2:48AM - Entertaining Kuwait since 2003Has anyone tried the new ferry to Failaka? It went into service towards the end of January and I’m curious to know how fast it gets there and if the journey was bouncy? Like am I gonna get seasick?
Update: Forgot to mention the cost which is around KD50 for a return trip depending on the size of your car. This includes one passenger in the car, for every additional passenger, it’s KD10 extra.
I’m a huge fan of Mogahwi but sometimes they’re a bit limited with options with their stationery items. Jarir has a good selection but there is another cool place that might have more stuff than both of them, Rakan Book Store.
Rakan is both a book store and stationery store located in Hawalli. They also have a small selection of toys and various other items but their stationaries section is hard to beat. When I wanted to get a new pair of scissors from Mogahwi I was limited with just a handful of options, while at Rakan they had a full section just for scissors. And that’s just one example I experienced last week.
What I also like about Rakan is on their top floor they have a section filled with tacky looking Arabic posters, stuff you’d find on the walls of your Arabic classrooms back when you were a kid. They’re fun to rummage through.
If you’re concerned about parking because it’s Hawalli you shouldn’t be. The place is located right off the 40th so getting in and out is pretty easy. There is also a large paid parking right next door so parking is super easy. If you want to check them out their Instagram is @rakan_book_store and here is their location on Google Maps.
The first time I visited the camel races was back in 2013 and I posted a guide for anyone who wanted to experience it as well. Because it’s been awhile since I last went, I decided to pass by again and publish an updated guide.
This past Saturday I drove out to the Kuwait Camel Racing Club to see how much things have changed. I took my old Alfa because I recently replaced some parts on it and wanted a long trip just to make sure I installed everything correctly. The trip to the tracks took a bit less than an hour and didn’t feel like a long drive at all. Once I got to the tracks I noticed all the main gates were locked. For a second I thought they were closed but then I noticed SUV’s speeding across the desert in the distance and heading in the direction of the track, I figured there might be another entrance and drove in the direction they were all heading. Sure enough, there was a side gate open off the main road and I drove into the racing club.
Once I drove into the track I didn’t see any spectators, racers, employees or even any signs telling me where to go next. So I just started following other cars and ended up driving through another gate and onto a tarmac road adjacent to the race track. I then kept driving till I eventually ended up at the start line. You can watch the video above which shows you how to enter the tracks and get to the tarmac that takes you to the start line. If you don’t have an SUV you’ll be fine since I was able to get to the track in my Alfa.
If you want to watch the races there are two ways:
The second way to watch the races is you drive around the track with the race as it’s taking place. There are four tracks technically, the main track for the camels to race on is a large wide dirt track surrounded by railings. To the right of the race track is a dirt track for the camel owners who drive next to their camels during the race to control the robot jockeys on the camels. To the left of the camel track are two paved roads also separated by railings, one for use by track employees and the camera vehicle, the second is for the spectators to drive alongside the camels during the race. I didn’t do that this past Saturday but I did do that the first time I went to the tracks and you can watch the video above to see how it looks (chaotic basically). The only difference now is the spectators road is paved instead of it being a dirt road like in the video. Back then you could also tune into FM 93.1mhz on the radio and listen to a live broadcast of the actual race as you drive around. I couldn’t test it this time since my Alfa doesn’t have a radio.
The races start at 1PM and last till 3 or 4PM depending on the week. They alternate between 8 races and 16 races a week, the more races the later they finish. This Saturday when I visited it was 8 races, 4 races with the large camels and 4 with smaller ones. The only difference between the two is the starting line shifts closer to the finish line for the smaller camels. Each race lasts around 15 minutes before the next one starts. They’re not that strict with timing, they basically wait till the races end and all the spectators drive back to the starting line before starting the next race. The races take place weekly starting in October and this year will end in the first week of March.
I definitely recommend you check the races out just don’t go with high expectations, it’s nothing fancy. If you have kids they’d probably enjoy seeing camels up close and you can get pretty close to the camels both at the start and finish line. If you want to visit the Kuwait Camel Racing Club, here is the link to Google Maps.
Al Diwan Al Amiri released a preview video of the new Entertainment City and although I hate the fact they demolished the old one, I think I kinda like this one. I like it because they’ve combined a lot of different things into the place which might actually make it successful. Previously it was just an amusement park but the new version merges a mall, hotel, and sports stadium with the park as well as an aquarium and museum. The new Entertainment City is going to be now called “The City” and contain the following:
Outdoor Theme Park (6 theme zones)
Indoor Theme Park (Envisioned by Ubisoft)
Indoor Snow Park
Waterpark
Aquarium
Dolphinarium
Museum & Planetarium
High Street Retail
A Retail Mall
Luxury District (900+ rooms and apartments)
Icon Hotel (480+ luxury rooms)
Sports and Festival Arena (25,000+ spectators)
The only thing I really don’t like and should be changed is the dolphinarium. It’s 2021, we’re all much more aware and informed on how inhumane dolphinariums are. Even The Scientific Center canceled plans for their dolphinarium so not sure why we’re still trying to build one in Kuwait.
Other than that one issue I’m excited about this project. No completion date was shared in the presentation but going by their previous schedules, I wouldn’t be surprised if the first stage isn’t completed in around 2 years’ time.
Thanks @_M87
Since I started working out at home I had been using my portable B&O Beolit 15 speaker for music. It was ok, but I felt I needed a bit more oomph to get me going during workouts plus I needed a CD player anyway. I still have all my CDs and there are some really great albums (like The K&D Sessions) that aren’t even available to stream. So I went out and bought myself a sound system and wanted to write about my experience in case anyone was interested in getting one, or just wanted to know what brands are available where.
There are three main places in Kuwait to get good audio system from:
Adawliah (Shuwaikh, Life Center location)
Brands: Bose, Jamo, Klipsch, Yamaha
Best Electronics (4th Ring Road, Shuwaikh location)
Brands: Denon, Definitive Technology, Earthquake Sound, Paradigm, Technics
Xcite (Avenues and Al-Rai locations)
Brands: AudioQuest, Bowers & Wilkins, KEF, Klipsch, Marantz, Onkyo, Polk Audio, SVS
In addition to the above, I also checked out Samma3a.com and Amazon.co.uk for AudioLab and Cambridge Audio brands since both sites would deliver to Kuwait. Samma3a had free shipping and Amazon UK although has expensive shipping, they remove the 20% VAT from the cost of the item when exporting so with the shipping cost the price balances out.
Like with everything I tend to buy, I do a ton of research first. I didn’t have a budget at first, I just found a nice setup at Best Electronics in Shuwaikh that had a Denon amp and CD player paired with Definitive Tech speakers and a small Earthquake sub for around KD500 which I liked. I initially decided I wanted to pay a lot less than that for my system, but, if I was to pay that much then I needed to make sure it was worth it. So I started the research process by looking at different brands locally and online.
I read and watched a ton of reviews and the more I did the more confused I was getting. The problem was that everyone had a different idea of what good sound is supposed to sound like. Most audiophiles for example would find what I like very “musical” which is their polite way of saying not authentic and over-exaggerated, but I also couldn’t agree with their idea of what bass is meant to sound like. In the end, the best thing I did was listen to the speakers myself before buying them. I had basically narrowed my options locally to three speaker brands, B&W, Definitive Technology, and KEF. I went to the showrooms expecting the salespeople to be unhelpful and I didn’t think they would actually let me test out the speakers, but, surprisingly, they were all super helpful. I had such a great experience in the audio sections of Adawliah, Best, and Xcite, they were all just fantastic. The salespeople I interacted with had no issues picking up and moving heavy speakers from one end of the showroom to the other just so they could connect them to a working amplifier and I could listen to them. I usually don’t like dealing with salespeople but something about the guys working in the audio sections, they all seem to have a passion for what they do.
In the end, I mostly stuck around at the Xcite branch in Al-Rai (shoutout to Cezar) since I decided I wanted KEF speakers and they had most of them on display there. I already had a pair of KEF LSX speakers which I had been using in my main living area and I really liked them so I decided to stick with KEF. Xcite had the KEF LS50W which is the LSX big brother selling for KD400 which was half the actual retail price and I was very close to getting it until I heard the KEF R7’s. While browsing I noticed the KEF R7’s were discounted and priced at KD379. So I had the salesman hook them up and I started listening to some of my music and that was it, I fell in love instantly. They were everything I was looking for in a speaker and I couldn’t believe I finally found the speakers I REALLY wanted. So I decided to buy them. The salesman checked his system and told me they were the last piece. It was odd cuz I could see his screen said he had 2 pieces left so I asked him about it and that’s when he hit me with the bad news. Turns out the R7’s were sold individually, not as a pair. Meaning the KD379 price was per speaker, so around KD750 for the pair after discount (close to 1,500 before). I ended up leaving empty-handed and sad since they sounded incredible but also cost wayyyyy more than I wanted to pay.
I spent the next few days thinking about a lot of things. Music was always something I was really into while growing up and something I always spent all my money on. The last time I bought a decent pair of speakers was 20 years ago, I was fresh out of college and right after moving back to Kuwait I bought a pair of Jamo X870 speakers from Adawliah. They were also discounted around 50% off and I spent maybe KD200 on them. And that was back when I was broke with maxed-out credit cards. I still have those speakers today and use them in my living room. So if I could spend that much money 20 years ago when I was broke, surely I can spend more now, so I did. I went back to Xcite and ended up picking the KEF R7’s. I then passed by Adawliah and picked up the Yamaha R-N803 integrated amp which was also discounted down to KD200. A few days later I headed back to Xcite and picked up a Marantz CD5005 CD player which was discounted down to KD60. And finally, this past weekend I dropped by Xcite one last time and picked up the SVS SB-2000 Pro subwoofer which was discounted down to KD259 to connect to my KEF LSX in my other room. My total bill is absurd, but, it’s been a a hell of a year so whatever.
So just a quick review, it’s been over a week now since I got the KEF R7’s and I really really love them. The sound comes out so clear and the bass really deep. I used to think my Jamo’s were great but they just sound so muddy now compared to the KEF’s. I’ve started listening to music more now while at home. Definitely no regrets with my purchase. The Yamaha amplifier has also been great, it pumps a lot of power to the speakers and also has the convenience of built-in WiFi. Because of the WiFi, I’ve now set up the KEF R7’s as AirPlay speakers making it super easy to stream to them whenever I want to. I also have the SVS subwoofer connected to my KEF LSX speakers downstairs and those sound even better than they did before, definitely worth the money.
If you’re looking to buy a proper sound system then Adawliah, Best and Xcite are your best options. Make sure you visit the locations I’ve specifically mentioned since that’s where you’ll find the brands I listed, their other showrooms won’t have them. Also, not everything is listed on their websites. Actually, nothing I bought was listed on any of the websites. At Adawliah the employee had to search through his system to tell me what 2-channel integrated amps they had in stock, at Xcite everything was showing as sold out, and Best doesn’t even have any of the brands I mentioned listed on their website.
Got questions? Let me know in the comments and I’ll try and answer them for you.
Kei, the first Japanese restaurant in Kuwait is closing down their JW Marriott location at the end of the month. Kei first opened up 40 years ago and were originally located at the Hilton Hotel in Bneid Al Gar but had to move because the hotel got demolished. They moved to JW Marriott 20 years ago and now have to move again because the hotel is also getting partially demolished. They still haven’t found a new location to move to, so it will be awhile until they’re back again. If you want to pass by one more time before they close, their last day of operation is December 31st.
Regarding the hotel what I understood is happening is that Salhiya Mall will be expanding into the lobby area of the hotel and the first few floors of the hotel will be converted to offices. The hotel will still remain but will move up a few floors above the offices.
Over the weekend the MOH launched a vaccine pre-registration website which you can access by clicking here. I’ve read both that this website will help prioritize those who register early to get the vaccine first, and I’ve also read that this website is just for the government to get an idea of how many people are interested in the vaccine. In any case, the plan is to start by vaccinating 10,000 people a day beginning with essential workers and other priority groups first. I’m guessing that number will eventually increase once private clinics start offering the vaccine as well.
Oddly I keep hearing about people not wanting to vaccinate and are worried it would become mandatory. I’m personally going to vaccinated as soon as possible just so I can go back to living life without worrying about contracting the virus. It’s pretty difficult to run a blog about Kuwait without being able to freely go around the country discovering and trying new things. I just want all this to be over with already.
[poll id=”13″]
The Touristic Enterprises Company (TEC) is planning to renovate Messilah Beach from the ground up. The club first opened in the late 1980’s and I’ve been to it a few times back in the 90s when I was still in school but haven’t really been there since so don’t really have any attachment to the place.
The new renovated Messilah will contain:
6 Restaurant blocks
Swimming Pool and Wet Recreation areas
Jogging Track
Hard and Soft Landscaping
450 Car Parking spaces
No start or completion date was mentioned but you can check out more renderings of the beach here.
Also found the picture below of the club I’m guessing from the 80s or 90s which I thought looked cool.
Thanks lovelykuwait
I recently found out that the oldest Persian restaurant in Kuwait was located down the street from where I live. Layali Tehran was the first Persian restaurant in Kuwait and has been around now for over 50 years. They were originally located in Sharq but had to move to Salmiya years ago. I don’t know much about Iranian food other than kebabs so I’m not the best person to ask about the food, but, I think the most interesting thing anyway is the idea of dining at the oldest Iranian restaurant in Kuwait.
If you want to try it out they’re located on Amman Street. Parking is a bit difficult but I parked across the street where there was less traffic and just crossed over. Their phone number is 25613312 and here is their location on [Google Maps]
This got me thinking, I wonder if the first Chinese or Italian restaurant in Kuwait still exists? I previously posted about the oldest restaurants in Kuwait and there were some good examples in the comments, check those out here.
Also just shared some interesting stuff on Twitter related to the oldest restaurants in Kuwait:
Oldest “liver” restaurant in Kuwait
Opening of Muwaffak Jabri Restaurant in 1961
Opening of the first Wimpy in 1969
Photo of the first burger restaurant in Kuwait Haroon El-Rasheed
This took a super long time but SOLO Pizza in the city finally expanded their space. They took over the location next door and broken open the wall between the two spaces. Perfect timing with the whole pandemic and all since previously the seating area inside was super tight while now they can comfortably space out all the tables.
If you’ve recently walked along the Gulf Road or taken a trip to Mutla’a then you’ve probably noticed Kashta setups on the beach or in the desert. Last year there were only a handful of businesses that set up these gathering spots but this year the market has exploded with everyone jumping on board the kashta train.
Inspired Edibles have put together the ultimate kashta setup list which I’ve reposted below. Because there are so many I’ve highlighted the ones that seemed the most interesting with an asterix *
BOHO *
C Breeze
Cavotago
Cliche
D Table
December Tent
Desert Room
Desierto *
Doublede
Explore More
Festivity
Getaway
Glamping
Kashta Chill
Kashta KWT *
Kashta Limited
Kashta Spot
Kashtaaa
Kashtat
La Bohème *
La Récolte *
Le Project
Let’s Kashta
Lumière *
Maddah
Nakshet
Outing
Paper Moments
Picnic Day
Picnic Vibes *
Project Room
Rental Hub
Rentals by REL.EVENTS
Sea Wild
Set It *
Sets by A *
Sol Sahara *
Tents by the Moon
The Parterre
The Flower Reception
The Modern Kashta
Three by Three
Van Life *
VEER *
VEZ
Vivid Events
The all-new Xbox Series X officially launches today but I was lucky enough to get mine yesterday so I could play around with it and have a post ready for today. I purchased mine from Geekay on September 22nd when they launched the Xbox pre-orders. I was hoping to get a hold of a unit before the launch date by a few days but the Geekay shipment of Xbox’s only cleared customs yesterday afternoon and so only got to pick up mine after that.
Not sure about other local sellers but Geekay will be either delivering all the pre-orders today. They also contacted their customers and arranged a pickup timeslot for today if they didn’t want to wait for delivery. My brother for example is gonna have to wake up early today to pick up his Xbox at 9AM, so it was a lot of fun sending him photos yesterday of my Xbox.
There are a lot of unboxing videos and reviews on YouTube by much better gamers than me, but in this post I’ll go over some of the things regarding our Middle East edition.
Once you open the box there isn’t a manual, but the getting started guide is bilingual
The power plug is the UK Type G plug
The console works with 220v so no need for a transformer
There is no power brick, just a regular cable from the Xbox to the wall plug (this is the best thing ever)
I have a US Xbox account and it works perfectly fine with the Middle East edition Xbox (well kinda)
I ran into a minor issue buying games from the Xbox store and I think it’s because I have a US Xbox account but a Kuwait-based Microsoft account? I pay the monthly Microsoft Office subscription fee using a Kuwait address but I have my location on my Xbox account set to US so maybe there is some sort of conflict
Because of the issue I had of purchasing games directly from inside the Xbox store I ended up using Amazon to buy the digital copy of Assassin’s Creed Valhalla. I used a Florida address so I didn’t pay any tax and got the game for the listed price of $59.99 and then installed it on my Xbox using the code Amazon sent me
On my Zain 5G, Valhalla took around 2 hours to download. It’s a 47GB file and was downloading on average at speeds of 45Mbps with the occasional jump to around 65Mbps and drop to 35Mbps. The game was ready to start halfway through the download but because I installed it before the launch date I couldn’t play it
I only installed two games on my Xbox for now, Castlevania: Symphony of the Night and Killer Instinct. Quick resume worked perfectly when flip-flopping between the two games
The packaging and overall design of the Series X is minimal and smart, I personally love it. I think the new PS5 is ugly (sorry Sony fanboys) while this is a lot less flashy and it fit into my TV cabinet perfectly
The controller feels great, there is a new texture on the backside which gives it a much better grip when held
The official price of the Xbox Series X in Kuwait is KD167 while the smaller Series S costs KD104
If anyone has any questions, let me know and I’ll try to answer it in the comments.
Recently while riding my bike on the Gulf Road, I noticed an Extreme Sports truck loaded up with bicycles parked in one of the lots. I didn’t know what it was for at first but then spotted an employee a few days ago and decided to stop and find out what they were doing. Turns out it’s an Extreme Sports bicycle rental truck. For KD3 an hour you could rent a bicycle from them to ride up and down the Gulf Road.
I’ve previously posted about their bike rental location at Marina Waves, this one on the other hand is located at the Green Island parking lot. If you don’t have a bicycle but feel like riding one, this is a pretty good option. Here is the location of the rental truck on Google Maps.
I don’t remember how I first found out about the Ahmadi Desert Motoring Club (ADMC), or how I came about a picture of their car badge, but when I first saw it I knew I needed to have one. It’s such a great looking badge with the cute desert mouse and beautiful colors, I ended up spending over a year looking for one to purchase and wasn’t able to find a single one for sale, anywhere and for any price! I got in touch with random people whose parents might have been part of the club, I checked small private sllers, large auction sites, I checked with car badge collectors, and nobody either had one or wanted to sell one. Finally, back in September, one went on sale on eBay, and not just any, but one that was in pristine, 10/10 condition. It looked like it had never been installed on a car before and all the enamel was still intact and vibrant. I put a ridiculous maximum bid number since I knew I’d most likely not come across another one ever that was so clean, eventually, I ended up winning the bid for a lot less than I expected, around KD75.
Now that I had the badge I found it very frustrating that I couldn’t dig up any info on the club, there wasn’t anything online except for a single photo from an ADMC Alitalia Darts event dating back to 1964 and that was it. So I got in touch with a friend at KOC and asked him if he could check their archives for any photos or articles on the club and he struck gold.
Turns out KOC had some photos related to the motoring club but they were still negatives which hadn’t been scanned. So they dug them out of their archive and scanned them so I could share them on the blog. These images haven’t been seen by anyone for over 65 years! They also shared some articles relating to the club from the old KOC newsletter called “The Kuwaiti”. The Kuwaiti was a weekly newsletter and he flipped through the 1954 and 1955 archive of the newsletter and sent me some photos of ones relating to the club and motoring in general. Some really interesting stuff.
I’ve decided to share everything in two ways. Firstly I uploaded all the photos and articles to a Flickr album. If you prefer viewing things that way click here.
I’ve also created a PDF file of all the articles and if you prefer viewing the articles that way then click here to download the PDF
For the scanned images I have all of them embedded in high resolution below. The blog will resize them automatically to fit the width of my page, but if you save the images, you can view them in higher resolution on your phone or computer. Check those out by clicking more below.
Finally, I’d like to thank Kuwait Oil Company for digging these photos out and scanning them for me. Now people looking for info on the club will be able to find some kind of information online.
I found out about a website a few days ago called Yalla Compare which is a financial comparison website. It’s actually a website that sells insurance but is made to look like a financial comparison website but they do actually have comparissons. Using the website you can compare the different requirements and rates for personal and car loans between the different banks but more importantly, you can also see all the different credit cards offered by the local banks and compare their costs and benefits.
I’m not sure if people choose a bank based on credit card benefits, I’m assuming no. But, if you’re at least curious about what other banks are offering compared to what you’re getting, check out the list by clicking here.