Author: Mark

A lot of you (like 99.9% of you) don’t like the sneakers I like and thats absolutely fine by me. But one thing I hope many of you will agree with me on is the fact that Foot Locker and Athletes Foot in Kuwait have the safest and dullest collection of sneakers imaginable. Walking into both those stores yesterday was depressing. After visiting my favorite sneaker stores in London like Size? and Offspring (Foot Patrol sadly closed down) Athletes Foot and Foot Locker both seemed dull, generic and PG rated.

My biggest regret from my London trip was not purchasing the Puma Disc Blaze sneakers. I can’t get them out of my head, kinda like Tara Reid’s boob at P. Diddy’s thirty-fifth birthday party. Its like driving by a car wreck, you don’t want to look but you really can’t help not looking and thats how those Puma’s were. On the bright side I did get the Adidas Oddity’s which I posted about in November.

I don’t mind the local stores selling safe sneakers for the mass, in the end they need to make money and they won’t be able to without catering to the large public. But how about a little corner for the people who want something more than just a white sneaker with 3 black stripes?

Anyway I took some pictures of various sneakers I saw at Offspring which I wanted to share with my readers below. As you can see colorful weird sneakers are something of the norm in London. Visiting a sneaker store in London will actually help you understand and appreciate the London 2012 Olympics logo.

The picture above is of the outside of my favorite Size? store which is located on Neal Street. Offspring’s most popular location probably is the one inside of Selfridges.

Summer is here and what other better way to welcome it than with a youtube video, watch it till the end. Video is called Wake Boarding Kuwait. [YouTube]

One of the places I was looking forward to visiting while I was in London is the hummingbird bakery. Some say that most of the cupcake stores in Kuwait were based on the hummingbird bakery, that might be true but I haven’t tried their cupcakes. My main reason for visiting the hummingbird bakery is for their Chocolate Devil’s Food Cake which is just incredible. Sadly there are only two hummingbird bakeries in London so there is very little chance that a branch will open up in Kuwait. If you ever visit London make sure you pass by the hummingbird bakery and then make sure you visit Ben’s Cookies for the best cookies in London.

The phase two of Avenues has opened up, I think the launch was two days ago. Anyway only three stores are currently open in that section plus the food court which had McDonalds and the other chains have now moved to phase two along with a couple of new ones.

When I came in this morning from London I noticed they installed hand scanners at each of the the passport stamping stations here at the Kuwait Airport. They weren’t there last week when I came in so they must have installed them this week. I wonder what they are for…

After finishing work today I decided to walk along the river past the London Eye. I actually thought I was walking back to the hotel but only after around an hour walk did I realize I was actually heading the wrong way. As I was about to turn back I noticed an interesting looking bridge in the distance. Turned out it was the Millennium Bridge which I had seen in pictures before. Its a pedestrian bridge that stretches out across the River Thames and it looks really futuristic because of its low profile. I took the picture above before I got on the bridge and the one below from the bridge.

Here are links to better pictures I found on Flickr.
Picture 1
Picture 2
Picture 3
Picture 4

Finally got to see these sneakers live today at the Size? store here in London. I think they look pretty nice (90’s are in) but I don’t think any store in Kuwait would get them. They’re too weird for Kuwait. [Link]

Just watched this commercial at the movies and thought it was pretty cool. Its a YouTube video so quality isn’t that good. [YouTube]

Just checked into my room awhile ago. The subway ride was pretty long but comfortable and interesting. My room faces Oxford Street which is pretty cool.

My plane landed awhile ago in London and I am now on the subway headed to my hotel. A cab would have cost me around KD30, subway is just KD2 and there is no traffic. (Posted from my Nokia E61i)

Someone in the forum just posted the following:

just heard the 30 (Fahaheel expressway) has ‘collasped/sunk’ at the 209/210 exit………….just a rumour or any details????

Can anyone confirm this? If you have pictures or video just send them to [email protected]

I’m leaving to London early morning tomorrow and coming back Saturday. Most of my posts the next couple of days will probably be from my phone since I am not sure yet if I am going to be taking my laptop.

I found this online store last night called Supermarket and since then I’ve found a lot of interesting stuff there. Supermarket sells “great designs straight from the designers” so everything on their site ranging from scarves to coasters just look extremely trendy. The prices aren’t too bad either. [Link]

A friend just told me that Trader Vic’s is opening on the Gulf Road right after Kuwait Towers and Ruby Tuesday. There are 3 small buildings that were just built on the sea side and one of them supposedly is Trader Vic’s. Will try and double check this myself tomorrow.

Update: I can now confirm that Trader Vic’s is in fact opening on the Gulf Road near Ruby Tuesday in front of Mais Alghanim.

I thought this site was a joke at first but it seems its real. The store has some funky dishdasha’s available including the iDishdasha pictured above. They are all Saudi styled dishdashas (high collar/2 buttons) so they won’t work well in Kuwait. [Link]

Thanks mocman