2:48AM - Entertaining Kuwait since 2003
Sports Direct, UK’s largest and #1 number one sports retailer is opening right across the street from Avenues. Looks like it’s going to be huge.
Update: Sports Direct also have a branch in Hawali – Tunis street and they had their grand opening yesterday. They’re owned by Al Homaizi Group, the same people who also own GoSport.
This coming Friday August 30th you can compete in the Skatepark Scooter Competition. There will be two categories, amateur and beginners. Registration is available at Skatepark and entry cost KD3.5 per person. There will be prizes.
Date: Friday August 30th, 2013
Time: 5PM
Location: Marina Skatepark
For more information call Carlos on 99059203
The last day for this years Flying Start Triathlon early bird registration is coming up soon. They’ve got two levels of competition:
The event takes place on the 15th of November but early registration earns you a nice discount. If you’re interested to find out more head to their Facebook page [Here]
Anwar Jawhar took part in an Ironman competition at the beginning of this month and he ended up qualifying for the Ironman World Championships. Anwar took part in Ironman 70.3 Cebu in Philippines and qualified for the world championship by winning in his age group 25-29 years old. He finished 1st place in the group out of 150 triathletes and was ranked 28th overall out of 2500 total participants including professional triathletes and the current world champion.
The Ironman 70.3 race held in Cebu Philippines consisted of a 1.9km swim followed by a 90km bike and finished off with a 21km half marathon run. Anwar Jawhar became the first Kuwaiti and GCC national to ever qualify to the world championships which will be held in Las Vegas on 8th September 2013.
I’ve run with Anwar before and after like 8KM I would be dead on the floor and he would have already run like 15KM as his warmup without breaking a sweat. Super fit is an understatement.
If you’re interested, you can follow Anwar on Instagram @anwarjawhartriathlete to keep up to date with his progress in the world championships and his triathlon career.
Last week the Jawbone dealer sent me the UP wristband to tryout and review. The Jawbone UP tracks your sleep and movement patterns and I am going to start this review by saying I am not UP’s intended user. The UP is meant for casual users who want to get a rough idea of how many calories they’re burning or how active their lifestyle is. Since my lifestyle is already pretty active I need more accurate data which the UP can’t provide me with since it doesn’t monitor your heartbeat and it doesn’t have a GPS to track distance. But, after having used the UP for a week I ended up liking the device and I’ll explain why a bit further into the review.
The UP reminds me a lot of the Nike Fuelband and it should because they both basically do the exact same thing. Both the Fuelband and UP track your movement patterns and then converts that data into pretty graphs. The biggest difference for me with the UP is that it also tracks sleep patterns which is something that I was really interested in. When you run the app for the first time you enter various information about yourself and then you choose two targets, the amount of hours you would like to sleep and your daily target for steps. The defaults are 8 hours and 10,000 steps and I left them that way. Throughout the day all your movements are recorded by the wristband but you can also help make it more accurate by telling the wristband what activity you just performed.
Within the UP application on the phone you have the option to log specific workouts like a run or a weight lifting session. You select the kind of activity you performed based on preset ones along with the intensity of the activity and also the duration. The application then calculates how many calories you burned using published MET values. This isn’t very accurate because you have to estimate the intensity of your activity and so you’ll only end up with a ballpark figure which should still be fine for the majority of people.
Sleep tracking is a very interesting aspect of the UP. Before you go to sleep you put the device into sleep mode and when you wake up you just turn sleep mode off. UP then takes your nighttime movement data and plots them out for you. My aim was to get 8 hours of sleep every night but based on the data my average has been less than 6 hours. UP also lets you know how long it took you to fall asleep and how much light and deep sleep you’re getting. Finally UP can also help you take a proper power nap during the day. By pressing the button on the UP twice and then holding it down it will turn on power nap mode which based on your previous nights sleep will calculate the optimum duration for your power nap which could range from 27 to 45 minutes. When it’s time to wakeup the UP vibrates.
Synchronizing the data between the UP and the app is a simple process, there is small cap at the end of the UP band which when removed will reveal a headphone connector which plugs into the phone. The wristband is also water resistant which according to the Jawbone website means I can shower with it but I actually swam with it all day over the weekend and it’s still working perfectly fine. Actually the website says NOT to submerge it in water so if you do so you do it as your own risk. Battery life according to Jawbone is 10 days and based on my experience that seems about right.
So yes the UP isn’t very accurate but I personally still loved it and the main reason being is I’m wearing it like a normal bracelet, a fashion accessory. The UP looks good, I don’t have to remove it when I shower or swim and other than charging it once every 10 days the UP doesn’t require any maintenance. It’s like a nice looking bracelet that has the added value of letting you know approximately how active you are while also letting you know how much sleep you’re getting.
If you’re interested in the UP you can order one directly from the dealer by calling them on 97337221. It costs KD45 and KD2 for delivery. You can also check out their Instagram account for other ways of ordering [Here]
Damn, why don’t we have these kinds of races anymore? [YouTube]
KMWFCT Opening Ceremony – Behind The Scenes
I didn’t know about this until just a few moments ago but last week was the Kuwait Mini World Futsal Club Tournament and the opening ceremony looked pretty impressive. The video above is of the making of the ceremony and once you’re done watching that you could watch the actual opening ceremony which was around an hour long [Here] (starts at the 18mins mark)
Last week the Kuwait Sporting Club revealed their new football kit only turns out it was plagiarized from the popular Paris Saint-Germain team. Not sure what they were thinking since they must have known people would notice. Yesterday the French media picked up on this and it’s now spreading everywhere with side by side shots. Seriously how hard would it have been to come up with a unique design? [Link]
zDistrict posted on twitter about a jetski rental company with a delivery option so I called them up to get more details. Turns out the company is called Xtreme and they had a website listing all the Sea-Doo jetskis they had available for rent along with the prices. Other than the fact you get to rent 2013 model year jetskis, I found it pretty cool that they also delivery the jetski to you. Check out their website [Here]
The concept consists of a plan in the shape of infinity, around the existing Jaber Stadium and a new man-made lake on which will float three Olympic sized stadia. Contained within the main superstructure are another Olympic stadium, a five star hotel and a shopping centre. The tower, working within the long tradition of Kuwaiti tower-based architectural icons, contains a seven star hotel as well as luxury apartments, VIP suites for the stadium, and a Michelin star restaurant with extraordinary views. [Source]
I’m guessing the project was never approved since the last I heard of this was back in 2011. [Vimeo]
That’s actually not a bad idea, 360 Dewan has more details [Here]
A few days ago Jordan defeated Kuwait 21-0 in the Women’s Asian Cup qualifying. This comes after Kuwait lost to Uzbekistan 18-0 in the first qualifying round. You can watch all 21 goals in the “4 minute long” highlight reel above. [YouTube]
I already posted about wakeboarding late last year but since summer is here I figured I would repost about this for everyone that missed it.
The first time I went wakeboarding I wasn’t expecting it to be that difficult. For some reason I had the impression it would be fairly easy to stand on the board while pulled by a boat and performing all kind of stunts. Turns out it wasn’t easy and I spent the first 20 minutes just trying to get up out of the water and stay up before losing control and crashing into the water. It wouldn’t be that bad if it wasn’t for the fact every time I crashed I ended up swallowing so much water. After awhile you get the hang of getting up and standing on the board and then it becomes about how long can you stay up without losing balance. Once you get comfortable you start trying to change directions going left or right and the more comfortable you get the more things you end up trying to do. In my case by the second time I went wakeboarding I had pretty much gotten the hang of it.
While with jet skis you can just go out and rent one from a number of places on the Gulf Road, with wakeboarding it’s not that easy. Last year when I wanted to try wakeboarding I did a bit of research and found out about Q8 Balance who for a fixed hourly rate will take you or teach you wakeboarding out in Khiran City. Since then I’ve been only going out with them since I like them and haven’t really checked to see if there is any another group that provide a similar service. Q8 Balance charge KD35 for an hour so if you split it with a friend or two it becomes a fairly affordable and fun activity to do. Only issue I found with them is that they are pretty popular so you need to book a time slot way ahead of time.
So if you’re interested in wakeboarding here is the link to the Q8 Balance [Facebook Page]
If you know of another group that also offers wakeboarding please post it in the comments below with the details.
The weather this past week has been fantastic, it was sunny and the skies were a deep blue with very little wind. It’s really the best time for outdoor activities including jet skiing.
If you’ve never jet skied before it’s really very easy and not complicated at all. Jet ski has just two buttons and one leaver. The buttons are for starting and shutting down the engine while the lever is for accelerating. To slow down the jet ski you just let go of the lever. You don’t need to know how to balance a jet ski or anything of the sort, you just sit on it and pull the leaver and that’s pretty much it.
There are various locations on the Gulf Road where you can rent jet skis from and they all basically follow the same guidelines. You need to keep your Civil ID with them while the jet ski is out with you and you also have to sign a waiver/contract. Some locations offer lockers to put your stuff in others don’t. I would recommend you keep everything in the car anyway and then either leave your keys with them so they don’t get wet or get a small waterproof pouch to take with you. Some jet ski renters also give you a cheap Casio watch to wear so you know how much time you’ve been out for and when you need to be back by. Most also have a tap/shower to rinse off once you’re done.
The cost of renting a jet ski is KD10 for 30 minutes or KD15 for 1 hour. If you’re interested in renting one below are some Google Map links to various locations along the Gulf Road. If you’re planning to take pictures make sure your phone has a water poof case.
BBC have a short film on Fawaz Al Hasawi, kinda like a behind the scenes look on who he is and why he chose to purchase the football club Nottingham Forest. Although Fawaz says the club isn’t a plaything and is a serious business, I think the way the film was edited by the BBC and the way they kept focusing on his riches made it look like it’s just another toy like his cars and houses. You can watch the video on the BBC website [Here]