Category: Kuwait

The Radio Control Car Club of Kuwait track next to 360 Mall is one of the largest offroad tracks in the world and it’s currently getting a makeover in preparation for the new season.

They’re changing the layout and rebuilding the whole thing to make it even better than it was before. I can’t wait till it’s done so I could race my car there.

If you’re interested in becoming a member it’s just KD20 a year but you need to have a car and it needs to be 1/8 scale. The weather is becoming a lot better so if you’re interested in getting a car there are four shops I know of that sell the best 1/8 scale cars:

Extreme Hobby – 24348123
Pro Hobbies – 24313277 (where I got mine from)
Hobby Time – 24346744
Al Hamar – 22431989

You can check out more pictures of the track underconstruction on the RCCCK Facebook page [Here]

Thanks A

Now this is an organization that needs all the support they can get. Their mission: Make Kuwait Green.

This group is for an environmental project which calls on people who go camping during the winter time to plant 10 trees of certain type and irrigate it during the winter season. By the end of the season this tree will be able to survive and year after year our deserts will be our kid’s oasis.

Doesn’t sound very difficult and you can buy the small trees for really cheap from the nurseries on the 4th Ring Road. Imagine how beautiful the desert would be all green. Check out the Kuwait Oasis Facebook page [Here]

I’m a big fan of the Hotel Costes music compilation and I found out yesterday that Kuwaiti musician Zahed Sultan has one of his tracks featured on the new Hotel Costes 15 which I think is a very cool accomplishment. The track is called “I Want Her But I Don’t Want Her” and you can watch it [Here]

As I mentioned in my previous post, Alghanim Electronics sent over an iPhone 4S for me to try out. I’ve been using it for a few hours and thought I would share my first impression on two of the most important new features.

The Camera
Thew camera on the iPhone 4S is a much better camera when compared to the regular iPhone 4. I saw some sample shots on the Apple website and they looked great but those shots were obviously taken in perfect lighting with an amazing photographer. I was curious to how the camera would fair in boring regular situation with random light and a not so great subject. Since the weather today is a mixture of humid, hot and dust, I decided to go to the roof and take a landscape shot.

On the left is the iPhone 4S shot and on the right the iPhone 4. Although it doesn’t look like that dramatic a difference when you zoom in at 100% it’s a complete different story as you can see below.

As you can see the iPhone 4S photo had a lot more details and a lot less artifacts. Another advantage of the iPhone 4S camera is that the lens is brighter which means better shots in low light situations. Below is a photo I took indoors.

Again zoomed out like this the details don’t show as much but once you zoom in at 100% (check below) you’ll see that the iPhone 4S shots are a lot less noisier and a lot more sharper.

One of the main reasons I purchased the iPhone 4S is because of the camera. I take a lot of shots for the blog and although I should, I don’t usually carry my good cameras with me all the time. Most of my shots are taken with an iPhone so the ability to take better shots is a great advantage for me. If like me, image quality is something you care about then the difference between the iPhone 4 and 4S is actually pretty major. You can download the full resolution images I shot and used above from these links:

Landscape with iPhone 4S
Landscape with iPhone 4
Low light with iPhone 4S
Low light with iPhone 4

Siri
Another reason I got the iPhone 4S is because of Siri. I’m a huge Stark Trek TNG fan and Siri reminded me a lot of the computer on the starship Enterprise. Even though Siri is limited when compared to the computer on Enterprise (it can’t prepare meals for example), it’s still very impressive and I love it. Siri is going to get even better in the future and I honestly can’t wait.

There are a few things that won’t work in Kuwait though. If you ask Siri for the best burger joints in Kuwait it will tell you it won’t know. Some of the Siri features are US only for now but it does do a whole bunch of other things. You could ask it to convert currency for you, find out the population of countries as well as other trivia. More importantly for me it can take notes and set reminders which is a big deal for me. I’m a very forgetful person and also very lazy so even when I usually remember something I never write it down or set a reminder. Now with Siri, once I remember something I can just tell it to write it down or remind me when I get home or work to do something. She’s really going to be my personal secretary/assistant.

Siri didn’t have that many problems understanding me. I do tend to mumble and I did have a few instances when Siri wouldn’t know what I was talking about but I also found Siri pretty forgiving. For example I might start saying “tell me” and then mid sentence change to “I mean what is the capital city of Kuwait” and Siri would still understand and tell me “Kuwait City”. Yes it does feel weird (ie stupid) talking to a phone but I’m sure I can get over that.

I ordered my iPhone 4S last week from the Apple UK store but for those of you who haven’t ordered yet and just want to walk into a store and pick one up Alghanim Electronics will have them in stock starting tomorrow. I asked about the price but as of this post they still hadn’t finalized it yet.

Update: The prices for the iPhones has been released by Alghanim and they are the following (don’t shoot the messenger):

iPhone 4S 16GB for KD350
iPhone 4S 32GB for KD390
iPhone 4S 64GB for KD420

The Kuwait Airport security is getting a shipment of T3 electric stand-up vehicles. I’m not sure why since the airport is pretty tiny but the Ministry of Interior seems to think it will make them modern. Maybe they can use them to chase smokers? [Link]

Halloween is coming up and Dean & Deluca have some amazing looking pumpkins if you’re into pumpkin carving. But, it might be a good idea to sketch your designs first since at KD12 a pumpkin, any mistake is going to be an expensive one.

I updated my iPhone to iOS 5 and noticed a really annoying problem. I have the majority of my numbers stored with the country code +965 in front of them. But, I noticed a problem today which seems to be a common problem other people are facing as well. If you have a phone number saved with +965 in the front and that person is on your same mobile network, when they call you their number will appear without the +965 in front of it and iOS 5 won’t connect that number with the number you have saved. For example:

My iPhone has a Viva line. When Nat calls me from her Viva number I only see 55XXXXXX on my screen and not her name. When she calls me from her Zain line I see her name.

If anyone knows a solution to this problem please post it below. From the little information I was able to find online it seems either the mobile operators will have to send us a carrier update or it’s a fix which Apple will have to release.

A reader who’s currently studying in Italy emailed me some photos of an exhibition called Discover Kuwait that’s currently taking place in the streets of Milan. According to him they’re there for a week promoting Kuwaiti culture with pictures, information and even with music and dance. Below are some pictures he took and you can find out more by visiting the Discover Kuwait website [Here]

Thanks Hadi

Nicely shot film by Timothy Carr on Al Sawaber, the PK Jaguars and Parkour. This is the description attached with the video:

Al Sawaber is a Kuwaiti housing project built in 1976. This once beautiful complex is now a run down slum known for housing the worst of Kuwait’s criminal element. It is also an amazing parkour spot filled with unique architecture mixing harsh concrete edges and organic landscaping quite nicely. With its rooftops, elevated walkways, massive stairways, parks and unique architectural touches the PK Jaguars, Kuwait’s first and best Parkour team have made it their favorite spot to train. This is a film about Al Sawaber, the PK Jaguars and Parkour.

The film is nearly 10 minutes long which makes it a bit repetitive and I’m also not sure how accurate the description is about Al Sawaber housing criminals is. Still, it’s an interesting video to watch. [Vimeo]

Thanks Anes

Aramex posted the following on their Shop&Ship website:

Pleased to inform you that the customs strike in Kuwait is over. We will be delivering your shipments once they are processed and released from Kuwait Customs.

For more information please contact us on +965 (1) 820011 or email us at [email protected]

Shop and Ship Team

That’s great news. I have one shipment in customs right now, another coming in a few days and I’m also expecting the iPhone 4S to ship from the UK any day now.

Thanks Qatami

Spotted this video on the LWDLIK blog. It’s a presentation on the new railway system that is going to be built in Kuwait. I’ve posted about this topic a number of times before but this video offers a new glimpse on how the system will work and be implemented. They even have a few 3D renderings over real world shots showing how it’s going to look which is a design similar to the Dubai Metro but with a potential to be better since they’re planning to cover the whole country. [Vimeo]

Found this great black and white shot of the House of Parliament on Flickr. The photo was taken by interior architect Jeffrey van der Wees and he’s got a few more great shots he took while he was in Kuwait which you can check out on his Flickr page [Here]

Four of my Aramex packages cleared customs today and are out for delivery which is strange since I thought customs were on an “indefinite strike“. The packages actually cleared faster than usual since they were only stuck in customs for two days and that included yesterdays strike. Weird.

A reader going by the nickname “La Revue de Koweit” posted the comment below under the Avenues fight post and I thought it was funny but yet made sense at the same time. Below are 7 fight preventative actions that should be taken:

1) Serious shoppers should avoid going to the Avenues over the weekends and public holidays.

2) Increased presence of law enforcement officers on Segways throughout the mall and mounted on horseback in the parking lot.

3) Videowalls in the courtyard areas with live streaming videos from different fashion houses from Milan, Paris, London, New York and Tokyo plus exhaustive coverage of all the fashion weeks would be a useful distraction to keep the Jahra and/or Saudi set yobs engaged.

4) Rope in LoYAC to arrange activites that excite youth such as, kite flying, skateboarding and karting outside the mall.

5) Organize frequent blood donation drives and free health checks: mobile health camps to make possible blood draws for screening of thalassemia, blood glucose etc, all of which serve as small but rather useful diversions for channeling of youthful energies and making the national sport of weekend birdwatching seem less macabre and more civil.

6) Holding of spelling bees at That-el-salasil.

7) Naming and shaming policy can be a rather useful deterrant. Mugshots and names of the yobs involved in a fight should be displayed on a special bulletein board – the Avenues Fight Barometer for all and sundry to see.