Category: Kuwait

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!

As you already know by now I am currently being sued by the Las Palmas Restaurant Company who own Benihana and Subway in Kuwait. They’re suing me over my review which you can read [Here] in case you missed it. Today was the second hearing and this is just an update of what happened.

During the first hearing Benihana submitted documents to back up their claim and my lawyer had requested time to review the printouts and the judge gave us one month. The documents submitted by Benihana were basically print outs of my Benihana review, my Benihana media round up post and a print out of my Facebook page.. actually not my page but what you see when you search for my name.

Today my lawyer presented documents to prove that when I had posted my review I didn’t have any ill intent towards Benihana or Las Palmas Restaurant Company and that my post was based on my experience which happened to be a negative one. The documents my lawyer submitted were print outs of previous posts in which I had spoken positive things about Benihana as well as posts in which I had spoken positive things about two other brands owned by Las Palmas which are Subway and Charley’s Grilled Subs. Their lawyers then requested from the judge time to review the documents but the judge refused and instead set a third court date for April 26th in which a decision will be made on this case.

I’m crossing my fingers…

The Red Bull Car Park Drift is back for the second time around. This year it’s going to be held at the Kuwait International fairgrounds. The winner of the car park drift will end up flying to Lebanon with his car, all expenses paid to compete in the regional final event.

Location: Kuwait International Fair
Date: Friday April 22, 2011
Time: 3:30pm
Rules: Drivers must bring their own cars to compete with. The cars should be either rear wheel drive or 4-wheel drive (saloon and sports cars only)

To participate call 66406020 or visit www.redbullmea.com

According to the latest report by CB Richard Ellis “How global is the business of retail?”, Kuwait City ranked 13th in the world the list of most targeted retail destination, up one place from 14th last year. Dubai and London tied for first place followed by New York in second and Paris third. 13th place is actually incredibly good (we tied with Berlin and Istanbul) since the 12 countries ahead of us are big shots like LA, Moscow, Hong Kong, Barcelona, Berlin etc. plus we beat out cities like Milan, Munich, Tokyo and Miami. Below is the top 20 list:

1 – Dubai
1- London
3- New York
4- Paris
5- Madrid
6- Hong Kong
7- Moscow
8- Los Angeles
9- Singapore
10- Barcelona
11- Beijing
12- Shanghai
13- Berlin
13- Kuwait City
13- Istanbul
16- Riyad
17- Milan
18- Munich
19- Tokyo
20- Las Vegas
20- Miami
20- Hamburg

You can download the full report from the CBRE website [Here]

Now slightly off topic, they represented Kuwait with two visuals in the icon above, one is a stretched out version of Kuwait Towers, but what is the other? Looks like our very own Taj Mahal maybe.

Ok so maybe it’s not such a slow day after all. I just found out a few minutes ago that the UK giant supermarket chain Tesco is coming to Kuwait. Can you figure out who’s bringing them? If you guessed Alshaya then you’re right! No location or launch date set or at least my source isn’t aware of them as of now. Will post more information when I find out. Last time I posted about Tesco was back in 2007. I was in London and got to experience their self checkout machines which I thought were pretty cool. You could read about my experience [Here]

Alaa Hegazi – The Human Epic
Egyptian artist Alaa captures the truest moments of humanity, utilizing watercolors to create vibrant monochrome portraits.
Location: Tilal Gallery
Date: April 11th till the 19th
Time: 10:00am to 2:00pm and 5:30pm to 9:30pm
They close on Friday and Saturday it’s by appointment only.

Enzo Manara – Genesis: Informal Universe
Architectural forms, pure vivid colors and curves make an intensive mix that expand in the universe composed of multiple worlds. Each piece is a study, towards an abstract reflection about the Cosmo creation, the primary substances aggregation and the origin of `sensu vitae`.
Location: Kuwait Museum of Modern Art
Date: April 12th till the 22nd

For more information visit our friends at ArtKuwait [Here]