Category: Information

So we can now mark off Red Lobster and Olive Garden from our restaurants we need to have in Kuwait list. What’s still missing? Wendy’s, A&W, Five Guys, Jack in the Box, White Castle, Arby’s, Cheese Cake Factory, In-N-Out and Taco Bell. [Link]

via SomeContrast

Back in May I linked to a PDF taken from a 1969 issue of National Geographic and spoke about the Villa pictured above because I loved the design of it. Well a reader just landed across my post and commented the following:

Hi, this is our house, it used to belongs to my father and 2 brothers, Mohamed, Nasser (my late father) and Faisal Al-Duaijani. It was built and finished in 1968 and we moved into it when I was 5 years old after previously living in Do3′a (Farwaniya now).

The house is located at the intersection of the 4th ring road with Damascus street in Al-Rodah and it was sold to Mr. Al-Mokeazeam (cant recall his first name.. sorry) back in 1985. There was some modifications done to it, they completed the 3rd floor and closed the balconies which really made it lose its futuristic (at that time) looks. The villa was also shown in (Tarbiya Wataniya) elementary school book back in 1979 as one of the landmarks of Kuwait with my uncle Faisal shown standing in the first floor balcony. The villa just next to it was built and owned by my aunt and her husband the late Mr. Jasem Al-3otaiby. It had the same features and it still exists (also with some modifications) but it was sold directly to Al-Banwan family which i guess they’re still living in it.

I’m sorry I can’t recall the name of the architect and I’ll try to ask about it and give tell you if I find out. From what I recall we had big disputes with him about the mocked copies of the villa, the one in 3deliya and the one in Khaldiya about the exclusivity of design and rights to it which believe it or not was stronger back in the 60′s & 70′s than today!!

Aaahh, I’m 45 years old now, where did the good old days go??!!

Thanks,
Abdulla

Salad Creations are opening their second branch at 360 Mall. Their first branch is located near my office in Baitak Tower which is practical during work days but not on the weekends or evenings since Baitak Tower is like a ghost town after working hours. The 360 Mall branch should make their healthy salads and wraps easily accessible to a lot more people and hopefully start a trend with more healthy restaurants popping up at shopping mall food courts. They’re soft launching this Monday and I wish them the best of luck. [Link]

A reader emailed me to tell me that while collecting newspapers and magazines from the late 50’s he found an article about schools in Kuwait in the 1960’s. He managed to scan and email me the article (it’s a few pages long) and I put them together in a single PDF to make it easier to download and view. The article is in Arabic and here is the [Link]

Does anyone recognize the school in the picture above on the right side?

Thanks Camil

The weather is great and so the Cinemagic movie nights are back on. For this month they have everything from chilling thrillers to hot dramas, from warm romances to cool comedies, everything that will enrich your taste and love for movies.

Thursday, October 14th at 7:30PM
REVANCHE
Director: Gotz Spielmann
Country: Austria
Release: 2008
Genre: Thriller | Drama
Running time: 122 minutes
Language: German | Russian | English Subtitle
Awards: Winner BIFF 2008, Oscar Nominee Best Foreign film 2009
Rated: R

Saturday, October 16th at 7:30PM
ONCE
Director: John Carney
Country: Ireland
Release: 2006
Genre: Drama | Music | Romance
Running time: 88 minutes
Language: English | Czech Subtitle
Awards: 18 awards and 13 nominations
Rated: R

Thursday, October 21st at 7:30PM
THE WIZARD OF OZ
Director: Victor Fleming
Country: USA
Release: 1939
Genre: Adventure | Fantasy | Musical | Family
Running time: 101 minutes
Language: English | English Subtitle
Awards: 2 Oscars, 5 other wins and 8 nominations
Rated: PG

Saturday, October 23rd at 7:30PM
SURPRISE FILM
Director:
Country: Germany, France
Release: 2006
Genre: Drama | Thriller
Running time: 147 minutes
Language: English | English Subtitle
Awards: 12 wins and 12 nominations
Rated: 15+

Thursday, October 28th at 7:30PM
THE HOST
Director: Bong Joon-Ho
Country: South Korea
Release: 2006
Genre: Horror | Drama | Comedy
Running time: 120 minutes
Language: Korean | English Subtitle
Awards: 6 wins and 1 nomination
Rated: R

Saturday, October 30th at 7:30PM
CZECH DREAM
Director: Vit Klusak, Flip Remunda
Country: Czech Republic
Release: 2004
Genre: Documentary | Comedy
Running time: 88 minutes
Language: Czech | English Subtitle
Awards: 6 wins and 1 nomination
Rated: PG

Cinemagic Kuwait, is organizing these events as part of its efforts to contribute to the development of an internationally competitive Kuwaiti audio-visual production industry, partly by bringing the filmmakers and audiences together and by Increasing the public’s interest in – and appreciation for – the art of film-making. Cinemagic movies are screened in the old Salmiya, on the roof on top of Alghanim Electronics and LG. There is a KD1 charge for the venue fees which includes refreshments, popcorn and much more. Here is a link to their facebook group [Link]

Interesting fact, 9.7% of all loans in Kuwait defaulted in 2009, that’s the worst rate among the GCC countries. On the other hand Qatar had the lowest level with just 1.7% of loans defaulting. With the financial crisis UAE went through I would have figured the rate there would be higher but in UAE only 4.6% of the loans defaulted. Weird. [Link]

Thanks FYI

Even though the official opening of the Historical Vintage & Classic Cars Museum has been postponed till next week, the museum is actually open right now. Their timings are from 9AM to 12:30PM and 5PM to 8PM. They’re located across the street from Tilal Complex in Kuwait City. Tilal Complex is right next to City Center for those of you who don’t know it.

A friend of mine, Laila Al-Gharabally, wrote and illustrated a children’s book called “Al-Hadiya” (“The Gift” in English). She will be selling and holding a book signing at her publisher’s booth (Arab Scientific Publishers) on October 14 in the evening at the Kuwait International Fair’s 35th Book Fair in Mishref.

The annual book fair held at Kuwait’s International Fair (www.kif.net) is the biggest book fair in Kuwait and will last for ten days starting from October 13th to October 23rd. For more information on the book fair click [Here]

Since the weather is currently great I figured I would try a new activity this week which is scuba diving. I had never scuba dived before and have always been wanting to try it out but never really had a chance until today. I woke up early and headed to the Kuwait Science Club next to 360 Mall with Nat. There we met up with some members of the Kuwait Diving Team who were going to take us through the Discover Scuba Diving course.

The first thing we had to do was sit and watch a short video about scuba diving. After that we were verbally instructed on the basics of scuba diving, some safety advice and given a bunch of other information before we headed to the pool for a live test.

The idea behind the Discover Scuba Diving course is to give you an idea of what it’s like to breathe underwater. When I first put the air regulator in my mouth it felt a little uncomfortable but I quickly got used to the idea of breathing in and out from my mouth. The scuba gear on your back isn’t as heavy as it looks which was surprising since I thought it would be much heavier than that.

We spent a short period of time in the shallow end of the pool practicing how to breathe, how to put the regulator in and out of our mouth under water, how to signal if everything is ok or if we need help, etc… We then proceeded to swim to the deep end which goes down to 5 meters and we then spent the rest of the time at the bottom there swimming, throwing a small toy torpedo around and generally getting comfortable swimming, breathing and spending time deep in the water without going out.

It was a lot of fun and I enjoyed it a lot more than I thought I would. Nat is going to continue scuba diving by taking the open water course with them but I on the other hand don’t think will have time for scuba diving with all my other activities.

The Kuwait Diving Team guys are really great, they love what they do and they’re extremely dedicated. If they aren’t spending their time instructing they’re out in the sea saving the coral reefs, recovering sunken ships or performing some other environmental heroism. The Discover Scuba Diving course is free and runs for around 3 hours. Once you take the course and feel like scuba diving is something you want to get into then you can sign up to the Open Water / Advance course which is KD140. That course involves 5 pool dives, 5 classroom sessions and 4 open water sea dives. Once you complete that course you would get your scuba diving certificate and will be able to go diving with other certified scuba divers without a need for an instructor.

For more information or to setup an appointment for a Discover Scuba Diving course you can contact PADI Instructor Meshari Alkhabbaz on 97900714.

If you’ve got a Kuwaiti passport you’re lucky since according to recent data, a Kuwaiti passport allows you visa-free entry into 71 countries topping out all the other Arab countries. Lebanon on the other hand ranks at the bottom with the likes of Iran, Yemen and Syria ranking higher. Here is the list of Arabic countries rankings:

1- Kuwait 71
2- Bahrain 67
3- Qatar 66
4- UAE 64
5- Oman 61
6- Saudi Arabia 57
7- Egypt 43
8- Jordan 39
9- Syria 39
10- Yemen 38
11- Iran 34
12- Lebanon 32
13- Iraq 27

On the other hand the British passport topped the whole list allowing visa-free entry into 166 countries. Here is the link to the full article [Link]

Picture from zDistrict

I think I’m going to try and pass by after lunch tomorrow and take some pictures. I haven’t taken sport shots before and a rugby match seems like a good way to start:

The Kuwait Scorpions Rugby Club (formally the Nomads) start their 2010/2011 season this Friday (1st Oct) with a home match against Muscat RFC. Pre-season training has been well attended and with the recent league reconstruction, the Scorpions are looking to have a successful season both home and away.

Come and support your local team against the might of Muscat!!

Kick Off is at 3pm at the Ahmadi ‘Sandpit’

For directions and further details of KSRFC, please go to www.q8scorpions.com

Thanks Akbar

I just got an email from someone telling me he’s been getting lots of phone calls regarding my post about Sidekick Academy. It seems by mistake I typed the wrong number in and people have been calling him all day. The correct number for Sidekick Academy is 99975562.

Sorry about that!

It’s been awhile since I posted about Mishaal Al Roomi. For those of you who are new to the blog and haven’t heard about him, Mishaal is a young and extremely talented weather forecaster whom I’ve posted about a number of times before. He had a website which he used to update daily with the weather forecast even though he was only 17 years old. His site ended up having technical problems and then the updates suddenly stopped. Well he emailed me today telling me that his website www.q8weather.com is now fixed and getting updated daily.

So if you want to get an accurate weather forecast you can now head over to his website and check out his predictions. I’m also going to check with him and see if there is somehow I can implement his forecast into the Kuwait Blogs app. Here is a link to his 5-day forecast which is what I used to check [Link]

Van Cleef & Arpels will be launching tomorrow evening (September 28th) at Salhiya Complex.

Additionally, Bvlgari will be relaunching on October 4th in the same location as their previous store in Salhiya but this time it’s under new ownership.

Great news which you can read over [Here]

I’m more interested in the Reuters photo used in the article which I’ve posted above. I thought Reuters was against photoshopped images yet the one above looks fake. It looks like someone took all the skyscrapers in Kuwait and then shoved them next to each other… but I could be wrong.