Author: Mark

Abdullah Alshalabi, one of the cofounders behind the local startup FishFishMe has published an article on his blog on how Kuwaitis should go about investing in startups. He shared his own investment theory along with an investment cheat sheet, so if startups interest you, check out his post [Here]

Super tiny list this weekend. One new thing I’ll be doing from now on is adding table top gaming events from Good Game to the list like the Magic: The Gathering event taking place on Friday. If I find out about anything else taking place this weekend I’ll add it to the list but for now this is whats going on:

Thursday
Ramadan Bootcamp by Diet Care
Cooking 101 at The Yard

Friday
Yoga Flow with Rosy
Good Game: Magic: The Gathering

Saturday
Yoga at the Park (Hatha Yoga)

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 double check info with organizers.

If you were hoping the American supermarket chain Whole Foods would open in Kuwait one day, well this is the closest thing you’re gonna get. Wholesome Foods is a new supermarket that Saveco have opened up and not only does it have the same name as Whole Foods, it basically has the same interior look and color scheme along with a similar concept (they mostly carry organic and healthy food products).

It’s not a very large place, but it’s two floors and they have a good variety of items you won’t find at other supermarkets. They’re located in Salmiya in The View building where Marks & Spencer is so the place is pretty close to where I live. Since I’m always frustrated with the lack of product range at Sultan I’ll probably be passing by Whole Foods (can we just call it that?) to pick up whatever I can’t find anywhere else.

If you’re wondering about the prices, they’re similar to Saveco. Whole Foods is open daily from 10AM to 1AM and here is their location on [Google Maps]

Truefitt & Hill is the oldest barbershop in the world established back in 1805 in London, and they’re opening their first location in the Middle East here in Kuwait at the Symphony Mall. I hadn’t heard of them until a redditor mentioned them and according to him they’ll be opening up by the end of the year.

A very popular Lebanese food blogger came to Kuwait as part of his Middle East food tour and guess which restaurants in Kuwait he goes to review? Semsom, Kosebasi, Margherita and the Radisson Blu buffet! Talk about the dumbest things a food blogger can do, you come all the way to Kuwait from Lebanon to review restaurants, and then you go to places that you already have back home? I don’t get it.

A friend on twitter suggested its probably because those places paid him to review them which would make sense and if that is the case that sucks. On the bright side, you can use this video as a reference of where NOT to take guests who are visiting Kuwait, except for Freej Swaileh since that place is legit. The even sadder part is when he asks his local guide if he had a week in Kuwait where he should go, the guide replies saying there are tons of places and then proceeds to mention six of which three are malls. *sigh*

Check out the video on [YouTube]

Note: Just to clarify, I meant worst places as in worst places that represent the local food scene and not worst places as in the worst food.

According to a recent news report on Al Rai, the Kuwait Airport have updated the security screening stations on departure. The airport increased the security stations from a previous total of four to a new total of six. One station for first/business class passengers as well as flight crew, two for GCC residents and three machines now for expats.

On a related note, Kuwait Airways no longer flies direct to New York but instead has to stop in Ireland for a security check before continuing to the States. I understood that it’s due to the poor security checks at the Kuwait Airport. United Airlines stopped their Kuwait – Washington route earlier this year and one of the rumored reasons was because of poor airport security and it makes sense now. Last year there were also rumors that British Airways would halt all flights from Kuwait unless security at the airport was improved.

The Approved Market is a small healthy foods supermarket which I frequent often and I found out a couple of days ago that they now have delivery. The cost for delivery is KD1 and you can order by calling or whatsapping 69096438.

Found these two photos on @domestic_arch_kw which I hadn’t seen before. The one above is obviously the Kuwait Towers while the one below is the Fatma Mosque.

Here’s my situation: I’m a 22 years old guy from Kuwait. I ran away from home because i got in a heated argument with my father one day which hinted that I wasnt as straight as he thinks i am and that i didnt believe in islam (the religion of my family & my country) so I woke up the next morning to him on top of me trying to strangle me since I committed two things that are punishable in Islam by death (1-being homosexual. 2-leaving islam) but I was able to break free and leave the house and never come back.

…

I lived in public parks for 6 months. Tried to clean up once every while and apply anywhere I can and got a job . Later I was able to afford a car but not a place to rent …weird? I know. But in here nobody will rent you a place unless you’re married because everyone is so concerned that single people will use those apartments to have sex and host parties where alcohol would be involved (which are all illegal, yeah.. the pre-marriage sex the alcohol and the parties).

No idea if this is real or made up but it’s an interesting read nevertheless. [Link]

The popular Parisian tea house Angelina is finally set to open up their first location in Kuwait in the next couple of days. I say finally because their coming soon hoarding had been up for so long I thought they were never gonna open.

Angelina are well know for their almost pudding-like hot chocolate and is a very popular tourist hotspot in Paris with sometimes long lines of people waiting to get in. Their first branch in Kuwait will be located on the ground floor of Hamra Tower.

Back in the 90s, White Tower in Salmiya used to be similar to Rihab Complex, the whole top floor was full of video game stores but there were also a bunch of arcade shops. It was the place to go to if you wanted to play fighting games against other people but also if you wanted to play now classic games like Metal Slug. Oh the amount of money I spent on Metal Slug…

Anyway, I passed by White Tower a couple of days ago to see if anything was still open and to my surprise there was still one arcade shop still standing. It wasn’t in the best of state but they did have recent games. Some of the games they had were the following:

Street Fighter V
Street Fighter IV
Street Fighter III: 3rd Strike
King of Fighters (all of them)
Marvel vs Capcom

And if I understood correctly they had a bunch of NeoGeo games as well. Best part is it still costs exactly the same as it did back in the 90s to play a round, just 100fils. If you win you keep playing for free of course. If you don’t know where White Towers is, here it is on [Google Maps]

This was the insane line at the Vol.1 coffee shop on Thursday night. For those of you who’ve never been there I’ve highlighted with an arrow where the entrance to the place is. Keep in mind it was also 40+ degrees that night. Thats just crazy.

Yesterday the Daily Mail published an article on the dogs that were killed in Kuwait by the American security company and since then it’s been gaining a lot of traction online. Awhile ago it even hit the top of the World News subreddit on Reddit. If you haven’t seen the Daily Mail article yet you can check it out by clicking [Here]

Update: It made it to the New York Post!

Last month I launched Kuwikipedia since a lot of people email me asking me questions all the time. I figured I might as well setup a website where people could ask questions related to Kuwait, and them me and other people could answer it for them. Well the site proved to my more useful than I expected it to be so I decided to integrate it into the blog as a section. A twitter follower even helped me come up with a better more descriptive name for the section which is “Kuwestions”.

I’m still fine tuning it a bit but for now it’s up an running so check it out [Here]

Update: Looks like there is a technical issue when trying to answer the questions. Working on fixing that now.

Not a big list this weekend but there are some interesting things taking place. Over the course of this weekend the Human Rights Film Festival is taking place at Al Shaheed Park. The festival if three days and features different short films as well as different speakers for panel discussions every day. The other interesting event taking place is the JU.MO interactive experience where film photographers and illustrators will be curating an interactive experience while celebrating the launch of a new coffee concept called Jumo. Check out the full list of events for this weekend below:

Thursday
Eighty Percent Women’s Football Tournament
Red Bull Art of Can
Ramadan Bootcamp by Diet Care
Human Rights Film Festival

Friday
Eighty Percent Women’s Football Tournament
Red Bull Art of Can
Human Rights Film Festival
Yoga Flow with Rosy
JU.MO – An Interactive Experience

Saturday
Red Bull Art of Can
Ramadan Bootcamp by Diet Care
Human Rights Film Festival
Yoga at the Park (Hatha Yoga)

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 double check info with organizers.