Back in Canada….

Wow, almost a year since my last post… but I am back in Canada.  Will stay here for another few years hopefully, and then move to where life takes me.

ONAMI – A Tea-totallers Tale.

WestGate Mall is the pinnacle of Kenyan Architecture, Chique and Consumerism.

Therefore, it is not surprising to find some of the ‘creme – de-la- creme’ businesses positioning themselves in every nook and cranny of the mall.

One of these , is the newly opened, Onami.

Japanese restaurants have sprung up all over Nairobi, Sushi seems to be the Ugali of the upper crust and Onami seems to be vying to be one of the top restaurants in the country, but miserably falls flat on it’s face.

I walked in there last night with the wife, with no expectations and was pleasantly surprised by the decor and ambiance.  There were quite a few tables occupied -  busy for a Wednesday night.

I just wanted a quick nibble, nothing to heavy so I ordered sushi, the wife ordered some tea, beef and sushi.  One thing we noticed was there was a starters/main course menu and a wine list.  No drinks or dessert showed in any of their literature…

Food came – it was ok, nothing spectacular – quite a bit of rice vinegar in the sushi, and a miniscule helping of prawn in my ebi maki.  Desert, Chocolate Fondant, was the best thing we had there.

The shock came when I got the bill.

Everything else was ok, except that the tea cost Kshs 440(approx USD $ 5.5).  I consider that daylight robbery for hot water with a few leaves in it, so I called up the waitress and asked her what was up…. Her reply was ” I told you guys to share the tea…” Not sure what that meant, I told her that it didn’t justify the price of the tea and if she could explain why it cost that much.  I told her I don’t mind paying for it if the tea was rare, but we really couldn’t understand why it was costing that much.  Compared to everything else on the menu, the tea was almost the same  price  as of the steak, moreoever, there was nothing on the menu showing the cost..

The manager was called and he couldnt answer any of our questions.  He went an got the supervisor, a short bald  guy, to explain what the story behind the tea was… and all he said was he would look into it…. and walked away…. and hung around the place doing absolutely nothing.

Out came the camera and we started taking pictures of the tea and the receipt and he saw it happening.

This must have triggered some action from him cos he came up right away with a complimentary dessert and said he would look into the bill…. and did nothing…

For me, service in a place is the life and soul.  I could eat in a dingy restaurant and still enjoy the meal if the service was good.

In the end, I was tired of waiting and not in the mood to cause a scene.  I just paid the bill and walked out with a sour taste in my mouth(yeah the vinegar in the sushi was that strong.. ).

Anyway, just goes to show that more than one person has had a bad experience in this place. I really hope that the restaurant is served some Kenyan justice, and is avoided( like what happened to Blue Times and Cosmic etc) and the patronage can spend their monies in other (plenty of) well deserving restaurants around Nairobi.

Canadian gets scammed by 419ers

Douchebag in tears…

Check out this link showing how a Canadian, John Rempel,  got scammed by 419 conmen from Nigeria.

I really thought that people stopped falling for this years ago….

This douchebag must be really stupid..

Big-ups to Windsor Star for pics and story..

Raila – The New President of Kenya?

Check out this goof up by CNN, stating that Raila Odinga is the President of Kenya.

Stupid Americans… you think that they’d pay a little more attention with their president being ‘HALF-Kenyan’.

http://edition.cnn.com/2009/WORLD/europe/01/29/us.iran/index.html

Happy New Year!!!

Hello Readers,

I just relocated to Kenya from Dubai, and I have to say, its a fucking culture shock being back here and actually living here.

Lots to say, now that I have internet at home (finally!), but just want to wish everyone a happy 2009!

Expense Calculator

Found this amazing Expense Calculator from XE.com. A very useful tool for those of you who travel to different countries a lot.

It has a database of historical exchange rates as well as hidden charge adjustments to make sure that you claim the correct amount every time.

Here’s the link..

“Lara Croft” Alison Carroll In Mall of Emirates, Virgin

I walked into Virgin yesterday, and saw a huge stage with Tomb Raider Posters around it. It turned out that the new Lara Croft, Alison Carroll, was going to show up there. So wifey, cousin and I got invited to the VIP section and sat around till she showed up. Alison is the new poster-woman for the franchise starring in the upcoming Underworld game.

I haven’t seen any other real life models around which the game had been developed, so I am not an expert on commenting; however, Alison looked like any other girl that you might bump in the bar or the train, but a little glammed-up. Anyway, she was nice enough to answer our questions (I am sure she’s paid to do that ….) and we took a few pics with her and were even interviewed on MTV.

All in a day’s work, this is the second celeb I have bumped into in Mall of Emirates.

Kenya spare some change?

I was in Kenya for work last week, with some colleagues who were travelling to the country for the first time.

We were in Tanzania before and they were complaining about how unfriendly Tanzanians were.  Being the proud Kenyan that I am, I immediately told them about how friendly Kenyans were and how we always have a smile on our faces.

Immediately upon landing in Nairobi Airport, we were greeted with a smile …… and an open palm.

I tried to tell my colleagues that bribery was a part of Africa and people would find any reason to get money from your, but the manner in which it was done was brash and unabashed.  Like taking a bribe was a part of life and part of the immigration process.

It didn’t stop there.  It seemed that all of Kenya, or Nairobi(Nai – robbery) was looking at any way to squeeze money from visitors there. From the Bellboys to the Cab drivers to “Five Star” Hotels, everyone seemed to be out to gyp visitors out of their money.  Case in point – many of the hotels in Nairobi – (Serena, Intercon) used to charge a set amount for a bed and breakfast.  Now they charge USD$ 25 for breakfast – which is cereal, eggs, sausages and bread.  For Kenya, even with the economic status of the world currently, this is exorbitant! The least a hotel can do, after paying over USD $ 200  a night at a ‘five’ star hotel is feed you breakfast!

At one of the restaurants in Nairobi, The Tamarind, a waiter told us about his daughter getting married and he was expecting a big fat tip from us.  Not that I haven’t heard this story before, but how it was propositioned was a shock to me. He literally asked us to give him money.

We were there for three days and in the course, asking for money in one form or another was a repeat performance by Kenyans.  My colleagues left Kenya with a soiled image of Kenyans.

To me, it was a shock.  I kept on thinking about how we had come to this position.  From what I see, there are two layers to this.  The outer one is trying to exploit visitors as much as possible and the inner one is the easiest way to make money – begging.  Maybe our reliance on tourism was taking a negative turn for us.  It seemed like we have corrupted our morality and our humility to get here.  Then I got thinking about the fact that the govt. of Kenya doing the exact same thing with the World Bank.  Getting on its knees and begging for handouts.  It was appalling.  No wonder, many Kenyans don’t have any shame in begging.

I don’t know, maybe its the fact that I have been out of the country for far too long.

We have so many resources, industries, stability and it is a shock to see people doing these things. If we cannot pull our act together, there are many beautiful places in the world that tourists can head to.  If our tourism industry is in a decline we only have ourselves to blame for exploiting and disgusting tourists out of the country.

The funniest wideo I have seen in a long time..

Or .. how to move without moving!

Why we are messed up…

For those that watched this show as kids in the 80’s, get a kick out of this … I remember watching Rainbow everyday on TV growing up.. haha