2:48AM - Entertaining Kuwait since 2003

Yesterday as part of the new partial curfew announcement they also announced the areas that will remain in total lockdown and that list included Maidan Hawally Block 10, 11, and 12. This one line caused such a massive amount of confusion and I have no idea why they announced it this way.

There technically isn’t an area called Maidan Hawally and so Maidan Hawally Block 10, 11, and 12 don’t exist.

Salmiya Block 11 where the American International School is located is the area generally referred to as Maidan Hawally. It’s adjacent to the main Hawally but it’s on the other side of the highway in Salmiya. On the Kuwait Finder app, on Google Maps and on Civil ID cards, it’s called Salmiya Block 11. Maidan Hawally is not the official name but there is a police station there called Maidan Hawally Police Station and this is what people know the area as so it can pass. But what is Maidan Hawally Block 10 and 12? Supposedly Salmiya Block 10 and 12.

I’ve tried to visually illustrate the above. The areas in yellow, blue and green are Salmiya. The area in yellow is what is usually referred to as Maidan Hawally. Everyone living in these three colored areas live in Salmiya according to their Civil ID and Kuwait Finder. The English School (TES) and the Millennium Hotel both have their addresses listed as Salmiya Block 12, not Maidan Hawally Block 12 (source 1 and 2). The Abdullah Salem Cultural Center have their address listed as Salmiya Block 11, but describe the area as Maidan Hawally (Source). The Coop in Block 10 is called the Salmiya Coop Society Supermarket (source).

So if the area is called Salmiya, if on people’s Civil ID cards you’re referring to it as Salmiya. If government supermarkets in the area are referring to it as Salmiya, why announce a total lockdown of Maidan Hawally Block 10, 11 and 12? Wouldn’t it be a lot clearer if you called it by what it is, Salmiya Block 10, 11, and 12?

If THAT wasn’t confusing enough, above is the graphic posted by @CGCKuwait that mentions the areas of lockdown. They don’t even mention which blocks of Maidan Hawally just that Maidan Hawally is in lockdown. So everyone would assume its block 11 of Salmiya.

But, Watan News have the actual video of the announcement up and they’ve transcribed the video which mentions Block 10, 11, and 12. So Watan is actually being accurate while the official source isn’t.

This is so frustrating and we haven’t even gotten to the specifics of what a total lockdown of those areas means since it also wasn’t clarified. Will people in Salmiya Block 10 still be able to book an appointment at Lulu in Block 9? No clue.

Update: Map has been updated to correctly show all of Block 11

Update2: There is supposedly another conference tonight to clear up all the confusions

Around 30 minutes ago there was a conference where they announced the next steps to opening up after the lockdown. For those of you who can’t read Arabic, I’ve tried my best to summarize things until the official English text is published. There might be mistakes below, nbut it should be helpful until the official English comes out.

Basically what the government has done is gamified things, which I like. Imagine the lockdown we just completed as Level 0, we did it for 3 weeks and we passed. Now we move to Level 1 where we get more privileges and a partial curfew. In three weeks we will be evaluated, if we do well we move to Level 2, if we do bad we go back to Level 0 and start all over again. The better we do the more stuff we get. Here is how they’ve divided things to the best of my ability to translate:

Level 0 – Full Lockdown
What we just completed.

Level 1 – Free from 6AM to 6PM
We get mosques, restaurants (delivery and drive-thru), courier and delivery services, laundromats, fuel stations, private clinics, garages, car washes and car dealerships.

Level 2 – Free from 6AM to 9PM
We get banks, malls (10AM to 6PM), 30% of government and private sector, retail stores, restaurants takeaway, parks.

Level 3 – No curfew
We get 50% of the government and private sector back to work, hotels and resorts, Taxis with 1 passenger, Friday prayer at mosques.

Level 4 – No curfew
We get more than 50% of the government and private sector back to work, dine in at restaurants with social distancing, public transportation with social distancing.

Level 5 – No curfew
We get diwaniyas, social gatherings, weddings, events, gyms, conferences, hairdressers, spas, sports and cinemas.

In addition, I read that Farwaniya, Hawalli, and Khaitan will remain in lockdown. But, there is a bit of lack in clarity because I’ve heard it’s just some blocks that will be locked down, and I’ve heard that whole areas will be locked down.

Once an official English version of the above comes out I’ll update the post. If you read Arabic here is the PDF they presented during the conference.

Update: According to Kuna, Level 1 starts on Saturday

Update2: Arabic Kuna seems to contradict English Kuna. Arabic Kuna says Level 1 starts Sunday (31), English says Saturday (30). Great…

Update3: Ignore the KUNA links, according to @CGCKuwait, it’s starting on May 31st. Here is their official graphic in English with more details on what’s included under Level 1. Link

Update4: I updated the post to make it clear the hours I’ve listed are when we’re are free to go out and not the hours we have to be stuck at home.

Last year I heard a rumor that Arabella was going to get demolished and turned into a hotel and now there are renderings out showing what it’s going to look like. Based on the renderings it seems like they’re going to be demolishing the left side of Arabella (the side with Texas Roadhouse and Cheesecake Factory and build the hotel there.

The area isn’t that big so I’m very curious to see how they’re going to make it work especially the parking situation which is a total mess right now.

There is no mention yet on what hotel will be opening there or when but for more renderings including some interior ones, click here.

Thanks ChaoticTranquility

One item I was lucky enough to purchase just before the lockdown was a CTEK battery charger to use on my cars. I was planning to get one anyway for my Alfa since I was planning to park it during the summer but it turned out to be useful for the lockdown as well. If you’ve ever traveled on a long trip and got back to find your car battery dead, it was most likely because your car managed to drain the battery while you were away or the battery just lost its charge. A battery charger is a great way of keeping your battery healthy when parked for long periods of time and the CTEK is one of the best money can buy.

What makes the CTEK so great is how it takes care of your battery with its 8 stage approach combined with the simplicity of it. All you need to do is connect one end of the CTEK to your car battery and then plug the other end of it into a regular wall power socket and the CTEK will automatically take care of the rest. It will run the battery through some tests, check the condition of it and then charge it. Once the battery is fully charged it then trickle charges your battery to keep it alive and healthy until you need to use the car.

I’m lucky that my building parking lot has power plugs in various spots so right before the lockdown I charged the batteries of my cars just so I know they’d have enough juice to last through the lockdown. The CTEK came with two different plugs to connect to my battery, alligator clamps which just easily clip on to the positive and negative terminals on the battery, and eyelets that screw onto the battery. I installed the eyelets on my Alfa since it would be using the charger the most while I used the alligator clamps for my FJ and Lotus. In the photo on top you’ll notice the CTEK placed outside the car but that was just for the photo. You can actually place it under the hood so that way it’s protected from the weather as well as from getting stolen. If you have your own private garage then you can just leave it outside or on the floor.

If you have a car or motorbike that you plan on parking for a long time it’s worth investing in a battery charger. The CTEK is one of the best you can buy and the MXS 5.0 model which is the one I got sells for KD39.5. If you’re interested in picking one up you can order one from the local dealer, their Instagram account is @ctek.kw and their website is audodepotkw.com

View this post on Instagram

A post shared by Cobra Club (@cobraclubmusic) on May 20, 2020 at 12:19pm PDT

Cobra Club – Ghost @cobraclubmusic
Tareq Almulaifi is a Kuwaiti singer/songwriter who officially launched his new band Cobra Club earlier this month with the 80s inspired track “Razor“. They’re back again with a new single called “Ghost” which sadly doesn’t have a music video. The new track also has the same retro vibes to it and you can listen to it on Spotify.

Fabrice – Leave us alone @fabriceroots
Fabrice is a French musician with a unique Caribbean voice that’s living in Kuwait. Earlier this month he released a new single titled “Leave us alone” which is available to stream and download on his Bandcamp account. So check it out here or just click play below.

Back in 2003 I bought the very original Roomba. They had just come out a few months earlier and the idea of a robot vacuum cleaner fascinated me. It was around the same time I was fascinated with Sony’s robot dog, the AIBO, but unlike the AIBO, I could actually afford the Roomba back then.

I was still living with my parents when I got the Roomba so it really only had to clean one room, my room. It was fun using it at first, but I eventually got bored and sold it since I stopped using it. Looking in the comments of that for sale post I found a comment of mine where I explain to a reader why I sold it. I was basically too lazy to use the Roomba since it had to be started manually. This meant I had to be in my room to use it or I had to remember to do it before I left the house for work. It also meant that it would keep going until the battery died and then I had to plug it in and charge it again. It was a chore that defeated the whole purpose of getting a robot in the first place. In that same comment, I mention that if they ever came out with “a version that cleans every day at a certain time without me interfering” then I’d get it another one which brings me to the Eufy Robovac.

One of the first things I did once the pandemic started was to tell my housemaid to stop coming over. This meant I had to clean my place myself which gave me a reason to get a new robot vacuum cleaner. I looked at what was available locally and found the Eufy RoboVac 30C at Blink. I hadn’t heard of Eufy before, but on Amazon it had a 4.5-star rating and over 4,500 reviews. Blink was selling it for 92KD which was around 5KD more than Amazon not including tax or shipping so a pretty good price and so ordered it.

I’ve been using the RoboVac on a daily basis and even though the first few days were a bit rough, it’s now been a few weeks and I’m loving it. The RoboVac 30C has a few cool options, it has Wifi, a 100+ minutes battery life, it can find its way back to its home station and recharge the battery when it’s low, you can schedule it and it also works with Alexa and Google Home. Thee 30C is considered to be a dumb robot in the RoboVac world. There are some RoboVacs that are a lot smarter and can draw and map out the whole room digitally and even recognize different objects on the floor (like actually be able to tell if its a shoe or a basketball). But those RoboVacs are a lot more expensive with some of the more expensive ones costing an upwards of 300KD. The way dumb RoboVacs work is a lot simpler, they clean the room by moving around it randomly with no specific pattern. They’re less efficient in that sense but at the end of the day they still get the work done.

I have my RoboVac clean my lower level of my apartment every night at 8PM. I’m in my TV room upstairs at 8PM so having the RoboVac work at that time doesn’t bother me. I don’t even hear it except for the beep when it wakes up to start cleaning, and another beep 90 minutes later when it calls it a night and comes back to its charging station. I mentioned earlier the first few days were rough and that turned out to be for a variety of reasons. The biggest issue I had was that the RoboVac dust storage was filling up very quickly and the rolling brushes underneath were getting clogged up with carpet hair. If that wasn’t an issue by itself, the RoboVac when low on battery shuts of the suction and heads home. But because my RoboVac storage was full it would cause it to leave a trail of dirt and dust balls on the way back to the charging station. I was having to clean after the RoboVac which was super annoying and was making me regret buying it. BUT, it turned out this wasn’t the RoboVacs fault. The reason it was filling up so quickly is because of the amount of dust and virgin carpet hair it was sucking up from under my large couch. My normal vacuum cleaner can’t reach under the couch but the RoboVac is low enough to get under there and clean properly. After a few days the dust container stopped overfilling and the RoboVac is working perfectly now. Every morning as part of my routine I now just empty the dust container which is usually around half full. The other issue I had when I first got it was making my place RoboVac friendly. It didn’t need a lot of work, I just had a few cables I needed to tuck away nicely so the RoboVac wouldn’t get stuck on it and I had to move one side table slightly away from the couch so that the RoboVac would have easier access. The RoboVac comes with strips you can stick on the floor if for example you don’t want it to wander into the kitchen or you want to keep it away from a certain area.

During this 24/7 lockdown my RoboVac has been my companion of a sort, kinda like how Tom Hanks had Wilson the Volleyball on Castaway. I now yell at my RoboVac and call it an idiot like I used to yell at my dog when it used to do something wrong. My RoboVac has a habit of knocking down my skateboard which I’ve got leaned up against the wall and then starts pushing it around like it’s playing with it. It’s kinda cute when it wants to play but noisy. I’ve only had my RoboVac get stuck once so far and when that happened my phone App notified me. It has no issues climbing carpets and even low objects. A lot of times it might get stuck on something and then it starts trying to push over it but after a while it gives up and goes backward freeing itself. I’m very impressed with it and I don’t regret getting it at all. I don’t even regret getting a smarter RoboVac since the 30C is doing a really great job. My black tiles tend to show dust easily but now they’re shiny all the time I love it.

If you’re interested in getting one, I got mine from Blink but it’s showing as sold out but A Store who are the Eufy dealers still has them in stock also for 92KD.

Over the weekend two PDFs made their rounds on social media, one related to the reopening of Avenues, the other to the reopening of Marina Mall. You can download both of them below if you want to go through them:

Avenues Mall Reopening Guidelines
Marina Mall Reopening Guidelines

Here are some highlights on how they’re gonna try and make shopping a safe experience after the lockdown:

– Avenues don’t mention opening hours but Marina Mall’s will be 10AM to 10PM on weekdays and till 11PM on weekends
– Both malls will reduce the number of entrances
– Avenues will have separate entrances and separate exits
– Your temperature will be taken on the way in
– Employees and customers both required to wear masks and gloves
– Marina Mall capacity will be reduced to 30%, Avenues doesn’t mention a reduction
– Stores will limit the number of customers inside
– No valet parking
– No car wash services
– Prayer rooms will be closed
– Smoking rooms will be closed
– Fitting rooms will be closed
– Public seating areas will be removed/closed
– Marina Mall will allow restaurants to have a seating capacity of 30%. Restaurants must use disposable cutlery.
– Avenues, on the other hand, won’t allow restaurants to have dine-in just takeaway

There are more details in the PDFs but that’s basically the gist of it. Not sure how Marina Mall is planning to limit the capacity of the mall to 30%, does that mean there will be long lines outside the mall similar to supermarkets? If there are multiple entrances and exits how are they gonna know how many people are coming in or leaving? They also mention they will limit shoppers to a maximum of 2 hours of shopping, how are they gonna do that?

Also curious if coffee shops will be open and how do I walk and drink coffee with my mask on? Might have to drink niqabi style I guess.

Once the lockdown is over and restaurants can reopen again for dine-in, where are you going first? I think for me it’s gotta be Peacock.

Abu Othman, like thousands of Kuwaiti men, has struggled to split his time between two wives living in separate homes amid the Gulf state’s strict lockdown to combat the coronavirus.

“My life has become so complicated,” the 45-year-old, who has 10 children between the two women, told AFP.

..

But in response to appeals by scores of polygamists like Abu Othman to ease their restrictions on movement, the Kuwaiti authorities on Sunday introduced electronic permits to men married to more than one woman for one-hour visits twice a week. Source

Seems like a good problem to have. Here is a link to the “Family Care” curfew pass page.

via Reddit

This post originally was going to be about how you should watch the show Little America on AppleTV+, but then it was going to be a post about how you should watch For All Mankind on AppleTV+. But, I’ve now discovered and gotten hooked on the AppleTV+ series The Morning Show“>The Morning Show so this post is about how you might as well get AppleTV+ and just binge-watch all three.

Little America
This is a really great feel-good series, something we all need right now. There are 8 episodes available and each episode is a different story based on a real-life one.

For All Mankind
I was hesitant to watch this at first, I knew it was space-related but that was about it so I thought it was going to be a space story based on real-life events. 5 minutes into the first episode I realized, I was wrong. Not going to spoil the idea for you but it’s a show based on the space race of the 60s, but none of the events on the show match what actually happened in real life. It’s much more interesting. The show stars the incredibly talented Joel Kinnaman from The Killing and Altered Carbon and I think it might be the best show I’ve watched this year.

The Morning Show
I started watching this last night after being disappointed by Defending Jacob and I couldn’t stop watching it. I initially started watching it hoping it was similar to one of my all-time favorite shows, The Newsroom and although it isn’t as good, it got me hooked. I’m now more than halfway through the series and looking forward to finishing it up tonight after I’m done with work. The show has an all-star cast with Jennifer Aniston, Reese Witherspoon and Steve Carell.

Apple had a promo going on where if you purchased certain hardware from them they’d give you a year of AppleTV+ for free. I’m not sure because I wasn’t paying attention when I signed up but I was able to get a year for free I think because I recently purchased a new MacBook Pro. But if you haven’t purchased anything from Apple recently then they’ll give a one week free trial which should be more than enough time to binge-watch all three shows. Have fun, here is the link.

Update: Oh not sure how I forgot but if you’re a fan of It’s Always Sunny in Philidelphia, then you should also watch Mythic Quest: Raven’s Banquet on AppleTV+. It’s funny and stars Mac and Cricket.

A short video recorded back in 1988 showing various parts of Kuwait including the now-demolished Al Salam Building, Souk Mubarakiya, the stock exchange and Sultan Center (which looked a lot better than it does today). If you want to check out other videos recorded back in 1988 including one of ASK, click here.

via Reddit

I recently found out the U.S. Embassy in Kuwait has a COVID-19 information page that contains answers to a lot of common questions that aren’t answered anywhere else. For example, a friend of mine was asking me about curfew passes to the airport, how does that work? If you have a flight to catch can you just show them your ticket or do you need a special pass? What if you don’t have a car, can a friend drop you off? According to the U.S. Embassy website:

How can I drive to the airport during the curfew?
It is our understanding that passengers traveling directly to the airport to depart Kuwait will be permitted to travel with their passport and a copy of their booking and/or ticket showing departure. They should allow additional time for possible stops by relevant authorities and should be wearing face masks while outside their homes.

Can a family member or friend drive me to the airport?
It is our understanding that one person can take passenger(s) directly to the airport as long as they have a copy of the ticket of the traveler. The driver should allow additional time for possible stops by relevant authorities and should be wearing a face mask while outside the home.

The page looks like it’s being updated whenever there is anything new so worth bookmarking since there is very little information out there in English and some of the info isn’t even listed anywhere else to my knowledge. So check it out here.

View this post on Instagram

A post shared by الحساب الرسمي لتطبيق شلونك (@shlonik2020) on May 17, 2020 at 5:10am PDT

A humorous ad by Shlonik that promotes their app. Shlonik published it last night in their new Instagram account @shlonik2020.

Kuwait is currently performing around 4,000 COVID-19 tests a day, but how does that compare with the rest of the world? Is it a lot? Too little?

According to Worldometer, a website that is trusted by the UK Government, the New York Times, BBC and many others, Kuwait ranks 20th worldwide when it comes to tests per 1 million of the population. The highest tested country in this list is the Faeroe Islands, while UAE ranks third. Below are some highlights but for the full list here is the link.

1- Faeroe Islands
2- Iceland
3- UAE
5- Bahrain
13- Denmark
16- Spain
20- Kuwait
21- Qatar
24- Italy
28- Russia
36- UK
39- USA
66- Saudi Arabia
74- Jordan
91- Lebanon
139- India
147- Egypt

Yesterday evening the first drive-thru COVID-19 testing center opened up to the public. Because there is currently a lockdown and because of the fact we only have one testing facility at the moment, you will need to be invited by the Ministry of Health to be tested.

According to the MOH they will randomly pick people for the large scale COVID-19 testing. People will be notified that they’ve been selected by SMS and an appointment date and time will be shared with them. You are then meant to apply for a curfew pass and head to the Jazeera Airways Park & Fly facility which has been converted to a testing center.

If you receive the message from the Ministry, you head there on the day scheduled and a swab test is performed on you. Your results are usually out within 48 hours. Once done from your test, your car is disinfected by the Fire Department on the way out.

The announcement was made on the MOH Instagram and twitter accounts last night only in Arabic. I was told the reason it was published only in Arabic is that it was only for Kuwaitis, but I’ve also heard this is for expats so not sure who is right.

Then there are two other issues, the first is what if you are picked but you don’t have a car? How do you get to the testing center? The other issue is if this is a mandatory test or not? Going by the comments on twitter there are a lot of people who believe they can’t be forced to be tested, so what happens to people who don’t show up to their appointments?