Category: Kuwait

I heard today that there is a new law coming out in Kuwait where expats (like me) will only be allowed to live in Kuwait for 6 years. After 6 years I have to leave the country and I can only come back after 2 years. If this is the case I might as well pack my bags and leave now.

Just got back from Marina Crescent. I went to have lunch there and check out the Ramp Rebel Tour which was being held there this weekend. I have to say I have seen both Ozzy and my brother skateboard with more passion and skill while playing around at home then the two skateboarders I saw lazily play the half pipe. Maybe they were tired or bored but they were definitely not interesting to watch. I stayed there for like 20 minutes watching them just go up and down the half pipe dully and then falling half the time without doing anything. The only reason I stayed that long was because I was trying to find some shots to take with my Holga camera. I think I got some cool shots and once I develop the pictures I will post them here. I used colored film this time around.

They are opening a Ferrari theme park in UAE which will feature a racetrack, rides, and attractions, a display of Ferrari history, and even driving instructions. Its seems like a good idea but I would rather they open a 4×4 theme park here in Kuwait. The 4×4 park could have different rough and muddy trails which you could take your jeep through. I remember reading about one in Japan where you would bring your 4×4 and then pay to go around their offroad trail. [Link]

I just came across this local online website that sells clothes (for woman). I don’t know if its new but its the first time I see it. [Link]

I was at Eastpak yesterday night when I found a flyer for the Ramp Rebels Tour. They are in Kuwait for two days and will be performing at Marina Crescent. Today is the first day and the show starts at 2PM all the way till 5. Tomorrow (Friday) they will be performing at the same time and it will be their last day.

The Ramp Rebels Tour is a BMX and skateboarding show. The show features Ben Hennon (BMX), Ben Manuel (BMX), Julian Dykmans (skateboard) and Hugo Liard (Skateboard).

I just found the NBK Yabeela! commercials online while trying to find a local production company. They also have some other locally created commercials. [Link]

Yesterday night I was invited to the soon to open Tai Chi restaurant located near the Sheikh Resort before Palms Club on the Gulf Road. At the moment you can only be invited to the restaurant because the place isn’t yet 100% complete and the staff is still in training, but from what I experienced the place is going to turn out great.

Tai Chi is a Tai and Chinese food restaurant. The interior of the place is very minimalistic with just enough design elements hinting out the cuisines place of origin. The restaurant is two floors but I only managed to see the first since thats where we were seated.

The food was definitely the highlight of the evening. They had a large variety of appetizers and I ended up going for something I can’t pronounce but was basically prawns on toast with some kind of sweet cucumber dip while Nat went for the saute chicken. Both dishes were delicious. The prawns on toast was very light and sweet unlike the Peacock restaurant version which feels heavier and more filling. The saute chicken was also very tasty and it came with this slightly spicy sauce which gave the dish its edge. For the main course I was planning on having my usual sweet & sour prawns but decided to try something new and went with the corn prawns with a side dish of steamed rice. The corn prawns is a combination of prawns, curry leaves and corn flakes! I was really looking forward to the meal because I never had a main dish which involved corn flakes before. As I was hoping, the corn prawns turned out to be very good. Nat also enjoyed her main course which was some kind of weird looking noodles. For desert they only had two options and we decided to go with the fried bananas with ice cream which turned out to be good but nothing special.

Overall it was a very good experience, the service was very friendly, the food was really good and the setting with their stylish plates and chilled out interior was very cool. I didn’t mention anything about the prices because there were none on the menu, the restaurant is still not finished and they only had a Microsoft Word typed menu. I don’t think they have the prices set but I believe they should be cheaper then Peacock. The place is definitely worth checking out once it opens.

The other day I gave out Season 1 of the show Desperate Housewives to some employees at work and it seems everyone is now addicted to it. If you look around the office there are at least two employees quietly watching the show on their powerbooks. Two other employees were watching an episode during the lunch hour while the rest are staying up late at night trying to watch as many episodes as they can. I went to bed at 1:30AM yesterday after watching 4 episodes of the show, and even after I went to bed I wanted to go back to the living room to watch another episode (I got up to episode 20). The funniest part is no one can share the events of the show with another person no matter how big the event was because not everyone has gotten to the same episode yet. Some are ahead of others and spoilers are not allowed. Once everyone is done with Desperate Housewives I will get them Lost, that should keep them up late at night.

I recently upgraded my hamsters home by doubling its size but ever since I did that my hamster has been acting strange. He shits where he sleeps, he stores his food where he pees and has been trying to destroy his only source of water for the past two days. He’s fucked in the head or something..

I just found the blog of Faisal Al-Dhalmawi at 1up.com. He has a very interesting write up on Video Gaming in Kuwait. He was even able to take pictures of some of the stores from the outside AND inside! Pretty cool stuff. [Link]

Fully Loaded KD350 ($1200)
Core System KD280 ($960)

I just got my first shots with the Holga today. Results were fairly decent. I like the square format of the photos but in general the photos look like they could have been taken by any camera. I guess thats a good thing since this camera did cost me only $20. I was hoping to see more weird effects like the picture above if you notice the bottom left area of the picture you can see it blur a bit. Now that I know the camera is working I am going to load it up with some cheap color medium format film and take some more shots. If you would like to see 3 more photos click on more.

After driving around Jabriya yesterday street by street trying to find a pet shop and after driving all the way to Fintas even trying to find a place that sells dog, thanks to BusyNow it turns out there was a pet shop just 2 minutes from my house! I past passed by it tonight, its called My Puppy. Its located near Al-Shaab Amusement park behind Texas Chicken. The place had 6 puppies on display which were placed in tiny little cages. One dog, a 6 month old Dogo Argentina was in a cage so tiny he couldn’t stand up or move around. While I was there he didn’t move or bark, he was just lying there depressed. There was a very active 2 month old Cocker Spaniel (not in the picture) who was very playful when we took him out of the cage but was all dirty and stinky. They were all dirty and stinky, the whole place stunk. The pet shop also had a large Iguana in a cage and some mice and crickets for sale. The place was depressing and watching the puppies scream for help from their tiny cages begging take them with us was sad. This place should be shut down, its animal cruelty. Oh and the guy who works there I don’t know where he is from but he neither spoke English nor Arabic.

Whenever you ask anyone if they know of a pet shop they tell you there is one in Jabriya. Well it turns out the Jabriya pet shop is nothing but an urban legend. Tonight I went to Jabriya and drove into every street and every back road trying to find the pet shop. After around an hour I found one called Blue Bird, turned out it had closed ages ago (maybe even years ago) and nothing else. On a positive note I found out the location of Papa John’s Pizza in Jabriya.

TivoGuy was telling me that Aramex was closing down their Kuwait City branch and moving everything to Ardiyah. I quickly sent an email to Rabih who is always kind enough to answer my questions. Turns out its true, Aramex is shutting down the Kuwait City office, this is the email I received from him:

Dear valued customer,

Yes it is true we are moving our operations to Aardiyah since our main location is there and all our operations start from there. An email was sent to all our customers today morning. Another email in Arabic will also be sent by tomorrow.

Trust us that the move is for the best of all our customers: Delivery will be much faster and security and control on non-delivered packages will be much better. Most of all, Management will have more direct control on service level provided to our customers.

We will also open a new location for customer service and opening new accounts in Al-Bustan Mall in Salmiyah before year end inshallah.

Always at your service.

Personally I am going to find it a hassel to drive to Ardiyah everytime a package arrives but I guess I don’t have any other option.