Author: Mark

The popular Marina Hotel Kashta is back for a new season! Known for its beautiful location, charming setup, and wide range of amenities, it has become a favorite among guests over the years.

The kashta setup is located right on the beach, offering a breathtaking backdrop of Kuwait City and a serene view of the open sea.

You can book one of two daily sessions, the Sunset Kashta runs from 4 PM to 7 PM, and the Dinner Kashta from 7:30 PM to 11 PM. Each session offers a unique experience with different packages and prices:

Sunset Kashta
Time: 4PM to 7PM
Includes: A set menu with salad, pizza, sandwiches, fries, desserts, and a selection of cold and hot drinks.
Price: 14KD per person

Evening Kashta
Time: 7:30PM to 11PM
Includes: A buffet and live stations featuring salad, soup, pizza, pasta, vegetable biryani, shawarma, BBQ grills, fries, desserts, and a selection of cold and hot drinks.
Price: KD20 per person

They also offer private cabanas for groups of at least 5 people.

For bookings, visit the link in the @marinahotelkwt bio or call 60074802.

I had to take down my last post because it upset some important people involved in the event. At this point in my life, I don’t have the energy for unnecessary arguments, so I decided it’s best to move on.

Thanks for your understanding, and I appreciate your continued support.

The Kuwait Motor Town racetrack is now open again to cyclists every Monday and Tuesday, and it’s free.

The track is 5.6KM long but has 3 different configurations, each a different length so you can pick and choose which part of the track you want to ride on. The track isn’t flat but has elevations which makes for a more fun ride.

There are a number of advantages to cycling at the racetrack over lets say the Gulf Road bike path. For one, you won’t have to dodge stray cats or pedestrians, it’s also a lot more chill of an experience because it’s empty and very quiet. There usually aren’t that many riders at the track and even if there are, there is plenty of room for everyone. You could have your headphones on playing music and not have to worry about another cyclist coming up behind you because the track is so wide making it very easy to overtake.

The track is beautiful at sunset, but even after the sun goes down, you can keep riding under the track lights.

If you want to try riding at the track, they open to the public from 4PM to 8PM on Mondays and Tuesdays. It’s free and doesn’t even require registration, just get to the track, park your car and then ride into the racetrack. There is a security guard there with a sign in sheet, just put your name and number and continue onto the track. The only requirement is a helmet. Also note, you can’t bring rollerblades, scooters or skateboards onto the track, but if you want to walk, jog, or run around the track you can. They also don’t rent bikes at the track, it’s BYOB.

If you don’t know where the track is, here is the location on Google Maps. To stay posted on KMT activities and events, head over to @kmtkw

Found these two photos in an Aramco Magazine from 1969 with the following caption:

The young, tiny state of Kuwait has an ambitious program of special education for the handicapped. The Blind may complete a program of arithmatic and reading and writing in braille with training in leather work or manufacturing wicker furniture.

Made me wonder if we have a similar program today.

Photos by Khalil Abou El Nasr

Khalifouh Village\ is a Kuwaiti heritage village which is owned and built by the popular Kuwaiti actor, Khalifa Khalifouh.

Khalifa worked on various TV shows featuring old Kuwaiti villages and was unhappy with the quality of workmanship in the show-built sets, so he decided to build one himself. Khalifouh Village was designed and built to resemble a real village, complete with a mosque, a bakery, a tea shop, a theater, and a main square.

The village offers a lot of cool photography opportunities, and if you have kids then they’ll love running around exploring the space.

The village which is located in Wafra is reopening again on weekends starting from this Friday. Opening hours will be 1PM to 9PM and for more info you can check out their account @khalifouhvillage and here is the location on Google Maps.

via @salmaninho

In celebration of 125 years of Kuwaiti-British friendship, JACC is hosting British Film Week as part of their November program. Running from November 25 to 28, two British movies will be screened each day and includes classics like the iconic James Bond ‘Goldfinger’ and family favorite, ‘Paddington’.

If you’re into cars then you might be interested to know that the Aston Martin DB5 that actually appeared in the movie Goldfinger will also be displayed at JACC.

Tickets cost 3KD and can be booked through the JACC website, for the full schedule and more info, head over to jacc-kw.com

Thanksgiving is coming up so I’ve put together two lists, one of restaurants that are serving Thanksgiving dinner, and the other of restaurants that have Thanksgiving dinners to take home. Last year there were more options for dine-in but this year, as of now, it looks like it’s only Radisson Blu. Update: More dine-in options have been added.

If there is a place you know serving Thanksgiving dinner that I haven’t listed, let me know so I can add it to the list:

Dine-In
Little Ruby’s
Radisson Blu
Santolina at SVN (for members and their guests)

Take-Out
Baker & Spice
Dean & Deluca
Four Seasons Hotel
Little Deli
Madison & Heig
Monoprix
Paul
Radisson Blu
Santolina at SVN
Sawsan
Sultan Center
Symphony Style Hotel

When the M1 iMac came out back in 2021, I bought one with 16GB of RAM and a 1TB hard drive. It was fast, especially after moving up from an old Intel-Mac iMac. More than 3 years later the iMac was still great, I never felt it was slow and really didn’t have any issues with it except for two things:

• The color no longer suited my apartment. I went through a major redesign last year and the green iMac wasn’t working in my space.

• The second issue I had was with the hard drive, 1TB wasn’t enough anymore and I kept running out of space. I couldn’t solve it with an external drive since majority of the space was taken up with my Photos library. I thought about moving it to an external drive but I read I would end up with issues which I didn’t want to risk or deal with.

I was also honestly looking for an excuse to pick up the Mac Studio, I loved the way it looked and just wanted to have one. I kept building a Mac Studio hoping I’d eventually pull the trigger but I kept hesitating and eventually knew I was too late to buy one since it was due for an M3 or M4 upgrade. I stayed patient and then the M4 Mac mini was announced.

It looked like the Mac Studio, but was a lot more smaller and much more cheaper. So I pulled the trigger and bought one.

Initially I wanted to get the Mac mini with the M4 Pro chip, but after realizing how much upgrading to 2TB was going to cost me, I decided not to go with the Pro. I never had a speed issue with my M1, and from what I read about the M4 Pro, I wouldn’t really benefit much from it anyway so to save some money I decided to stick to the “regular” M4. I ended up upgrading the RAM from 16GB to 24GB, and the hard drive to 2TB. The hard drive upgrade cost me $800! That’s more than the cost of the Mac mini by quite a bit. It’s crazy, but I guess that’s how Apple manages to set the entry price of the Mac mini so low, they make up for it with the upgrades. $200 to go from 16GB to 24GB RAM, and $800 to go from a 256GB hard drive to a 2TB one. $1,000 worth of upgrades on a $600 computer!

But, overall it was still a lot cheaper than the Mac Studio I had been building on the Apple website for months now which is why I still pulled the trigger.

I ended up buying the Apple Display from Xcite since they were selling it for KD499, similar price to apple.com not including tax or shipping. Once you include tax and shipping the price shoots up much higher than Xcite. You can find the display cheaper on Amazon but even then, once you add tax and shipping the price ends up being similar to Xcite.

Now that I have everything installed and running I really love my new setup. The Mac mini is really small and doesn’t take up much space on my desk. The Apple display is big and beautiful as well, it’s not much bigger than the iMac screen (24″ vs 27″), but it does give me much more room to have two windows open side by side comfortably. It also expands my USB-C ports by an additional 4 ports, and has a Mic built in which is great since the Mac mini doesn’t have a mic.

Having 2TB is probably the biggest relief since I don’t have anxiety about running out of space and this should last a pretty long time with me since I don’t really store any large video files or anything of the sort on my iMac, just my photos which are around 600GB, and work and blog related files which are less than 300GB.

The only negative I have with the Mac mini is that the headphone jack is on the front which means if I want to physically connect them to my speakers I need to have a wire running out the front. I have KEF LSX speakers next to my display and with my previous iMac I ran them over Bluetooth. But it isn’t very reliable as in every few days the speakers lose sync with the video on my Mac and I need to disconnect and reconnect to get them to sync again. With the Mac mini I was hoping to connect them with an optical out or audio out but from the back. I have a USB-C to headphone jack adapter but decided to get a USB-C to optical out and ordered one from Amazon. But I now have another issue, the adapter I got doesn’t support volume control from the Mac so that’s around 15KD wasted and I either need to find another optical out that supports volume control, or just give in and use my USB-C to headphone jack and connect the speakers that way.

But other than that I don’t have any complaints, and no regrets with my purchase either!

Silo is back for season 2 and that was pretty much the only new thing I watched this week. Other than that been busy catching up on shows. I finally caught up on Clarkson’s Farm and currently nearly done with High Potential and The Artful Dodger. I traveled this week so haven’t watched that much television.

Let me know in the comments what you recently watched or planning to watch.

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

New This Week:
12 Angry Men (classic) (9.0)
The Well (5.1)

Other Movies Showing:
Canary Black (5.3)
Gladiator II (7.0)
Panda Plan (6.1)
Red One (6.7)
Smile 2 (7.1)
Terrifier 3 (6.7)
The Wild Robot (8.2)
Venom: The Last Dance (6.3)

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

The 47th Kuwait International Book Fair kicks off tomorrow at the Kuwait International Fairground and runs until November 30th. The book fair debuted in Kuwait in 1975 and has grown to become the country’s largest. The fair is located in halls 5, 6, and 7 and there will be both Arabic and English books available for sale.

The opening hours are the following:

Mornings 9:00 AM to 1:00 PM
Afternoons 4:30 PM to 10:00 PM
Friday 4:00 PM to 10:00 PM
Saturday 10:00 AM to 10:00 PM

For more information (although all in Arabic), head over to @kw_nccal

According to a video on the Arab Times website it looks like the Darwaza intersection in Kuwait City is finally reopening. It closed down 4 years ago for maintenance and since then it’s been riddled with controversy. Hopefully the underground passageway was saved. Link

A couple of weeks ago I posted how there were going to be no track days at Kuwait Motor Town this season because the contract with the company running the place had expired and wasn’t renewed. Well it’s been renewed now so track days are back again and the racetrack will be open this season. @kmtkw

JON is a new experience by the sea that launches today. The project is by Gastronomica, the same group behind a lot of our favorite food brands like OFK, Burger Boutique, Cocoa Room, Lazy Cat, and Slider Station, so you can expect an elevated experience.

The location is stunning. I first visited last week while it was still under construction, and returned yesterday at sunset to experience the play of light and shadows. JON was built right next to the water, so once you’re inside get an uninterrupted view of the sea.

The place is divided into two main areas:

Al-Qarya
Meaning the village, this first area at JON is both a retail and culinary spot. There are a number of retail shops located in this space as well as an art exhibition space. Al-Qarya also has two dining concepts, the first is BRW, a coffee and bakery concept, and the second is Fat Pie, a new pizza concept offering artisanal pizzas.

OFK
The second half of JON is taken up by their sophisticated dining experience, OFK. OFK at JON will feature a new innovative menu different from their existing menu at their Al Hamra location, but in addition to food, OFK will also have live musical entertainment.

To get access to JON, you need to make a reservation through their website. Al-Qarya is free to access daily from 8AM to 4PM, but still requires registration due to the limited number of guests the area can take. If you want to access Al-Qarya between 4PM and 12AM, then the price of entry is 10KD. This includes a 5KD entry charge, with the remaining 5KD usable as credit within the venue.

Accessing OFK requires a different reservation. OFK opens from 6PM to 12AM and it’s 30KD per person. The 30 KD is credited toward your dining experience, which is à la carte rather than a set menu.

JON is located near the Kuwait Towers, right next to where Trader Vic’s used to be (Google Maps). If you’re interested in reserving your spot, head to jonkuwait.com

For more photos, check out my Instagram @248am

Today is the final day of the Tareq Rajab Museum’s Hungarian Zsolnay Ceramics Exhibition. The exhibition is in collaboration with the Hungarian Embassy in Kuwait and there are 560 pieces on display, highlighting 150 years of Hungarian ceramic development.

The ceramic pieces are from a private collection and haven’t been seen by the public for over 20 years. So this is a very rare opportunity to check them out.

The exhibition is free and takes place at Dar El Cid in Jabriya (Google Maps). Their timings are 9AM to 1PM and 4:30PM to 8:30PM. If you don’t have anything to do today pass by. @trmkuwait

I just got an email letting me know that Alive Yoga is reopening again. Alive Yoga used to be my favorite yoga spot before they closed down a few years ago so pretty excited that they’re reopening again.

According to the email initially it will be invite only and then later opened to the public. I think the invitation for now is for previous members hence why I got invited.

The opening date is December 15th. Their instagram isn’t updated but if you want to check it out it’s @aliveyoga