Category: Kuwait

Jazeera Airways seems to be all the buzz lately, I was a great fan of Kuwait Airways but it seems lately they have turned into trash (last time I used them was 4 years ago). So me and Nat were planning our trip to Lebanon on Christmas and I decided to give Jazeera Airways a shot, I was impressed.

I went to the Jazeera Airways website to check out the prices and stuff when I noticed a button to Book a flight. I clicked on it out of curiosity and started filling up some forms. 10 minutes later I had purchased two, two-way tickets to Lebanon. The whole process felt like I was ordering movie tickets online, it was too easy. The coolest part about the whole thing was I was actually able to book my seats on my flight to Lebanon and on my flight back to Kuwait. No one else had purchased or booked tickets for the two flights I was on so the whole plane was empty and I was able to get 2 seats on row 10 for the trip going and coming. When I was done paying for the tickets I received an email with all the details about my flight, my reservation number and my invoice, its like shopping on Amazon.

The booking and paying online, plus the fact I could reserve my seats ahead of time had already impressed me, but the biggest seller was the price. Two, two-way tickets to Lebanon cost only KD164 (with taxes and everything) during peak season. Kuwait Airways or Middle East Airlines would have cost around KD135 per ticket and they wouldn’t have allowed me to reserve my in flight seats ahead of time. So thats a total saving of over KD100 which I could now spend on 600 bottles of beer or 4 bottles of Jack Daniels at B018.

The only downside to Jazeera is that if you want to eat on the plane you have to pay for it. They serve cold sandwiches and drinks but they are not free which I don’t really think is a big problem anyway. For those of you who want to travel in style and not economy, for an extra KD26 per ticket per one way you can sit in first class. That would put the price similar to the Kuwait Airways or MEA regular economy ticket price though.

Finally, I called them up a few times on the phone (177) for details and info and the people I spoke to were very friendly and polite which made me feel more comfortable. Now the only thing left is to fly with them, my flight is in December so I will review it when I come back.

I haven’t reviewed a microwavable dish in a while but here is a good one. There is a local company called Livestock Transport & Trading Co. that have a line of frozen ready made meals that sell under the brand Jahez. Jahez have 24 different frozen meals in total but todays review is about the Chicken Masala meal.

Cooking the meal was very easy. You take out the tray from the box, punch a few holes in the plastic cover and then stick it in the microwave for 6 minutes. I have my own way of cooking the meals though. I place the tray in the microwave and let it cook for 3 minutes, then I open the microwave, take out the tray and peal open the plastic cover. Then using a fork I move all the food around and when I am done I close the cover again and shove it back into the microwave for another 4 minutes. I do this so that the food thoroughly cooks. I have had issues before with microwavable food where when eating, the food ends up being really hot in the center of the dish but cold nearer the outer edge.

Once the meal was done I took it out of the microwave and opened the plastic cover again. The smell was really appetizing and visually the dish looked very eatable. I took the tray and sat down in front of the TV and started eating. The Chicken Masala tasted pretty good, somewhere between a home cooked meal and the Mughal Mahal fast food restaurant. I finished the chicken and then took the sauce and poured it over the rice and continued eating. It was a pretty satisfying dinner and overall I think this might be one of the best frozen meals I have ever had. The best part of the meal is the price. Since its made in Kuwait its pretty cheap coming in at around 700fils depending where you buy it from. The Co-ops usually have a larger collection of Jahez meals and cheaper prices then Sultan so you can find it for as low as 670fils in some places. Great price plus good food gives this meal a 4 out of 5 rating in my book. For more information on Jahez click here. Also make sure you read some of our other reviews located here.

This is another picture I took from the scene of this car wreck which I just posted about on Miskan. As you can see, the other half of the car is lying on the other side of the street.

A guy in the office got four iPod Nano’s, 3 black and 1 white. It has attracted a large crowd here in the office and everyone is ooohing and wowing. It looks extremely tiny in person, it’s very cool. Definetly going to reorder this now instead of the Sony Walkman Bean which I found out today you have to use a special Sony software to copy music onto the walkman and the software doesn’t work with Macs.

Update: Ok, I am just confusing myself to much. I just decided that I am going to hold out till the next generation iPod gets updated so then I can carry all my MP3s with me. I don’t need super tiny MP3 player. Will use the Shuffle till the new iPods come out.

Shot in Kuwait, video courtesy of Q8speed. [Video 176KB]

Last time I saw a Maybach in Kuwait was back in May. Since then I hadn’t seen another Maybach in until the day before yesterday a golden colored one pulled up next to me at a traffic light. It was the first time I had gotten this close to one and I realized the car is pretty big. There was a guy driving it, not a driver which struck me odd since I would have definetly expected a Maybach with a driver you know. So anyway guess what? Yesterday I saw another Maybach but it was white. Pretty cool, 2 Maybachs 2 days in a row.

The Sony dealer in Kuwait has started selling the Sony PSP. The value pack with 1 game is selling for KD99 while a value pack with 2 games for KD113.

Lacoste in Salhiya Complex have a 40% discount starting today and ending on the 30th.

I hate the fact that Formula 1 isn’t a popular motor sport in Kuwait. Actually I don’t think any kind of motor sport is popular in Kuwait. When I was in Lebanon if there was a Formula 1 race on TV you wouldn’t find a single person on the streets. Since I have moved back to Kuwait I have lost touch with the Formula 1 world. The races take place on Sundays which is a day off in the majority of the world but not in Kuwait. This means when the races are on I am at work with no access to television. Anyway I think I found a good site for F1 news. I used to check out F1.com and other F1 sites but they are all too heavy on the graphics and not very easy to navigate. Thew new site I am currently checking out all the time is the BBC F1 section.. except I use the text version of the page. Check it out, its very practical to use. [Link]

Two persons were injured by an explosion that rocked the offices of the Kuwaiti embassy’s information center in Beirut’s commercial thoroughfare of Hamra at mid-morning Monday. There were conflicting reports about the blast which was attributed first to a hand grenade, then to a letter bomb and then to a parcel bomb. More info when available.

Update: Turns out it was just a guy who brought a grenade with him to work and was playing with it when it went off.

I received the following email from jetblast2k:

Hi Mark, we usually know our aircrafts by their tail number, but today I noticed the nickname of 9K-ANC, an A340-300 of KAC, and took this shot for you. Check the [Link]

I was surprised to find out that Kuwait Airways planes had nicknames and I was really surprised to find out that one is called Miskan (although they spell it Meskan). Next time I fly with KA I will try to find out the nickname of the plane I am going to be flying with. If you have never seen the pictures taken by jetblast2k you should since he has some really wonderful stuff. [Link]

Note: For those of you who don’t know, Miskan is a photography project I currently involved in. [Link]

I came back home today to find the most disgusting advert hanging on my door… a fucking tampon box! I am not even sure its tampon, could be adult diapers since they are so huge. I mean come on this is just fucking disgusting. Imagine coming home and finding a box of Always hanging from your door. If it was some unknown brand I would understand their desperation but Always doing this?!?! So I can’t view porn privately at home but its somehow ok for companies to hang tampons on my door. Fucking gross.

Tivo-Guy is selling his iPod mini and Sony UX50 PDA.
Here are the details:

iPod mini
Blue Color, 6GB (Second Generation)
Good condition, minor scratches
Will include iTrip and iSkin for free
Asking Price: KD70

Sony Clie UX50
Palm PDA with built in keyboard, wifi and bluetooth.
Screen has resolution of 480×320.
Condition is good with 2 minor dents.
Comes with original box, and 2 charging cradles.
Will include 2 carrying cases.
Asking Price: KD90

If interested you can contact him at rami (at) rami dot info
or leave a comment below.

Two days ago I posted about my PowerMac finally being upgraded, well I have run into a minor problem that requires more upgrading. Basically you can currently bake a cake inside my Mac because of the heat. I had one hard drive reporting a tempreture of 65 degrees celcius which is around 20 degrees hotter then usual. I don’t even know how hot my CPU is running but I am also guessing pretty fucking hot since you would burn your finger if you touched the CPU’s heatsink.

I am now trying to find ways to cool the interior of my case. Since its a Mac its not easy since the interior of the case isn’t standard by any means. I have found PCI slot fans but I can’t find one that will blow air in, most blow air out of the case which at the moment is not a priority. It is always better to over pressure the interior of the case then to underpressure. I also need to find a way to cool the hard drives, a way that doesn’t require screws since there is no place to screw anything in. Until this heat issue is solved my Mac won’t be on 24 hours a day, I will have to turn it on when I need to use it and off when I am done.

Support the victims of hurricane Katrina. Make your payments to the Red Crescent society online via NBK.com. [Link]