Category: Interesting

I’m still out of the country on vacation so posting is going to be slow till I’m back. But, I did come across an interesting TikTok account that might be my favorite at the moment.

@jahra.removals is an instagram account I’m guessing run by the Jahra baladiya or someone that works there and it’s basically non stop videos of bulldozers destroying illegal structures constructed there. There is a bit of ASMR involved and what I love is the fact there is no prep work, the bulldozers just destroy things as they are.

@jahra.removals #بلدية_الكويت #بلدية_الجهراء #فريق_الازالات #ازالة_المخالفات #قسم_ازالة_المخالفات #سعد_العبدالله #جنوب_سعد_العبدالله #الجهراء ♬ الصوت الأصلي – jahra.removals

Clearly other people are also entertained by these videos with a few having over half a million views and one video (above) with 1.7million views.

Here is the link.

Kuwait has some interesting and scary folklore but most of it is being forgotten. So here are five horrifying creatures you might not know about:

Hemarat Algayla
This terrifying monster also goes by the simpler name Um Homar (Donkey Lady) and tells the story of a half-woman, half-donkey creature who seeks out and devours kids. The monster sleeps most of the day and night but wakes up to hunt at noon when the sun is at the highest point in the sky. Mothers would tell this story to stop kids from going out in the strong sun and get heat exhaustion. The story was a way to scare them to stay inside when it was the hottest time outside.

Tantal
While Um Homar hunts during the day, Tantal hunts during the night. He was known to shape-shift and if he spotted a child out after dark, he would take the form of whatever the child feared the most and then chased them until the child dropped dead from their heart giving out. It was a way for the parents to keep their children at home after dark.

Al-Seolu
This monster was described as a Nubian slave who came back to life with giant teeth and a large appetite for children. He goes out hunting during the night near the sea looking for kids who are out alonem and once he finds one, he drowns them and then eats their corpse. Back in 1910 there was a bit of a scare in Kuwait and people became more terrified of this monster because a child had drowned and was never found leading people to believe he was eaten by Al-Seolu.

Um Al Sa’af Wa Alleef
This scary old lady is a witch like character that is composed of palm leaves and can fly. She was believed to have frighten badly behaved children who disobeyed their parents. She hides up in the palm trees amongst the branches and when the branches shake because of strong winds or heavy rains, the parents would scare the children telling them she was up there looking for naughty children to kidnap.

Bu Darya
This water demon goes by the name “the Father of the Sea”. He was half-man half-fish who roamed the deep seas. At night Bu Darya will swim to the surface near boats and thrash about in the water while screaming for help. Once a sailor tries to assist what they believed to be a drowning human, Bu Darya would grab the sailor and drag him under water and hold them there until they’re dead. Bu Darya also attacked pearl divers so he could steal their pearls and was known to drag sleeping fishermen off their ships to eat them.

Image on top is of a painting by Nawaf-Alhmeli @nawaf_art

Note: Original less detailed version of this post was published in 2011

A few years ago I posted a postcard sent by Malcolm X while he was in Kuwait in 1964 while on a personal and spiritual journey through the Middle East and West Africa. There isn’t very much information on his visit, and I haven’t been able to find any photos, but I did find his entries on Kuwait from his travel diary:

Thurs. Sept. 24
“Abdullah picked me up in his taxi. I stopped at the airport to check my reservations, was recognized by one of the clerks who immediately introduced me to others, including Mr. Khan, head of the local PAL (Pakistan) office. We had coffee & he told me of the pending Pakistan, Iran bloc that is forming & will later form with the Arabs. My ticket was re- routed thru Bahrain. I toured Aramco again had breakfast there, went into the city (?) to buy papers. Thurs & Fri is a holiday with Aramco. Finally caught the plane, stopped in Bahrain for 1 hr. & then arrived in Kuwait at 6:10 pm & checked into the Phoenicia Hotel. All of the clerks knew who I was (I don’t know how) and treated me very well. All of the Arabs refer to me as ‘Zgieeme Muslim fi America’ [?] After dinner in the hotel’s very exotic restaurant I finally got____Demardash on the phone. He’ll see me tomorrow. I’ve been frantic all evening because I lost my ‘health certificate.’ It was left either at the Sudanese Consulate in Jeddah or at the airport customs by the protocol officer.
“I’m anti-racism whether it’s practiced by capitalist, communist or socialist. China ambassador to Ghana: ‘Don’t be a racist. It’s a struggle between oppressed people of all colors against oppressor of all colors.’ If he was a racist, since the press had projected me in the image of an extreme racist, racism would have the natural & wisest approach from him, but instead He approached the problem objective as a human being.

“When we all learn to think as human beings instead of as capitalists, communists & socialists this will then be a world for all human beings.

“It takes some of the same poison to counteract (same as antidote) poison. Europeanism has been such a strong poison for centuries it now becomes essential to emphasize Africanism to counteract it & Arabism to counteract Zionism, socialism to counteract capitalism etc. Orientalism or Darkism to counter-balance Occidentalism or whitism…thus the present escalating world struggle (cold war).”

Fri. Sept 25
“Two brothers from the hotel took me to the main mosque for Jumah prayers where I met Faisal who had been to the States twice. He asked me if knew Malcolm X & was shocked when I told him my name. We discussed the race problem & the Zionists. Back at the hotel I napped, still worried about my health certificate & how much or where it might hold me up. I walked around Kuwait by myself (I had the UAA check my reservations for Tues—okay) and when I returned Hameed Demerdash had phoned, he came by at 8 pm and we talked until 9 pm. He seemed more at ease than when we first met in Cairo. He asked me for the news article in the Jeddah paper (Bilal) to show it to the government officials tomorrow. I went down to a lonely dinner at 9:15.”

Sat. Sept. 26
“I went early (7:30 am) to the American Embassy & explained about my health certificate to a Mr. Waterman. He never asked me any ‘personal’ questions, didn’t even show any sign of recognition. By 8:30 he had called my hotel, advising me to go to the American Mission Hospital near my hotel and a Dr. Pennings there could help me. I went immediately. Dr. Pennings asked me outright if I was Malcolm X. They gave me a couple of shots and told me to call Monday (28th) for the certificate. At 3 pm some local newspapers reporters came to interview me. I spent most of the day in my room writing & napping. The hotel owner (a Palestinian) acted as interpreter. He irked me when he asked why (a Muslim leader) I didn’t know Arabic. I politely (with ice) pointed out that the Arabs had never taken the initiative to set up schools in American to teach Arabic like the Jews and others have. At 8 pm Yusuf______took me to dinner at an exotic basement restaurant. One would not even know of its existence: the entrance was inside of another ordinary looking restaurant. We discussed religion, politics: The Saudis, Nasser, Zionists, Americans, Pakistanis, etc.”

Sunday Sept. 27
“I went past the Sudanese Embassy and the Saudi Embassy seeking more information about my last health certificate. Between 4 & 5 pm I tried to get a call thru to the Sudanese Embassy in Jeddah to no avail. Demerdash finally called & said would see some of the foreign ministry officials tomorrow. That’s a relief because I’ve been very idle ever since arriving in Kuwait and have been beginning to feel I was wasting my time. In fact, had I had my health certificate I’d have been on the next plane out. I started even to look for a movie about 8 pm & bellhop (who likes me & asked for me to pose for some pictures with him) came to see me & said movies were forbidden (Harum) for Muslims. I asked him what the difference between the movies and the TV’s in people’s home. He thought there was a difference, so I went to the TV room instead. There was a Lebanese lady there too who could speak ‘bits’ of English. She was wealthy, a Christian and very shrewdly critical of her fellow Arabs.”

Mon. Sept 28
“Demerdash came at 8:30 am and took me to the foreign ministry. The secretary, Muhammad F. Al-Herbish, had seen me on TV in London & immediately became friendly & helpful. He took me to see ______ and while there two more came in. One was the son-in-law of HE Prince Gabis Al- Sabbah, and the other HE Rashid, their ambassador to the UN. They were cordial, attentive & seemed sympathetic. Since a special cabinet meeting was being held it was impossible to see the ministers but Herbish kept calling until he got the Minister of WAKF [?] on the phone & he agreed to see me after the cabinet meeting. He spoke ‘some’ English, so I conversed mostly thru a young interpreter who had been educated in Calif. I had some cards made, watched TV with the Somali diplomat (ambassador?) and the Lebanese aristocrat. She was frightened when one of the bellhops told her I was a Muslim, because last nite she had ‘talked too much’ about the leaders in the Muslim countries (Ben Bella, etc.) and I had sat & listened, playing dumb.”

Tues. Sept 29
“My plane left Kuwait & arrived in Beirut on schedule.

Khalifouh Village opened this past February, but I only found out about it in April and by then the village had already closed down for the season. Now the village is getting ready to open again and I was lucky enough to be given permission to pass by and get a sneak peek.

The village is owned by the popular Kuwaiti actor Khalifa Khalifouh who is known for his roles on a few popular tv shows and plays. Khalifa is very passionate about the Kuwaiti heritage and while working on shows involving old Kuwaiti villages, he didn’t like the way they were being poorly built so he decided he wanted to build a proper village, which he did. Khalifouh Village isn’t the first village he built, he originally built one in Salmi but then decided to knock it down and build another one in Wafra to make it more accessible to people.

The village is big with lots of buildings and alleyways connecting them all. The village has the basic necessities that a real village would have like a mosque, a baker, a tea shop, a theater and a main square. When the village officially opens for guests it will have more props and activities happening, but since it was closed when I visited, it was just me and an empty village.

I really wanted to visit the village for two reasons. The first is obviously to post about it, but the second reason was to take one of my classic cars so I could take photos of it with the village as a backdrop. Driving through the village in my old car felt weirdly real, like I had stumbled upon an old, abandoned village in the desert. Because the village is in Wafra where there are no tall buildings, once you’re inside all you see is the village and nothing else from the outside world.

There is no set date for the reopening of the village. They were targeting this month, but the weather hasn’t really cooled that much so it now looks like it will be in December. To stay posted on the opening, follow their account which also has some great photos @khalifouhvillage

Here is their location on Google Maps.

Turtle Park is a small artificial island on the Gulf Road located right behind Johnny Carino’s. It’s called Turtle Park on Google Maps because it has turtle sculptures scattered on it.

Unlike Duck Park which I posted about a couple of weeks ago and has real ducks, there are no real turtles in Turtle Park. It’s still really cute though.

Don’t miss the Draconid meteor shower tonight.

The shower will be visible just after sunset and throughout the evening hours. Expect to see around 10 meteors streak across the sky per hour which is less than other showers, but the advantage is, they’re going to be moving slowly. The Draconid meteors are know to move slower than other showers so they should be visible for one or two seconds instead of disappearing in a blink of an eye.

You don’t need a telescope or any special equipment to view the shower, but if you want the best viewing conditions then it helps to be as far from artificial light as possible.

If you’ve ever been to the Kuwait Towers you probably noticed the dirty windows and wondered why they weren’t being cleaned. Well turns out they were being cleaned but the glass itself had discolored and oxidized over the years making them look dirtier than they actually were.

The Kuwait Towers are located right by the sea so they’re exposed to the salty sea air that has corrosive effects on a variety of the materials used in the towers including concrete, metal and glass. Back in June I posted about how the blue discs covering the towers were getting restored, well last week I found out that the glass is now also getting restored.

A company called RITEC was contracted for the restoration which involves a 5 stage process. The first stages relate to the actual restoration of the glass where various chemicals and abrasives are used to remove the oxidation from the glass. Once the oxidation is removed, the glass is polished and revived to its original state making it look brand new. The final stages involve protecting the glass with a nonstick clear shield that not only will prevent the salt from adhering to the glass again, but also dust. In fact, the windows will require 70% less cleaning and will no longer need any soap or chemicals to get cleaned, just water.

This restoration process is currently ongoing as of this post and they’ve already nearly completed restoring the glass at the observation deck and are in process of restoring the glass around the restaurants.

The next time you visit the towers you should see a night and day difference. You’ll finally be able to see out of the windows clearly as well as take nicer shots of the city skyline.

The Gulf Road is one of my favorite places in Kuwait but the lack of a bike path is very frustrating. I ride my bicycle on the walkway close to the water but the path isn’t wide enough for both bicycles and people when it’s busy and even when it’s empty the pathway is fairly rough to ride on using a road bike. Because the only other alternative is riding on the road with the cars ,I put up with the issues because I don’t really have another choice.

But looks like we’re finally going to get a dedicated bicycle path.

SSH, the architecture and engineering consultant firm have just taken over the waterfront project. SSH are the same people behind such projects as the Sheikh Jaber Al Ahmad Cultural Centre (JACC) and the Sheikh Abdullah Al Salem Cultural Centre (ASCC) so I’m very excited about this.

The 9.7-kilometre-long waterfront project will stretch from the Yacht Club in Salmiya all the way to the Kuwait Towers and offer essential amenities for visitors, over 60 commercial and investment opportunities for local businesses, various sports activities, swimming areas, a bicycle path, a jogging path, and a recreational area for children.

The project timeline is 1 year.

Back in February, I got a tour of a 2,000KD-a-night hotel room but a friend told me there was a more luxurious 4,500KD-a-night room at the St.Regis. So I got in touch with them and after a bit of back and forth getting all the approvals, yesterday I finally got a tour of their 4,500KD-a-night Amiri Suite.

The 400sqm suite was designed to be a luxurious home away from home for royalty, diplomats, and celebrities. The suite can’t be booked online only by phone. It has a beautiful view of JACC and a lot of features including:

• Master Bedroom
• Barber Area
• Meeting Room
• Video Conference Room
• Large Dining Area
• Massage Room
• Fitness Area
• Sauna and Steam Room

Unless someone proves me wrong, I believe this has to be the most expensive hotel room in Kuwait. If you want to see some nicer photos of the room, they a few on the @stregiskuwait website. Link

A new 1950s themed hotel is opening up in Khiran:

The Kuwaiti people have a nostalgic view of the 1950s and the associated era of timeless cinematic classics. 1954 hotel provides a glimpse into this era by bringing back common elements from this period and linking them to more current trends. The drive-in cinema and food truck park both promote a more casual environment with direct links to the 1950s. The hotel provides architectural references in both form and detailing, while still being a modern example of hospitality.

No opening date was shared but the mall the hotel is connected to is expected to open in May. More info and renders here.

Thanks lovelykuwait & ChaoticTranquility

This cabin which looks like it’s located in a remote area of Montana is actually in Wafra. The retro-looking A-frame building has 3 bedrooms with a second smaller cabin next door that has another extra bedroom. There is also an outdoor temperature-controlled pool, a small pond, and lots of greenery and hills around the 10,000 sqm property.

One night at the A-frame costs 150KD while a weekend is 500KD. It holds up to 8 people, so find enough friends and that’s around 60KD per person for a weekend getaway in Kuwait. @a_framekw

If you’re a fan of Pret you’re probably aware that in the UK, any unsold food is always donated through the Pret Foundation.

So this got me thinking, what about Kuwait? Last week I reached out to Pret to find out and it turns out that in Kuwait it’s no different.

Locally, Pret A Manger has partnered up with the local non-profit organization re:food to try and make a difference. Every day any unsold food is donated by Pret to re:food who then take it and pass it along to the people who need it the most.

It’s a win-win for everybody and so I hope more places start doing this.

Since Souq Mubarakiya is under renovation due to the fire earlier this year, an architect asked the question, what if we redeveloped it with trams? Using the artificial intelligence program Midjourney, he was able to generate a few images which I think look great.

Souq Mubarakiya might be too small to need a tram but it could work if it started in the old village under construction across from Seef Palace and then continued through the market and back down to the Kuwait National Museum and library. Check out more photos @architect_abdulahad

SVN (pronounced seven) is the name of the new beach resort that took over the old Cornich Club location on the Gulf Road. It’s a collaboration between BNK and Inspire Fitness and they’re now getting ready to open soon. They have an exclusive opening event this coming Thursday and the resort itself will open up early next year.

So far from the little I’ve seen, it looks really cool, definitely trendier than anything else around right now. @svn_kw

Correction: I was informed that Inspire are just managing the fitness area of SVN and aren’t partners.