Review of the Kivi Milimani apartment in NairobI, Kenya

(Kivi) milimani apartment (nairobi, Kenya) review

Contact

Adres: Milimani Rd, off Ralph Bunche Road, Nairobi – Kenya

Tel. +254-20-2722358,

+254-20-2711245

Email: info@kivimilimanihotel.com or

reservations@kivimilimanihotel.com

http://www.kivimilimanihotel.com/

I will try to be as comprehensive and complete in this review as I possibly can.

How I ended up at the apartment

Because I had no prior experience with hotels and apartments in Kenya I tried to do my research online. I found very many hotels and apartments in different price ranges and as a student I needed a cheap and good place to stay. The reason I settled on an apartment instead of a hotel was because I was travelling with my boyfriend and I would have people visiting me there.

I first tried to find an apartment through a company I found online. The woman that was supposed to help me was not very professional and would not contact me without me first sending her multiple emails. Thereafter my friend brought me in contact with a touring company that found and booked the apartment for me.

My first problem with the apartment management

Because I would be travelling in December I needed to pay for the apartment in full to reserve it. Due to personal problems, I thought that I would be unable to make the trip. I made contact with the apartment and tried to get my money back but it was not possible. I was told that the terms and conditions did not allow for refunds. I alerted them to the fact that there were no terms and conditions on the website and that they could not hold me to something they did not present me with.

After asking for the manager (a mister Adongo?), he agreed with me and promised to refund me my money. That did not happen, all of a sudden, the man responsible for the accounts, a mr. Gupta was not at work and could never be found. This was very interesting to me because when they were taking my money there was no problem but come time to refund the money they were being sneaky about it. Luckily I was able to go anyway. This was after more than a month of trying to get my money back.

First impressions:

In this section I will only deal with the first impressions I had of the surroundings, the lobby, the pool area, the staff and the apartment.

The surroundings:

The area around the kivi milimani is one of the safest places to walk around during the day as a tourist (Do not venture outside the gates at night or when it’s dark).  There are several taxi cabs infront of the apartment and you won’t have to search really hard for safe transport. The area is beautiful with several other apartments in the area. The apartment is within walking distance of the city center, the Serena hotel, the Stanley hotel, the Hilton hotel and Uhuru park.

The Lobby terrace and pool area:

The apartments are part of a hotel. The lobby is stunning. The floors are beautiful and gleaming, the chandeliers are very beautiful.

The terrace next to the restaurant is simply stunning and looks every bit like the pictures on the hotel website. The pool area is also very beautiful and has a small bar next to it.

The staff

The staff is super, super friendly.

The apartment:

The apartment was definitely a shock. The whole apartment is very old and in dire need of a renovation.

All the furniture is old and needs to be replaced. The couches were old and uncomfortable and  the chairs had tears in them.

 The kitchen was very, very old and had no cutlery or crockery. You could choose between gas and electricity (more about that later in the article).

The bathroom was very pretty but the bath tub was very old and should be removed.

The bedroom is nice, the bed is creaky but comfortable, the closet is okay with a padlock slot to store your valuables and store your clothing.

My experience

My arrival and the begging of a bad start

After arriving at the apartment I was suddenly told that I was to pay a deposit. The manager did not tell me about a deposit any time during my correspondence with him and I promptly refused to pay the full amount. I paid the amount in euros and proceeded to the apartment.

When I arrived at the apartment and it was not as clean as I like my surroundings to be. I had no plates, cups, glasses or any other cookware. The sheets in the bed were dirty and the bathroom needed to be cleaned.

Although the website states that the hotel and apartments have wireless internet, they do not mention that it comes at a price of 200 Kenyan shillings per half hour and 300 Kenyan shillings per hour and that the tv in the apartment costs 100 Kenyan shillings per day.

There are no telephones in the apartments so every time you need the reception, you need to walk all the way to them. We were on the third floor and there is also no lift so that also meant going up and down the stairs. In the first few days, I went up and down the stairs getting my problems resolved.

The staff was very helpful and they cleaned the floor, the closets, the cabinets and most of the furniture in the apartment. The bedding and towels were changed and the cookware and gas was brought.

Our stay there:

The restaurant has good food and the main meals cost between 450 and 900 kenya shillings. We had most of our meals at the terrace or by the pool. The temperatures are good all day and night and are perfect for sitting at the terrace. The terrace is divided by beautiful plants and makes for a very private yet open setting.

Training of an escort/ courtesan

Recently I finally watched 'memoirs fo a geisha' and this beautiful movie sent me online looking for more information about modern day geishas.

I bumped into three categories: callgirls, escorts and courtesans/ geishas. This got me wondering about  what makes all these women different. After some deepre digging I cam up with this very summarized answer to the 3 categories.

Call girls usually have the cheapest rates, work through agencies and are mostly about sex. The meetings between the girls and the men are usually no longer than a couple of hours and the women are usually not meant to do anything more than physically and visuallpy please the men. Call girls tend to see any men n  a month.

Escorts are a cross between callgirls and courtesans because their meetings usually incllude some wining and dining before the physical activities begin. Escorts work both independently and through agencies, are mor eexpensive and are required to have some level of social skills next to their physical and sexual atributes. The socual skills are necessary as the escorts might be employed to escort their clients to social functions. Escors generally charge more than call girls but less than courtesans.

Courtesans/ geishas are the most expensive companions. Courtesans are expected to posses excellent social skills,  knowledge on a broad range of subjects, have a good grasp of manners and ettiquete and they are also expected to have a suitable and polished look for different environments.

With regards to courtesans, I have to wonder what will make a man pay more than 3000 dollars for the company of a woman. What do these women know that I don't about men and people in general?

I have bumped into many books and courses promising to turn me into every man's dream woman, a social butterfly, liked by everyone etc. Eventhough i'm very successfull with men and peOple in general, I have to wonder if there is something I will learn from these books that will make my interactions with people more pleasaruble.

In the coming posts I will share with you my journey in learning the tools of the trade (for personal use) and I would love to hear tips, tricks and more from you.

Could Osama Bin Laden have been taken alive?

Mr. Bin Laden was  without a doubt a man willing to sacrifice human lives to accomplish what he wanted. He killed thousands of people and he would have probably killed many more if he had lived longer, but the question still remains, could he have been taken alive?

I do not know what happened during his arrest and I probably never will. What I do wonder however is if his death could have been avoided. This man caused a lot of damage and grief, couldn’t he be brought before his victims to explain to them why he did what he did? Couldn’t he have hard labor for the rest of his life to punish him for what he had done?

Many people rejoiced over his death but wouldn’t they have liked to see him suffer for what he had done. I believe that if he did not pose a threat to others in that moment, he should have been captured alive. Nobody has the right to take someone else’s life. He didn’t have that right and the people that took his didn’t have that right either unless it was to protect themselves or those around them at the time.

Besides the moral and ethical issues, I would like to know how he thinks. What made him turn into who he was? How can we as a people prevent others from turning into him? Was he just plain crazy? Was he an evil mastermind? Did he lack emotions that other humans have? What turns a man into a monster? These questions will never be answered and we will never get to examine his psychology so all that remains in the end is the legacy eh left behind. Terror and war all in the name of religion, when religion had nothing to do with his personal dislikes.

A new blogger is born

This blog is mostly about a 20 something girl, living in amsterdam trying to do it all, be it all and look great all at the same time.

Living in the city of sex, drugs and rock & roll sounds more exciting than it is. I do only one of three  activities and lead a fairly intereting life next to it. I am currently a student and The Netherlands is one of the best places anyone can study. The education isn't too expensive, there are student jobs available and depending on where you choose to live there is also student accomodation (Amsterdam has a waiting list that's at least 1 or 2 years long along with all the other big cities).

I have lived here for more than 10 years and I call myself a 'Kenyan dutch ' meaning that I am a Kenyan that turned Dutch in nationality but in spirit I am both. Many people feel that I have to choose one nationality and leave the other behind but the great thing about being a human being is the ability to contain more than one loyalty at a give time.

I am not the most patriotic or religious person because I belive that no race, ethnicity or religion is better than the other. I belive that at the end of the day, it's not up to me to call unto others to follow my faith (I am a catholic). I wasn't there in the beginning and I had no hand in creation and so I will not impose my belifs on you.

From time to time I will sound like I am a fan of a certain group, religion or idea, but that is my opinion and if you don't agree with it that's fine.

Many people will be alarmed and angered by my future posts as they will touch on religion, prostitution, gender roles, politics and others. My intention is not to convert you into my way of thinking or to shock and outrage. I do not want to be the voice of anyone or promote any agenda. I will simply share with you my thoughts on various topics that grab my attention from time to time.

Please bear with me during the first couple of blogs as I try to find my style.

Welcome to my world.