Categories
Design

Manara Mall. New project by AGi architects

I’ve featured the work of AGi architects on the blog before but most of the projects I featured were beautiful residential homes they had designed. I think this is the first commercial project I’ve seen by them and its as beautifully designed as their other projects.

I haven’t been to this mall myself yet and so have no idea what stores are open there, but I’m planning to pass by just to check out the architecture. The AGi website has more photos and details on this project which you can check out on their website if you’re interested [Here]

Update: Here is their location on [Google Maps]




Categories
Automotive

KMT’s Second Open Track Event

Yesterday, Kuwait Motor Town held their second open track event and once again, it was so much fun. Things were already great at their first event, but the KMT team worked out some minor kinks which made this second open track even more enjoyable. For example, there used to be an extremely annoying siren that would blast loudly every time a car would drive into the pit lane (which is all the time), they stopped that now. Fuel was also an issue at the first event since there wasn’t any available at the track, this time around they set up a fuel station at the end of the pit lane for refueling.

There are two more open track events taking place next month and they’re open to the public. There’s music and food trucks at the track as well as a play area for kids. So it’s a good event to come by and chill at since you can hang out in the grandstands and watch the cars race around the track or even sign up to be a passenger. I’ll keep you guys posted about the next event but I really have to say, KMT has turned out to be a lot better than I expected. I have to admit I did have low expectations, but still I’m really impressed with what they’ve managed to accomplish in such a short period of time. They are constantly having something going on so keep checking their instagram for updates @kmtkw

Thank you KMT!




Categories
Design Food

The Best Looking Restaurant in Kuwait?

Usually, when I write about new restaurants that just opened up I talk about the food, but not in this case. The Cardamom Club is a new Indian restaurant that recently opened up and I think it has the best looking interior of any restaurant in Kuwait.

The restaurant is part of the Napkin Affair group who also own the concepts Ubon, Ananas, Simsim, and Mana. They designed all their restaurants in house and until recently I had thought Ananas was their best work, but not anymore. So far I’ve been to The Cardamom Club twice and on both occasions, I thought the food was average but the interior really beautiful.

If you’re looking for a new place to try out you should give The Cardamom Club a visit, they’re located in Kuwait City right next to the pizza place Pinocchio’s. Here is their location on [Google Maps] and their instagram account is @cardamom.club




Categories
Events Things to do

Things to do in Kuwait this Weekend

Below is this weekends list of events and a bunch of interesting things happening including two events at the race track, the Drag Racing Championship and the Open Track. As usual, if I missed anything, let me know in the comments:

Thursday
Exhibition: RE_USE
Visual Art Exhibition at American International School Kuwait
Exhibition: Laura Boushnak | Read | Write
Thriller Live
Kuwait International Drag Racing Championship – Round 2
Food Festival

Friday
Exhibition: RE_USE
Exhibition: Laura Boushnak | Read | Write
Thriller Live
Kuwait International Drag Racing Championship – Round 2
Food Festival
French Bazar
Alsouq Market

Saturday
Exhibition: RE_USE
Exhibition: Laura Boushnak | Read | Write
Thriller Live
Food Festival
Shinsawi: Outdoor Basketball
Yoga & Art
KMT Open Track

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.




Categories
Movies

Movies Showing in Kuwait this Weekend


Screenshot from Us

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

New This Weekend:
Five Feet Apart (7.2)
Manou the Swift (7.6)
Mirai (7.1)
The Brand New Adventures of Aladdin (3.0)
Us (7.3)

Other Movies Showing Now:
Alita: Battle Angel (7.6)
BOO! (4.2)
Captain Marvel (6.0)
Cold Pursuit (7.3)
Escape Room (6.4)
Fighting with My Family (7.8)
Greta (6.1)
How to Train Your Dragon: The Hidden World (7.9)
Spider-Man: Into the Spider-Verse (8.6)
Take Point (5.7)
The Hole in the Ground (5.8)
Wonder Park (7.1)

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)
Penguins (6.7)
Planet Power 3D (N/A)

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




Categories
Funny Shopping

7-Eleven now… Eleven

Last year 7-Eleven opened their first location in Kuwait, but I passed by it recently and it looks like they’ve rebranded to just Eleven. I guess they either lost the franchise or were never official and so were forced to rename the place. Awkward.




Categories
News

Quality of Living in our Region 2018

Mercer’s Quality of Living rankings list was recently released and the regional order has pretty much remained unchanged. I thought Saudi Arabia might move up from the previous years because of the recent changes that have taken place there but their ranking hasn’t really changed. Mercer puts together this list by evaluating a number of factors including recreation, housing, economic environment, consumer goods availability, public services and transport, political and social environment, natural environment, socio-cultural environment, school and education and medical and health considerations.

1 – Vienna, Austria
74 – Dubai, United Arab Emirates
78 – Abu Dhabi, United Arab Emirates
105 – Muscat, Oman
110 – Doha, Qatar
126 – Kuwait City, Kuwait
136 – Manama, Bahrain
164 – Riyadh, Saudi Arabia
168 – Jeddah, Saudi Arabia
231 – Baghdad, Iraq

The list above shows Kuwait’s ranking compared to neighboring countries but if you’d like to see how your home country ranks in the world, you can check out the full list on Mercer’s website [Here]

Thanks Basmah




Categories
Information Travel

Guide: How to update your Civil ID’s name to match your passport’s

Recently a decision was made to cancel the use of residency stickers inside passports. Instead, you’ll need to have a valid Civil ID card when traveling as a means of verifying your residency. The name on the Civil ID card has to match your name in your passport or you’ll risk being denied travel in or out of Kuwait. Having weird spellings or incorrect data on the Civil ID is pretty common, so if your info doesn’t match your passport, you now have to fix it. Yesterday someone on Reddit posted the steps below on how to go about doing this:

Step 1) Go to the PACI eEnvelope system website, if the website is in Arabic you can change the language to English, there’s an option at the top of the page

Step 2) Click on non-Kuwaiti Renewal

Step 3) Enter your Civil ID and serial no. which is shown on the back

Step 4) You’ll have to verify your mobile no. so they’ll send you a verification SMS

Step 5) Enter all data required (blood type is optional but if that needs changing too then you’ll need to also upload a lab report)

Step 6) Upload the required documents

Step 7) You’ll be sent an application’s reference number to your registered mobile no., which you can use to track your application’s progress

Step 8) Wait and wait, this will take a few days as your application needs to be checked manually, once it’s approved you’ll be sent a link on your mobile to make the payment of KD5, after that you’ll just go have to go to South Surra to replace your old ID with the new one

Thanks Stafa!




Categories
Movies

The Top 20 Films of 2018 (According to Tarek’s humble opinion)

Hey, this is your local film buff checking in on my yearly visit to this blog to spout out my favorite films of the year (because my opinion is right and everyone else is wrong).

Disclaimer: At the time of writing this article, I hadn’t seen the following highly acclaimed films that might have had a spot otherwise: Border, Caphernaum, Minding the Gap, The Rider, and Suspiria

Note: This year has proven to be one of the worst years for Hollywood Big Studio films, but an incredible year for independent cinema. As such, you may have never heard of some of the films listed below, but how boring would it be if I wrote this entire giant article just talking about films you already know. Wouldn’t it be great to be recommended stuff you haven’t heard of, so you can find it in you to take a risk and watch it? Who knows, you might find yourself surprised to discover a gem you would have never searched for otherwise…




Categories
Automotive

Draewil Car Booking App

Draewil is a car booking app similar to Uber and Careem, but is meant to compete more with the likes of Grand Limo. They got in touch with me a couple of weeks back and asked me to try them out, and it was perfect timing since I had to drop my Lotus off at the garage to get new brake pads.

One of the biggest advantages Draewil has over Grand Limo is the app itself. It looked better, worked a lot faster and payment is automated since you can add your knet card to the app. I got KD20 credit loaded up into my account by Draewil, and so decided to splurge by ordering their Luxury category vehicle. Draewil has three categories to choose from, executive, luxury and SUV with the availability of each being different as well as the cost. I had dropped my car off at the garage in Al Rai and needed a car to drop me off to my office in the city. Their luxury vehicle needed around 17 minutes to get to me which was long, but ok in my case since I still had some paperwork I needed to sign.

I ended up being picked up by a brand new Lexus LS which is cool, but I was actually hoping to be picked up by one of their new Audi A8’s since I hadn’t been in one of those yet. The car had plenty of legroom and was immaculate, but that makes sense since Draewil is fairly new so their cars are all brand new as well. The ride from Al Rai to Kuwait City ended up taking 18 mins and cost me KD7.250.

The second time I tried them out was the same day when I wanted to head back to the garage to pick up my Lotus. I ended up ordering their executive car and had it pick me up from Crystal Tower in the city. There was a vehicle in the area so it took just 2 minutes to pick me up. This time I was picked up by a Genesis, another car I hadn’t been in before. Surprisingly, the car was as comfortable as the Lexus and even felt a bit more spacious since the Genesis didn’t have a large TV console between me and the driver. The journey again took 18 minutes, but because I chose an executive vehicle, the price came out slightly cheaper at KD6.

So would I use them again? Yeah, probably. I don’t generally use cabs a lot only when I need to drop my car off somewhere like when I want to get detailing done or if I’m servicing it, so I can afford to splurge on a cab on the rare occasion that I need one. The biggest advantage to me for using Draewil over similar luxury car booking services is the app, I like it a lot. It’s really easy to use, I’ve already added my most used destinations to it like my office, my home, the garage etc and I’ve also added my knet card to it. The service is also new so their cars are brand new and they’re still adding more vehicles to their fleet on a monthly basis. At the moment Draewil is only out for iOS devices, but I was told an Android app is being released before the end of the month. If you have an iPhone, you can download the app right now from the Apple Store by clicking [Here]




Categories
Promoted

PROMOTED: Trolley Convenience Store

Trolley is one the largest convenience store chains located in Kuwait, with 37+ branches and counting, you might think we’re only at gas stations OULA, KNPC, and ALFA but no, we also have stand-alone stores like AlShaheed park, Platinum GYM’s, Avenues, ‘Noor Complex’ Salem AlMubarak etc…

Trolley is open 24/7 with exclusive items that you can order on through [Talabat]

Available at Trolley:
• Starbucks kiosk
• The Coffee Bean kiosk
• Imported chocolates, sweets and drinks
• Mini toiletries
• Car accessories
• Board games
• Mobile accessories
• Protein bars
• Dunkin Donuts doughnuts
• Food to go (Caesars, Oishii Sushi and Diet Care etc..)




Categories
Automotive

Online Driving License Renewal Soon

Back in January I read that the driving license renewal process will be moving online similar to how the Civil ID renewal process is right now. Looks like its going to happen soon since a few days ago while renewing my car registration I spotted the driving license renewing machines above. This service is going to be available to Kuwaitis first followed by expats at a later stage. Hopefully, by the time I have to renew my license in May this service is going to be up and running because the process right now is a complete mess.

Previously, expats were able to renew their license for 10 years but a couple of years ago they limited it to match your residency (so 1 or 2 years) and that caught the traffic department off guard. They weren’t prepared for the amount of people who would be renewing on a daily basis and so the process became an unorganized mess with extremely long lines and multiple visits. Just thinking about renewing my license is giving me anxiety right now…




Categories
Blog Info

New Look!

Yesterday I launched the new and improved look for the blog which I worked on with the team at Wavai. I tried to keep everything mostly in the same place, I just cleaned up and simplified the layout a bit. The biggest change is that the blog is now finally mobile-phone friendly. If you access the blog from your phone (which 65% of you do), then you’re going to see a much simpler and clearer 1-column layout.

There are a lot of issues that still need to be worked out with the new design, and I’m still working on a lot of random little things behind the scenes so please be patient. It’s probably going to take a couple of more weeks for me to finish everything. Once I’m done with the main page I’ll work on applying the new look to all the other sections on the blog like the Events page and Classifieds. For now, let me know what you think.




Categories
Events Things to do

Things to do in Kuwait this Weekend

Below is this weekends list of events. As usual if I missed anything, let me know in the comments:

Thursday
Exhibition: RE_USE
Garden of Lights Festival
Sky Expo
The Divan’s Movie Night – An Evening of Kuwaiti Short FIlms

Friday
Exhibition: RE_USE
Garden of Lights Festival
Jaguar – The Art of Performance Tour
Motocross International Race
Charity Car Meet Up at BACCH
Chamber Music and Dinner

Saturday
Exhibition: RE_USE
Jaguar – The Art of Performance Tour
Motocross International Race
Feed Market
KES Art & DT Exhibition
Shinsawi: Go Karting
Turathi – Open Day for Children

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.




Categories
Movies

Movies Showing in Kuwait this Weekend


Screenshot from The Hole in the Ground

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

New This Weekend:
Better Start Running (5.2)
The Hole in the Ground (5.8)
Wonder Park (7.1)

Other Movies Showing Now:
Alita: Battle Angel (7.6)
BOO! (4.2)
Captain Marvel (6.0)
Cold Pursuit (7.3)
Escape Room (6.4)
Fighting with My Family (7.8)
Greta (6.1)
How to Train Your Dragon: The Hidden World (7.9)
Spider-Man: Into the Spider-Verse (8.6)
Take Point (5.7)
The Lego Movie 2: The Second Part (7.4)
Toys & Pets (6.4)

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)
Penguins (6.7)
Planet Power 3D (N/A)

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