2:48AM - Entertaining Kuwait since 2003

Originally the first phase of the metro was meant to be completed 2020 but that’s obviously not happening since work hasn’t even begun. But now according to Kuwait Times, there is a new updated plan for the metro network:

The Metropolitan Rapid Transit System Project (KMRT) will be built over five phases stretching over 160 kilometers, and will have 68 stations along three lines, according to the plan. The first phase of the project includes a railway stretching 50 kilometers from Kuwait City to Kuwait International Airport, with 27 new stations, 30 percent of which will be underground with two underground stations, heavy duty maintenance warehouse. The first phase will cover areas in several governorates and include nine stations within Kuwait’s business center. Source

No completion date was given this time around…

If you’ve never been to the Red Palace (or Red Fort) in Jahra then you should really check it out. Back in 2013 I went to Jahra for the first time and made a fun day out of it and I decided to do it again last week with a friend who themselves hadn’t been to Jahra before.

We started off by having lunch at the Kuwaiti restaurant The Seventies. It’s located next to a bunch of interesting things which makes it a great spot to visit first. Right next door to it is an artificial lake with swan paddle boats, the largest City Center I’ve seen (reminded me of Walmart), and there’s an amusement park that used to be called The 99 Village after the comic books.

After we were done killing time in this area we headed to the Red Palace which opens at 4:30PM. There is plenty of parking inside the Red Palace grounds and we were the only ones there except for this one security guard. Once we parked we told him we wanted to go inside to check out the palace and he unlocked the main gate for us and then all the little rooms inside.

The Red Palace was the site of the Battle of Jahra in 1920 between Kuwaiti and Saudi forces and so is a historical site. If you go with very little expectations the place is actually a really great place to check out. There isn’t a lot inside, there are four rooms which each sharing a subject relating to the Kuwaiti past but the real fun is walking around the palace, exploring the grounds, and taking pictures. The sky was beautiful and the sun was setting as we got there so I ended up getting some great shots.

Going all the way to Jahra just to check out the Red Palace might not be worth it alone, but when you combine it with a bunch of other activities it’s actually really fun. Entrance is free and they’re open from Monday to Saturday from 8:30AM to 12:30PM and then again from 4:30PM to 8:30PM. On Fridays they only open in the afternoons from 4:30PM to 8:30PM. Here is their location on Google Maps.

Last month I posted about Bolt electric scooters being sold in Kuwait but over the weekend I found out that there’s a better quality scooter available for sale, the Ninebot Kickscooter by Segway. The Future store in Avenues Phase II has the entry-level Segway ES1 for sale but are asking KD280 for it which is too much. The same scooter is being sold for around 135KD on Amazon and even with shipping and customs, it would probably won’t be more than KD180. But, I guess if you want to buy a scooter like right now this second and can’t wait, this Segway is probably the best scooter brand you can get in Kuwait.

Since we got into the subject of banks in my last post, here is something that’s bothering me with NBK. Every time I launch the NBK app on my iPhone, I get the pop-up above asking me to agree on having NBK know (and most likely track) my whereabouts so that stores could target me with ads while I’m out shopping. Obviously this isn’t something I’m interested in but NBK doesn’t give me the choice to opt-out. The only options are either “Accept” or “Go to settings” with no option to decline. If you go to settings it just gives you a box to tick to enable NBK Geo Alerts.

If you don’t enable geo alerts and click cancel, the next time you launch the app you get the same pop-up again and have to go through the same process all over again. It’s super sneaky and anybody less tech-savvy would most likely have clicked “Accept” at the pop-up not knowing what kind of privacy they were giving up. I already made NBK aware of this issue twice on twitter but they don’t think this is an issue.

I’m always looking for ways to speed things up and one way I used to speed my payment process with Carriage and other local online businesses was by saving my ATM card number in my password manager app. Whenever I’d get to the payment page I’d open the app and then copy paste my debit card digits into the knet form. It was much faster than having to pull out my card from my wallet and manually entering the numbers.

But, a couple of months back, Knet disabled the option of pasting numbers into the form for some reason which was annoying because it meant I’d have to go back to the old way of entering my number manually. Since I order from Carriage daily this became annoying and so I started using my credit card instead since Carriage had the option of saving that.

Then late last month, Knet introduced a new feature called KFAST which allows us, the customers, to save our card details with merchants like Carriage so that all we need to do is enter our pin code to complete the purchase instead of all our numbers. There isn’t much info about this on their website or instagram account other than the description but the way it works is pretty simple. When you now check out from Carriage with Knet you’ll now be presented with two options on the Knet payment page, Kfast and Knet. If it’s your first time using the new form you’ll only be able to select Knet. After completing your check out process your card number gets saved and the next time you check out it will remember the card number and you’ll get to either use KFAST and just type your pincode, or you can click on Knet and type a new card in manually.

According to the Knet documentation on their website, you’re actually meant to get and enter a one time code to use KFAST but I didn’t get that. In any case, this is a great new feature and will make the check out process on a bunch of websites a lot quicker.

This year’s Qout Market is located in the best location yet so if you missed out on the first one it’s back again this weekend. Also tonight is the last night of Giselle by the Teatro alla Scala Ballet Company, limited seats are still available so book now! Check out the full list of events below.

Thursday
Fareed Abdal – A Solo Exhibition
Alan Villiers & the Sons of Sindbad: An Australian in 1930s Kuwait
Exhibition: Athier Mousawi – Fade and Float
Exhibition: Abdul Latif Ashkanani
Thirteen Zones
Exhibition: Shurooq Amin
Exhibition: Haa – Jassim Meraj
Full Moon Yoga & Meditation
Teatro alla Scala Ballet Company: Giselle

Friday
Exhibition: Haa – Jassim Meraj
Thirteen Zones
Al-Farsi Kite Festival
Blood Ride
Trashtag Park Cleanup

Saturday
Alan Villiers & the Sons of Sindbad: An Australian in 1930s Kuwait
Exhibition: Athier Mousawi – Fade and Float
Exhibition: Shurooq Amin
Exhibition: Haa – Jassim Meraj
Thirteen Zones
Open Track at Kuwait Motor Town
Qout Market

If you’d like to share an event on the blog [Email Me]
For a full list of upcoming events click [Here]

Sometimes events get canceled or have details changed so always double-check with the organizers.

1917

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

New This Weekend:
1917 (8.6)
Balloon (7.6)
Daughter of the Wolf (5.6)
Red Shoes and the Seven Dwarfs (6.3)
Richard Jewell (7.7)
Underwater (6.4)

Other Movies Showing Now:
Cats (2.8)
Disturbing the Peace (N/A)
Frozen II (7.1)
Jumanji: The Next Level (7.0)
Knives Out (7.9)
Maleficent: Mistress of Evil (7.0)
Norm of the North: King Sized Adventure (3.1)
Playing with Fire (5.1)
Spies in Disguise (6.1)
Star Wars: The Rise of Skywalker (6.6)
The Grudge (6.3)
Trauma Center (5.0)

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

IMAX Movies Showing Now:
Amazon Adventure 3D (6.6)
Backyard Wilderness 3D (8.4)
Turtle Odyssey (7.7)
Volcanoes 3D (6.6)

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

Kuwaiti budget carrier Jazeera Airways has revealed plans to move to an all-economy fleet configuration with the launch of three new fare categories from January 8.

The move to economy will apply to all routes, except flights to Cairo, while the three categories include Economy Class: Light, Value and Extra. Source

Business class on Jazeera Airways never made sense anyway since they were the exact same seats as economy, just sold at double the price.

Back in 2012 we were given an up and running date of 2020 and I posted about it and even shared a map of the metro routes but then nothing…

Faisal Al-Kharafi goes by the instagram handle @porsche_collector and has one of the rarest Porsche collections in the world. His instagram account has over 200,000 followers and his home garage is inspired by Iron Man. Dennis Collins (from the TV series Fast N’ Loud) was in Kuwait back in 2015 for the Kuwait Concours d’Elegance and while here he got a tour of Faisal’s garage which you can watch above. Since 2015 Faisal has added more porsches to his collection which you can check out on his instagram account.

While in Kuwait Dennis also shot some other episodes including the one below which is a tour of another garage, not sure who’s garage but it has two mint condition Rambo-Lambo’s and a red hot Countach! If anyone know’s who’s garage that is let me know and hook me up with a tour!

For more episodes check out Dennis’s youtube page here.

Nick Ingman is an English arranger, composer and conductor who’s worked with a lot of musicians including Blur, Oasis, Madonna, Elton John and even worked with Radiohead on ‘OK Computer‘ which is one of my favorite albums ever. I hadn’t heard of Nick until a few days ago when a reader made me aware that his 1976 album ‘Terminator’ used the Kuwait Water Towers on the cover. Since it was released around the same time the water towers were completed, this might have been the first time the water towers were ever used in an artwork.

I found three copies of this record on eBay, I just bought one and so there are two more left if you’re interested in picking one up.

Thanks Adam

Someone on Reddit noticed that Murouj have an “I ❤️ Kuwait” message written on top of one of the roofs. Not sure if you can see it from a plane as you’re landing or leaving Kuwait, but it shows clearly when you view Murouj on Google Maps.

I wonder if there are any other secret messages around Kuwait?

Thanks screamIscream

If you’ve wanted to know the story of Kuwait’s stock market crash in the 80s, NPR released a short 9 minute podcast about it a few days ago. Here is the description of the podcast:

In the early 1980s, Kuwait’s unofficial stock market — run out of a parking garage on the site of an old camel market — was the third largest in the world, second only to the U.S. and Japan. But then, in an instant, it all came crashing down, plunging Kuwait into a brutal recession that would last for nearly a decade. How is it that a simple financial innovation could create such vast wealth and such devastating chaos? And what can it teach us about the fundamental forces at the heart of modern capitalism?

Today on The Indicator: the story of the Souk al-Manakh and one of the greatest stock bubbles of all time. Source

If you want to listen to it search for “THE INDICATOR FROM PLANET MONEY” podcast in your favorite podcast player or listen to it below.

Thanks momoxoxo

Lebanese composer and songwriter Rene Bendali has died at the age of 70 in the city of Tripoli, in northern Lebanon.

Bendali shot to fame in the late 1970s and 1980s for performing with his family as a band called The Bendali Family, who were behind songs such as the hit Do You Love Me. Source

I had posted the video “Do You Love Me?” on my blog back in 2007 because it had been shot in Kuwait in 1978. The song and video quickly went viral but I never really researched it more or anything until now. I just found more information about the song and video in the comments here and I copy-pasted it below:

First of all, this was shot using 16mm in front of the kourniche of the Kuwait-Sheraton in exactly August, 1978, but was only made to be featured as a ‘publicity’ shot on film for a Kuwaiti T.V. programme interview with the band (eleven sisters and brothers showcased in a double concert there at the Public Kuwaiti Theatre and a local cinema).

There are snippets and clippettes of this rare, one-hour long interview on YouTube with actress-turned-singer-turned-actress-again S’oaud Al-Abdallah doing the staccato interview with the cheery family who wore velvet uniforms. Kuwaitis were wealthy enough at that time to invite anyone they could ever think of (including at one time, the American disco band Boney-M who allegedly turned into Islam there), and so the Bendalis were in hot demand in that wealthy-beyond-words oil-tick nation.

So, basically the song ‘Do You Love Me?’ wasn’t made in that same year only because that video was shot in the same year: it was a very popular — and energetic — concert-opener ‘medley’, non-song of Roger Bendali’s composition using a 70’s pop hit (Can’t help think of the original artist for the Englizi intro, but it should be The Tremeloes? Someone with time and interest enough better check into that). Contrary to what many believe, René Bendali did not compose nor write the words for the song — He just sang it.

The first recorded version of this song was featured as a medley in their Sgt. Pepper-like T.V. musical show (I was lucky to have watched it when I was still a kid), called ‘Kamera 77’: the show had all the band’s members (rumoured to include even cousins at one point in the show, plus their mother and father). Kamera 77 was really a hit with almost all Arabic nascent ‘colour’ televisions at that time and it sold very well, to the extent that the Bandalis (or Bendalis/Bendaly Family, or in Lebanese-Arabic A’ailit Bandalee), became trully a house-hold name, and oddly enough… still are.

As for the song itself, this medley was put to record in 1976 and it featured only Roger, but then again it’s found its way into many albums and records released by the band (and, later by the Kuwaiti label Al-Naza’aer), and some three different concert versions like the one used here by DJ Dub Snakker still exist. René Bendali is cited here as the originator of the song in 1963, which is very offtrack and wrong. Well, back in 1963 most of the band’s members weren’t even born, for crying out loud.

I couldn’t find the full interview on YouTube but I did find this short clip. If anyone has the link to the full interview please share it below!

Below is also a video I found of their performance in Kuwait. The video says 1979 but I think it’s actually 1978.

A Kuwaiti makeup artist was accused of racism after she posted a video and a picture of herself painted in dark makeup, in what critics condemned as blackface.

Ghadeer Sultan first posted a short video clip on her Instagram page on Wednesday, with the song We Are the World playing in the background, showcasing her different looks in a range of skin colours and wigs.

She then posted a photo of herself in blackface, which has garnered more than 44,000 likes.

Sultan’s page, which has two million followers, was then inundated with comments denouncing her blackface while others argued she had done nothing wrong. Source

This happened last week and I thought with all the negativity she’d end up removing the photos and videos but she hasn’t yet. Not only that but she’s also been reposting all the negative news articles about her that are being published in the media into her instagram story. So not really sure what to think about all of this. I hadn’t heard of her until last week but don’t think she’s actually racist, just unaware that blackfacing can be deemed offensive.

View this post on Instagram

A post shared by Ghadeer Sultan – غدير سلطان (@ghdor.sultan) on Dec 31, 2019 at 11:31am PST

After the photos and videos went viral she posted the following statement and apology yesterday on her story (spelling mistakes fixed):

I’m sorry, I can see how blackface event must have been frustrating for you. I appreciate how difficult it must have been for you to deal with blackface. However it was absolutely not in my intention…

I was trying to show how artists could show things in a professional way.

I am professional artists and I did my best to show the beauty in colors.. the people and my millions of followers who knows me would definitely know what I’ve meant by doing this and what is my feelings towards all people’s and all colors.

Thanks for alerting me to blackface. I recognized that this can’t have been an easy thing to deal with and I’m so sorry that I have caused you to feel humiliations however on the contrary I looked more beautiful in my dark colors…

I’ve tried to explain several times why and how I’ve done this and what was my goal behind it, but I can’t really change the sensitivity behind the whole issue.

You were absolutely right to bring this to my attention, so I can immediately resolve any issues or any misunderstanding with my loved followers…

I will try everything I can to get this fixed and live with all people with love joy and peace once again… I am fully committed to my followers to show how artists could make your life peaceful and beautiful…

I will work on resolving the miss understanding and I will be careful in approaching or touching another culture, so we can all enjoy the beauty behind the arts..

Love u all

I think she’s the only influencer that’s made the news for something negative and then apologized. But, she still hasn’t removed the video or any of the blackface photos and don’t think she will.

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