Shopping in the Souks by angiebabe
There are a number of large souks in the city - I particularly wanted to visit the 'Gold Souk' - Mubarak Souk as its one of the oldest ones rather than say Souk Sharq which is well signposted and advertised but its actually a huge new shopping centre with Debenhams and other places that can be found in London - Im sure it would be full of lovely Kuwaiti items - such as the lovely coffee set that the family I met and had dinner with my first night who had said it was probably from or could be found at Souk Sharq - but with limited time I made do with taking photos of the lovely waterside setting that Souk Sharq is in and then kept heading for Mubarak Souk in the city centre.It takes up a number of streets and the most central or covered area of it which seemed to be the food - meat and produce and vegetables and so - was busy with lots of shoppers - and then the outer streets full of clothing and household items, jewellery (one large area that had a lot of jewellery and particularly gold looking jewelleyr - maybe why its called the Gold Souk! - perfume shops and even gun shops.
An excellent place for roaming around and getting in amongst the locals though obviously unless you do look like a local you are going to stand out as a nonlocal or foreigner! but even still a great place for getting a feel of local life and for people watching.
As for shopping it probably is about haggling a bit - I didnt really see anything I wanted - some attractive silver or wooden boxes butwith enormous prices! - and when I found a shop that sold apple or mollasses flavoured tobacco for shisha the price quoted was like I told the guy one in which I might as well buy the stuff in London. 2.50 dinar which is £5.
