husband always told them their second name, Nadeera and Saffiya coz Arabian prefers Arabic name. Me, during all this conversation took place, was just standing and smiling, keep my mouth shut and never interrupt. Just like a fine lady. They normally never look me in the eyes, maybe out of respect. They dun ask my name or anything coz in Kuwait's culture ( or maybe Arabic culture), it is rude to ask about someone's wife or daughters being. You just dun go to Kuwaitis and ask how's their wife or daughters and if you did, it can be counted as serious offensive act. So don't be ignorant. It's no harm to learn and care about local culture.

{ Meat shop. The whole row selling lamb. I have to keep an eye on my husband everytime we reach this part of the market. Even if I loose him for 5 second, he'll sneaked inside you-know-where shop picking the best rib, best bones and juiciest meat. I bet if I questioned him, he will say all those dead-skinless-hung lamb was calling his name, same like those 70 % sale posters did to me }

If you must know, Arabian doesn't know how to eat bones. Any sort of bones be it lamb or cow. So mostly, the seller will throw away the bones. If we lucky, we can get the bones for very low price and sometimes, if we buy meat from them and requested for bones, they just give it free of charge. Another thing to add to my note, cows are more expensive than lamb here unlike Malaysia, another reason for husband to smile wide.

I had questions from friends, readers and family asking about types of vegetables that we can get here. Well, they have kangkung (which also called kangkung , dun be surprised), carrot, brocolli, bean sprouts, sometimes kacang panjang, kacang buncis, cauliflower.. and that's about it.. at least that's all vege that familiar to me. Other's are just some green leaves that I dun know their name and never try to buy and cook. Sawi can be found in Lulu and Carrefour. Salad, and celery alsopretty easy get here. They also sells salad with roots still attached so you can just add water and your salad will stay fresh for weeks. They also have fresh rosemary and basil that sell in small vase it can last longer than processed one.

For seafoods, well prawns, crabs can be found daily. Fish not vary though. They have Bawal which called Zubaidi in Arab, red snapper seasonal.. tenggiri.. tuna.. squid, soft shell crab, kerisi and selar. Never found Pari and Parang so far, my mum will be devastated coz she's big fan of both Ps... For info, unlike our market, Q8 market fresh stock come after 2 pm. In Malaysia, housewives will go to pasar early morning to get the freshest catch. In Q8, if you go to their market early morning, you'll get yesterday's stock, still fresh nonetheless.. If you want the same day stock, come after 2pm.

So, that's all about it I guess. I hope it helps those who wants to come to Q8 but clue-less, just like me in the beginning. As a closing, below are one interesting shop I passed almost everyday, located somewhere near my house, maybe 300 metres or lesser. If some of you have interest with goods they're selling, just drop me an email and I can check for you the best price.

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Shop name : AL - GANNAS. Selling guns and bullets. Riffles anyone ?

P/S : I'm kidding about me voluntary to buy any item from above shop. I never think of going inside the shop, ever. Please dun take me seriously. I won't be responsible for any harm-done if you take me seriously :) . Peace no war ..