Category: Personal

A few days ago I posted about the app Q8 Grand Limo which I promoted as an alternative for Uber and Careem. That same night they sent out an SMS with a 248AM coupon code which would offer people 20% off on their trips. It kinda pissed me off since they sent it without contacting me first, nor did they even ask me if it was OK to use my brand. Nobody from Q8 Grand Limo had spoken to me at all so when I got the SMS myself, I was surprised and pissed. So I decided I wasn’t going to write about them ever again.

Then this morning I decided to try them out and had such a great experience I decided that even though I’m pissed off at them, they were so good that it would be a shame not to write about my experience.

I had to pass by the Lotus garage and pick up my car today so I pre-booked a ride for 9:30AM. I ended up waking up earlier than expected so canceled my pre-booking and reordered a cab to come right away. The time estimate given was 15 minutes and I could track the cab on his way over to my house via the app. Once the cab arrived, like with Uber, I got a notification letting me know he was here and I headed down to find a sparkling clean black Chrysler with dark tinted windows and a tan leather interior. The driver even came out to open the door for me and he was dressed in black pants, a white shirt, a black vest and a tie. First impression, it felt very fancy.

The driver had my location already plugged into Google Maps and we headed towards Rai using Google’s recommended fastest route. Once we got to my destination, he asked me how I wanted to pay and I said Knet, so he pulled out the Knet machine and I paid. The trip should have cost KD3 which is a steal for the experience, but I ended up using the coupon code “248AM” which they had spammed people with and I ended up paying just KD2.4. Thats from Salmiya to Al Rai. Very cool. It’s actually kinda of a relief that we finally have a decent cab offering. Next week I have to drop my car off again to ProTech to get window tinting and I’ll definitely be using them again.

So all is forgiven and I’m not that pissed off at them anymore. If you want to take advantage of the promo code, you need to enter 248AM in the promo code space while booking the cab. The expiry date for the code is end of the year but they’ve limited the number of times the code can be used to 1,000. So until the code is used a thousand times (by everyone not just you), then we will be able to get 20% off our rides. Thats a really good deal.

Update: OK, Q8 Grand Limo called me up now to explain the confusion. The promo code is just meant for me, it will only work with my phone number so you guys won’t be able to use it. I told them they should have called me an explained what it was before sending me the SMS without and that I already posted about it on the blog. So the person I spoke to said they’ll work on an updated promo code for my readers and send it to me when it’s ready to share.

Those of you who follow me on instagram and twitter probably already figured out that I sold my beloved Datsun last week because I bought a Lotus Exige instead. It wasn’t a planned purchase, it just happened, I guess something like an impulse buy but on a grander scale. Last Saturday I went with a friend to check out a 1972 Chevy C10 pickup truck which I was planning to buy. On our way back I had to drop my friend off at a garage when I came across a used car lot that had a yellow Lotus Exige displayed for sale, the same one I had reviewed nearly a year ago. So I sent the Lotus brand manager a message about it and he told me if I had an itch to drive the Exige again, they had the roof off on their current vehicle and I could come in the next morning and take the car out for a couple of days. Who would say no to that?

The next morning I headed straight to the Lotus dealership and picked up the Exige. A few minutes after driving off in the car, I had a huge smile on my face I remembered why I loved it so much when I took it out last year to review. So when the brand manager messaged me back the next day to confirm I would be dropping the car off in the evening, I told him I had fallen in love with it and this time I wasn’t bringing it back. After a couple of days of negotiating on the price over whatsapp, I went back to the dealership and paid for the car. I’m still unsure if I got a good deal or not since I don’t consider myself a great negotiator (Tip: Do NOT tell the dealer you love the car), but I’ve got the car now with no regrets so thats all that matters.

When I originally wrote my review of the Exige last year, I described it as a car not meant for 99.9% of the people and I still stand by that. I actually spent most of that review complaining about the car. It’s extremely quirky to put it nicely with a lot of odd and unorthodox things about it. But, with all the issues I had with the car when I reviewed it, something about it really attracted me to it. I’ve reviewed a lot of amazing cars for the blog but nothing connected with me the way the Exige did. I love sitting inside the small cozy cockpit, I love the way it looks on the outside, I even love how awkward it is to get in and out of and I definitely love recording videos of my friends trying to get out of the car. If the Exige was a person, it would be an awkward introvert and I think thats why I love it.

There are only 3 Exige’s in Kuwait at the moment, my midnight blue one, a white one and a yellow one so it’s a pretty rare car and I feel special. But, I’m now curious to see what that means to the cost and availability of parts, supposedly service costs is similar to Lexus which is great, but I didn’t ask about the parts since I didn’t want to freak out and change my mind about buying the car. Speaking of parts, there is a pretty active online community of aftermarket parts and I’ve already got my eye on some carbon fiber body panels and other upgrades, but the first thing I want to modify on the car is the license plates. For some reason Alghanim (the dealer) installed square ones on the car but I think the wider rectangular ones would look so much nicer on it. So if anyone knows what the process is for swapping the square plates for the rectangular ones is, please let me know!

Just a random tidbit, 14 years ago today I posted my first post ever on a blog called Qhate. Before 248AM I had a blog called Miskan, before that I had another one called Moblogging from Kuwait (it was like instagram, but before instagram) and before that I had another blog called Qhate. Qhate was a war blog where me and a few friends were posting about life in Kuwait during the 2003 invasion of Iraq.

My first post on February 6th, 2003.

Unlike my old posts here on 248AM, I don’t cringe when I read my old posts on Qhate. It kinda feels like I started off writing pretty well and then took a big dip in quality by the time I started 248AM, only to recover again years later. In around 10 days time its also going to be 248AM’s 12 year anniversary. Crazy.

All my posts from all my previous blogs are still online except for “Moblogging from Kuwait” since it was hosted on textamerica.com which shut down a decade ago. You can still find some stuff from it using the Internet Archive Wayback Machine but not much. I used to take all the photos and post to my blog using the Sony CLIÉ UX40. That was back when smart phones didn’t exist and Sony PDA’s were so ahead of their time.

This question is for the guys, where do you go get your nails done? The two places I frequent the most are Spaloon and Ten Spa and I’m really not happy with either of them. Spaloon have the most uncomfortable seating I’ve ever experienced anywhere in my life so I hate getting my nails done there, and Ten Spa isn’t what it used to be, it feels like they’re about to close down any day now.

So where do you go? I can’t think of better places, maybe I should just open my own nail salon…

A couple of weekends back I went camping in the desert and nearly got completely lost on the way there. I usually go camping with a friend of mine in this secluded area around an hour plus drive into the desert from Al Salmi. This time around my friend headed into the desert first since I had some errands I needed to get done during the day and then headed into the desert in the afternoon. The whole journey takes around two hours from Salmiya so by the time I got close to camp it was dark and I couldn’t see anything except the road in front of me. I had Google Maps coordinates of our camp site on my phone and was following it without issues until I hit what I think must have been Kuwait’s Bermuda Triangle.

As I got close to our camping spot my phone just started messing up. I’d be driving towards my blue dot on Google Maps and then 15 minutes later the map suddenly rotates and so now the blue dot is behind me. So I’d turn the car around and head the other way, 20 minutes later the map rotates again and now the blue dot is on my right instead of straight ahead. It did this a couple of more times before I realized I was driving around in circles wasting precious fuel in the empty desert and completely lost. I was about to give up and just camp in this random spot in the middle of nowhere until the sun comes up when I remembered I had a little Garmin eTrex 20 in the trunk with my camping gear.

I had bought the Garmin for exactly this situation, to use if I ever get lost when hiking or camping. So I dug it out of my gear, turned it on, entered the coordinates of my campsite and right away the Garmin pointed me to the right direction. I was so off course I had to drive another 30 minutes to get to camp. Moral of the story? If you’re ever heading into the desert don’t rely on your phone for navigation. Instead, invest in a dedicated GPS device since it could save your ass one day.

Yesterday I was trying to find an article I had posted about an event that took place in Kuwait back in 1974. A friend of mine works right next to Souk Al Kabeer in Kuwait City and I thought she would be interested to know that during the construction of the building back in 74, it collapsed during the night while the construction workers were asleep and killed I believe around 40 or 50 people (I think?). I couldn’t find the article but the video above is taken from the AP archive shot that morning showing the aftermath.

I was flipping page by page through my 50s to 90s category on the blog trying to find the article and I couldn’t for some reason. But, I did realize something important, a lot of the videos of old Kuwait I had linked to or a lot of links to photo galleries of old Kuwait on other websites or blogs were now dead and no longer available.

It’s rare and difficult enough finding these treasures and so its pretty sad that many of them are no longer available to view. I was pissed off at myself and disappointed that I didn’t think of downloading or saving backups or hosting the images myself. I always considered it bad etiquette to find images on another blog and then host them all myself, I thought the proper thing to do would be to link back to the blog instead and send people there. Now I regret doing that, I shouldn’t trust other people with the responsibility of archiving history.

I should set up a gofundme where all the money we collect will be used towards purchasing old 1930s to 1970s archive footage of Kuwait

— mark248am (@mark248am) January 10, 2017

Thinking out loud I tweeted that I should probably set up a GoFundMe account where all the money collected would be used to purchase old footage and photos of Kuwait from the likes of Huntley Film Archives, Periscope Film, AP Archive, various Flickr accounts and the likes and then store them somewhere in the cloud for everyone to access and where it could remain permanently.

But then we’re back in the same situation, where you’re trusting a person (in this case me) to maintain and keep this archive, but what if something happens to me? Say for example one day while driving down the Gulf Road and my Datsun bursts into flames and I die, that means I won’t be able to continue to pay for hosting and maintaining that archive. Actually thats whats going to happen with my blog as well, probably stay up a month or two after I die, and then it would disappear forever along with the 10,000+ posts and over 200,000 of your comments.

This is why I think there needs to be a non profit organization that is responsible for archiving these important items. And I’m not talking about historically important films and artifacts, I’m talking about general random everyday stuff that people wouldn’t think of archiving from old Hardees ads to some guys family photos from the 60s (they’re wonderful). They don’t sound like very important items to archive but I personally think they are. They’re everyday life from a different era.

There actually might be a local organization that is doing this and I’m just not aware of it but I doubt it. KOC have a great in-house archive department which is extremely organized and one I’ve visited and written about [Here], but they are archiving their own content and not other peoples.

Anyway, what I’m trying to say is an organization needs to be established and if anyone ever decides to do it then please invite me to be part of it. For now I’m going to spend this weekend skimming through my old 50s to 90s posts and make sure everything I’ve linked to I’ve also mirrored on my blog so if the source is dead the information is still here.

Yesterday parts of Fahad Al Salem street was closed off to cars due to the amount of pedestrians in the city because of Christmas. The cops were only letting in busses and cabs and it was pretty surreal I guess because I’m so used to that street being a chaotic mess.

There has been talk about closing Salem Mubarek Street in Salmiya to cars permanently for years now but nothing has ever come of it. But even if they don’t close it to cars permanently, they really should close it off every now and then and turn it into an outdoor market.

The last time they closed Salem Mubarek Street I think was back in 2005 as part of the national day parade. But imagine how much better it could be today, imagine if Salem Mubarek Street was one giant Qout Market. Actually, imagine if Shakshooka and Qout Market both collaborated and took over the street for a day, I think that would be amazing. We really need car-free days.

Barrak Al-Babtain from the blog re:kuwait has spoken about turning SAM street into pedestrian only a number of times before and even has some pretty good creative proposals. Check out some of his old posts below:

NY High Line
SAM Street
SAM Street Analysis
SAM Street: Winter Only?

And this is a quote by him from back in 2009

I think SAM street is probably one of the best spaces in Kuwait where a real public space can happen. A place where people can go window shopping and listen to live music and buy food from street vendors. The intervention is relatively minor but the potential is incredible. We can ignore it and let it suffocate or we breathe new life into the street and create something that Kuwait doesn’t really have; a lively, free and open public space.

If you make me the mayor of Salmiya I’ll make Barrak the urban planner. #voteformark

Since its starting off as a very slow news week, I figured I’d post a list of my favorite podcasts to keep things moving. So here are my favorite podcasts in alphabetical order:

Car Talk
This is a show where two car mechanics get calls from people asking for car advice. A caller for example would call in and tell them my car is making a screeching sound when going down hill what could it be? And the two car mechanics try to figure out what the problem might be and give them advice on it. It’s a fun show if you’re into cars and I enjoy always trying to figure out the car issue myself and I have to say, I’m generally pretty good at it.

Chequered Flag Formula 1
There are only two sports I enjoy watching, Formula 1 and UFC and this single podcast fulfills all my F1 needs. It’s by the BBC and every race tends to have two podcasts per race, a preview of the race and then a review of it. The episodes are short and the hosts are fantastic but sadly, yesterday was the last F1 race of the season (and what an intense race it was) so this podcast is going to be dormant until the next season starts again.

Kill Tony (pictured on top)
By far my favorite podcast of the bunch. Kill Tony is a comedy show run by the comedian Tony Hinchcliffe. In the show, Tony randomly selects a name of an audience member from a hat (the audience members are young striving comedians) and they have to come up and do a stand up set for 60 seconds in front of Tony and his guests. Although many of the stand ups aren’t that funny, the show is ridiculously funny since Tony and his guests (who are popular comedians) roast the stand ups. Super funny stuff, like I laugh out loud while driving funny.

The Joe Rogan Experience
JRE I think was the first podcast I ever started listening to. Joe Rogan is a standup comedian (his new special is great), an actor (remember NewsRadio?), ex host of the Fear Factor, a UFC commentator and an ex Taekwondo champion. Like his life, his show covers various topics and so each episode he invites an interesting guest where they talk about different things. If you’re a UFC fan, Joe also hosts “Fight Companions” where he invites some friends over and they all sit and watch the UFC fights together while podcasting live.

The MMA Beat
The MMA Beat is my favorite MMA show. On the show they discuss all the current MMA related news and give their opinions on them. The show is usually composted of four journalists including my two favorites, Ariel Helwani and Luke Thomas.

The MMA Hour with Ariel Helwani
This is probably the most popular MMA show, it comes out once a week and usually features interviews with fighters who are currently in the news or have a fight coming up or just had one.

I also follow a bunch of other podcasts but generally only listen to them if I have nothing else. They are:
Double Jump
It’s Time with Bruce Buffer
Luke Thomas Podcasts
The Church of What’s Happening Now with Joey Diaz
The Fighter & The Kid
UFC Unfiltered with Jim Norton and Matt Serra
You’re Welcome! with Chael Sonnen

What podcasts do you listen to?

I use the Overcast app to listen to my podcasts. Two things I like about it, the first is that it works with my CarPlay head unit, the second is that I can set how many seconds I want the seek back and seek forward buttons to be. So I have it set to go back 15 seconds when I click the rewind button and skip forward 60 seconds when I click the forward button.

I’m a tea guy, anybody who knows me or anybody who’s been reading my blog for awhile would know that, but recently that changed and I think I am now a coffee guy. I’m still trying to get a grasp on how this is possible since I used to really hate coffee. This all started when Arabica got in touch with me for a quick meeting around a month ago.

Arabica are opening two new locations and wanted to fill me in on them in case I’d be interested to post about them. So I met up with them and during the meeting they asked me why I didn’t drink coffee. I responded telling them I loved the smell of coffee I just couldn’t stand the flavor to which I was then asked when was the last time I had tried coffee? I couldn’t remember, I figured I must have when I was a kid or something. They told me they wanted to turn me into a coffee drinker and the next time we would meet it would be at the Arabica branch for a little tasting. I didn’t think that would be possible but I told them ok since I didn’t want to seem impolite. So a few days later I end up at Arabica trying a bunch of their different coffees and I strangely found myself attracted to their Spanish Latte which is a regular latte but with their secret sweet syrup. I think I liked it the most because it didn’t taste like coffee, it’s what I now call coffee for beginners since its what got me started on coffee.

A couple of days later I popped back in and ordered another Spanish Latte, then I came back again and started ordering their regular latte, then again the day after. I’m now passing by once or twice a day for my fix. Not only that but wherever I go now I order a latte just so I can taste the difference and try to understand the different flavor profiles. I’m still on lattes, haven’t really “leveled up” to straight up coffees yet but thats because I’ve just been enjoying lattes so much. So much so that I’ve started researching bean to cup coffee machines (got my eye on you DeLonghi XS) so I could just start buying beans from Arabica and making my own lattes at home.

Another thing I’m enjoying is social coffee drinking. Previously I used to tag along with friends to Vol.1 and Richards Coffee all the time and just watch them drink their coffees while I sip on my water. But now I can finally go to these places and have coffee like everybody else. What I find super odd though is that since I started drinking coffee I’ve completely stopped drinking tea. I used to average around 6 to 8 cups of tea a day but since I’ve started drinking coffee a month ago, I’ve had just 2 cups. I’ve just lost all interest.

Brands are always trying to connect with me but it rarely ever works. This is one of the very few times where a brand not only has managed to grab my attention, but they’ve turned me into a huge fan and even a self proclaimed brand ambassador. I’ve been dragging friends to Arabica with me and telling everyone how great I think their coffee is. As I’m sitting in Arabica typing this my brother who I introduced to Arabica recently walked in to get coffee for himself and his office. And now I just ordered my second latte and need to end this post so I can head to work. If you haven’t tried Arabica yet you should, they’re located in Kuwait City [Google Maps] and you can find them on instagram @arabicakw

It was around 5AM and I was sitting at Johnny Rockets Salmiya waiting for my meal when it suddenly hit me, the place hadn’t changed one tiny bit since it first opened back in 1995. I quickly snapped a few pictures and decided to send it to my high school crush who I used to frequent Johnny Rockets with all the time. A minute later she responds… Memories!!!!

Back in 1995/1996, during my senior year in high school, Fuddruckers was the place to go. I mean there weren’t that many options anyway, none of the restaurants you see on the Gulf Road today existed back then, we didn’t have any malls like we do today except for Laila Gallery, Zahra Complex and Salhiya. So as teenagers we spent most of our time either hanging out at each others homes or the ice skating rink which was honestly pretty cool back then with Snap and Soul II Soul being blasted loudly by the DJ while we played with the arcade machines and watched people skate. So when Fuddruckers opened everyone in Kuwait was there on the weekends. It used to be super crowded and such a fun place to just chill and meet up with teens from other schools. Then Johnny Rockets opened and everyone started going there.

We were around 5 in my group, 2 girls and 3 guys and we started going to Johnny Rockets instead of Fuddruckers like most other teens. I lived on Salem Mubarek Street so my friends would just get dropped off at my place and we’d hang out in my room for a bit before walking down to Johnny. We usually headed to the Video Club first which was across the street from Johnny so we could check out the latest music tapes and CDs. We’d then visit the bookshop next door and flip through the magazines before heading over to Johnny. By the time we’d get to Johnny we would all have spent whatever little money we had on music tapes or magazines so we’d put whatever change we had together and order one cup of tea. I only ever ate there a handful of times as a teenager, and the first time was on a date with my high school crush. Our love affair with Johnny Rockets didn’t last very long though. Since the place was small and Johnny became the “it” place to be, it used to get overcrowded and mostly with teenagers like us who would only order a couple of drinks and then sit there. Forever. So, Johnny Rockets started implementing a minimum order, I think it was KD1.750 per person, so we couldn’t afford hanging out there anymore. Instead we started chilling outside Johnny Rockets, on the sidewalk until a short while later McDonalds opened up above it and it became our hangout spot.

Anyway, the point I’m trying to make here is that sometimes we don’t appreciate things until they’re gone, but I want to take this moment and appreciate Johnny Rockets while it’s still here. Thank you Johnny Rockets for not changing and still being here.

On my way to lunch I spotted a building under construction on fire in Salmiya. I didn’t head towards it or even take a photo, I was just so disinterested. Around an hour later a friend of mine sent me a video of the fire and I started to question if this is possibly an interesting post for the blog that I am missing out on. I was leaving lunch by then so I headed back towards the burning building. There were a ton of fire trucks, a guy on a stretcher being lifted into an ambulance and a crowd gathered watching. Most of the roads around the building which is on Salem Mubarek Street were also blocked off and yet I still wasn’t interested. I snapped my one picture and drove home.

8 years ago I’d be all over this fire so I could post about it on the blog. I would have parked me car, gone down and tried to take as many interesting photos as possible, maybe ask someone how the fire started.. you know like a wannabe reporter. But now I just don’t think a fire in a random building is interesting content anymore. Accident photos, fires, its more kuwaituptodate style of posts than mine, not unless it’s some important structure burning like the airport or something. Sometimes I wonder if I’ve gotten too picky with what I post and if thats a bad thing for the blog. I don’t think it is.

I’m thinking out loud here so bear with me. The blog has always been about curated content, actually maybe that’s not entirely accurate but it has evolved to being about curated content and the curation process has always revolved around me. It’s what I think is interesting at this very moment and usually related to my personal life experiences. So today I’m interested in Matcha, so I’ll post about Matcha, tomorrow I might be interested in I don’t know, staplers, so I’ll post about staplers. If a fire in a building doesn’t interest me then I think it’s fine I don’t post about it. It’s not like in the old days, I don’t feel the need anymore to post everything since there are tons of other places to get content today. I think what makes my blog content unique to other sources is the utter randomness of the topics, all of which in one way or another relate to me.

So there you have it, I think I needed to write this down for me more than for you. But basically I’m going to continue just posting about stuff that matters to me and not what I think might matter to other people. Like it’s always been.

Over the weekend I experienced 3 power cuts within a 24 hour period. The first two lasted for just over an hour but the third power cut lasted from 8PM to 4AM. There are now around 7 large power generators spread out in my neighborhood (Block 9, Salmiya) and it doesn’t seem like it’s just my area. I was talking to a friend who lives in Rumaithiya and they’ve had power generators installed on their street for a few weeks now. I don’t know what’s the purpose of all the generators in my area, the power cut was due to a burned cable but that was already fixed.

When I posted about the power cut on twitter a follower suggested I spend a night in the hotel. Did you guys know that the majority of hotels won’t accept single men with local residency? I found that out when I was getting my divorce. I needed to spend a few nights in a hotel and I couldn’t find a hotel that would let me stay. In the end I found a hotel in the city that let me stay a few nights but only because I think the receptionist took pity on me.

Yesterday afternoon I dropped my Datsun to Omid’s Garage in Shuwaikh to have a few things worked on, mostly installing an AC system as well as replacing all the car’s bushings among other things. After dropping the car off I walked to the main road to find a cab and then not sure what got into my head but I tweeted that maybe I should just walk home since I was already in gym gear. I wasn’t planning to go to the gym, but since my car didn’t have AC and I was expecting the weather to be warm, I figured I would wear my gym gear since I wouldn’t mind sweating in it. I opened up google maps just to get an idea if it was actually doable and it gave an estimated time of around 2 hours and 44 minutes. It was around 6PM then and I was invited to an Audemars Piguet event at 7PM, but other than that didn’t really have any plans for the evening. So I was like fuck it, I’ll ditch the event and walk home. A friend on twitter replied to me saying it would take me three hours, I replied back that I would make it in 2 and a half and so the challenge was on.

I left the garage at 6:06PM with just a small bottle of water, my wallet, my keys and my phone. The garage is located in the Shuwaikh Industrial area which is the area across from Al Rai and on the other side of highway 60. I started walking towards Canada Dry street cuz I decided I’d take the 3rd Ring Road down towards the Gulf Road and then take the 35 towards Salmiya. Although Canada Dry Street takes just a few seconds to get from the start to the end by car, it took me 20 minutes to walk. I thought that was just too slow of a pace so when I was done from Canada Dry and crossed into Khaldia where I spotted a walking/running track, I decided I would try to run back home. Although I was in my gym gear I didn’t have running shoes on, I had my crossfit ones (Nike Metcon 1) which barely have any padding and are terrible for running. But I’d figure I’d give it a shot since walking was just going to be too slow for me.

I hadn’t really gone running in over two years and I’ve barely been doing any cardio but I just wanted to get home in under 2 and a half hours. I had already run out of water but luckily kept finding public water fountains to keep refilling my bottle (I didn’t get sick!). By the time I got to road 35 in Hawally, I realized there was a big chance I could make it home in under 2 hours so I pressed on. Mentally I was strong but physically I was just starting to break down. Half way down the stretch of the 35 my right foot and right knee were in pain. I wasn’t out of breath even though I was tired but my legs were just not prepared for this. By the time I got to the end of the 35 and crossed into Maidan Hawalli I could barely run and I knew I wouldn’t be able to get home in under 2 hours. It was demoralizing but then I just went back to my original plan of trying to get there in under 2 and a half hours. I tried to run but by the time I got to Salmiya I was limping, my right leg was in so much pain. But once I saw my building I somehow managed to sprint the last 20 meters or so. I ended up making it home in 2 hours and 14 minutes. A total distance of 14KM. Kinda disappointing since I ran a 10K once in 57 minutes, but I did train for that. On the other hand I did get a better time compared to when I walked home from my work in Kuwait City.

I still don’t know why I decided to do that yesterday, this morning I can barely walk up and down stairs due to how sore my legs are. The weather was great yesterday which might have been what pushed me but in any case I did it and I’ve got a few observations I want to highlight.

Kuwait isn’t really a pedestrian friendly place but I was pretty surprised at how the route I took was fairly pedestrian friendly. From the start of the 3rd Ring Road till highway 40 there are proper walking/running paths all along the main road. The only issue is the fact these paths aren’t connected to other paths in adjacent areas. Meaning to cross from Khaldiya to Adailiya wasn’t easy. Not only aren’t the walking/running paths connected, but the normal sidewalks aren’t even connected. In some areas I had to walk over greenery or climb over barriers, and then when there were paths like the one pictured above, they led to the middle of the road instead of the other sidewalk. Each area is isolated from the adjacent ones which is pretty annoying. Then once you pass the 40th into Hawalli, the paths start disappearing. By the time I got to Salmiya I was basically running in the streets trying to avoid cars. Such a contrast to how my run started, even the public water fountains disappeared after the 40.

Still, I was expecting it to be a lot more difficult to make it back to Salmiya on foot so I was actually impressed by the experience. I just wish Kuwait was more pedestrian or bike friendly, I’m sure there are a lot of people who wouldn’t mind walking to places if the weather was good.

I first heard of ProTech Monte-Carlo just over a year ago when they left a comment under one of my photos on instagram inviting me to pass by them. I checked out their instagram account and did a bit of research on them and they turned out to be a pretty legit car detailing setup with different branches around the world. I didn’t really have a reason to pass by at that time but months later when I wanted to detail my FJ I called them up for a quote and quickly realized their services were out of my FJ’s league.

Then last month I purchased my 1973 Datsun 240z. The car was over 40 years old, still in pretty much stock condition but had been parked outdoors for the past 11 years in Kuwait and probably even longer in the States where it was originally imported from. The paint had clearly lost its shine, it has lots of scratches, the plastics and rubbers around the car looked dry and the interior was also faded and looked old. I had already given the car a pretty good wash but it clearly wasn’t enough. Thats when I considered passing by ProTech and getting a quote from them. I was already aware that they had worked on a number of vintage cars before including ones that were worth a whole lot more than mine so I knew I could trust them detailing my Datsun properly. They gave me a quote which I honestly thought was too much since the car really isn’t worth a lot. But, I was still curious to see what they would be able to do to a car like mine, it seemed like the perfect project for them. So I got in touch with the owner and offered him a barter deal where I’d give him a banner on the blog for a couple of months in return they’d detail my car. Two days later not he got back to me, not only did he accept my deal but he also went out and purchased a 240z himself (same color as mine even, it’s pictured in the back of the photo above). I’m telling you guys the Z is such a ridiculously fun car to get.

I dropped off my car on a Monday, spent around two hours with the owner discussing and comparing our Z’s and then left and came back the following Sunday to pick up the car. Usually they take 3 to 4 days for their extreme detailing package but because of the age of my car and the work it needed they took a couple more days than usual. When I picked up the car again, fuck was I impressed. The pictures really don’t do the job any justice.

There are a number of stages to the whole detailing process. When you first drop the car they first give it a proper wash. Once they’re done washing the car they go over it inch by inch with a clay bar which would pick up any small speckle of dirt that was still left on the car Once they’re done with that they start the detailing process. Depending on which package you go for there are different things involved here but in my case we went all out. So first thing they do is polish the exterior of the car. Before they start they mark off 8 different spots on the car so they could test out how aggressive their polish will be. They want to be the least aggressive so they start off on the lowest setting and polish the first spot and see if they can still see scratches. If the scratches are still there they move over to the second spot they’ve marked off and increase the intensity. They keep doing this from spot to spot until they get to a level of intensity that clears out the scratches without damaging the paint.

Once the external polishing of the car is complete they then apply a special treatment to the rubbers and plastics that will moisturize them and bring them back to life. The best example of how successful this treatment was is with the front spoiler of my car which you can see the before and after shots above. Before the detailing I was contemplating getting the spoiler painted black but now it looks brand new.

After the exterior they move to the interior where they once again spend a lot of time cleaning and applying special treatment to the various materials inside the car. My dashboard had faded and dried because of it being parked outdoors but like with the external plastics, they managed to bring my dashboard back to life. Even all the interior black leather that covers my car now looks factory new. It’s just insane how new my really old car now looks. They didn’t only clean my carpets for example, but they removed my carpets, the insulation underneath it and then cleaned the whole tub of the car before putting everything back again.

Once they were done with the cleaning they moved to the final stage which is applying protection. It’s basically a protective clear coat that lasts anywhere between one to two years. This clear coat protects all the detailing work so that any minor scratches will be superficial and not affect the paint. After everything is done they give you a box (a KD45 value usually) containing a bunch of their cleaning products and various types of cloths and sponges so that you could take care of the car properly. If you have a driver that washes your car you could bring him in and they’ll teach him how to properly clean your car.

The cost of this full detailing job? A whopping KD425. Obviously when a car costs as little as mine this really isn’t very feasible of course which is why I did the barter deal with them. You also don’t have to take the full extreme detailing package which I did. Their prices actually start under KD100 but if you’ve paid I don’t know, KD85,000 for a Mercedes 4X4 Squared for example then you clearly want the best fucking shit for your car and this is it. Personally I can’t believe what a huge difference it made to my car. It’s brought the paint job back to life, it’s shinny, it’s vibrant and because of the protective layer it feels so smooth (like super smooth). And the interior? She doesn’t look 43 at all, she looks like she’s in her 20s.

Now just to be clear this is not an ad and this post wasn’t part of the deal. I wanted to write this post because (a) I always need content but (b) because they really did bring my car back to life. I really need to install AC in the car since there is no way I’m going to leave her parked all summer long. Anyway, check them out, here is their instagram page [Link]

Damn does time fly by fast… Choowy Goowy are celebrating their 10 year anniversary this year. It feels like it was just yesterday when I was sitting on my couch, overweight, munching down jar after jar of their cookies while watching the latest episode of Prison Break. I’m also personally celebrating 10 years of friendship since the owner and I ended up becoming close friends after that back and forth collaboration on the blog. For those of you who weren’t in Kuwait at that time, Choowy Goowy basically started the whole home business and cupcake craze (even though they were never a home business or made any cupcakes). Since then they’ve expanded around the region and opened a number of local outlets including their latest one which they’ll be opening this Wednesday next month in Promenade. I told them they should temporarily sell their cookies with their old original branding (pictured above) just for nostalgia’s sake.

I’ve been contemplating for the past few minutes if I should or shouldn’t include a link to my original post and review of Choowy Goowy from back in 2006. I tend to really dislike reading my old posts since it’s kinda like looking through old photos and thinking what the fuck was I wearing?! I ended up deciding that I’d link to the post but just not read it myself. Hopefully it’s not as bad as I imagine it being. Check it out over [Here]

Update: Turns out I misunderstood, their Promenade location isn’t opening this Wednesday but in fact opening next month. But to celebrate their 10 year anniversary, Choowy Goowy are holding an event at their soon to open Promenade location this Wednesday from 6PM to 9PM. Everyone is invited.