2:48AM - Entertaining Kuwait since 2003

You might have noticed recently that Safe Search on Google is turned on by default and can’t be switched off. It seems local internet providers were asked by the MOC to switch it on and lock it so that it can’t be turned off. Luckily for iPhone users, there is an easy way to bypass it on your phone while at the same time being more private. I just found out about this so I’m assuming a lot of people don’t know about it either.

If you have the latest iOS update installed, head to Settings then click on your Apple ID at the top, and then iCloud. In the list, you’ll find an option called “Private Relay (Beta)”. Just turn that on and problem solved, you’ll now be able to use google with Safe Search off.

Thanks Nasser!

Back in 2017 there were rumors that Pret A Manger was coming to Kuwait but that rumor didn’t end up amounting to anything. Now I’ve been told that it’s confirmed that Pret A Manger IS coming to Kuwait and it’s being brought by One PM Franchising which is owned by Hamad Al Sayer.

One PM acquired the rights to Pret A Manger in Kuwait, Saudi Arabia and potentially Qatar. The first Pret is expected to open in Kuwait in 2022. Exciting!

A couple of weeks ago when I posted about my Datsun, a reader suggested I install a hidden GPS tracker on it. I thought about it and it kinda made sense so I decided to see how much one would cost. After doing a lot of research, I ended up getting a GPS tracker called Tracki.

There were a number of reasons I chose Tracki including:
– it came with a sim card
– it would work worldwide
– the monthly subscription was around $14
– it has a 4 out 5 rating on Amazon with 24,000+ reviews
– the tracker cost only $10!

Other things I also looked at were battery life and what kind of connection it had, in this case, Tracki charged over normal micro-USB and battery life depended on how often I wanted it to ping back the location. For example, if I wanted to update the location every 2 hours, then the battery life would last 12-15 days. If I wanted the location to be updated every 6 hours then the battery life would last 22-26 days. On the other hand, if I wanted live tracking where the tracker would update the location every few minutes, then battery life would only last 3-5 days.

The battery life clearly isn’t that great but there is a simple workaround. You could either hardwire the tracker into your car either by getting an adapter to plug it into your OBD port (most new cars have it), or you could run a USB cable to the tracker from your cars USB port of fusebox, that way whenever the car is on it’s charging your tracker. In my case, I decided I would just strap a power bank to it. I have a few laying around the house that I don’t use and one is more than enough to keep the tracker running for a couple of months. Even if I have to swap the battery out every month that wouldn’t be too much of an issue.

So does it work? Yeah, it does. At any time I can just launch the Tracki app and check and see where my car is or where it was. So not only can I know where my car is at any given moment, but I can also view the history of where it’s been. That’s useful if say your car was stolen and then taken and parked somewhere underground. You could at least track the car before it went underground. And then if say for some reason the tracker can’t get you an accurate GPS point, it can continue to give you a rough idea of where it is using wifi or cell towers to triangulate its location.

Attaching the tracker to your car is very easy, you can either use the magnet on the back of the unit to attach it to a metal surface, or use the double-sided tape that came with it to stick it somewhere. If you’re connecting it to the collar of your pet, you could use the rubber case which has a lanyard or keychain hole in it.

There are a couple of negatives with Track the first being the Tracki app. It just feels over-complicated and buggy. For example, sometimes I try to save settings and get an error when in reality it actually saved the settings. Also, battery life is probably the biggest issue. Not sure if it’s because I was playing with the settings too much or what exactly, but I have the tracker set up to update the location every 4 hours which means the battery life should last 18-22 days, but it ended up lasting me just a week. It’s not that big of a deal since I’ll be strapping a battery pack to it, but if you’re using the tracker say to track your pet, you can’t really attach a battery pack to it. One more thing that is annoying is that 1 subscription covers 1 device. So if you get a tracker for all your cars you don’t get to share an account or even a discounted rate.

If you’re interested in getting Tracki, the price on Amazon fluctuates between $9.88 and $14.88. Amazon can also ship the device to you directly and that cost me an additional $21.59. You could ship it to your Aramex Shop&Ship account and pay less but I didn’t want to wait that long. Here is the link to Tracki on Amazon.com

I’ve previously posted about the PASS and Mawqif apps, two apps that offer you ticketless and cashless parking. I love using them because I love the convenience of not having to get a ticket or look for coins in my car to pay for parking. I now have two apps on my phone dedicated to parking which is kinda annoying but it might get worse because I found out another new app called PARK IN just got launched.

It must be frustrating for businesses when they come up with a good idea only to see copycats pop up seemingly overnight. Competition is usually good but in this case, it’s going to go from being a convenient thing having a parking app, to an annoyance if users will have to install different apps for different lots and manage wallets across them all.

PARK IN just launched so they don’t have a lot of parking lots they work with, only two right now, Souk Al Wataniya in Kuwait City and International Hospital in Salmiya. If you want to download this app as well then click here.

Last Wednesday I decided to head to the car auction in Ardiya. They were auctioning the 60+ cars I posted about earlier that week which were confiscated from one guy. Many of the cars were now classics and so I went with a friend who was interested in one of the cars so we could try and bid on it. The experience was pretty interesting to say the least.

This must have been the most popular car auction ever held in Kuwait due to all the hype built up around the cars. I’d guess 99% of the people there, and there were A LOT of people, had never been to an auction before including myself. Due to the number of people they were expecting to show up, a makeshift setup was put together across the street in an empty lot.

The auction was meant to start at 3PM but ended up starting shortly after 3:30PM. Basic rules were announced at the start, if you win a bid you must come up to the front and give them your civil ID card. You then get it back once you pay for the item. You need to pay on the spot. Knet only, no cash. Pretty simple although no idea how you can pay KD30,000 for a Ferrari Testarossa on your Knet card since I thought there was a 10,000KD limit? No idea.

The whole experience was really casual. The cars weren’t there, so if you hadn’t seen them last weekend in person at the police lot and noted down details like the license plate number, then you were pretty much screwed. There was just a list to go by which you had to print out yourself from their Instagram account or just keep looking at your phone. Most of the items on the list were misspelled and many lacked any details. For example, there were three BMW 8-series for sale and the only way to tell them apart on the list was with their license plate number. So if you hadn’t written down their plate numbers when checking the car out you were out of luck.

The auction moved fairly quickly but because we were right next to the mosque they had to stop twice for a prayer break. Not sure if that’s what they usually do or if they had to do it because we were right outside the mosque and the mosques speakers were louder than the auctions. By 7PM we had gone through two pages worth of cars and it was getting pretty chilly. There were no outdoor lights so the auction turned into a moonlight auction. The majority of the people must have been there for the two Ferraris since most of them left once they were sold. By the time I left only the first few rows of seats were filled.

My friend didn’t win the car, he was interested in a Volvo which he was willing to pay up to 2,000 for but it ended up going for 2,700. I had my eye on a 1997 Alfa Romeo Spider but I wasn’t going to pay over 250KD for it and the car ended up going for 350. Overall I had a good time, it was an interesting experience for sure.

If you ever want to go to a car auction you can find out about upcoming ones on the Instagram account @mzadmoj. The location of the auction is at the Deposit Reserve and Judicial Arbitration Sector Building in Ardiya, here is the location on Google Maps. They usually have the cars on display there it’s just this specific time that things were a bit different due to the circumstances. Let me know if you have any questions below.

This was a surprisingly very interesting and well-put-together short video on showjumping in Kuwait. Lots of interesting tidbits on the history of the sport in Kuwait including info on how it all started. I also had no idea that in 1982 three girls from Kuwait won first, second, AND third place at the Asian Games showjumping competition. That’s pretty wild, and what a year it must have been for sports in Kuwait with the football team also taking part at the World Cup just a few months earlier.

The film is just 7 minutes long so definitely check it out. YouTube

The Kuwait Motor Show starts today and will be taking place at The Avenues. There is also the Gulf Marathon taking place on Saturday and if you’re looking for a new place to ride your bicycle, the Kuwait Motor Town race track will be open to cyclists this Saturday as well. Check out the full list of events below and as usual if I missed anything, let me know in the comments:

Thursday
Exhibition: Art from the Islamic Civilization
Exhibition: Face to Face II
Exhibition: Beyond the Abyss
Motor Show
KMT: Drag Open Day – Roll Race

Friday
Sailing: Friday Morning Race
Motor Show
KMT: Race Car Open Track Day
IAMSERIES Kuwait Karting Championship

Saturday
Exhibition: Art from the Islamic Civilization
Exhibition: Face to Face II
Exhibition: Beyond the Abyss
Gulf Bank 642 Marathon 2021
Trashtag: Doha Beach Cleanup
Sailing: Saturday Cruising
Miseen Scene Club – Mary and Max (2009)
Motor Show
KMT: Cycling Open Day
IAMSERIES Kuwait Karting Championship

The movies below are now showing at Cinescape, Grand Cinemas and VOX:

New This Weekend:
Benjamin the Elephant (3.8)
Clifford the Big Red Dog (6.1)
Coming Home in the Dark (5.7)
Counter Attack (4.9)
Dangerous (5.0)
Fast Vengeance (4.0)
King Richard (6.8)
The Accursed (3.3)
To Olivia (6.4)

Other Movies Showing Now:
13 Minutes (4.7)
A Quiet Place Part II (7.3)
Dune (8.5)
F9: The Fast Saga (5.2)
Halloween Kills (7.4)
Monster Family 2 (4.5)
No Time to Die (7.9)
Norm of the North: Family Vacation (2.8)
Peter Rabbit 2: The Runaway (6.2)
Seal Team (7.2)
Spencer (6.9)
The Addams Family 2 (5.3)
The Marksman (5.6)
Venom: Let There Be Carnage (6.5)
Wrath of Man (7.1)

Classic Movies Showing Now:
The Terminator (8.0)

The films below are also now showing at the Scientific Center IMAX theater:

IMAX Movies Showing Now:
Antarctica (N/A)
Backyard Wilderness 3D (7.7)
Turtle Odyssey (7.2)

Numbers in brackets refer to the IMDB rating at time of publishing.

I buy my beans from %Arabica just because that’s what I’m used to but there are a lot of other coffee bean roasters in Kuwait who also roast green beans in house for espresso. Below is a list compiled by radaaitor which I’ve arranged in alphabetical order:

%Arabica
48East Roastery
Air Roastery
AJ’s Roastery
Alameed
Albadawi Coffee
Altitude Roasters
Bait Qahwa Co.
Black Horse Coffee
Coffee Choices
Coffee Jug Roastery
Coffee Masters
Collective Coffee Company
Earth Roastery
House Of Beans
Jumo Coffee
Methods Roastery
My Habit Roastery
Origin Roasters
ORU Roasters
Pause Coffee Roasters
Rawi Coffee
Richards Coffee Co.
Roots Roastery
Stockroom Coffee
United Coffee Roasters
Vol. 1 Roast Lab
Wjaar Roastery

If I missed a place let me know in the comments. Also if you could recommend your favorite beans/roaster that would be helpful for anyone looking to try new beans. Personally, I get the Arabica Blend beans from %Arabica because it’s the same blend they use for their in-store coffee. I like consistency and I know their blend will always be consistent because it’s what they use themselves.

Also, the photo on top isn’t my setup but a friends. Super cool coffee corner and he even imports his own green beans and roasts them himself at home using an Aillio Bullet R1.

I downloaded the Avenues app years ago but then deleted it from my phone since it was pretty much useless, but turns out a year ago, the app got a major update with some cool features. One useful feature I found out about is called “Park My Car”. Say you want to go to a specific store in Avenues and you want to park as close as possible to it, in the app look for the store you want and once you get to the brand page you’ll find the “Park My Car” option at the bottom. If you click on it, the app will tell you which is the closest parking entrance and you can even have it take you to that entrance with Google Maps. Pretty nifty.

If you want to download the app it’s available on the Apple Store and Google Play.

Dream Factory who have different escape room experiences now have a Squid Game event that takes place after you and your friends are done completing one of their escape rooms.

Once you’re done with any of their rooms, you get to play the Red Light, Green Light game from the popular tv series and the winner gets a prize. They have a video up on their instagram showing the setup and looks kinda fun. For more photos, check out their instagram @dreamfactorykwt

Good espresso machines aren’t cheap and if you’ve never used one before you might be hesitant to invest in one which is why getting a used machine could be a good idea for a lot of people. There is a local Instagram account that specializes in selling used coffee machines, grinders and various accessories that usually are pretty expensive like Acaia scales. A lot of the items available for sale aren’t even available locally so most likely they were ordered online like I did with my setup.

Some cool brands of machines and grinders I spotted for sale include Baratza, Breville, Eureka, Profetic, La Marzocco, Niche, and Rocket. If you’re interested in making your own coffee at home but don’t want to invest a lot of money, check out what’s for sale on @coffee_market_kw

Thanks radaaitor

Yesterday the Kuwait Olympic Committee announced that the 3rd GCC games will be held in Kuwait this coming January 2022. No other information was provided but here is some I managed to dig out:

• The GCC Games include Sailing, basketball, swimming, tennis, gymnastics, weightlifting, futsal, snooker and table tennis.

• The first GCC Games was held in Bahrain back in 2011.

• The second GCC Games was held in Saudi Arabia in 2015.

• The games are held every 4 years and were meant to be held last year but due to Covid got postponed.

• At the first GCC Games Kuwait came first with 14 gold medals, 8 silver and 7 bronze

If you want to stay posted on the 3rd GCC Games you can follow the official Kuwait Olympics account @kuwaitolympic

A couple of days ago the Public Authority for Civil Information (PACI) updated the Kuwait Mobile ID app with the option to add a digital copy of your driving license. The instruction to do it are only in Arabic so here is a quick how-to:

1) I’m assuming you already have the app and are registered. You need to make sure you have the latest version of the app since the previous versions didn’t have this new feature. The new version was updated 2 days ago and is version 1.9.0.

2) Once logged into the app click on credentials. If your verification level is “Medium” you will now be presented with the option to scan your face similar to how you set up Face ID on the iPhone.

3) Once you are done with the verification process you will then have the option to add your driving license. I have two, a motorcycle license as well as a driving one so I have both showing in the app now.

The reason you want to add your driving license to Kuwait Mobile ID is that in case you forgot or lost your driving license, this digital version will now be accepted by the police.

On a side note, why is the new Sahel app only in Arabic???

Well technically, it’s not an auction specifically for classic cars, but there is an auction coming up this week for cars that were confiscated from a guy and they happen to be mostly classic cars (a video of them being confiscated went viral awhile back). All the cars are being sold as-is since they seem to have been parked for years, but some of which are in really good condition with very low miles. For example, there is a really rare 1983 De Tomaso Deauville which only 244 ever produced going up for auction and this one has just 9,400km on the dial and the plastic factory cover still on the rear seats. The most popular car probably going up for auction is a 1991 Ferrari Testarossa.

All the cars are currently located at the Ahmadi Police Station lot and are viewable by the public which is how I got to check them out yesterday. The actual auction is taking place this Wednesday at 8am in Ardiya. If you’re looking to possibly get an old Maserati, Aston Martin (there is an excellent condition Lagonda), Rolls Royce, BMW 8-series (including an 850CSi), Porsche or Ferrari, then here is the PDF containing all the details.