2:48AM - Entertaining Kuwait since 2003

Rafael Nadal, the current world no. 1 in men’s singles tennis will be playing a match this coming February here in Kuwait at the soon to open International Tennis Complex next to 360 Mall. They haven’t announced who he would be playing against except for the fact it will be another tennis champion. Tickets for the match were being sold this past weekend for KD75 at the Rafa Nadal Academy exhibit inside 360 Mall, but the first batch of tickets have already been sold out. I’ve been told that they might release a second batch of tickets at a later date.

Nadal has won 19 Grand Slam singles titles, the second-most in history for a male player, as well as a record 35 ATP Tour Masters 1000 titles, 20 ATP Tour 500 titles and the 2008 Olympic gold medal in singles. The Rafa Nadal Academy that will be opening in Kuwait will be the second one to open in the world.

The tennis complex that is currently nearing the end of construction will have a combined stadium seating for over 6,500 people across two main arenas, each with the capacity to hold 5,000 and 1,500 people respectively. There will also be eight indoor courts with over 500 seats, and eight outdoor courts with 1,500 seats. The tennis complex is expected to open early next year.

To learn more about the Rafa Nadal Academy in Kuwait you can visit their large exhibit (with a tennis court) inside 360 Mall. The exhibit is there till December 7th and you can even play a fun tennis match with one of their coaches inside their exhibit. The timings for the exhibit are:

Wednesday: 4:00pm – 8:00pm
Thursday to Saturday: 12:00pm – 10:00pm

For more information, you can visit rafanadalacademykuwait.com or @rafanadalacademykuwait

I don’t tend to collect as many things as I used to, but recently I got obsessed with trying to obtain some very old and difficult to find English books on Kuwait. The three most recent books I managed to get have now become my most treasured ones, The Arab of the Desert (1949), Kuwait and Her Neighbours (1956), and The Wild Flowers of Kuwait and Bahrain (1955).

I had lusted after these books for some time now but because they were expensive, I never pulled the trigger on them. But, a few weeks back while at the home of the Australian ambassador, I spotted the books on his shelves. It was such an odd experience seeing them live, they were books I had obsessed about virtually but then seeing them in person felt so weird. I couldn’t believe he even had The Wild Flowers of Kuwait and Bahrain, a book written by Violet Dickson, the wife of H. R. P. Dickson and published in 1955. Not only a very difficult book to get because of its scarcity, but also one that wasn’t that popular due to its subject matter.

I quickly flipped through the books and posted some pictures on my Instagram story. As I was flipping through the books and taking photos I quickly realized how badly I needed to have these books. All this time I had been reading on the books and looking at photos of their covers, but I had never seen the books from the inside. Both “The Arab of the Desert” and “Kuwait and Her Neighbours” are filled with illustrations, fold-out maps and family trees, loose documents, black and white photos and tons and tons of interesting information. They are very thick books filled with a lot of content and after spending just a few minutes with them, there was no way I wasn’t getting them.

The first thing I did was delete the photos of the books I had just posted on my Instagram story. I realized if I wanted to get my hands on these books then I should get them first, and then post about them. I then spent the next two weeks going through every website I could find looking for the right copies of these books. I wanted first editions, I wanted the books with their dust jackets, I wanted them in good condition and most importantly, I wanted to pay a reasonable price. After a few emails to various sellers asking for more photos of the books, and after a few more emails negotiating the prices, I managed to get my hands on all three books. I managed to get first editions of Kuwait and Her Neighbours and The Wild Flowers of Kuwait and Bahrain (I think there is only one edition of this anyway), but I ended up getting a second edition print of The Arab of the Desert. I settled for a second edition print because of the price and the fact the copy I got was signed by his wife Violet Dickson.

I’m now trying to figure out how I can share the books online, not fully, but just a way for people to get a feel of these books. The best idea I have so far is to mount a camera on a tripod and then flip through the books while I record a video. If anyone has a better idea let me know. For now, I’ve temporarily created a highlight on my instagram account with pictures of the books and some pages inside. You can check those out on my account @mark248am

If you’re a fan of the Netflix series NARCOS then you might be interested to know that Pablo Escobar’s son (real-life son Juan) is in Kuwait at the moment. I think he’s here because of a local YouTube show called Power Owners since they’re airing an interview with him on December 10.

Going through Juan’s Instagram account it seems like he’s doing all the touristy things of Kuwait like visiting the Kuwait Towers and JACC, as well as visiting places like The Avenues. If you want to see what he’s up to then check out his Instagram @juanpabloescobarhenao

Thanks @inspirededibles!

Yesterday on Reddit someone published a step by step guide on how to file a complaint against a telecom or ISP in Kuwait and I thought it was important to share here as well. The Redditor probably posted the guide after seeing another post where an Ooredoo customer had the pop up below come up randomly on his phone.

Below are the instructions on how to file a complaint copied and pasted from Reddit but you can still check out the original post and comments here.

First of all, I’m sure many of you have noticed the frequency of spam that you are receiving on your phones. Or the mysterious charges that are being tacked on to your bills.

So in order for all of this to stop is to start reporting such things to CITRA. What is CITRA? It’s the Communication & Information Technology Regulatory Authority in Kuwait. They have been established as the overall authority over all telecoms & info tech in the country. So nothing happens without their say so.

CITRA is staffed by a lot of qualified and knowledgeable people, I have worked side-by-side with them in the past. Even participated in some of the national infrastructure (overhaul) programs that they are introducing.

OK enough of an intro, what you need to do is to report those spam text messages and the illegal usage of the EAS system for advertising. The people receiving those complaints at CITRA do actually investigate each and every one. So go ahead and visit the Complaints Page, then sign up if you haven’t done so already.

Try to provide as much information as possible when filing your complaint, include screenshots/photos where possible.

Give it a few weeks for your complaint to be reviewed then actioned on.

Most of all, don’t worry about any backlash. Nobody is going to come after you and nobody is going to deport you. Telecoms laws were put in place to protect the consumers, so use them to your advantage.

People really need to act and stop these unfair practices by the telecoms in the country.

Thanks u/thisdodobird!

A couple of new places opened up last week and one of them is a meat eatery called Low Slow which I got to try out last week. I actually went to a tasting for it a couple of years back but the project got delayed and finally opened up last week. It’s a small place located in Lilly Center in Shuwaikh and as you can guess, it revolves around slow cooked meat.

Low Slow is simple but cool looking on the inside. The place has around 40 seats and so is cozy in size with a small kitchen in the back dominated by a large grill. Nearly everything on the menu is grilled which I love from the tapas to the mains. The menu didn’t have any prices on it when I was there since it was a private invitation, [check it out here] but I got to try something from every section. My favorite item was easily the burrata fig salad which was the best burrata dish I’ve ever had anywhere, while my least favorite item had to be the brownie dessert.

If you’re looking for a new place to try out or if you’ve been looking for a place with good brisket or bone in ribs, then you should give Low Slow a shot. They’re currently in their soft launch phase and open daily from 6PM to 11PM. You can find them on instagram @atlowslow

A couple of weeks back I posted about how you could now renew your driving license online. To test it out for the blog I decided to renew my long expired motorbike license and the whole process ended up taking less than 5 minutes. The only thing left was to pick up my driving license from any of the machines located around Kuwait and I decided to pick mine up from Avenues. Well, things didn’t go smoothly for me.

So here is what happened. I went to the machine to print my new motorbike license, I put my Civil ID in, I logged into my account and then the machine asked me to insert my driving license. When I insert my motorbike license it rejects it saying it was expired, when I insert my driving license it accepts it and then pulls up an image of my just renewed motorbike license and asks me if I want to print that. But, if I choose to print it then the machine would keep my driving license which I need and print out my new motorbike license instead. The machine should be taking my old motorbike license and printing out a new one but for some reason it wants me to trade my driving license for a motorbike one.

The support guy at the machines told me he hadn’t come across this issue before and didn’t know how to solve it and that I should head to muroor 3aseema (Kuwait City traffic department) to try and solve my issue. But since I only wanted to renew my motorbike license so I could post about my experience on the blog, I’m obviously not gonna go through that hassle.

Even though I ran into trouble with this whole renewal thing I do think under normal circumstances this process works really well and smoothly. If you’ve managed to get your license renewed and printed let us know about your experience in the comments below.

A lot of exhibits are taking place this weekend. Tonight is the last night for the Palestinian Cultural Exhibit and it’s also the last weekend for the international book fair so don’t miss out on them. There are also a few musical events taking place so check the full list of events below:

Thursday
Fareed Abdal – A Solo Exhibition
MNWR – An Exhibition by Hafez Gallery
Exhibition: Cemetery of Banned Books
“East Ahmadi Market” An exhibition by Huda Abdulmughni
Nuqat – State of the Elastic Mind
44th International Book Fair
Al-Sawaber Exhibition
50th Palestinian Cultural Exhibition
An Installation by Nawar N. Al-Kazemi
Dome Grand Opening Event (Future Kid)
The Poetry Night
Seeing Sounds by Vinyl Destination

Friday
“East Ahmadi Market” An exhibition by Huda Abdulmughni
Nuqat – State of the Elastic Mind
44th International Book Fair
Dome Grand Opening Event (Future Kid)
The Big Bazaar
Trashtag x Jahra Reserve
Only As the Sun Sets – A Video Installation by Dr. Eman Al Shawaf
Al Souq Market
Fall Fest

Saturday
MNWR – An Exhibition by Hafez Gallery
Exhibition: Cemetery of Banned Books
“East Ahmadi Market” An exhibition by Huda Abdulmughni
44th International Book Fair
Guided Tour: Old Kuwait City
Burger Festival Kuwait
Come Play with Us!
Open Track at Kuwait Motor Town
Locura – A Spanish Music Event

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.

Screenshot from Ford v Ferrari

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

New This Weekend:
Ford v Ferrari (Le Mans 66) (8.3)
Knives Out (7.9)
Marnie’s World (5.5)
Mercy Black (4.9)

Other Movies Showing Now:
21 Bridges (5.7)
Abominable (7.3)
Behind the Trees (N/A)
Charlie’s Angels (3.7)
Doctor Sleep (7.5)
Frozen II (7.1)
Joker (9.4)
Last Christmas (6.6)
Maleficent: Mistress of Evil (7.0)
Midway (4.9)
One Piece: Stampede (8.3)
Playing with Fire (5.1)
Terminator: Dark Fate (6.5)
The Addams Family (5.8)
The Shed (4.1)

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.

There are only a few more days left before the book fair is over so I dropped by yesterday to check it out. Not sure if its only me, but the book fair felt smaller than the previous years, at least when it came to English books. There just didn’t seem to be as many English booksellers as the previous years and even the large Arabic publisher’s exhibits seemed smaller than the previous years.

But, it’s still worth passing by and checking out. For more information on the book fair click here.

I rarely ever post commercials on my blog because 99.9% of the time they’re usually pretty lame. But, these new Slice commercials on the other hand are really funny. There are four videos in total and all four are in Arabic sadly, so if you can’t understand Arabic you won’t get these.

Check out the remaining two below.

When I was in Dubai a couple of weekends ago I got a Wizr t-shirt printed for me and a friend similar to the one Keith Wells had back in the 70s (the author of Wizr). I got it done at Virgin Megastore in Dubai Mall and it only took a few minutes to print each t-shirt. It was like an inkjet printer for t-shirts and the quality of the print was pretty incredible.

Has anyone seen anything similar in Kuwait? The printer kind is called a “Direct-to-Garment Printer” but the only ones I’ve seen in Kuwait use heat transfer with an end result that isn’t so great. With direct-to-garment printing, the t-shirt ends up looking like it was printed in a fashion production line.

If you don’t know what the Wizr is, click here.

EDO used to be my favorite Japanese restaurant in Kuwait back when they were open in Shaab (pictured above). The space was cozy, the food was great and there really wasn’t much competition back then. But, when they closed their Shaab location and moved to the Sahara Country Club I stopped going because it was just too far and I really didn’t like the space anymore, it was just too open and it lost all it’s coziness.

Photo by @mohamadchehimi

But, last month EDO closed down their Sahara location and the rumor I’ve heard is that they will be moving to Al-Khaled Complex in Salmiya. That’s where GIA is located right now and where the Italian restaurant Vigonovo used to be. I passed by Al-Khaled Complex last week and looks like there is a lot of renovation going on so hopefully this rumor is true.

If it is true then I think Al-Khaled Complex is a much better location for EDO. Until they reopen, if you miss EDO they’re still delivering on Talabat.

For those of you reading my blog while living in the U.S. and missing Kuwait, you can now order KDD milk from Amazon.com and have it delivered to your doorstep. The three flavors available are banana, chocolate and strawberry and you can purchase them as a 6-pack or large box of 18 packs. They’re not cheap though, a 180ml x 18 pack is being sold for KD9 while if you were in Kuwait you could pick up the larger 250ml x 24 pack for KD3.6. But if you’re in the U.S. then you don’t really have a lot of options.

KDD ice cream and juices are disappointingly not available on Amazon. I know if I lived abroad I’d miss KDD ice cream the most but I guess exporting it to the U.S. would be a lot more complicated than shipping milk.

Here are the Amazon links if you’re interested:

KDD Banana Milk 6-pack
KDD Banana Milk 18-pack
KDD Chocolate Milk 6-pack
KDD Chocolate Milk 18-pack
KDD Strawberry Milk 6-pack
KDD Strawberry Milk 18-pack

via Reddit

Last night Kuwait Motor Town opened up registration for an open track experience for this coming Saturday. As of this post there are still slots available so if you’re interested in participating with your car, you need to book like right now.

Here is the link.

If you weren’t aware, there is currently a plant-based meat craze that’s taking over in the U.S. with brands like Beyond and Impossible both being the two most popular plant-based meat suppliers. Even fast food brands like McDonalds and Burger are both hopping onto this trend and South Park had an episode about it a couple of weeks back.

Locally, plant-based meat hasn’t really picked up yet but there are now a couple of places that offer it with one of the newest being Holy Cow. Holy Cow is a new vegan burger bar concept by the people behind the popular vegan delivery concept Clean Eats. It’s basically a burger restaurant except they’ve swapped out all the animal-based proteins with plant-based ones so you still have your meat burgers, chicken burgers and fish burgers except they’re all vegan.

They just opened up a couple of weeks back so they’re still in their soft launch phase so open only from 6PM to 10PM on Carriage. If you’re looking for a new vegan option or just curious to try plant-based meat then check them out. They’re on instagram @holycow.kw