Category: Kuwait

If you’ve got free time to kill and enjoy being outdoors, Al Shaheed Park are looking for part-time park guides. The only requirements are you be proficient in Arabic and English, and also be aged between 18 and 30.

If you’re interested, here is the link to the application form. [Link]

A reader recommended I put together a list of places which visitors to Kuwait could check out on a short trip. It was pretty difficult to put the list together since I didn’t want to make the list too long but also struggled with places like Al Shaheed Park (Would tourists want to visit a park?). With that in mind, below is the list of my recommendations. If you have better suggestions which I’m sure you do, let me know in the comments and I might add it to the list.

Places to Visit

Kuwait Towers: I like standing under the towers and looking up more than I like going up to the towers. The observatory deck might be worth checking out if you’re interested in seeing the Kuwait City skyline although I personally don’t think it’s that great of a view. The windows are also usually dirty and at night you can’t see anything outside because the observatory deck is too brightly lit on the inside. The restaurant in the Kuwait Towers isn’t that bad, but there are better places to have a meal.

Water Towers: I recommend the water towers in Adailiya since they’re located inside the park and so you can walk up to them very close. They were also recently painted so they’ll look good in photos (pictured above).

Maritime Museum, Modern Art Museum, Dickson House and the Amricani Cultural Center are all located right next to each other so you can cover them all in 2-3 hours easily since neither of them is that big. [Link]

Souk Mubarkiya: A must visit place if you’re looking for an old traditional market.

The Avenues Mall: I know its a mall but it’s a great one and in the summer it’s probably the best place to go if you want to shop. You’ll find everything there from high end designers to IKEA and a ton of different places to eat at.

Al Shaab Gate: There are a few old city gates left but I’d recommend visiting the one adjacent to Al Shaheed Park since the area around it was recently renovated.

Jaber Al-Ahmad Cultural Centre: Beautiful architecture and a large garden with an animated musical fountain to check out. If you’re lucky there might be an event or show taking place during your visit so check their website for tickets. There are also restaurants located at the centre in case you want to have a meal there.

Restaurants

Cocoa Room: My favorite breakfast place and is usually always busy.

Street by Al Makan: Good food, gets pretty busy at night mostly with a younger crowd, located in a trendy area. Also walking distance to Souk Mubarakiya. Pass by Vol.1 located under it for coffee after dinner.

Solo PN: A very popular pizza place thats always busy. Recently won an award for the 3rd best pizza in the world.

Al Shemam: Located right in the middle of Souk Mubarakiya next to the vegetable market. Has great grills (fish, meat and poultry) but is also a pretty ghetto looking place so not for the squeamish (pictured above).

Freej Suwaileh: A very popular and affordable Kuwaiti cuisine restaurant that’s open till 5AM.

Dar Hamad: A high end Kuwaiti cuisine restaurant with a beautiful interior.

Events

There are always events taking place so if you’re looking for one to go to during your visit, make sure you check out the events page [Here]

Off the Beaten Path

Friday Market: A large flea market that takes place on Fridays, usually gets really packed and you can find lots of random things for sale there from old gaming systems to washing machines and furniture. Although you might be tempted, avoid the animals section.

Salem Mubarek Street: A street stretching out around 2KM filled with shops on both sides. Used to be extremely popular in the 80s and early 90s (pictured above).

Al-Rehab Complex: If you’re into video games you’ll love this complex since the mezzanine floor and basement are filled with video game shops. By filled I mean every single shop there is a video game shop, easily over 50 shops.

Ice Skating Rink: Popular in the 80s and early 90s but not very popular nowadays. Worth checking out if you’re looking to cool off during the hot summer months.

House of Mirrors: The House of Mirrors belongs to Lidia al-Qattan, the widow of Khalifa al-Qattan, a renowned Kuwaiti artist. She started decorating one small wall with mirrors and through time more and more walls were decorated until the whole house inside and out was covered with mirrors.

This is just a quick follow up on my previous post on KBC. Back in October I posted about the new initiative by the Ministry of Commerce called Kuwait Business Center (KBC). They setup KBC to make it easy for individuals to establish a company in Kuwait by allowing them to apply for one online, and then just visit their offices once to sign some papers. Since I posted about KBC I’ve had two friends set up businesses using their services and they’ve lived up to their promise.

In both cases, setting up a company took around 10 days and just one visit to their main office in Ishbilia. The KBC staff according to my friends were also very nice and helpful. So if you’re planning to open up a company in Kuwait, this is currently the most efficient way to do so. Check out the KBC website [Here]

Kuwaiti athlete Bashar Alhunaidi will be leading a kayaking expedition from Kuwait to Oman to raise awareness of the environmental issues facing the Gulf. Bashar along with three other kayakers and a small support team plan to kayak along the coast of all 6 GCC countries to highlight the positive and the negative. The journey will take approximately 2 months to complete and the entire expedition will be filmed for a future documentary. Bashar and his team will be taking off today on their adventure and you’ll be able to follow them on the following social media accounts:

Facebook: /kayak4kuwait
Instagram: @kayak4kuwait
Snapchat: kayak4kuwait

So far I’m pretty disappointed with the amount of things they’ve shared on their social media accounts. It sounds like a crazy adventure (and it is) but they haven’t shared anything so far, even though they’re taking off today. No information on what kind of kayaks they will be using, no information on what kind of gear they’re taking with them, no route map, no nothing. If it was me I would have been posting a ton of shit already, like videos showing some of my gear, a video explaining how many hours I would be kayaking, where I would be sleeping, how I will be eating etc.. If they want people to take notice of their journey then it would be nice to share a lot more than just a picture of Bashar at the 99.7RKFM studio. I’ve seen people share more pictures of their dinner then the kayak team has shared about this adventure.

When I first started putting this list together it was because I was planning to visit them all and maybe review them. But I didn’t think there were this many already and so I don’t think that plan is possible anymore. Below is a list of all the speciality coffee shops I’m aware of, let me know if I missed any:

Speciality Coffee Shops
Amo Cafe
Arabica
ASPRO + PRO Coffee Bar
Awake Coffee
BLAKK Coffee
Bon Coffee
Boost Cafe
BRW
But First Coffee
CAF
Caffeine
Caveman Coffee
Cova Specialty Coffee
Cropped Coffee
CRL Bar
Days*Cafe
Dose Cafe
Etsi Kafe Lab
Force Bar
Grace
His Majesty
Jumo
Keys Coffee Shop
Kôfē – Espresso Bar
Let’s Coffee
Majnoon Qahwa
Mood Coffee Bar
Muse Coffeesphere
Muse Espresso Bar
New Brew Coffee
Not Just Coffee
Pause Coffee
Perhaps Some Coffee
Pirate Cafe
Richard’s Coffee
Savage Coffees
Seven Grams Coffee Lab
Shots
Shuwaikh Coffee
SIP
Street Cafe
The Breeze Cafe
Three and Barista
Toby’s Estate
Vibes Coffee
Vol 1
Wish Cafe

Speciality Roasters
48 East
Earth’s Roastery
Coffee Villains
The Lab Roastery

On a side note, anyone know where I can find the Rattleware coffee shot glass in Kuwait? Got it!

Update: I’ve updated the list

Recently landmines were found on a beach in Al Bida’a which I find scary as hell since it’s a populated area and one that is pretty active with people. A couple of years back while installing my internet connection on the roof of my building we found a rusted bullet belt filled with ammunition along with a rifle. A couple of weeks back I found out KOC was still cleaning up the soil in the desert from the oil spills caused by the Iraqi army. Even though its been 26 years since the 1990 Gulf War, remnants from the war are still around today. I feel like sometimes we forget Kuwait was occupied at one point, but I guess thats normal since it happened such a long time ago.

Update: I removed the name of the club from the text message in the image above.

Brought to you by ismajlisdissolved.com

So turns out the Sheikh Jaber Causeway Bridge that is set to be completed in 2018 has a pretty cool website. I use the word cool here not because of the design, but because of the kind of content thats available on the site like the project map, project overview, monthly updates, images, video and more. You can even book a trip to their visitors center! Check out the website [Here]

Now here is the thing. This “bridge” is set to be completed in two years time and it already has a website yet the Sheikh Jaber Al-Ahmad Cultural Centre which is set to open end of this month still doesn’t have one? A bridge has a website but the cultural centre doesn’t? How does that make sense? Are there any shows that will be coming? And why is all this information so hush hush?

Over the weekend, Kuwaiti athlete Ahmad Al-Mutairi came first in the men’s 100m athletics race at the Rio 2016 Paralympics. Not only did he come first but he also broke the Paralympics record while doing so. This means Ahmad Al-Mutairi currently holds both the Paralympics and world record for the Men’s 100m – T33 event.

Ahmed broke the world record last year in Doha during the IPC Athletics World Championships and at the age of 22, is currently the youngest Kuwaiti athlete taking part in the Rio 2016 Paralympics.

In total there are currently 6 Kuwaitis taking part in the Rio 2016 Paralympics:

Abdullah Al Saif (Athletics)
Ahmad Al Mutairi (Athletics)
Atef Aldousari (Shooting)
Hamad Aladwani (Athletics)
Mohammad Nasser (Athletics)
Naser Saleh (Athletics)

You can get more details as well as their full event schedule from the Rio Paralympics website [Here]

Last week I posted about the Expat Insider survey that revealed Kuwait as the “Worst Country for Expats“. A lot of people agreed with the findings but a lot of people were also up in arms about it. But, I don’t think many people actually took the time to go through the survey and understand how Kuwait ended up at the bottom of the list. So what I’ve done is create a cheat sheet of a sort. I went through the 188 pages of the survey and picked out all the areas were Kuwait performed the worst in and I’ve listed them below. Once you see the breakdown the whole thing starts to make a lot more sense.

Yesterday I finally got to pass by and check out the Sheikh Jaber Al-Ahmad Cultural Center. Those of you who’ve been following the blog for awhile will remember I was the first to break the story on the cultural centre back in May 2014 after my visit to Al Salam Palace. Yesterday was the first time back since then and damn what a difference two years makes.

Firstly the project is basically done. I mean it was done a couple of months ago but they pushed the launch till Q4 of this year so they’re now using the extra time to make sure everything is close to perfect once it’s finally open. I visited all four of the buildings and I’m now even more excited about the cultural centre than I ever was. The whole project is so beautifully designed with each building having a different style interior than the other. I am not sharing a lot of photos in this post because most of the rooms were getting a final coat of paint so everything was covered in plastic and there was lots of scaffolding everywhere. That includes all the theaters but I already shared some great shots last week so you’re not missing out on anything.

Behind the 4 buildings is a super super long and large corridor that stretches from one corner of the project to the other. One side of the corridor is connected to the indoor parking while the other side connects to the buildings. This means in the summer you can go from your car to the theaters or library without having to walk much under the sun or in the heat. The whole exterior structure is extremely photogenic and I’m very interested to see what photographers will manage to do with the place. Inside the ceilings are very high with lots of large spaces and hallways. I can already visualize large crowds of people gathered waiting to enter a theater or after a show is done, just socializing in these large spaces.

The fact that this project was completed in just two years is insane. I have no idea how they did it, probably by throwing lots of money at it but whatever their formula was, they need to apply it to the new airport. Below are the photos I’m sharing for now, once most of the work is done I’ll pass by again and reshoot. If you have any questions you could ask me and I’ll try to answer it with the best of my knowledge.

Every year on the anniversary of the 1990 Kuwait Invasion, I like to share the links below:

Free Kuwait
This is a website that focuses on the campaign that was led by Kuwaitis in exile and is loaded with photos and information.

Kuwait Invasion – The Evidence
This is a website that contains over 1,200 pictures taken right after the 1990 invasion as photographic evidence to all the destruction caused by Iraq.

Short movie: Hearts of Palm
Hearts of Palm is a short movie set in August 2nd 1990 and deals with Kuwaiti students living in Miami Florida during the Iraqi Invasion of Kuwait.

The Class of 1990
This is a short documentary about reuniting class mates years after the 1990 Iraqi invasion.

Homemade video from the Iraqi invasion of Kuwait
Video clips taken by a Kuwaiti family during the Iraqi invasion

Desert Storm Photos
Photos taken by soldiers during Desert Storm.

Short Animation: Sandarah
A captivating story based on true events that took place during the 1990 Iraqi invasion.

Photo on top by Adel Al-Yousifi

[YouTube]

The Sheikh Jaber Al Ahmad Causeway, a key project on the state national development plan, will be among the longest bridge worldwide. It is one track for completion in November 2018. The project, also known as the Subbiyah Causeway, aims to link south and north Kuwait, as well as coping with the increasing traffic jam over the coming three decades.

It consists of two parts: the Main Causeway that will link Kuwait City to the Subbiyah New Town area to the north, stretching 37.5 km, starting from the Ghazali Road intersection and ending at the Subbiyah highway. About 27km of it is a marine bridge structure. The second bridge, Doha Link, will be 12.4 km and will pass through the Kuwait Bay area towards the west, linking the Shuwaikh Port with the Doha motorway.

Up to 59 percent of the Main Causeway has been achieved, and 30 percent in the Doha Link, Assistant Undersecretary for Road Engineering at the Ministry of Public Works Eng. Ahmad Al­Hessan told KUNA. He added that the Doha link aims to end traffic jams in Shuwaikh, and on the Ghazali Road resulting from the trucks using the Port. The Sheikh Jaber Al­Ahmad Causeway also includes two artificial islands, the first to be built on a total area of 300,000 square meters near Kuwait city, and the second near Subbiyah New Town.

They will have government buildings, a marina and green spaces in addition to areas for future investment projects. [Source]

I’ve been watching their progress for awhile now since I can see a large chunk of the project from outside my window and they’ve been moving along pretty quickly. You can even see the bridge in earth view on [Google Maps].

Thanks Ricardas

A friend who’s currently looking for a new home suggested this post. It’s a list of all the real estate websites where you can find an apartment or a house to rent in Kuwait. If you have any which I haven’t listed below then let me know in the comments. Also if you have any experience with any of them, share it in the comments as well since it might help other people.

Real Estate Websites
Al Tijaria
Aqar Real Estate
Asas International Real Estate Co.
Deirah
Hilite Homes
Horizon Q8
KREIC
Kuwait 4 Rent
My Q8 Home
Q8 Realtor
Kuwait Real Estate Directory
The House Box

Other
248AM Classifieds
Expatriates
FindQ8
Just Landed
Mourjan
OLX

Bait Al Arab is another project under the umbrella of Diwan Al Amiri, the same diwan thats responsible for various large local projects like Shaheed Park, the Kuwait Cultural Center and the museums in Shaab. Bait Al Arab (previously called Arabian Horse Center) was originally established back in 1980 and prominently positioned Kuwait on the world’s Arabian Horses map until it’s destruction during the 1990 invasion. Six years after the invasion the members of the Arabian Horse Committee were given the task to re-establish the center by traveling the world and bringing back with them the finest Arabian horses.

Today, Bait Al Arab is committed to supporting private Arabian horse farms in the country by providing stallions and conducting cultural workshops on horse nutrition, breeding, training and veterinary skills. The video above which showcases Bait Al Arab was shared with me by Tamdeen Group who were commissioned to design and develop the project. Several Arabian horse beauty contests have already been held at Bait Al Arab with the most recent one being the International Arabian Horse Festival Kuwait 2016. Check out the video on Bait Al Arab above, or on [YouTube]