2:48AM - Entertaining Kuwait since 2003

The popular Italian restaurant and marketplace Eataly is targetting to open up in Avenues on July 21st. Eataly is already open the UAE, Qatar and Saudi Arabia and although I haven’t tried it myself I’ve heard the food is great. The Avenues location is in Phase 4 near the Mercedes dealership and they’re on Instagram @eatalyarabia

Not many events taking place this weekend but still more than what’s been going on the past few weekends. If I missed anything let me know.

Thursday
Al3ab Village

Friday
Al3ab Village
Fête De La Musique

Saturday
Al3ab Village
Book Club: Lolita Novel by Vladimir Nabokov
Global Wellness Day

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 Toy Story 4

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

New This Weekend:
Child’s Play (6.8)
Men in Black: International (5.6)
Red Joan (6.3)
Storm Boy (6.9)
The Dead Don’t Die (5.9)
Toy Story 4 (9.0)

Other Movies Showing Now:
Aladdin (6.5)
Avengers: Endgame (9.2)
Brightburn (6.5)
Godzilla: King of the Monsters (7.4)
John Wick: Chapter 3 – Parabellum (8.1)
Ma (6.0)
Pokémon Detective Pikachu (6.9)
The Secret Life of Pets 2 (6.5)
X-Men: Dark Phoenix

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

Amazon Adventure 3D (6.6)
Fly Me to the Moon (4.5)
Galapagos 3D (8.6)
Oceans: Our Blue Planet (7.4)
Volcanoes 3D (6.6)

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

McDonald’s on the Gulf Road has closed down after opening 25 years ago. This was the first McDonald’s to open in Kuwait back in June 1994 and I remember it made worldwide news because the drive-through line was over 11KM long that day.

Oddly enough just a few weeks ago I randomly found out that the wife of one of my friends was the first customer at the opening. Because she was the first in line, they told her she could host her birthday there for free which she did later on.

via Life in Kuwait

This is a long shot but does anyone have a copy of the book “State of Excitement” by James Bond creator Ian Fleming?

The Kuwait Oil Company commissioned Fleming to write this short book about Kuwait. However, the Kuwaiti Goverment disapproved of the final manuscript, which they found condescending, and the book was never published, despite repeated overtures to the Kuwaiti Goverment over the years.

The frontispiece to Fleming`s copy of the book reads: This is the only bound copy of a short book I wrote on Kuwait in December 1960. It was a condition of my obtaining facilities to visit Kuwait and write the book that the text should have the approval of the Kuwait Oil Company, whose guest I was.

The Oil Company expressed approval of the book but felt it their duty to submit the typescript to members of the Kuwait Government for their approval. The Sheiks concerned found unpalatable certain mild comments and criticism and particularly the passages referring to the adventurous past of the country which now wishes to be “civilised” in every respect and forget its romantic origins.

Accordingly, the book was stillborn. [source]

Here is a review of the book as well where they highlight some reasons the book might have been banned including this one:

A second rather humorous story the author relates revolve around an invitation he received to dine at one of the Sheikh’s numerous palaces. It seems that this palace located somewhere along the Persian Gulf coast had a very long dock which extended out far from land and at its end was a beautiful building where the Sheihk invited Fleming and other guests. In grand fashion the guests were carried from the shore in a stretch limousine out along the dock to the mini-palace. He noticed that after the guests had been dropped off, the driver had to back up the entire length of the dock, turn around and then back up the entire length of the dock once again. Fleming surmised that the driver was instructed to do this so that when the dinner was finished, the Sheikh and his guests could get back into the car on the ‘correct’ side and drive “forward” back to the shore. Fleming, almost snidely relates that even with all that money at his disposal the Sheikh couldn’t design and build a dock with a wide enough turn around. In other words, in this little vignette Fleming is mocking his host’s design and thereby his intelligence.

If you have a copy can you please accidentally leak it to me from an anonymous email address? Thank you!

This huge mirrored concert hall was built in the middle of the Saudi desert for the “Winter at Tantoura” festival which ran from December 2018 to February of this year. It hosted a range of activities, including a celebration of the winter planting season, weekly cultural events, and musical performances from some of the world’s greatest musicians.

I’m kinda worried that Kuwait isn’t moving forward at a very fast pace.

Whenever I travel to smaller neighboring countries like Bahrain and Qatar I’m always impressed with what I see from everything like their infrastructure and skyscrapers to the cleanliness and organization. I was in Qatar last weekend and walking outside in a street wondering how the weather is so much cooler than Kuwait, turns out they had AC blasting from the floor. Crazy but it worked. And then, of course, you have UAE which is miles ahead of all of us.

But, no matter what, we always had comfort in knowing that at least we were better than Saudi. Now I feel we’re losing that as well. Not because of just one concert hall, but because of similar small and large scale projects. The country is also starting to loosen up. The WHITE “halal” nightclub in Jeddah turned out to be too much for them, but at least they tried. We’re all here looking forward to the new airport but I don’t think that’s going to be enough.

Just to be clear, this isn’t a rant so don’t start with the GTFO comments, I’m just thinking out loud here.

The Joystixx Barcade located in the basement of Symphony Mall in Salmiya is now finally open. They have a bunch of old school arcade machines as well as a pinball machine and a section with video game consoles.

They have arcade games like Michael Jackson’s Moonwalker, Mortal Kombat 4 (so disappointed they didn’t get MK1 or MK2), Metal Slug, Street Fighter III: 3rd Strike, The King of Fighters ’97 and more. The arcade machines take regular 100fils coins while the consoles you rent out for 1.5KD an hour.

If you want to check the place out they’re open daily except for Sundays from 1PM to 11PM. They’re also on instagram @joystixxbar

Thanks Wahab!

When I visited the Kuwait National Library back in March I noticed they had a room where they were scanning books on Kuwait in. I was told they would be launching a digital library soon called “Memory of Kuwait” and last week they did just that.

This platform was launched by an initiative of the National Library of Kuwait with a goal to connect the past with the present. It includes books, periodicals, manuscripts and other collections that document the stages of Kuwait through history.

This interactive digital platform utilizes advanced technologies in line with Kuwait National Library vision. Embracing new technologies in order to serve public visitors and to give them access to the library’s most important historical collections.

The library has so far scanned or digitized over 1,000 items like books, videos, newspapers and more and they’re all available to view right now on their website. But, I found the website really clunky and slow to use.

The videos I tried to watch were in the incorrect size format so they were squished while with the books or magazines I could only view a limited amount of pages. I keep getting a popup saying that I have limited access but there isn’t any information on how I can get more access! I can see a sign in button, but I can’t find the signup page so the whole thing feels like a bit of a mess.

I love the idea of a digital library especially when the main library is only open from 9AM to 1PM on weekdays. But I really really don’t like the software they’re using to navigate all these books, its too slow to be of any practical use. But, if you want to try it out yourself, here is the link.

Back in 2016 I bought a 1973 Datsun 240z. I used to really love that car and fixed it up so I could daily drive it and I was doing so until I decided to buy my first Lotus. I ended up selling the 240Z to a friend of mine so I wouldn’t feel too guilty about spending so much money on the Lotus, and I always regretted it. What’s worse is that he offered to sell it back to me at the end of last year, but I said no because I was in between jobs and that wouldn’t have been the responsible thing to do. By the time I realized my mistake, the car was sold off to another friend of ours who sent it to Bahrain where it’s getting a full restoration job.

I really needed a classic car in my life and I tried to find something interesting locally but couldn’t, so I started looking outside of Kuwait. I eventually ended up finding a beautiful red 1970 Alfa Romeo GTV in Holland and bought it back in April. But that car is still in the process of getting registered for export in and then needs around a month to get to Kuwait. So while waiting for it I kept my eye open for a 240z and a couple of weeks ago I finally found a good one that was located in Sulaibiya. It was blue like my dad’s Datsun in the 70s, and the guy was asking a reasonable price for so I went and checked it out.

At first glance, the car didn’t look like much, and I think that’s what might have scared other buyers off. The seats were ripped, the interior had been fully carpeted by the owner covering up all the original diamond stitched vinyl that covers the interior, and the original engine was swapped out with a 280z engine. But, the dashboard with all the dials and knobs was super clean! It was in much better condition than the one in my older Datsun and it’s actually the most expensive thing to restore in the car. Everything else like the seat covers, interior vinyl trimming, carpets, plastic panels etc.. are readily available and not for much. But a new dashboard without any of the dials and different buttons on it? That would easily cost you a third of the price of the car. The whole dashboard and center console area looked like it was refurbished or swapped out with a new one by one of the previous owners, so I quickly realized this was the car to get. Even the fact that the engine was off a 280z was a good thing for me because it meant I could install air conditioning and more engine parts were available for it.

So now I’m a proud owner of a 1972 blue Datsun 240z. I spent the weekend ordering a whole bunch of parts for it and I already scheduled an appointment with my mechanic to start work on it. By the time I’m done it should hopefully look similar to the 240z pictured above which was featured on Petrolicious. I’m super excited!

5G was officially announced late last month but this past weekend the packages finally went live. A friend who signed up for the service is getting anywhere between 150Mbps to 300Mbps depending on where he is which is pretty fast. From the three telecoms, Viva has the most affordable packages from the bunch and you can check them all out below:

Ooredoo
KD45 – 500GB (Free Access Point)
KD65 – 1TB (Free Access Point)
Minimum 1-year contract

Viva
KD45 – 1TB (Free Access Point and iPad or PS4 Pro)
KD85 – Unlimited (Free Access Point and iPad or PS4 Pro)
Minimum 2-year contract

Zain
KD45 – 500GB
KD65 – 1TB (Free Access Point)
KD100 – 4TB (Free Access Point and iPad or Xbox One X or PS4 Pro)
Minimum 2-year contract

Although the prices do seem high when compared to LTE, I’m paying KD25 a month for a 20Mbps Zain Beam connection. So KD45 for 1TB isn’t so bad when compared to that if I’ll end up getting speeds over 150Mbps.

Screenshot from Brightburn

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

New This Weekend:
Brightburn (6.5)
Ma (6.0)
Pokémon Detective Pikachu (6.9)
The Poison Rose (4.4)

Other Movies Showing Now:
Aladdin (6.5)
Avengers: Endgame (9.2)
Godzilla: King of the Monsters (7.4)
John Wick: Chapter 3 – Parabellum (8.1)
Norm of the North: Keys to the Kingdom (3.4)
Polaroid (5.2)
The Secret Life of Pets 2 (6.5)
X-Men: Dark Phoenix

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

Amazon Adventure 3D (6.6)
Fly Me to the Moon (4.5)
Galapagos 3D (8.6)
Oceans: Our Blue Planet (7.4)
Volcanoes 3D (6.6)

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

This took long to implement but PayPal users in Kuwait can now finally withdraw money from their PayPal account. I haven’t tried this yet since my PayPal account is US based, but from what I gather, there is a KD1 charge for withdrawing the money which isn’t too bad. But, I also think they charge a 3.5% currency conversion fee but not really sure if I understood that part correctly.

In any case, if you have funds in your Kuwait based PayPal account and want to withdraw it then log in to your account, click on balance and then withdraw funds. You can then select the card you want PayPal to deposit the money into. Simple as that.

If you’re wondering why this is an important change its because there are a lot of people in Kuwait who sell things online and receive money with PayPal. They can now withdraw the money instead of having it accumulate in their PayPal account indefinitely.

via waw.cc

Update: Some readers are reporting this isn’t working for them.

When I passed by they had three cars on display, the new GLE, G-Class and the new A-Class. Such a smart move.

This is going to be a fairly long post but trust me, if you love nostalgic Kuwait related posts you’re going to want to read this because it’s just so random and really interesting.

A couple of weeks ago I was over at the Australian ambassador’s house (Jonathan) who is a music buff and while there he showed me a record which he knew I’d be interested in. The album was called “Jazz, Jazz, Jazz” by a Sudanese band called The Scorpions & Saif Abu Bakr and inside there was an interview with the band members. Turns out the band used to perform in Kuwait back in the 70s at different venues including the Hilton Hotel, the Sheraton Hotel, and the Marriott Hotel. Check out the clipping below:

And can you tell me about your journey to Kuwait?

We went by ourselves and without visa but with the help of our friend Saif (who was also our singer during that stay). And we went there without instruments or anything. At the airport we arrived and waited for Saif to pick us up. Of course, they asked us at the airport for our visas and who we were, but we replied not to have any. Saif wanted to help us to get in, so he called the son of the Prince who liked our music. Saif and him were friends. Following, the son of the Prince came in person and said “These are my guests, give them visas”. This way, we entered the country and made a contract with the television. We went to the shops to buy instruments and from there straight to the TV. After getting paid by TV we went back to the shops to also pay the instruments. That was our first time in Kuwait. But we went once more. The second time we also had a contract with the Marriot Hotel; to us it looked like a ship. This time we had a visa and stayed for a long time. We had an organ player from Jordan and a guitar player from France.

That KTV performance is actually online and you can check it out below:

So this is where things get even cooler. I get all excited about this and start taking photos of the record album and posting them on my Instagram account. A couple of hours later I get a message from a follower saying:

This is so weird. Saif is a colleague of mine and seeing this and reading it, it just seems like it’s another dimension. We knew that he was a part of some band, we just didn’t know to what extent. Where can I get this record/Cd?

Saif was still in Kuwait?? I quickly shared the message with Jonathan who suggested we invite him to dinner. So I had Saif’s colleague talk to Saif and see if he would be interested to meet. I ended up getting his contact information and Jonathan set up the dinner for us.

Me with Saif

A few days later we got to meet Saif and he was just full of interesting stories. Saif was never meant to come to Kuwait, when he turned 18 he decided to leave Sudan and head to Germany. So he headed to Lebanon first so that he could take the train to Germany. Once he got to Lebanon he met a girl and so decided to stay there for a month, he needed the money anyway and he figured he could earn money performing music while there. He then left Lebanon and headed to Syria and from there he got convinced to head to Kuwait and try and earn money there.

Once in Kuwait he met up with an old friend of his called Adam who used to play football for Qadsia club. Adam hooked Saif up with a job as an English teacher for air traffic controllers and as a side gig, he would perform music on Kuwait TV talk show. One day one of the guys at KTV comes up to him and asks him if he could put a band together because he wanted to record a performance for the station. Saif tells him he could and called up his friends in Sudan whom he used to perform with called The Scorpions. That’s basically how the whole story with that KTV broadcast came to be.

The Scorpions & Saif Abu Bakr Performing at KTV

But that’s not the end of it. Saif used to perform for a Kuwaiti event organizer back then called Hussein Abul. Hussein was the guy who brought the likes of Boney M, Demis Roussos, James Brown and Santa Esmeralda to perform in Kuwait. When James Brown came to Kuwait, Hussein gave Saif the job of driving James Brown around since Saif spoke both English and Arabic. Since Saif spent a lot of time with James Brown, a friend of his told him to ask James Brown if he could perform the track Super Bad at his events. The first two nights James Brown performed he didn’t play Super Bad but it was a really popular song with the locals and so a lot of people were requesting it. So Saif explained that to James Brown who said he didn’t mind. During rehearsal that day, James Brown tells his band that he wanted to play Super Bad but, one of the two bassists in the band didn’t know how to play it. James Brown tried to help him out by humming the rhythm he wanted but the bassist couldn’t get it right. Out of frustration James Brown asked his band if anyone else knew how to play the bass on Super Bad, and Saif who was sitting there watching the whole thing said he knew how to play it. James Brown was like are you sure you know how to play it? Saif and his band used to perform covers all the time and he used to practically play Super Bad every night at hotels. So even though he was under pressure now to perform in front of James Brown, he knew the song inside out. He ended up playing for James Brown who was so impressed that he asked Saif to perform the song with the band over the remaining events in Kuwait.

One interesting fact I found out, Hussein had also supposedly signed a contract with Michael Jackson to come to Kuwait. But before Michael Jackson’s event, he had scheduled the popular band Osibisa to come to Kuwait as well. But Islamists caused an uproar over one of Osibisa’s tracks because it contained an Islamic verse or something like that, and Hussein was banned from organizing events ever again. Hussein supposedly ended up leaving to Brazil where he now lives permanently.

Saif with Pele in Kuwait

Anyway, Saif eventually ended up leaving Kuwait to study but then came back once he was done. He’s been in Kuwait ever since and currently still teaches English at a local aviation school but still performs in Sudan every now and then with his old band. He lost most of his old photos during the 1990 Iraq invasion but I shared two remaining ones in this post, the Pele photo above and the band performing at KTV above that. Jonathan the Australian Ambassador is also gonna try and bring the band together again to perform in Kuwait and once that happens I’ll let you guys know.

For now if you’re interested in buying a copy of the album “Jazz, Jazz, Jazz” it’s available for purchase in different formats on bandcamp.

Update: Jazz, Jazz, Jazz is also available on Spotify. Farrah Galbi Aljadeed is my favorite track followed closely by Forssa Saeeda.

Over the weekend the new Yeezy sneakers launched around the world including in Kuwait. People lined up from early morning for the chance to buy a pair since they’re a limited release and would sell out quickly. I saw some pictures and videos of the lines around Kuwait and they were extremely long and mostly unorganized.

That same morning a reader emailed me about an incident that took place at the Adidas store in Al Hamra and since then I’ve heard the story from one other person who was in line and seen a video that kinda corroborates it. Here is the email I received:

Hey Mark,

I wanted to let you know about this incident that took place at the Adidas outlet this morning.
So today was the launch of this limited edition Yeezy and I was at Hamra mall branch. They said it’ll be first come first serve. There were about 6 Philippine Nationals lined up at like 6am, they were the first ones there. A paper was passed down the line with the name and preferred sizes of people and it seemed completely civilized.

Then at 830am when the doors were supposed to open, a Kuwaiti Adidas representative announced in Arabic that Kuwaitis get priority. And a bunch of Kuwaiti guys rushed in front of the Filipinos and it was utter chaos. Then when one of the Filipino men spoke up and asked “what about us?” The Adidas rep was like “Filipino want to buy shoes?” And everyone started laughing.

And then a bunch of Kuwaiti guys proceeded to walk inside the store.

A woman (Arab) then started shouting at the Adidas representative and was saying that this is straight up racism and unfair. She was ignored. The Filipino group left and some guys just kept mocking them. An overwhelming majority of the Kuwaiti crowd joined in on the mocking. They waited for 2.5 hours to be disgraced like that.

There is a video that was taken that morning which you can watch [Here]

The incident is currently being investigated by the mall as well as the local Adidas dealer so if you were in line that morning and saw what happened, get in touch.

If you’re wondering how people could be so racist in 2019, so was I until I started getting hate on twitter when I posted about this. I actually had to block a bunch of people who were accusing me of hating on Kuwait or who were rationalizing why they were right to sell to the Kuwaitis first. It’s shocking.

Update: I’ve closed the post for commenting, also I’ve been made aware the photo of the Yeezys I posted aren’t the ones people were lining up for.