Author: Mark

Yesterday someone asked me if there was a laser tag place in Kuwait and figured other people might be interested to know that there is. The place is called Desert Sniper and they’re located right next to The Avenues. You need to be at least 4 people to play laser tag but a friend who tried it out told me having 10 people is a lot more fun.

If you don’t know what laser tag is, it’s kinda like paint ball except using lasers. When you get hit you light up and a vest vibrates letting you know you’ve been hit. It’s a lot less painful than getting hit by a paintball. The cost per round is KD6 and each round is 10 minutes long. The second round is also KD6 but after the second round the price goes down to KD3 per round. You also need to call them and book your session in advance.

So if you’re interested in laser tagging, you can check out the Desert Sniper [Website] for more details or call them up on 97828080

Herafy is a small clays and crafts store thats located in Al-Rai. Recently they moved to a new location and I found it by accident while looking for something else and decided to check it out. It’s a small store, nothing close in size say to Mogahwi, but they are very specialized and most importantly, they offer a ton of classes from sculpting and painting to sewing and soap making. Just a bunch of random interesting classes you wouldn’t find anywhere else.

So if you’re interested in learning something new or picking up a new hobby, here is the store location on [Google Maps] and you can check out all their classes and workshops on their website [Here]

Every so often something happens to my iPhone and I end up having to head to Hawalli to get it repaired. For the past two years I’ve been going to a place called U.S. Workshop and I didn’t really think they were that special, until recently. A couple of weeks ago I broke my iPhone screen again but this time I really wasn’t in the mood to drive to Hawalli, so I called up FixAid and had them come over and replace my screen at home. When the repair guy handed me the phone, the color tone of my screen was very blue, but I thought maybe it was just my eyes getting adjusted to a crackless screen. Then for the next couple of days the touch screen was being weird and unresponsive. Since they have a 10 day warranty period, I took the phone back to FixAid and explained to them the problem. We tried another screen on and ended up facing a similar issue with the screen color so I told them I didn’t want it anymore and they were professional enough to refund me the money minus a service charge.

I took the cash and headed to U.S. Workshop in Hawalli. They always ask you what kind of quality screen you want to replace it with, the low quality for KD20 or the high quality KD30 screen? (I have an iPhone 6s). I went with the KD30 screen which is basically identical to the original iPhone screen color tone wise and responsiveness. Once I got my phone back and realized it was perfect again I told them how I used a home service because I didn’t want to drive down to Hawalli all the time. Thats when I found out they also offer home service as well for an extra KD5 charge. So, below are the details in case you ever need an iPhone/iPad repair shop.

Location: Bin Khaldoun Street, around 3 buildings after Blink, inside the building before KFH. There are some steep steps you climb up to get into the building, thats how you’ll recognize it. [Google Maps]

Telephone: 22610042

This is just a quick post on what has to be the best Nintendo Switch case you can buy at the moment. One of the best things about the Nintendo Switch is you can take it with you when you leave your house so it’s important you have a really good case for it. I recently purchased the CitySlicker case by WaterField and I love it. I’ve been buying WaterField products since 2001 and I always highly recommend all their products. They make the best laptop sleeves on the market and the only ones I use for my laptops and iPads. Their build quality is so good that the items I had purchased from them back in 2001 still look new today.

The CitySlicker (pictured on top) can fit the Switch with the JoyCon’s attached, has slots to hold 5 games, and a zipped up pouch that can hold your earphones and charging cable. It’s got sufficient padding as well so you can toss the case around with the Switch inside and not have to worry about it. The CitySlicker comes in four colors but I went with the straightforward black mostly because I don’t want it sticking out when I leave the Switch in my car.

The price starts at $79 and goes up depending on what attachments you get for it. I got it with no attachments since I wanted it to be as compact as possible. I preordered the case back in February so they were able to ship it to me when they launched it 10 days ago, but now they’re backordered and the earliest they’ll be able to ship the case to you is by April 21. So if you’re looking for a great Switch case, hurry up and order one before their delivery date gets pushed back even further. [Link]

Yusuf Al-Jaddah, a sowt singer I encountered during a performance in a private suite at the Jumeirah five-star hotel in Kuwait City in May 2014, pointed out the huge changes that have occurred in the background, even as the tradition of communal performance has persisted:

“Years back I used to sing exactly at this spot with musicians from Bahrain. We were sitting in the sand and this hotel was not even built.”

Kuwait was musically quite a revelation to me. Despite rapid modernizations across the Gulf, which sees traditional performances occurring nowadays in hotels as well as diwānīyahs, traditional music is still performed, at least in private gatherings, on a weekly basis. Although at first the apparent absence of any older buildings in the city centre would imply complete modernisation of the culture, it is clear that musical culture is still very vibrant.

A friend sent me a link to an article from the Qatar Digital Library on traditional music in Kuwait. Honestly, only reason I’m sharing it is because I loved the first song on the playlist called “كاسين ويسكي” or two glasses of whisky in English. The song was written before the alcohol ban in Kuwait and was composed and sang by Kuwaiti musician Abdullah Al-Fadala in Bahrain in the 1950s. You can check out the article [Here] and listen to the whisky song as well as other songs they’ve selected below.

By the way, the Qatar Digital Archive is kinda similar to something I was proposing back in January that we need in Kuwait like urgently. I mean Qatar have digitized and archived Kuwaiti history while we haven’t even done that for ourselves yet alone for our neighboring countries.

Tiger Tiger the popular pan-asian pop-up restaurant is now available on Carriage. Previously, the only option if you wanted to have Tiger Tiger was find them at a weekend market, or wait for one of their pop-up events. Their menu on Carriage is also similar to their pop-up menu with just 3 appetizers and 3 main courses. You can check it out on the Carriage website [Here]

A friend forwarded me the video above of the Fahaheel Expressway near Mangaf completely flooded. As you can see in the video a lot of cars drowned sank and many people were stranded. I have a friend who lives in Mangaf as well where their whole neighborhood flooded and all the underground parking lots filled up drowning their cars as well. Pretty messed up.

Thanks Ghadeer

Lots of events this weekend but due to the weather, some of the outdoor ones might get canceled, so double check with the organizer before heading out to make sure they’re still on. Below is this weekends list of events:

Thursday
Exhibition: Third Identity
Exhibition: Road to Black
Beethoven’s Fourth Symphony, and the Requiem Mass
Amir’s Cup Show Jumping Championship
Tefaseel Design Exhibition
Organic hydroponics and sustainability: Truth or Fiction?

Friday
Tefaseel Design Exhibition
Amir’s Cup Show Jumping Championship
PantryBee Presents Farm to Table Sunset Dinner
Tai Chi in the Park
Hatha Yoga with Rosie
Macro Photography in the Park
Good Game: Magic – The Gathering
Salwa’ Walk and Socialize Meetup
Voices & Verses
Reborn Carnival

Saturday
Amir’s Cup Show Jumping Championship
Yoga with the 3
Karate Kenshinkan & Kung-Fu Sanda
Bait Al Arab: Kuwait State Stud
Annual Worldwide InstaMeet
Family Day at Amricani
Murouj Market
Footwork Workshop with Cheerito (Russia)
JAM JAM – Open Acoustic Jam Session
Gardening at The Secret Garden
Reborn Carnival
Volleyball Tournament

If you’d like to share an event on the blog [Email Me]
For a full list of upcoming events click [Here]

Sometimes events get canceled or have details changed so always double check with the organizers.

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

New This Week:
Barbie Video Game Hero (5.0)
Collide (5.7) ♦
Life (7.8) ★
Power Rangers (7.1)

Other Movies Showing:
Don’t Knock Twice (5.3)
Kong: Skull Island (7.6) ★
Logan (9.0) ♦ ★
Sleepless (5.5)
The LEGO Batman Movie (8.1)
Vengeance: A Love Story (N/A)

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

A Beautiful Planet 3D (7.9)
Flying Monsters 3D with David Attenborough (7.6)
Humpback Whales 3D (7.2)
Jean-Michel Cousteau’s Secret Ocean 3D (N/A)
Journey to Space 3D (6.5)
Kenya 3D: Animal Kingdom (6.0)
Mysteries of the Unseen World 3D (7.5)

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 currently mostly use Aramex’s Shop & Ship service as well as Posta Plus’s MyBox when ordering items online from abroad. I tend to use Posta Plus for all my US and UK shopping and Shop & Ship for all the other countries. The reason I use Posta Plus for my US and UK shopping is because its cheaper than Shop & Ship and just as fast. How much cheaper? Generally not that much, but recently me and my brother ordered the exact same item, a Nintendo Switch case from Waterfield and decided to compare the difference in shipping cost. He shipped the case to his Shop & Ship mailbox while I shipped it to my Posta Plus mailbox. So how much did we each pay for the exact same item?

Aramex: KD 8.4
PostaPlus: KD 3.5

That’s a pretty huge difference, more than double actually. Aramex for some reason listed the weight of the shipment at 0.52KG which automatically means the package gets charged as if its 1KG since it exceeded 0.5KG, while PostaPlus on the other hand have the package listed at under 0.5KG (400g) since the actual weight of the case is just 0.21KG. Ouch.

As you know by now, Beauty and the Beast was pulled from movie theaters on Monday by request of the Ministry of Information due to further censorship. Supposedly MOI knew that a “gay moment” existed, but when they originally watched the film, they didn’t find the scene and assumed the theaters were showing a different version of the movie. Once the film was released and social media caught on to the fact that the controversial scene wasn’t cut, MOI contacted the theaters and had them pull the movie so they could remove the scene in question and re-release it. If that alone wasn’t enough drama, Cinescape last night announced that it will now no longer be playing the movie “in line with the company’s responsibilities and principles towards young customers”. Below is Cinescape’s full message:

Dear Valued Customers,
We would like to inform you that Kuwait National Cinema Company decided to

Stop showing Beauty and the Beast in line with our values as responsibility toward our young viewers

I’ve contacted Grand Cinemas to see if they will be pulling the movie as well, but as of this post I haven’t heard back from them yet. Who would have ever have thought a Disney film could ever cause this much controversy.

Update: Grand Cinemas got back to me telling me the movie is now banned in Kuwait.

You’ve probably heard about this in the news but in case you haven’t, the U.S. issued a temporary ban on electronics in cabins on some Middle Eastern flights to the U.S. It’s a temporary 96 hour ban at the moment but it still sucks if you were planning on traveling to the U.S. in the next few days and like me, take all your on inflight entertainment with you. Oddly though, according to AP, the ban includes Kuwait.

A U.S. official told The Associated Press the ban will apply to nonstop flights to the U.S. from 10 international airports serving the cities of Cairo in Egypt; Amman in Jordan; Kuwait City in Kuwait; Casablanca in Morocco; Doha in Qatar; Riyadh and Jeddah in Saudi Arabia; Istanbul in Turkey; and Abu Dhabi and Dubai in the United Arab Emirates. The ban was indefinite, said the official.

I wasn’t aware of any direct flights to the U.S. from Kuwait. United Airlines stopped flying out from Kuwait and Kuwait Airways now stops in Ireland for security reasons on the way to New York. Is there a flight that is direct to the U.S. from Kuwait that I am not aware of?

Update: It might be a temporary ban, it might not be, everyone seems to be confused

Update2: Kuwait Airways will begin flying non-stop to New York starting from Sunday, March 26.

@PK_Spark is the 19 year old parkour guy I posted about awhile back, where him and his friends snuck onto the roof of Hamra Tower and started sliding around. Around 10 days ago, he sent me a link to his latest video where he snuck into the new NBK tower thats being constructed across the street from Hamra Tower where he climbed up to the highest crane. I was going to post the video on the blog but then it suddenly disappeared along with all his social media accounts. I thought the video might have gotten him in trouble and turns out that was the case. A few days later, his social media accounts came back online and he posted the following message on his instagram:

I got arrested by the CID ( criminal investigation department) and they throw me in jail, all that was because of my crane climbs and rooftops stuff at least m free right now but the bad news is no more rooftops till I leave this country.

I learned something from this experience ( freedom is expensive ) don’t lose it.

It’s messed up that he got arrested, but it shouldn’t be a surprise since he was basically trespassing onto private property and then sharing video of it. In any case he’s back out now, just no more dangerous rooftops stunts for awhile which is a good thing. If you want to see some of his videos, you can check out his instagram account @pk_spark or his YouTube channel [Here]

The 2017 edition of the World Happiness Report was released yesterday and Kuwait moved up two spots from 41 to 39. The highest Kuwait has ever been was 31 and that was back in 2012. Since then, Kuwait has slowly been dropping down the list until last year it hit its lowest ranking at 41, so 39 this year is technically an improvement.

Below is a list comparing Kuwait’s ranking to some other countries in the region including the highest ranked and lowest.

1. Norway
21. United Arab Emirates
35. Qatar
37. Saudi Arabia
39. Kuwait
41. Bahrain
155. Central African Republic

The scoring is based on a number of factors including answers submitted by people who were asked to assess their satisfaction with their current lives on a scale of 0 to 10. For a more detailed explanation as well as the full list of rankings, you can download the World Happiness Report from [Here]

Cinescape, Grand Cinemas and Sky Cinemas will no longer be showing Disney’s Beauty and the Beast movie in Kuwait. Local censors wanted to cut a scene from the film, most likely the gay related one and Disney decided it would rather pull the movie than censor it. It did the same thing in Malaysia last week when it pulled the movie from theaters over there after Malaysian censors wanted to remove the gay scene as well.

I actually like the idea of Disney pulling the film, I think more movie studios need to do that.

Update: According to Grand Cinemas, they are currently working with the studio on the additional cuts that the MOI requested and will be releasing the film when ready. This means Disney did NOT pull the movie but the movie theaters did due to additional cuts that were requested by the MOI.

Update2: According to Cinescape, they pulled the movie themselves.

Dear Valued Customers,
We would like to inform you that Kuwait National Cinema Company decided to

Stop showing Beauty and the Beast in line with our values as responsibility toward our young viewers [Source]