Category: Kuwait

Last month I posted on 248PM about these oreo stuffed cookies I had seen online and I quickly messaged my best friend Essa from Choowy Goowy and told him he HAD to make them as well. So he made some for me, after a bit of changes namely getting the size of the cookie right he’s now gone ahead and started producing them. He’s also started making stuffed brownie cookies which I haven’t tried yet. So if you’re interested in trying out the stuffed oreo cookies or stuffed brownie cookies you can order them by calling them on 22626559 or 22620011 or 99431177.

Sorry about all these food posts but whenever I get close to my cheat day (Fridays) all I think about is food.

I was just checking the blog ArtKuwait when I found out that there was an article on Art in Kuwait yesterday in The Economist. Turns out there is an artist who currently has his work exhibited on four billboards in Hawalli (who would have thought) and they’re going to be up there until the end of the month (check pic above). Here are some excerpts from the article:

ABOVE a busy roundabout in Hawalli, a suburb of Kuwait, loom four giant but subtle photographs about Arab identity and placelessness by Tarek Al-Ghoussein. A Palestinian photographer originally from Kuwait, Mr Al-Ghoussein has exhibited widely, but this is the first time his work has been seen in the country of his birth. Kuwaitis and Palestinians have a chequered past. Decades of relative harmony between the two peoples were soured when Yasser Arafat, as head of the Palestine Liberation Organisation, applauded Saddam Hussein’s invasion of Kuwait in 1990. Since then, the Palestinian population in Kuwait has dwindled from nearly half a million to around 40,000.

…

Mr Al-Ghoussein’s billboards will be on view in Kuwait until the end of April. They are the second instalment in a series of four art projects by Palestinians that includes Khalil Rabah, Jack Persekian and Tarek Atoui. Instigated and underwritten by Rana Sadik, a collector and philanthropist of Palestinian descent, the series is arranged to coincide with the 50th anniversary of Kuwait’s independence and the 20th anniversary of its liberation from Iraq.

“The billboards are a way to remind people on both sides of the positive historical relationship between Palestinians and Kuwaitis,” said Abdulaziz Al-Mulla, a board member of the Kuwait Graduates Society, an organisation of some 5,000 members. Interestingly, the artist’s father was Ambassador to America in the 1960s and instrumental in getting Kuwait into the United Nations. So it is apposite that Mr Al-Ghoussein’s photographs have been given such a cordial diplomatic role.

You can read the full article on The Economist [Here]

via ArtKuwait

The Kuwait Heart Foundation (KHF) has mobile stations which they move around from one area to another offering to test your cholesterol and blood glucose for free (maybe other things as well). Currently they’re stationed outside the Khaldiya Co-op if anyone is interested. I tried to get more information regarding these mobile stations from the KHF website which although is fairly well designed compared to other local government websites… majority of the links don’t work. [Link]

Thanks AbdulRahman

Note: Just noticed the irony of the post coming right after the McGangbang

Yesterday I posted a video taken at Flight Experience in 360 Mall, well there is another place that’s officially opening tomorrow (April 20th) that has a wider range of flight simulators available. The place is called Kuwait Flight Simulation Center and they are located in the basement of Discovery Mall in Kuwait City. I originally passed by them yesterday to take pictures but wasn’t allowed to since there was a miscommunication but the owner told me I could pass by today and take pictures which I did except I didn’t have my camera with me today just my iPhone 4 so apologies for the quality of the shots.

The place looks like a large plane fuselage from the outside. Once you walk in you have 7 simulation capsules on the right hand side, 3 combat stations on the left and right next to them you have a large enclosed room which is a proper full scale flight simulator similar in style to the one at 360 Mall. You also have a small coffee shop, a small shop that sells scale models and another shop that sells flight simulator accessories for PCs.

Today the place is open but it’s invite only, starting tomorrow though it should be open to the public. For more information you could visit their website [Here] or Facebook page [Here]

That’s how the inside of the capsule looks like

The 3 machines on the left are the fighter plane simulators

I think the fighter plane simulators actually move and give force feedback

Thats the inside of the full sized simulator

[YouTube]

Blogger 7ajiDude posted a video of his experience trying out the Flight Experience simulator at 360 Mall which I posted about awhile back. It looks and sounds pretty realistic. Here is a link to his post, it’s in Arabic [Link]

Last week I messed up my knee running on my treadmill and since I still wanted to do cardio I decided to walk instead. I plugged in my wireless Nike+ sensor into my sneakers, started the Nike+ app on my iPhone and started walking from the start of Salem Mubarek Street in Salmiya all the way down to Electrozan which is at the very end of it, picked up an iPod Shuffle and then walked back. I was walking at a moderately fast pace and once I got back home I ended my session on the Nike+ app and checked the results (screenshot posted above).

Now I’m not sure how accurate the Nike+ app is, I doubt it’s very accurate but it should be somewhat accurate and if it is then I burned around 600 calories walking for nearly 2 hours. I thought that was pretty cool since when I run on the treadmill at home I usually run just 30 minutes before getting bored and tired. By the end of the 30 minutes I would have burned around 200 calories if I’m lucky, most probably less than that even. Walking on the other hand I can do for much longer periods of time and without getting either tired or bored.

Since I live right on Salem Mubarek Street I’m going to start walking on my days when I don’t have gym instead of running on the treadmill. I should burn more calories that way and I prefer walking in Salmiya over running on a treadmill facing a wall. But since I’m not a fitness expert maybe if Fahad reads this post he can add more information on how accurate my Nike+ is and if walking actually burns that much calories.

Back in November I posted about how Quiznos is coming back to Kuwait and that their first branch was going to open up in January. January came and went and I had completely forgotten to check if it had opened or not. Tonight though while walking in Salmiya I spotted their new branch but it still hadn’t opened yet. But it looks like its going to be opening up pretty soon.

Update: Forgot to mention the location is right behind Olympia Mall

A reader took the picture of the highway digital sign delivering a warning message and diverting traffic to the appropriate lane. According to him the signs got updated before the police arrived which means the sign was activated with the appropriate message from someone at the control center monitoring the road via highway cameras. If I still want to pick on the signs I would say they should have been twice as wide so that the font size would be much larger making it easier to read from a distance. Nevertheless it’s good to see these signs in action and not just telling time.

Thanks Mohammad

After spending a week building the car and then painting it, I was finally able to take it out for a spin. It’s a race buggy and I should have taken it to the Tamiya track to test out but since I wanted to try and capture some nice shots I decided to take it to an empty desert instead. I feel guilty for doing that to the car but I was careful not to bash it too hard since I have to give the car back once I was done with the review.

I don’t have that much experience with buggies since the only electric buggy I have is the Tamiya Frog and it would be really unfair to compare the two since the Frog is actually a design from 1983 while the 502x is a current generation carbon fiber framed racing buggy. But, I have taken a ton of RC cars and trucks out to bash in the dessert before and from all of them the 502x as expected handled the best. Usually when I take the cars out into the dessert to bash they spend a lot of time flipping onto their backs or over or under steering. With the 502x the car managed to flip only once onto it’s back and that’s an incredible achievement with me since I’m a really careless and abusive driver. It also handled incredibly well turning when I wanted it to turn and gripping the dirt and loose pebbles with great east. It also took all the jumps like a champ and whenever it was in the air time seemed to stop for a second and everything went in slow motion until it hit the ground again. That’s why my brother was able to capture so many air shots, the car just floats in the air.

It was really fun building and driving the car and it’s going to be really tough to give it back. But, last night I found out I won the 501x in the My Toy weekly draw so maybe they’ll let me keep the 502x instead. If you’re interested in Tamiya’s, the dealer is called My Toy and they’re located in Tilal Complex on top of In Living Color. It’s a huge store which I’ve posted about before [Here]. You could also participate in their weekly draw to win a 501x by visiting their Facebook group [Here]

The pictures above were taken by my brother but were post processed by myself. To see my brothers post processed photos click [Here]

Shot this last night, they were just kicking the ball back and forth to each other. Scooters are not allowed but football is? [YouTube]

It should be opening in around 2 months time.

Thanks Ramez

Cy from the blog Cyrographics uploaded pictures of Al Hamra Cinema before it got demolished. He used to work for a company that surveyed the site and he found these photos while searching through some old files. This is what he had to say about the photos:

Disclaimer Notice: I am not the owner of these photos, they are just uploaded for the sole purpose of sharing a rare glimpse of Kuwait history for the younger generations of citizens and expats alike. All credits are due to LAS Architectural and Consultancy Office

I was browsing through my files from my previous office when I chanced upon these photos of the Al Hamra Cinema as it was before. Our office (LAS) used to do a lot of Master Planning studies and proposals for the development of Kuwait City and this area, Al Maqwa Al Shargi, where the cinema used to stand, was part of one of our studies. I don’t know much about the history of this cinema, or even Kuwait in general, but I know this cinema was and will always be a part of each and every Kuwaiti families lives.

We took these photos during our survey of the area in 2003.
The other photos in the set were taken in the latter part of 2004, I guess for sentimental reasons, when the building was demolished to give way to the construction of the Al Hamra Tower.

These files had been stored in our hard disks since then, almost forgotten and in danger of being corrupted, deleted and worst, being lost forever.

You can check his blog post [Here]
You can check out all the pictures [Here]

Also, here is my post on Al Hamra Tower that was built in place of Al Hamra Cinema [Link]

As I mentioned last week I picked up a Tamiya 502x race buggy to review for the blog. It’s been nearly a week now and I’ve been working on the car every night for a few hours trying to get it built. Currently I would say I am more than 90% done with the build. I have mostly electric stuff I need to work out and then cutting up and painting the body.

The build was fairly easy although there were some difficult moments. The car frame and a large chunk of the parts are in carbon fiber with a lot of metal parts as well which is expected since this buggy is race ready. But, for the price and purpose of this car I would have expected even more metal parts at least for example when it came to the steering parts which are currently mostly plastic. Tonight I’m gonna try and get the electrics done so I could then prep the body for painting and if everything goes smoothly I might have the car up and running by Saturday.

By the way for those of you who’ve never built a radio controlled car before you need to try it since it’s really a lot of fun. I always compare it to Lego and IKEA, if you like building and putting stuff together then you’ll really enjoy building these cars specially since you get to drive them afterwards. They’re a lot more challenging than building a Lego police station or an IKEA cabinet as well as more rewarding.

[YouTube]

965malls uploaded the video above which he shot of some teenagers fighting underneath his building. What makes his video special is the fact a car ends up running those kids over. According to him no one got hurt as a result.

The teenagers fighting bit I can easily relate to since my neighborhood in Salmiya has turned into the ghetto (plus a garbage dump) due to the fact I have a billiard place in the building next door. Fights amongst teenagers and young adults are practically a daily occurrence and women getting harassed by them has also become the norm.

Come to think of it I don’t know why I don’t use my blog to help improve my area by highlighting problems like I previously did [Here]. I’ve recently been considering moving out of my neighborhood because of all the garbage and fights but why should I move? I’ve been on this street for 30 years now and I shouldn’t have to move because the garbage collecting company isn’t collecting the garbage or the fact that there are no longer any street cleaners as well picking up garbage or that the cops don’t care about any of the violations that are happening on the street. I’ve mentioned this before but there is actually a brothel in the building next door and I have to say I’m glad they’re there since they’ve actually cleaned up a bit of the area around their building. Things are so bad I was actually considering hiring my own street cleaner just to take care of the area around my building!