Search: “1988”

If you follow me on Instagram then you know I went to the camel races yesterday. I’ll be updating my old post with new info tomorrow but for today I wanted to share a post by Mark Lowey, an ex Kuwait National Petroleum Company employee who recently wrote about his experience at the tracks back in 1988 when he and his wife were living in Kuwait.

Lots of pictures and a good write up, you can check out his post here.

A short video recorded back in 1988 showing various parts of Kuwait including the now-demolished Al Salam Building, Souk Mubarakiya, the stock exchange and Sultan Center (which looked a lot better than it does today). If you want to check out other videos recorded back in 1988 including one of ASK, click here.

via Reddit

While looking for old photos of Green Island I found a very interesting article on the whole waterfront development project that took place between 1978 and 1988. The Gulf Road was built on land reclaimed from the sea and part of that project was the development of the waterfront stretching 21KM from Seef Palace all the way down to where Scientific Center is today (check the map below).

As part of the waterfront project the Green Island was created and the article shares some of the backstory and design decisions related to it. The article is in PDF format and contains some pictures, so even if you don’t want to read it all you can skim through it and check out the photos. Here is a link to the [PDF]

The current state of the Green Island is very disappointing. I passed by a month or two ago and the place just looked sad and desolate. Not only that but security didn’t even want to let me in because I had a camera with me. They told me no photography was allowed, how stupid.

via Archnet

Someone uploaded an old report on the 1988 Kuwait International Rally. It’s 30 minutes long so I would recommend skimming through it unless you really want to watch it all. If you’re into old commercials then fast forward to the two commercial breaks, the first one starts at 13:35 while the second one starts at 22:18. Check out the video below.

[YouTube]

Video from the last day of school at ASK back in 1988. I didn’t know they had the bubble back then. Very cool video, wish I had a Sunshine School 1988 video.. [YouTube]

This is the last of the 3 part series. In this video we travel from Fahaheel to Abu Halifa and then take a tour of a grocery store from the inside. What’s cool is you get to see some old packaging like the old Aero chocolate packs that used to be brown, some old KDD packs, and a brief glimpse at my favorite corn flakes, Country Corn Flakes. Good stuff. [YouTube]

In case you missed them here are the first two parts
Fahaheel 1988
Abu Halifa 1988

Thanks Simon

Due to the great success of the video Abu Halifa 1988, they’ve released the sequel, Fahaheel in 1988. [YouTube]

Thanks Simon

Some random footage someone shot of Abu Halifa back in 1988 before the Gulf War. There is something eerie about the video. [YouTube]

I just found out about this incident (yes 20 years late) but I still found it very disturbing. In 1988 an American warship stationed in the Gulf shot down an Iranian airliner carrying 290 civilians killing everyone on board. The Americans thought it was an attacking F-14 Tomcat fighter. Whats even more fucked up is the Americans never admitted wrongdoing, accepted responsibility, nor apologized for the incident! I am not a big fan of Iran but this is sickening. [Link]

In 1988 a Kuwait Airways Boeing was hijacked and diverted to Algiers while on its way to Kuwait from Bangkok. The hijacking lasted 16 days and ended with a Naval Officer from the Kuwaiti Royal Family being killed along with another Kuwaiti military person. The Algerian authorities allowed the hijackers to escape in exchange for the remainder of the 110 people aboard to be set free. (Wikipedia)

This is a video sporty4ever uploaded on to YouTube which is of the plane returning back to Kuwait after the hijacking.

[YouTube]

I started watching Franklin this week, but couldn’t make it through the first episode. I did start watching X-Men ’97 and am loving it, for one it reminded me of Saturday mornings back when I lived in Canada, but also the plot is pretty good so I’m really enjoying it.

I watched the movie The Holdovers, it was good, don’t think I’d recommend it but it was fine. I’m a fan of Paul Giamatti but I remember I also found his movie Sideways by the same director also just fine even though it had gotten rave reviews back then.

Other than that I’m still watching Mr. & Mrs. Smith and just finished The Brothers Sun. Now deciding if I should start watching Obliterated or Baby Reindeer.

Let us know in the comments what you’ve been watching or planning to watch this weekend.

Movies at the Cinemas
The movies below are now showing at the local cinemas:

New This Week:
Bloodline Killer (7.5)
Inception (Classic/2010) (8.8)
The Fall Guy (7.3)
Who Framed Roger Rabbit (Classic/1988) (7.7)
Winnie-the-Pooh: Blood and Honey 2 (5.4)

Other Movies Showing:
Civil War (7.6)
Dune: Part Two (8.8)
Godzilla x Kong: The New Empire (6.5)
Kung Fu Panda 4 (6.4)
The First Omen (6.8)
The Ministry of Ungentlemanly Warfare (7.1)

The numbers in brackets refer to the IMDB rating at the time of publishing.

Two episodes of Masters of the Air is out on AppleTV+ and I watched both this week. The first episode was pretty slow and not that great, but things picked up in the second episode. As I’ve previously mentioned, I watched both Band of Brothers and The Pacific in preparation for Masters of the Air which is considered the third companion to the series. I feel it’s still too soon to judge the show with just two episodes out, so not sure how it already has an 8.0 on IMDB, but in any case, I’m looking forward to the third episode.

Let us know in the comments if you’ve watched anything interesting this week.

Movies at the Cinemas
The movies below are now showing at the local cinemas:

New This Weekend:
Argylle (6.2)
Cult Killer (5.3)
Riki Rhino (5.8)
The 100 Candles Game: The Last Possession (7.2)
Zodi & Tehu – Princes of the Desert (6.1)

Other Movies Showing:
Aquaman and the Lost Kingdom (6.0)
Bad Connection (5.8)
Confidential Informant (4.1)
Migration (7.5)
Mother, May I? (5.2)
No Way Up (5.3)
Thabo and the Rhino Case (8.1)
The Beekeeper (6.8)
Wish (5.8)
Wonka (7.4)

The classic films below are currently showing at the 1954 Film House:
Titanic (7.9)
The numbers in brackets refer to the IMDB rating at the time of publishing.

One of the oldest Korean restaurants in Kuwait, Koryokwan is now called Korea Gwan. Don’t know why they changed it, maybe because nobody could remember the name Koryokwan? I know I couldn’t. They also gave the interior a bit of a facelift although I think the new lights are too bright. I didn’t see anything new in the menu though but it’s been given a facelift as well.

On a side note, I just spotted their very old original logo on their instagram account (pictured below) and it looks very familiar. There used to be a Korean restaurant on mezzanine 2 of Salhiya in the 80s and I remember they had a very similar logo outside the restaurant but don’t think they’re the same restaurant.

From what I know, Koryokwan was opened by Mr Kim in 1989, just before the Gulf War. Mr Kim was the General Secretary of the Boxing Federation in Korea and was then brought to Kuwait by Sheikh Fahad Ahmad Al-Jaber Al-Sabah to coach the Kuwait boxing team back in 1982.

Mr Kim (in yellow) helped Kuwait win two bronze medals at the Asian games and later helped train the Kuwaiti police and army. After leaving boxing in 1988 he teamed up with Carlton Hotel to open up Koryokwan. In 1991 after the Gulf War he got into a disagreement with Carlton and they split ways. He ended up opening a super trippy hair accessories store while someone else teamed up with Carlton to run Koryokwan. A completely random story which you can read in more detail here.

Korea Gwan is open daily from 10AM to 9:30PM. They’re also on Instagram @koreagwan_kuwait

A reader shared some photos of an old Sinclair game he still had which he purchased from a computer store in Kuwait back in the early 80s. The store was called AL RUSHAID and the tape had the following info on it:

AL RUSHAID Trading & Contracting Co. (RTC)
P.O. Box 25443, Safat-Kuwait
Tel: 412404, Telex: 23721 KT

He also had this info to share (I’ve edited it slightly):

While I do remember the computer store at the Salhia complex and it was my favourite shop for a while (and my description on your website remains the way I remember it), I am not sure the branded cassette I’ve shared is from the store at Salhiha. There was another nearby computer store that I used to visit as well which also used to sell ZX Spectrums and games. I couldn’t tell you the street name, but I think it was on the main shopping street, somewhere between The Grand Stores, Salhia Complex, and Al Muthanna Complex. Definitely, it was not near Al-Sharq Tower because that was far away from the shopping area.

Another thing you probably know is when Al-the Khalejia department stores first opened, they used to have a small section that sold computers like the ZX Spectrum, they had some original games on sale. I think the computer section didn’t last long and it disappeared sometime later.

Later around 1985 I used to get games for my computer by visiting the Hilton Hotel, there was an international magazine shop inside the hotel that used to sell computer magazines from the UK, there were several ones for the ZX Spectrum (and the Commodore 64). Many of these magazines came with a free demo cassette with free games and previews of upcoming games.

best regards
Sufian

PS. My parents were expats in Kuwait, and I lived there until I was 18, then left abroad to the US to study, and then moved to Belgium as my mom is from Belgium. I still have lots of my school books from Kuwait in Arabic, and other things that I grabbed with me when I left Kuwait in 1988.

Since the game was branded RTC I thought it might be the same RTC as the electronics shop in Hawally since according to their about us page they’ve been around since 1983. But after talking to RTC Electronics I was told pre-1990 they were called Babel so they’re not the same place. If anyone remembers where Al Rushaid was or have any info on it, let me know!

Update: Found a news clipping and an ad in an old Kuwait Times newspaper

Back when I visited the National Library in October you couldn’t access any of the books yourself due to COVID safety precautions, you needed to have someone fetch the books for you. But, things are back to normal now. Yesterday morning I passed by the National Library and I was allowed access to all the books and archives. I still had to book an appointment via the meta.e.gov.kw website and you also need to be vaccinated to be allowed in, but other than that things are back to normal.

The library is next to my office which means I can go back to randomly passing by in the mornings on the way to work. I usually love going through old newspapers to find gems similar to the Hardees ad above from 1988 featuring the Thunder Cats. If you want the full resolution version click here.

The library is open Sunday to Thurday from 9AM to 1PM and for more info on what’s inside, check out my old post here.