Author: Mark

Recently I found out that we have a suicide hotline number in Kuwait which is great news. Sadly, it’s only available from 9AM to 12PM! (UPDATE BELOW)

I’m actually hoping that isn’t really true and that the conversation between me and the Social Development Office (pictured above) got lost in translation. Having a suicide hotline that was only available 3 hours a day would be pretty ridiculous. In any case, the below information might be helpful to some readers especially if you’re looking for therapy:

Hotline for Police Community (managed by therapists)
94000435 – 94000463

Social Development Office (FREE) and have many therapists
94069304 (Masella Branch)
94082761 (West Mishref Branch)
Main Office
22402409/7
Hotline 22440904/22402401
instagram.com/socialdoffice

Update: They no longer are available for just three hours a day. Here are the suicide hotlines and working hours from the Social Development Office (as of September 24, 2020):

94702266 – 10AM until 4PM (for Teenagers and Adults)

99670675 – 2PM until 7PM (for Adults)

66022448 – 12PM until 7PM (for Teenagers and Adults)

99603997 – 11AM until 8PM (for Kids and Teenagers)

65079596 – 4PM until 10PM (for Adults)

93332007 – 5PM until 9PM (for Teenagers and Adults)

66220282 – 6PM until 9PM (for Adults)

Most of these suicide hotlines are available from Saturday until Thursday. Friday is off.

Update (May 2023): The above numbers no longer work, I’m currently trying to find updated numbers.

If you have a Kuwaiti passport you no longer need a visa to enter the UK, all you need is a visa waiver. A friend of mine recently got the waiver two hours after applying for one. It’s cheaper than getting a regular visa and pretty convenient if you’re planning an impulse trip.

The cost for an electronic visa waiver is £15 but it’s only valid for one entry. You can apply for the EVW by visiting the EVW website [Here]

This story broke out over the weekend and it’s been picking up A LOT of media traction internationally. Local Instagram celebrity @sondos_aq recently went on a rant on the new local regulations requiring a weekly day off for Filipino domestic workers. You can watch her rant in the video above. To summarize, she thinks its ridiculous that domestic workers have to get a day off every week and that she doesn’t believe domestic workers should be able to keep their passports. Pretty racial comments and the worst part is, she has over 2.3 million followers.

Last month the Instagram celebrity 3bodka was caught abusing his dog, and now we have another influencer posting racial comments. Looking at how this is blowing up I wouldn’t be surprised if local authorities decide to create new laws or regulations to prevent situations like this from occurring again.

If you want to read more about this incident, check out the articles on CNN, Independent and Buzzfeed amongst other.

Found this show by accident and fell in love with the storyline right away. White Gold is a show about a team of double glazed window salesmen living in Essex, England in the early 80s. The idea of a show that combines Essex, the 80s and window salesmen is so absurd that I couldn’t resist not watching it. White Gold turned out to be such a great show that I quickly became a huge fan and started pushing it to all my friends.

If you have Netflix and like 80s based shows then you need to check this one out. There is only one season and just six episodes so shouldn’t take you long to zip right through it. [Link]

Screenshot from Gotti

The movies below are now showing at Cinescape, Grand Cinemas, Sky Cinemas and VOX:

New This Weekend:
A Prayer Before Dawn (7.1) ♦
American Animals (7.6)
Billionaire Boys Club (5.6) ♦
Gotti (4.7)
In Darkness (5.7)
Mamma Mia! Here We Go Again (7.2)
Still/Born (5.4)
The Domestics (5.7)

Other Movies Showing Now:
Ant-Man and the Wasp (8.0)
Deadpool 2 (8.1) ♦
Escape Plan 2: Hades (3.8)
Hotel Transylvania 3: Summer Vacation (6.5)
Incredibles 2 (9.2)
Jurassic World: Fallen Kingdom (6.8)
Ocean’s Eight (6.3) ★
Skyscraper (6.0)
The First Purge (5.5) ♦
The Little Witch (6.3)
The Lullaby (5.8)

The movies below are also now showing at the Scientific Center IMAX theater:

Amazon Adventure 3D (6.6)
Amazing Mighty Micro Monsters 3D (7.4)
America Wild: National Parks Adventure (5.9)
Dream Big 3D (7.9)
Hurricane 3D (7.0)
Solo: A Star Wars Story (6.3)
Tiny Giants 3D (8.0)
Watermelon Magic 3D (7.4)

Numbers in brackets refer to the IMDB rating at time of publishing.
★ is for movies I’m interested in. ♦ implies movie might contain censorship.

I really hope the picture above isn’t really in Kuwait. Fake grass I kinda get but this is just silly.

Thanks Musaed

Update: It’s Saudi!

Last night I spotted a recycling machine at Sultan Center Salmiya. It wasn’t working so I’m assuming they’re still setting it up but from what I managed to find out its a TOMRA Reverse Vending Machine.

One of the benefits of these machines is that it works with a loyalty program, so how I am assuming the way they will be used is when you recycle plastic bottles or cans, instead of getting money back you’ll get points added to your Sultan Card. If that’s the case then it might just get people to recycle.

Things usually slow down considerably during the summer months because of the heat but there are still things you can do and one of them is wakeboarding.

Q8 Balance is a wakeboarding school that charge by the hour. They provide you with all the gear you need to wakeboard and they use one of the best wakeboarding boats available. All the wakeboarding is done inside the lagoons in Khiran which is great especially for beginners since you don’t have waves to deal with. Q8balance charge KD35 per hour which is pricey, but what I usually do is go with a friend or two and split the cost since it’s too exhausting to wakeboard the full hour alone plus, not as fun.

I book my sessions over WhatsApp a week ahead of time since they’re usually super busy. So if you’re interested in wakeboarding, they’re on instagram @q8balance and their WhatsApp number is 66130092.

If you’re in the market for record players I spotted a few for sale at Rocket World in Shuwaikh. They’re carrying the GPO brand which I hadn’t heard of before but going by their website they seem to make a variety of retro products.

I wrote the prices down to share in the post but I can’t seem to find them, so sorry about that. Anyway, if you don’t know Rocket World, it’s a store in Shuwaikh across from Vol.1 that sells random trinkets. They’re on instagram @rocketworldkw

Over the weekend I got a tour of the soon to open Kuwait Airways Terminal 4. I hadn’t seen that many photos of the terminal and so was really surprised at how beautiful it was. I took a ton of photos so I’ll take you on a quick tour of the airport starting from the entrance all the way into the plane, and then I’ll go the other way, from the plane all the way to the exit. Here are some interesting points first:

– The new terminal is located on the right just before arriving at the main airport. There are signs up now that point to terminal 4 and there is also a new exit that was constructed. Here is the location on [Google Maps]

– The new terminal is only for Kuwait Airways flights.

– In the photos, you’ll notice signs for E-Gates. Yes, it’s happening but I wasn’t able to get any information on it other than the fact they’re going to implement it. I was not given a timeline but it could be very soon which would explain the urgent move to new passports for Kuwaiti citizens and the voiding of old ones.

– The only area I wasn’t allowed to photograph was the business lounge. It’s located on the far right of the departures terminal and spans two floors. It has floor to ceiling windows overlooking the runway, and unlike the Kuwait Airways lounge in terminal 1, it didn’t look tacky.

– The security check area is going to be proper, similar to setups you see in large airports abroad and it will also have full body scanners.

– Terminal 4 will be managed by the South Korean Incheon International Airport. The Incheon airport holds the record of being ranked the Best Airport Worldwide for 11 consecutive years so it’s going to be in good hands.

– The boarding gate for US flights has an extra security check, the rest of the gates don’t.

– The plan is to eventually have US Border Control at the terminal similar to how it is in Abu Dhabi. This would be huge if it happens.

– All the waiting area seats throughout the terminal have both power ports and USB ports.

– The terminal is expected to start operating on July 25th, although I’ve also heard the date August 8th being thrown around. In both cases, the terminal will start operating with a limited number of flights with the first route being just Dubai. They will then continue to add other GCC flights before adding the rest of their destinations.

That’s some of the most important points I wanted to highlight. If you have any questions or things you’re curious about let me know in the comments and I’ll try to answer them for you. To check out pictures of the terminal as well as the full tour from start to finish, click [Here]

After going viral yesterday they’ve now renamed the account to @closed292 and they’ve left the unapologetic message below.

Screenshot from Skyscraper

The movies below are now showing at Cinescape, Grand Cinemas, Sky Cinemas and VOX:

New This Weekend:
Hotel Transylvania 3: Summer Vacation (6.5)
Skyscraper (6.0)
The Extraordinary Journey of the Fakir (7.4)
The Lullaby (5.8)

Other Movies Showing Now:
Adventures of Petey and Friends (2.8)
Avengers: Infinity War (9.2) ♦
Ant-Man and the Wasp (8.0)
Deadpool 2 (8.1) ♦
Escape Plan 2: Hades (3.8)
Incredibles 2 (9.2)
Jurassic World: Fallen Kingdom (6.8)
Loving Pablo (6.2) ♦
Ocean’s Eight (6.3) ★
Solo: A Star Wars Story (6.3)
Tag (6.9) ★ ♦
The First Purge (5.5) ♦
The Little Witch (6.3)

The movies below are also now showing at the Scientific Center IMAX theater:

Amazon Adventure 3D (6.6)
Amazing Mighty Micro Monsters 3D (7.4)
America Wild: National Parks Adventure (5.9)
Dream Big 3D (7.9)
Hurricane 3D (7.0)
Solo: A Star Wars Story (6.3)
Tiny Giants 3D (8.0)
Watermelon Magic 3D (7.4)

Numbers in brackets refer to the IMDB rating at time of publishing.
★ is for movies I’m interested in. ♦ implies movie might contain censorship.

In case you’re curious about the cost of repairing a water damaged iPhone X at an authorized dealer, here is what I found out when I took mine to Digits.

– They opened my phone to find the interior still wet even though I had my phone in a bowl of rice for three days. They dried out the interior and put the phone back together, the cost of that was KD10.

– My rear cameras were still fogged up. Because the camera assembly is enclosed they can’t open it up themselves to dry it out. The solution they offered me was to replace the whole camera assembly which costs KD55. I decided not to do that.

– My front facing camera was working perfectly now (not foggy anymore) but Face ID was still disabled in the settings with no way to turn it back on. According to support if the problem didn’t resolve itself, then the only way to fix it would be to replace the internal phone board. That isn’t something Apple does instead what they do is allow you to swap your damaged phone for a brand new one. The cost of that? 230KD. For a phone that’s badly damaged, I can see that being worthwhile but not in my situation.

Anyway I took the phone home and dumped it into telephone rice again. By evening time the rear cameras were no longer fogged up but Face ID still didn’t work. I’m just gonna keep it in rice for a few more days and if Face ID still doesn’t work I’ll just use the phone without it.

Until just recently, if you wanted good ramen in Kuwait you were basically out of luck. There weren’t many places that had ramen and the places that did usually had a pretty average bowl. But, last week a new ramen place opened up in Kuwait called Tampopo and it’s great!

The chef behind Tampopo is Maryam Alnusif (or Mimi), many of you might have heard of her since she is behind Shakshooka and The Secret Garden project. Tampopo is actually right next to the Secret Garden, it’s a small place with a main seating area composed of a bar running along the kitchen counter, as well as a bar facing the opposite wall and another bar stretching across the main storefront window. The menu is extremely simple with just three ramen dishes to choose from: Chicken, duck and vegan ramen. They also have a few cocktails and surprisingly, really great tasting non-alcholic Japanese Asahi beer.

I was there with some friends and so we ordered one of everything. My favorite ramen bowl was the vegan one followed by the duck and then the chicken. Because we got there early at around 6:30PM, we managed to find seating, but by the time we were done with our bowls, the place was already packed with people waiting to be seated. I loved the food, the atmosphere and all the people behind Tampopo so I’m definitely going back again this week. Plus its walking distance from my home which is pretty convenient.

Because Tampopo is still in a soft launch phase, they’re only open on Tuesdays, Wednesdays, and Thursdays from 6PM to 10PM. But, starting next week they might start opening on Mondays as well. They also right now only accept cash but should start accepting knet next week. For a map of the location and to stay up to date on their store timings, check out their instagram page @tampopo.ramenshop

So last week there was a case of mass food poisoning in Kuwait because of a falafel restaurant in Hawalli. Supposedly the former partner of the restaurant conspired with an employee to poison the falafel and today Kuwait Times mentions they found the food to be contaminated with salmonella and other types of bacteria. Around 300 customers got food poisoned and yet none of the newspapers or news outlets have mentioned which restaurant had their food contaminated (at least none of the English outlets). I really don’t understand why news media continue to shy away from posting the name of the restaurant especially in a case like this where many other people might be infected and not know they are.

When there was an E. coli outbreak at Chipotle in the States, all the news outlets wrote about it, but if the same outbreak had taken place in Kuwait they’d probably just describe Chipotle as an American franchise.