Last week I was looking for something on Google and ended up stumbling across an old picture of Salmiya which I hadn’t seen before. I started digging around looking for a higher resolution version and turned out I had actually posted the photo on my blog back in 2009 with a bunch of other old photos.
My memory is terrible and I’ve published over 12,000 posts so there is no way I can remember everything. I tried to find a higher resolution version of the photo online but everyone else had taken it off my blog so I couldn’t find one. So I decided to go through my emails to see if the source had originally sent me better quality scans. Turns out he had scanned the images in high res but because they were over 160MB he only sent me low res versions. I decided to randomly reply back to that person’s original email 12 years later asking if he still had the high res images. Turns out he did! He sent me a link to all the photos and I downloaded them and just put them up on Flickr and you can check them out here.
Anyway, I wanted to do a before and after comparison of Salmiya and you can view that in high res here. It’s impressive how many old buildings are still there but sadly they haven’t been maintained and are all in a state of disrepair. The whole neighborhood honestly is disastrously mishandled with no sidewalks or parking spots and loads of large open garbage bins that stink up the neighborhood. My neighborhood has so much potential and it’s sad I can’t do anything about it.
The photo above got leaked online showing what potentially are new cop cars based on the recently facelifted Chevy Tahoes. Keep in mind that similar to the Volvo and Patrol cop cars I previously posted, these could just be samples and not eventually go into service. But, since the current cop cars are Chevy Tahoes, I wouldn’t be surprised if their fleet did get updated with the new facelifted versions.
This is such a great video if you’re into racing and the video quality is surprisingly really great. The video is by CiTV Sport who produced a lot of rally videos back in the 80s and is narrated in English and features some rally legends including Saeed Al-Hajri who raced for the Rothmans Porsche team and also a young Mohammed bin Sulayem pictured below.
Even if you aren’t into cars you should at least watch the first minute or so of the video since it starts off with some footage of the old Kuwait Marriott Hotel. The Marriott Hotel was the base of the 1985 Kuwait Rally so all the drivers stayed at the hotel and that’s where the race started and ended.
The 1985 rally was sponsored by the furniture company Mahdi Habib whom I hadn’t heard of until today. According to their website, they’re one of the oldest companies in Kuwait and were established back in 1952.
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The photo above is a before and after photo of Sharq. It’s taken from a recent study by architect Khalid Alsafi highlighting the constant aggressive destruction of Kuwait’s heritage and cultural areas, only to then become abandoned empty desert spaces for decades.
If you want to see a higher resolution photo of the above click here.
Yesterday I came across this photo of the Hilton Hotel under construction back in the 60s. I hadn’t seen photos of it during construction before and what’s great about this one is that it also shows the construction of the Gulf Road. The Gulf Road used to be a sandy beach before the land was reclaimed and turned into the coastal road you see today.
Hilton Hotel originally opened in 1968 with the official opening taking place on February 15th, 1969. In 2003 the building was demolished because the structure was deemed unsafe.
Last year Corniche Club closed down after losing the right to operate the location and there were rumors that Alshaya tried to get the location for Equinox but lost out. But according to a contact it turns out that Arkan Real Estate which is part of the BNK Holding portfolio have taken over the location.
BNK have a number of consumer brands in their portfolio including Volvo, Vespa, Backburner, Gia and the Japanese restaurant Odachi. The popular gym Inspire will supposedly be taking over the club and I wouldn’t be surprised if BNK opened their other brands at the location like their coffee shop Backburner or maybe a Vespa showroom.
Update:According to Alshaya they never bid on the Corniche location just rebid on the PF Chang location. They won the rebid and PF Chang just reopened again this week.
At the start of the curfew, I asked for some shows to watch since I had pretty much watched everything already. I got a bunch of suggestions and some turned out to be really great, so here are some more recommendations for you to watch:
New Amsterdam
This show is so cheesy but there are over 50 episodes and although it’s so not my style, I couldn’t stop watching it. It’s like driving by a car wreck on the highway, binge-watched the show over a two-week period non-stop so it helped kill a lot of time. There are two seasons out on Netflix and season 3 recently started on Hulu.
The Terror
Two seasons, two different stories. I loved season 1 but couldn’t get past the first episode of season 2. Season 1 on the other hand grabbed my attention from the very first episode. It’s very different from the usual stuff I watch and based in a time period I’m usually not a fan of so the whole thing was a bit refreshing. It’s a horror but has more of an amazing stories kind of vibe. Highly recommend it, available on Hulu.
Industry
While working on this post I realized none of the shows here have good trailers, Industry included. This is a show about young traders at a UK bank and if I just went off the trailer above I would have thought it was actually boring or lame. It wasn’t. It’s very different from other trading shows like Billions or Black Monday, but that’s mostly because it’s British so it’s a lot calmer and less dramatic. Only one season is out and it’s available on HBO.
Your Honor
I was close to not adding this show to the list only because I really really hated the way it ended. But up till the ending, this show was so good and stars both Bryan Cranston and Michael Stuhlbarg (Boardwalk Empire) so really incredible acting. This show is on Showtime.
The Big Flower Fight
I thought I posted about this series but just searched the blog and turns out I haven’t. If you like shows like The Great British Bake Off then you’ll like this show since it’s got a very similar structure, style and mood. It’s on Netflix.
The Great Pottery Throw Down
Similar to The Big Flower Fight and The Great British Bake Off, a bunch of amateur potters compete to become the top potter. It’s also a British show so it’s slow-paced, calm and very chill to watch. It’s available on HBO.
Blown Away
Ok one more show similar to the two above except this one is about glass blowers competing against each other. Unlike the other two this one is an American show so it’s much more fast-paced and intense but it was also fun to watch and really interesting. This one is on Netflix.
Over the weekend the MOH launched an app called “Immune” which is a way for vaccinated people to view their vaccine certificate. They don’t mention where or when you would be required to use the app but it’s safe to assume it would most likely be used while traveling in and out of Kuwait. Also, cinemas are supposedly going to open after Eid but only for those who’ve been vaccinated, this app will probably be used to verify your vaccination status.
It’s a very simple app that does just one thing and you can download it for both iOS and Android devices.
I’ve been wanting to try the new sugar-free Vimto out of curiosity but I checked in a couple of supermarkets and wasn’t able to find it. Not sure if its sold out or just not carried everywhere but I did find an even healthier version. Liquid launched a new Vimto flavored drink for Ramadan that’s made with real fruits. Their interpretation of Vimto contains red grapes, pomegranate, pear, beetroot and a dash of rose water.
I tried it yesterday and it does taste pretty close to Vimto but obviously less sugary and with more natural flavors. The only downside is that like with all healthy alternatives you’re gonna have to pay a premium. A 300ml bottle costs KD2.250 while a liter costs KD4.950.
If you want to try it out Liquid is available on Deliveroo, Carriage and Talabat. They’re also on Instagram @liquidkwt
Any person over 65 years of age in Kuwait can receive their COVID-19 vaccine directly and without having to book for an appointment, the health ministry announced. This includes both citizens and expatriates. Source.
This is pretty good news! If you know someone, either family members or maybe your baqala guy or barber that are over 65 and haven’t gotten vaccinated yet, let them know about this.
Yesterday I found out about Charles Cecil, an American diplomat who served in Kuwait back in the 60s. While here he took some great photos of Kuwait including the images in this post of Kuwaiti homes that were newly constructed at that time.
I’m not sure how many are still standing today, I think I recognize 2 but they’ve had their colors changed. You can check out more photos taken by Cecil on his website cecilimages.com.
The Kuwait Society for Human Rights issued a statement a couple of days ago on the recent decision not to renew work permits for people over 60 years old. The statement was done with Google Translate and not edited so a lot of it doesn’t make sense, but the gist of it is there. One of their main arguments is that some people have lived all their lives in Kuwait with only a passport connecting them to a different place and so it would be inhumane to force them out especially since a lot come from countries that are unstable.
They also share their recommendations on what needs to be done including the need to abolish the kafala system which I’m hearing a lot of support for. I’m not sure how influential the society is in Kuwait maybe someone can let me know in the comments, but I feel like they lost an opportunity here to get support from international media outlets by not editing their Google Translated statement. Maybe someone could volunteer to edit it and send them an updated version.
Back in March my Garmin dash cam stopped working, I found out by mistake when trying to retrieve a video of an accident I thought I had captured only to find out my dash cam hadn’t been recording any footage for 2 years. I thought it was my dash cam that had failed but turned out it was the fault of my memory card. By then the local Garmin dealer had already seen my post and got in touch with me so they could send me their new Garmin Dash Cam 66W to replace my old one. Exciting!
I had my Garmin dashcam for 7 years and back when I had purchased it, the main selling point to me was how compact it was. But, compared to the new Garmin, my old one now looks HUGE (check the photo above). The size difference is enormous, not only because the dash cam itself is a lot smaller, but Garmin also redesigned the windshield mount making it much more compact. My new dash cam is so small it’s hidden behind my rear view mirror, I literally can’t see it when driving.
Another cool feature about the new Garmin that I love is the ability to connect to it with Wifi to adjust the settings, update the firmware and most importantly, view and download footage. Previously to view the footage I’d have to remove the memory card from my dash cam, take it home, connect it to my computer and then access the footage. When I’m done I then had to remember to take the memory card back down to my car the next time I leave my house which I obviously always forget to do. It was a hassle so I love how I can just connect to the camera from my phone directly. Without removing the memory card I can now connect to the Garmin, find the video I want, select which part of the video I want to download, and then download it to my phone. This is extremely practical, I really can’t emphasize how useful this feature is.
The two features above were really the most important for me, but there are a bunch of other features that other people might be interested in, for example, the Garmin has the ability to notify you of upcoming speed cameras. The 66W has GPS built-in and access to Garmin’s local database of speed camera locations so it can alert you if you’re getting close to one. The dash cam also has an extra-wide 180-degree field of view and records videos at 1440p. My previous dash cam had a 120-degree field of view and would record videos in 1080p but I never had an issue with the field of view or video resolution in my old camera. But, one thing I’m curious about with the new dashcam is how well it performs in the evening but due to our curfew I can’t test that out right now. During the day though, especially when the sky is blue, the footage is pretty sharp and clean and only starts to get noisy when the sun starts setting but that’s pretty normal.
Here are some other random features the cam has which I personally don’t care about:
– Forward collision warning
– Lane departure warning
– Voice control
– Travelapse
– Incident detection
– Go feature which notifies you when stopped traffic in front of you has started to move
As usual, I like to leave the negatives till the end and this camera has two. The first is the fact that it’s pretty slow transferring videos over wifi. It takes around 30 seconds to download 13 seconds of footage so you need to be veryyyy patient. The second downside is the price. The Garmin 66w costs KD75 which is right at the top end of the dashcam market. You do get a lot for that price and the build quality is miles apart from cheaper counterparts, but it’s still a lot of money especially when you can find decent ones at a third of the price.
Based on some recommendations from my readers I also ended up buying one of the most popular and cheapest dash cams from Amazon and I’ll be posting a review of that one soon. I’ll also do a comparison with this Garmin but I can tell you from now that once I got the Garmin I stopped using that other dash cam. The main reason was how cheap the other camera felt but also because of basic things like the user interface and the horrible LCD screen of the other one. But, if you’re interested in getting or checking out the Garmin dash cams, here is the link to the local dealer’s website.
