The Not-So-Secret (in)sane Musings of a Kenyan

2011 update

momoneymoproblems — Fri, 24 Jun 2011 03:28:50 +0000

It’s been over a year since my last post. A lot has happened since then. Still in Canada – busy working away, but we now have a little boy who is the joy of our lives. He is 15 months old right now and growing fast! K and I are growing old! Our hands are full with him running around, he learned to situp, roll over, crawl and walk in the blink of an eye! He busily sucks up all the information that we throw at him and has learned to point and vocalize. Don’t have much time to do much with him around, and the blog is the last thing on my list of priorities. It’s been a great year, full of fun and awesome memories. Hope that good things continue to come our way. And if you read this K – I love you. Thank you for sharing this with me.

Bounty Hunter

momoneymoproblems — Thu, 11 Feb 2010 20:52:31 +0000

Just saw a bounty hunter taking a guy away in cuffs from an apprenticeship college right next to my work… It was bizzare cos you normally see people in cuffs with cops. The funny thing was the hunter was wearing duck hunting camo – in the city

Craigslist…? in Kenya?!

momoneymoproblems — Thu, 11 Feb 2010 20:48:13 +0000

Just found out that Craigslist.com is now available in a Kenyan flavor!

http://kenya.craigslist.org/

Just my luck to find out after I left…

The site has been a saviour to me since I moved back, I got a job, a car, furniture and apartments all thanks to Craigslist!

Back in Canada….

momoneymoproblems — Mon, 08 Feb 2010 15:32:07 +0000

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.

momoneymoproblems — Thu, 05 Mar 2009 12:05:54 +0000

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

momoneymoproblems — Wed, 04 Feb 2009 12:28:04 +0000

: 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?

momoneymoproblems — Wed, 04 Feb 2009 12:03:59 +0000

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!!!

momoneymoproblems — Fri, 09 Jan 2009 10:23:07 +0000

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

momoneymoproblems — Thu, 06 Nov 2008 12:15:48 +0000

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

momoneymoproblems — Thu, 30 Oct 2008 06:33:34 +0000

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.