the souque wakif

this past friday i took advantage of my day off and one of the places i visited was the souque wakif. souque is the word for market here and the souque wakif is one of the oldest ones in the city. it has recently been rebuilt to look like its old self, but more structurally sound. there is a main road through it:

 along which there are many tourist and antique shops as well as cafes and shisha bars:

colourful shisha pipes

a few stores sold some really unique home decor pieces:

including these lights which i LOVED:

off topic - do you think it would work if i bought 3 or 5 in similar colours but of varying size and hung them in a cluster above my dining room table? i'm just waiting for mike to come to figure out if it could all get wired ok and then i'll bargain away!

so pretty!

beyond the main street are tons of back alleys filled with shops:

the qataris really love their flag

similar shops seemed to be grouped together and we saw stores selling everything from fabric, to perfumes to vacuums. one of the first sections we found was stores selling spices and candies:

they were all jam packed and like mini bulk barns. the most surprising section of the souque was the pet section:

this lady was buying herself some birds

there were all sorts of died chicks being sold as pets! (hot pink and bright yellow here)
i wonder if this is how the rooster ended up across the street?

amanda would have loved this section (ha!) - there were hundreds of bird cages filled with all sorts of birds. i found it really noisey and a bit overwhelming. caitlin and jocelyn loved it because they also sold kittens. they were all the super fluffy white ones like what you see in the toilet paper commercials.

we spent a few hours wandering the souque and didn't even get through it all. eventually we got hungry and so stopped for some fondue!

i'm very excited for the chocolate!

yum!

my green "cocktail" is a traditional drink that i've been introduced to: mint lemonade. it's so good! i really enjoyed wandering the souque and definitely want to go back before i leave.