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Monday, May 30, 2016

Bait Al Othman Museum - New Sections

A reader suggested I check out the new section of the museum that opened recently so I took my friend and her children to visit and show them my favorite museum. There have been many changes since my last post and I was so excited to see the additional areas. There is now a place for children to color old Kuwaiti characters as seen below.

This is a display of the Kuwaiti 'yalwa' wedding
 New section of the museum


A lot of the items have been donated by families and you will see their names on gold tags attached to the items

 There is now a cafe set in a dwaniya type room which is beautifully decorated
 You can order tea, coffees and juices while eating dates and sweets


 Sports Authority room


 This is the best part of the new wing, it is made to look like the desert with real birds flying around
 There are ducks, finches, fancy pigeons and other types of birds running around

 I met with Mr. Anwar Al Refai who took us to a secret area under construction. This is the attached home of one of the wives of Abdullah Al Othman which is being turned into a hotel and GCC exhibit hall. The lower rooms will each represent the five GCC countries while the top will have four hotel suites decorated with traditional Kuwaiti furniture.

 Mr. Refai also gave us a sneak peak of a new room about to open dedicated to Abdullah Mubarak Al Sabah which includes his personal items, furniture and pictures.

The entrance fee is 1KD which goes back into the museum as government funding and support is minimal if any. Historical landmarks are not on the top list of priorities (Bayt Lothan for example) even though everyone wants more tourism, rather building huge hotels (that will probably never be filled) and restaurants are more of a hot commodity now. News flash! No one wants to travel to the Middle East to eat hamburgers or cupcakes!

3 comments:

  1. Oh cool definitely on my list of place to check out (I love museums!)

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  2. Government support for the museum is not minimum. There is an entrance fee because many expats used to come to the museum and sit there with their families to take advantage of the air conditioning and free refreshments: https://books.google.com/books?id=EkAnDAAAQBAJ&pg=PA140&lpg=PA140

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  3. The museum became so crowded from people taking advtange of the free hospitality, that is why the entrance fee was instituted: https://books.google.com/books?id=EkAnDAAAQBAJ&pg=PA140&lpg=PA140

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