Author: Mark

Rocket Internet AG (“Rocket”, ISIN DE000A12UKK6, RKET) today announces the signing of the acquisition of 100% of the shares in Talabat, one of the leading players in the attractive online food takeaway market in the Middle East, headquartered in Kuwait, for approximately EUR 150 million. The closing of the transaction is expected in the next few weeks.

Daaaaaaammmnnnn… [Source]

Thanks Ziad

Back in May of last year I shared renderings of the Sheikh Jaber Al Ahmad Cultural Centre that’s currently under construction in Kuwait City where the flag square used to be. The cultural centre will include theatres, concert halls, cinemas, conference and exhibition halls, a library archive and a public park.

Previously I had only seen external photos of the building but a reader made me aware that SSH, the architecture and engineering firm working on the project have now published internal shots of the centre.

Another bit of information I also just found out is that the cultural centre will have at least 9 theaters of which 8 are indoor and 1 outdoor. Of the 9 theaters, the larges one will be able to hold 2,000 people while the smallest up to 200.

I haven’t shared all the photos here just a few but if you want to see photos of all the theaters click [Here]

Is this feature new? My brother noticed it a couple of weeks back and my friend told me about it yesterday.

A citizen was digging a hole in Jaber Al-Ahmad area when he ended up finding a buried tank! Makes me wonder how much remnants of the Gulf War is still out there… Just last year we found a rusted bullet belt filled with ammunition on the roof of my building while changing the location of my WiMD receiver. [Link]

Update: According to a few readers, the instagram source is incorrect and the tank was actually found while excavating an oil field in the desert.

The Cube is a new complex that has opened up near Sultan Center on Salem Mubarek Street in Salmiya. The complex is mostly made up of restaurants but there are also a few other non food related shops that have or are opening up soon. I passed by the complex yesterday and a few places like Xcite and Paul are open but the majority are still under construction Here is the list of places that are currently at the complex, the asterisk (*) indicates the place is currently open:

Tallu Hbabna Lebanese Restaurant*
Frost Gelato
Xcite*
Nutrishop
Sports Direct
Viva
Zain
Ooreedoo
Juan Valdez cafe
Haleeb Heil*
Köşebaşı*
Paul*
Leila
Fat Burger
Ciccolat Italiani
BGR
Zaatar w Zeit
Caffe Vergnano 1882
Before chocolate

Here is a map to the location [Map]

Update: The Cube is now officially open and so are all the places listed above (and more).

Brings a new meaning to Indian Biryani

Thanks Najib and K.thekuwaiti

A committee in Kuwait’s public works ministry has recommended that all bids to build a new terminal at the country’s international airport be rejected, state news agency KUNA reported on Sunday.

In November, the tender committee for the project said a consortium of Kuwait’s Kharafi National and Turkey’s Limak Holding had submitted the lowest bid for the contract, worth 1.386 billion dinars ($4.78 billion).

But KUNA quoted Kuwait’s minister for electricity, water and public works, Abdulaziz al-Ibrahim, as saying on Sunday that a technical committee in the ministry had recommended all bids be rejected. Ibrahim did not give a reason for the recommendation, but said the committee had studied all aspects of the bidding. [Source]

Sigh…

A reader has sent me 3D renderings of the new Avenues phase 4 which is set to be completed by the end of 2017. I previously posted about Avenues Phase 4 back in October and I’m guessing these renderings are of the new “Electra District” which is modeled after Times Square in New York and the Orchid District which is an area with boutiques and hanging gardens with restaurants at the center. The Electra District looks pretty trippy from the outside. I like.

Thanks George

Around a couple of weeks back I was listening to the Joe Rogan podcast where he had my favorite car journalist Chris Harris on. They were both talking about cars and Chris Harris started talking about how comfortable the new S-Class was and how much he loved it. The past few cars I’ve reviewed have all been pretty much sport cars like the Jaguar F-Type Coupe and the Ferrari 458 Spider. So I figured you know what? I wanted to try something different. So I whatsapped my contact at Mercedes and asked him if the S-Class was available to take over the weekend and it was.

I have a bit of history with the S-Class since over the years my dad has owned the previous four generations and I’m old enough to have driven three of them. My favorite of the three and the one I have the most amount of passion towards was the shaba7 (“ghost” model year 91-98). I remember when the car first came out me and my best friend spotted one in Salmiya while we were walking towards Kids ‘R’ Us (this was probably around 1992). We started discussing how the car came standard with bullet proof windows and how it was so quiet once you sat inside that Mercedes installed a little red light that would notify you if a car around you beeped because you wouldn’t hear it otherwise. Of course all this wasn’t true but the shaba7 was so different from anything else at that time it created all these rumors. Then when I finally became old enough to drive the car I just felt so on top of the world when I was in it. I used to beg my dad to let me take the car out when I had a date because it was so much more impressive than pulling up in the other family car, a 1993 hunter green Dodge Minivan. The S-Class has changed considerably over the years but the one thing that hasn’t changed is the respect you get when you’re in one.

When I first sat in the new S-Class I was taken aback by how beautiful the interior was. I’ve been in quite a few cars now that have replaced the analogue dashboard dials with digital screens but none have managed to make it look as good as they do in the S-Class. The center console screen is also the largest screen I’ve ever seen in a car, its around six iPhone 6’s wide just to give you an idea about how huge it is. All these screen with cheap looking graphics would have been a disaster but Mercedes have put together a very tasteful and premium looking user interface with fancy graphics and lots of animations. At night you can also choose if you want interior mood lighting and the color of the light. I chose pink just because it made the interior look like a fancy strip club but the car interior looked great in all the colors and surprisingly not that tacky. The S-Class was very comfortable to sit in and the seats had the softest head rest in any car I’ve ever sat in. It’s literally pillow like and in fact it might have originally started off as a pillow and then shaped into a head rest. No matter who sat in the car the first thing they would notice were the fluffy soft headrests. As a whole the car was extremely comfortable, so comfortable in fact I drove it all the way to the Boubyan Island bridge and back without feeling any sort of fatigue or exhaustion. It’s fast, smooth and super comfy. I also think the new S-Class is the best looking S-Class since the shaba7. I love the exterior lines and especially the rear of the car which I’ve disliked in the last two generations of S-Class.

For some reason this car just made me want to blast hiphop the whole time and I don’t even listen to hiphop. It’s such a pimp ass car I loved it. I drove up to a gate outside these water towers that were being painted and when I parked the car I noticed the caretaker of the place started unlocking the gate to let me in. The car screams I am important especially now with not so many of them around. I honestly really can’t think of anything negative to say about the car. If I wanted to nitpick I could say I found the screen animations a bit slow and I hated how I actually had to go into the menu to turn the AC off instead of using a physical button. I could also complain about the sound system which I didn’t think was that great but really this would be me just nitpicking because there wasn’t anything I really disliked about the car. The new S-Class starts at KD33,000 but the model I drove was a bit spec’d out and sells for around KD35,000.

For more information on the S-Class, check out this [Link]

This weekend might be the busiest yet with so much going on. My personal picks are the 1001 Inventions Exhibition, the KLL Yard Sale because I like yard sales, the Open Mic night, Qout Market and the Madeenah Tour. Photographers might be interested in the motocross KMX Race Day event taking place on Saturday since there will be a ton of photo ops. Check out the full list of events taking place this weekend below:

Thursday
Exhibition: Al-Seef
Exhibition: The Replacement by Mahmoud Obaidi
Exhibition: Van Leo – Master Cairo Portrait Photographer
1001 Inventions Exhibition
Al-Mubarakiya Festival
Kuwait Yacht Show 2015
Works of Art by the Indian Women’s Association
Rooftop Movie: Before Sunrise

Friday
1001 Inventions Exhibition
Al-Mubarakiya Festival
Kuwait Yacht Show 2015
Works of Art by the Indian Women’s Association
KLL Yard Sale
Open Mic at Bayt Lothan

Saturday
1001 Inventions Exhibition
Al-Mubarakiya Festival
Kuwait Yacht Show 2015
Qout Market
The Secret Garden Project
The North Face Challenge Race 2015
KMX Race Day
Workshop: Introduction to Figure Sculpting
Madeenah Tour: Bneid Al Gar
Rooftop Movie: The Imaginarium of Dr. Parnassus

If you’d like to share an event on the blog [Email Me]

There is an instgrammer going by the username @myasstethics that travels around the world and takes pictures of his buttocks in different places and recently he was in Kuwait. He actually took two photos in Kuwait but I thought the one above was the more appropriate of the two to share here. I know a lot of people will be upset at the fact he did this but come on, it’s funny. Check out his account [Here] (its SFW)

The Scientific Center have brought the award-winning and international blockbuster exhibition “1001 Inventions” to Kuwait and today was their first opening day. I just got back from it and I loved it or at least loved the fact that for the next month kids have an exciting and interactive educational exhibition they can check out. The experience starts off with a short 10 minute film and once it’s done, everyone is led into the main hall where various stations are manned by different performers who act out the role of an inventor and tell their story. If you follow me on snapchat (mark248am) you most probably saw some of the performers since I snapchatted a few OF THEM. I actually snapchatted more but my snapchat has a habit of crashing with the videos disappearing on restart.

The various displays around the exhibitions have videos and a certain degree of interactivity making the experience very entertaining but it’s the performers that stood out for me. The exhibition is bilingual and that includes the performers who are able to act out in both Arabic and English. Surprisingly they only had two weeks to rehearse. The “1001 Inventions” exhibition is taking place outside the Scientific Center in a large tent and the entrance fee is just KD2 or KD1.5 if when you buy a Scientific Center ticket. They are running starting from today and up until March 7th. Their opening hours are:

Sunday to Thursday
9AM to 1PM and 4:30PM to 9:30PM

Friday
2PM to 10PM

Saturday
9AM to 9:30PM

It’s definitely worth passing by to check out and expect to spend an hour there to experience the whole exhibit. For more information click [Here]

I was at Sanabil Tower yesterday and spotted a new little shop called Green Yummies. Two things caught my eye, first they had healthy sweet potato chips and baked hummos chips (both turned out to be delicious) and secondly they had a bunch of buy one get one free offers because some of their chips were expiring soon.

The price? They usually sell the bags of chips for 550fils each but the sweet potato was buy one get one free and the hummos was buy one get two free. They also had a bunch of other healthy super foods including cereals and energy bars. They’ve only been open for two months now and their instagram account is @greenyummies

I was at Sultan Center Shaab last night and spotted a pile of Valentine apples. The apple have “I Love You” written on them which is achieved during the growing process by wrapping the apples in a special bag.

Unlike the heart shaped watermelons Sultan was selling last year, these apples are actually affordable at just KD1.5 per KG.

The Kuwait Concours d’ Elegance will be taking place next week starting from February 11th and last till February 18th. The Concours d’ Elegance first came to Kuwait back in 2010.

What is the Concours d’Elegance?
Concours is a French word meaning competition. The concept of Concours originates in 17th C. France when aristocrats used to choose their best horse carriages to parade around parks of Paris during the summer week ends and holidays. Later these traditions changed to automobiles from the 20th C. Concours today have strict regulations and cars are inspected by qualified judges. Trophy winners are carefully chosen.

A reader sent me the full schedule of events that are taking place that week, if you’re interested in checking it out click [Here]