Author: Mark

Aerial yoga seems to be the current “in” activity to do. I haven’t tried it and don’t think I will, but it seems fun and it takes place outdoors so should be great to do in this weather. Aerial yoga is similar to traditional mat yoga but instead of the mat you’re suspended in the air with soft fabric hammocks.

Fly High Kuwait are holding classes aerial yoga classes in Jumeirah and the classes start from KD15 a session. If you’re interested to find out more, check out their website [Here]

Update: I thought they were ongoing till Thursday since that was written on their website, but turns out they made a mistake and the last day was actually yesterday. So it’s over now.

So as you’re aware I’ve been inviting more and more people to write on the blog recently. One of the new people I’ve invited to write is Grant, the brand manager of % Arabica Coffee. He’s the guy who got me into coffee and is a real coffee geek. The reason I’ve asked him to write about coffee is because I noticed a lot of people drink coffee, but don’t know much about what goes behind a good one. Based on the comments under some of my coffee posts I know there are quite a few coffee geeks who read my blog so you’ll appreciate Grant’s posts. For the average joe, I think you’ll still find Grant’s coffee posts informative and not that technical, so I think you’ll enjoy them. His first post is up, check it out [Below].

Elsewhere is a a new ingenious concept that opened up next to Elevation Burger on the Seif strip. The concept is actually owned by TABCo, the company that owns Elevation (who are one of my advertisers). It’s an experimental space created for local entrepreneurs who have ideas and concepts they want to try out for limited time periods. Currently the space is occupied by Richard’s Coffee for the next 76 days whom I wrote about a couple of weeks back.

The space doesn’t have to be occupied by a coffee shop or a food related concept, they’re open to different ideas like fashion, retail or even some sort of activity. Even the amount of time you could rent the spot for is flexible, it can be as little as you want it to be as long as its an idea that will help bring traffic to the area. The rent is very reasonable as well for the space/location. I’m not sure I can share it on the blog because I’m assuming it’s not a one price for all, but I can say that they’re definitely not profiting from the rent. The rent is low to attract the interesting concepts who in return will bring traffic to the area and indirectly promote and bring traffic to Elevation Burger next door. It’s a smart marketing idea.

Currently nobody is lined up to take the spot after Richard’s, so if you’re interested in renting the spot you could contact them on [email protected].

Previously on my iPhone, whenever I got a spam message, blocking it was fairly simple, you clicked on the sender on the top and then a “Block this Caller” option appeared and I’d click it. But, with the new iOS, things are a bit more complicated and the “Block this Caller” option is now hidden in a different menu without an obvious way of getting there. It actually took me a bit of googling to figure out how to block callers in iOS10 so I figured I’d share it on the blog since spam messages are pretty common in Kuwait.

Step 1
Instead of clicking on the sender like you previously would do, you now need to click the little “i” on the top right of your phone (photo on top)

Step 2
In this second menu, you need to click on the senders name

Step 3
Once you’re at the last menu you’ll now notice the “Block this Caller” option is available again at the bottom of the screen.

Burger & Lobster is a British franchise that opened around a year ago in Kuwait. Their menu is very straight forward and simple with just 3 items, a burger, a lobster roll and a lobster, each for the same price which in Kuwait was just KD8.950.

That simple formula I guess didn’t do so well in Kuwait because last month Burger & Lobster expanded the menu by adding a lot more items while also revamping their pricing system. Now their 3 primary items have 3 different prices, the burger got dropped down to KD7, the lobster roll to KD8 while the lobster had its price increase and is now KD10. As I mentioned, they also added a bunch of other items to their menu ranging from soups to sliders. You can check out the full menu [Here]

Personally I go there for their lobster roll so none of their new items interest me. But, if it means these new items will help drive traffic and keep the place open, then I’m all for it. Their lobster roll is so good.

I wonder if they finally ended up catching him.

Yesterday I noticed Fantasy World was selling the Oculus Rift virtual reality system. I’m not sure they’re being sold anywhere else but the price at Fantasy World is a ridiculous KD399. I say ridiculous because you could order it from Amazon UK and have it shipped to you directly to Kuwait for just KD194 including customs which is half the price. Here is the Amazon [Link]

What a ridiculously packed weekend with a ton of things going on. Personally I’ll be popping in out of the Nuqat event this weekend. I also passed by the Weaving Stories exhibition a few days back and I thought that was cool, mostly because I somehow ended up spending an hour there weaving without realizing an hour had gone by. The Madeenah tours are also back again with their first tour of the season taking place this weekend. Check out the full list of events taking place this weekend below:

Thursday
Exhibition: Ain’t Nowhere to Hide
Exhibition: Poor Image by Khalid Al Gharaballi
An exhibit by Bait Al Sadu: Weaving Stories
A Fifteen-Year Journey: The Art of Amira Behbehani
Exhibition: Precious Fragments
The Seventh Nuqat Conference

Friday
An exhibit by Bait Al Sadu: Weaving Stories
The Seventh Nuqat Conference
Tai Chi in the Park
Hatha Yoga with Rosie
Mystery Of Shavasana Workshop
Red Bull Bar Bahr
Madeenah Tour: In Place of Democracy
Good Game: Magic – The Gathering
Jam Night
Salwa’ Walk and Socialize Meetup
Blood Donation Drive

Saturday
An exhibit by Bait Al Sadu: Weaving Stories
The Seventh Nuqat Conference
Run Q8
Farmers Trip
Yoga with the 3
Guided Tour: Grand Mosque
Yellow Parade
KTAA Bazaar 2016
Pilates by Oysho
Operation Turtles
Q8 Books Literary Night

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 Cinescape and Grand Cinemas:

New This Week:
Hacksaw Ridge (8.8) ★♦
Operation Chromite (6.3)
Scare Campaign (5.8)
Shut In (N/A) ♦
The 9th Life of Louis Drax (6.5) ♦
Trolls (6.7)

Other Movies Showing:
American Pastoral (6.2) ♦
Deepwater Horizon (7.2)
Doctor Strange (8.0) ★
Jack Reacher: Never Go Back (7.4) ★
Inferno (7.1) ♦
Kill Kane (3.9)
Miss Peregrine’s Home for Peculiar Children (7.2)
Ouija: Origin of Evil (6.8)
The Accountant (7.8) ★
The Great Gilly Hopkins (6.6)
Under the Shadow (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.

Kuwaiti athlete Bashar Alhunaidi will be leading a kayaking expedition from Kuwait to Oman to raise awareness of the environmental issues facing the Gulf. Bashar along with three other kayakers and a small support team plan to kayak along the coast of all 6 GCC countries to highlight the positive and the negative. The journey will take approximately 2 months to complete and the entire expedition will be filmed for a future documentary. Bashar and his team will be taking off today on their adventure and you’ll be able to follow them on the following social media accounts:

Facebook: /kayak4kuwait
Instagram: @kayak4kuwait
Snapchat: kayak4kuwait

So far I’m pretty disappointed with the amount of things they’ve shared on their social media accounts. It sounds like a crazy adventure (and it is) but they haven’t shared anything so far, even though they’re taking off today. No information on what kind of kayaks they will be using, no information on what kind of gear they’re taking with them, no route map, no nothing. If it was me I would have been posting a ton of shit already, like videos showing some of my gear, a video explaining how many hours I would be kayaking, where I would be sleeping, how I will be eating etc.. If they want people to take notice of their journey then it would be nice to share a lot more than just a picture of Bashar at the 99.7RKFM studio. I’ve seen people share more pictures of their dinner then the kayak team has shared about this adventure.

DNA testing will only be applied on convicted felons and no one else, HH the Amir Sheikh Sabah Al-Ahmad Al-Jaber Al-Sabah told Al-Jarida newspaper yesterday. Sheikh Sabah said that discussions on the issue of DNA testing, also known as DNA fingerprinting, were over, stressing that no tests will be applied on ordinary citizens. Recently, HH the Amir directed HH the Prime Minister Sheikh Jaber Al-Mubarak Al-Hamad Al-Sabah to revise and reconsider the DNA testing law, calling on him and the government to apply constitutional standards on the proposed decree. [Source]

Besides the fact that it would have been invasive to our privacy, testing everyones DNA including tourists would never have been doable, feasible or manageable, so I’m glad thats behind us now.

Last week the cops announced they were going to start removing the license plates of illegally parked cars and they weren’t joking around. Yesterday I had a meeting at Arabica and while I was driving around looking for parking, I spotted not one, not two but at least a dozen cars with their plates removed. Just a whole line of illegally parked cars with no plates on them. Super freaky shit, obviously that deterred me from parking illegally so their plan is definitely working.

On the bright side, I noticed for the first time there is actually a multistory car park on the street behind Arabica so ended up parking there.

When I first started putting this list together it was because I was planning to visit them all and maybe review them. But I didn’t think there were this many already and so I don’t think that plan is possible anymore. Below is a list of all the speciality coffee shops I’m aware of, let me know if I missed any:

Speciality Coffee Shops
Amo Cafe
Arabica
ASPRO + PRO Coffee Bar
Awake Coffee
BLAKK Coffee
Bon Coffee
Boost Cafe
BRW
But First Coffee
CAF
Caffeine
Caveman Coffee
Cova Specialty Coffee
Cropped Coffee
CRL Bar
Days*Cafe
Dose Cafe
Etsi Kafe Lab
Force Bar
Grace
His Majesty
Jumo
Keys Coffee Shop
Kôfē – Espresso Bar
Let’s Coffee
Majnoon Qahwa
Mood Coffee Bar
Muse Coffeesphere
Muse Espresso Bar
New Brew Coffee
Not Just Coffee
Pause Coffee
Perhaps Some Coffee
Pirate Cafe
Richard’s Coffee
Savage Coffees
Seven Grams Coffee Lab
Shots
Shuwaikh Coffee
SIP
Street Cafe
The Breeze Cafe
Three and Barista
Toby’s Estate
Vibes Coffee
Vol 1
Wish Cafe

Speciality Roasters
48 East
Earth’s Roastery
Coffee Villains
The Lab Roastery

On a side note, anyone know where I can find the Rattleware coffee shot glass in Kuwait? Got it!

Update: I’ve updated the list

If you missed the fireworks show this past Saturday, you can now watch it online. [Vimeo]

A reader just let me know there is a huge new parking lot that was recently constructed very close to the airport. Could this be our new long term parking lot where they shuttle passengers to the main terminal and back? I can’t imagine it being anything else since there is no building next to it and the lot seems huge, more than double the size of our current long term parking lot.

My theory is they’ll most likely convert the current long term parking lot into a short term lot since the current short term lot isn’t big enough. They would then completely move the long term parking lot away to this new location if it is in fact the new long term parking lot.

Does anybody have any information on this?
Here is the location of the new lot on [Google Maps]