2:48AM - Entertaining Kuwait since 2003

I think I might turn this into a series of posts on interesting Kuwait related items that I lost bidding on. The previous ones I’ve posted about were the “Andy Warhol Signed Catalog from Kuwait Exhibit” and “Ahmadi Desert Motoring Club Car Badge“. Adding to those two, I just lost a bidding war on another car badge, this time one belonging to the Kuwait International Touring and Automobile Club. Not a lot of info on the badge but I’m guessing its dating back to the 60s which would make it a nice addition on my Alfa Romeo. I hope whoever bought it isn’t going to hide it in a drawer somewhere, I was actually planning to mount this on my car’s front grill for everyone to see and enjoy.

On the bright side, I did find a copy of “The Kuwait International Touring and Automobile Club – Tourist Guidebook to Middle East Countries” dating back to 1966. You can download the PDF by clicking here.

My cousin used to go to Al-Jamil but I had no idea it was that old. I actually just googled it and found out it originally opened back in 1960! This is from Wikipedia:

Al-Jamil Private School, Salmya was created in 1960 by a partnership including its first principal, Khawla Rizk, a Lebanese woman who was residing in Kuwait at the time. Al-Jamil started out as a private school in a hangar belonging to the Caterpillar, Inc. dealership in Surra, now a suburb of Kuwait City. In the late 70’s the school had nearly 1200 students in 1st through 12th grade. It produced some of the top students at the national level. In 1980 three of the top 10 national secondary school certificate list came from Al Jamil. After the Iraqi invasion of Kuwait in 1991, the Surra school campus became deserted and was later relocated to Maydan Hawalli. The old campus still remains deserted a reminder and a standing testimony to the damage caused by the tyrant of Iraq.

Does anyone have any footage from Sunshine School between 1980-1990? If you do, let me know I’ll help you digitize it.

A friend of mine was set to open a ceramics design studio called From Mud before the pandemic hit and now is forced to push back the opening date.

In the meantime, she’s decided to put together a “Clay at Home” starter kit for people looking for a new hobby to get into, or a fun activity to stay entertained with at home. If you’re interested, check out her instagram account for more details @frommud

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A post shared by قطاع شئون المرور والعمليات (@traffic_kw) on Jul 12, 2020 at 2:33am PDT

Back in January, I posted about how the Traffic Department set up a Whatsapp account (99324092) where residents can report violations. I tried them once and got no response so really didn’t bother contacting them again. But, they’ve recently been reminding people about this service and they even posted the video above with some examples of violations that were reported.

I think I’m going to give them another shot, maybe starting with something easy like reporting people who park in handicapped parking spots. Oh and those guys who drive up and down the Gulf Road going 10km/h trying to chat up girls. Yup, I’m going to be a snitch. If it works then maybe I’ll have a reason to upgrade my now 6-year old dashcam with a 4K version.

Has anyone tried this Whatsapp service recently? Did they respond?

Me and a friend have been talking about the Concorde over the past few weeks so I was pretty surprised yesterday to find out that the plane actually came to Kuwait back in 1979.

On Monday 19 February 1979 the Queen flew on Concorde from Heathrow to the sunshine of Kuwait in just under four hours, at the start of a three-week Middle East tour that would include Bahrain and Saudi Arabia. The Queen’s Private Secretary later wrote to Ross Stainton, BA’s Chief Executive to say the Queen was especially glad to make her visit to Saudi Arabia by Concorde. Apart from making the first day of the tour very much easier for Her Majesty, this wonderful aircraft created a great impression, and there could have been no better way of commencing a most important tour covering seven countries. source

Sadly, I only found a handful of photos of this event and none show the plane fully. The Queen ended up leaving Kuwait aboard the Royal Yacht Britannia as part of the tour of the Gulf while the Concorde flew to Bahrain.

Thanks Nick

I won an eBay bid on some 35mm slides of Kuwait taken back in 1978 and thought I would share them. Most of the slides are of a motorcade but I’m not sure who was visiting.

There are UK flags up on the roads but it couldn’t be the Queen since she visited in 1979. I thought maybe the British Prime Minister back then, James Callaghan, but I also couldn’t find any info about him visiting Kuwait. So if anyone has any idea who this might be, let me know because I’m curious.

I’ve uploaded all the scans to Flickr and you can check them out here.

I’ve never been to Aqua Park and don’t think it’s a landmark so I have no feelings about this. Link

Ever since Alshaya shut down a bunch of their restaurants in Avenues I’ve been curious to see who will take over those prime locations. The first one seems to be Adidas, they’ve taken over the Café Coco location in Phase 3 across from Harvey Nichols.

I’ve heard rumors about whos taken over some of the other locations but nothing solid yet. I do know that Avenues is asking the new tenants to put up their coming soon hoardings right away so we’ll soon know whos opening what and where.

Does anyone know who used to own the following music stores in Salmiya:

Swan Lake (bought my first tape from there)
Bells (bought my first CD from there)
Soul II Soul (bought my first record from there)

If you do please connect me with them since I’d like to write about them.

The 2020 Formula 1 season finally kicked off last week after being delayed due to the Corona pandemic. The second race of the season is taking place later today but like last year, you’re pretty limited to how you can watch it here in Kuwait. The only network in our region that broadcasts the races is MBC Action but it’s in Arabic and I couldn’t find a way to stream it online. The other (and better) option is watching it directly on F1 TV.

I’ve posted about F1 TV before but I mentioned you needed a U.S. credit card to sign up since live broadcasts aren’t available for Kuwait. But, my U.S. credit card expired and I still haven’t gotten my replacement card so I was worried I wouldn’t be able to subscribe again this season. Turns out you don’t need a U.S. credit card!

If you’re on an Apple device and have a US Apple Store account, then you can subscribe to F1 TV from inside the app and pay for the subscription using your Apple Store account. It’s a neat loophole that should make Formula 1 broadcasts easily accessible to more people.

So if you’re an F1 fan and want to watch the races, download the F1 TV app.

The new Land Rover Defender is finally in Kuwait, around a month late from it’s original scheduled arrival. The Defender has been completely redesigned and although I wasn’t sure about the design in the photos, in person it does look really great.

From my understanding, the first shipment is all sold out but the dealer has one model on display and I think they have another white one for test drives.

It’s definitely a car I’m considering swapping out my FJ for. Prices start at around KD16,000 but can nearly double in price depending on the specs. The one in the photo is priced at 25,000 but you can also build your own and price it out yourself on the local Land Rover website.

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A post shared by YOUSEF ALRASHED يوسف الراشد (@yalrashid) on Jul 4, 2020 at 3:42pm PDT

The other day I posted a link to photos showing Entertainment City taken over by mother nature, but I figured it wasn’t very recent since when I passed by the park a couple of weeks back there was some sort of demolition taking place. The video above though is more recent and shows what’s really happening to the park. According to one of the guys in the video, it’s getting completely demolished and the land turned into an empty sand plot as part of the handover process.

This is really sad like all the other landmarks in Kuwait that are getting demolished one by one except maybe this might even be sadder. I’ve been visiting the park from when it first opened in the 80s and kept going even towards the end of the parks life. I really believe the issue with the park was the lack of maintenance and not because the rides weren’t exciting. Towards the end most of the rides were just not working and so people had no reason to go there. I wish they kept the park and just renovated it and expanded it but not completely demolish it like this.

I was told there was a warehouse in Entertainment City where the old arcades from the Ice Skating Rink and Entertainment City were being stored. If anyone knows anything about this let me know. Also if you want to see a video of the park during its better days, watch the video above starting from the 8:34 minute mark.

Architectural photographer Abdulraouf Murad visited the abandoned Entertainment City and captured some pretty cool photos including the one above showing nature taking over the park. The park has been closed since 2016 but I was there a couple of weeks back and there was construction working taking place in the parking area so maybe the renovation project is back on track.

Check out more photos of the park on his account here, here and here.

The original McDonalds location on the Gulf Road is turning into a Burger King and Pizza Hut. The building is looking pretty nice so far and I saw it a few months back at night while they were testing the lighting and all the vertical lines around the structure were lit up by LEDs. I just hope it doesn’t end up looking tacky and ruining the Gulf Road landscape.

As I’ve posted previously, McDonalds has now moved to a new location further up the road next to the Kuwait Towers, where Ruby Tuesday used to be.

The Ministry of Public Works have updated their complaints app with a brand new interface. The new app looks much nicer but also makes it easier to submit a complaint. The app is called “MPW Emergency 150” and it allows you to submit complaints related to public infrastructure like street or sewage issues. The app is available for both Android and iOS devices.

Now if only the Ministry of Interior can release a similar app…

Thanks Zaydoun