2:48AM - Entertaining Kuwait since 2003A lion was on the loose in Kabd earlier today. The video above went viral quickly and so did the authorities when it came to capturing it. According to KUNA, the security police along with the environment police managed to capture the lion and take it to the zoo. They believe the lion escaped from his owner who had kept him as a pet.
Surprisingly according to the news article, the maximum penalty for owning a lion is three years in jail or just KD50 fine. [Link]
A few readers emailed me to let me know that access between the new Jazeera terminal and the main terminal has been closed off. Previously you could walk from one terminal to another which was convenient since the Jazeera Terminal didn’t have enough seating nor any duty-free shops or restaurants.
I don’t have any idea why they closed access but it sucks that they did. From what I have been told, the only thing open at the Jazeera Airways terminal right now is a Costa that has the longest queue in the world. Not fun.
Over the years Cinescape has gotten multiple of new logos with the last one being in 2014. My first impression, I don’t think I like it. I think my biggest issue with the new logo is that it’s two different logos slapped together to make one.
The red icon with KNCC written under it is the logo of the Kuwait National Cinema Company. Then you have the Cinescape wording with its unique typeface and sideways letter A “<" forming a secondary logo. In usage, they're either using the wording Cinescape with the KNCC icon combined as above, or they're using the < as their icon by itself. So they're flip-flopping between two icons constantly and that seems messy. I also see the shape < in two places, the first in the Cinescape wording and in the second in the red KNCC icon which makes it repetitive.
Their previous logo didn’t have the KNCC logo attached to it so not sure why they’ve attaching it now in this one. Personally, I think I might have preferred it simpler like in my mockup above. That way they can use the < as their icon when they want to and not have a secondary confusing icon next to the brand. I'm curious to see how the brand will develop over the next few months once all their theaters get the new facelift.
Screenshot from The Equalizer 2
The movies below are now showing at Cinescape, Grand Cinemas, Sky Cinemas and VOX:
New This Weekend:
BlacKkKlansman (7.7) ★ ♦
Christopher Robin (7.9) ★
Crazy Rich Asians (7.2)
Down a Dark Hall (6.1) ♦
Harvie and the Magic Museum (6.2)
Help, I Shrunk My Parents (5.7)
Mile 22 (6.6) ★
The Equalizer 2 (7.1) ★
Other Movies Showing Now:
Billionaire Boys Club (5.6) ♦
Incredibles 2 (9.2)
Mission: Impossible – Fallout (8.9) ★
Skyscraper (6.0)
The Meg (6.8)
The Spy Who Dumped Me (6.3) ♦
The movies below are also now showing at the Scientific Center IMAX theater:
Amazon Adventure 3D (6.6)
Amazing Mighty Micro Monsters 3D (7.4)
America Wild: National Parks Adventure (5.9)
Hurricane 3D (7.0)
Tiny Giants 3D (8.0)
Watermelon Magic 3D (7.4)
Numbers in brackets refer to the IMDB rating at time of publishing.
★ is for movies I’m interested in. ♦ implies movie might contain censorship.
I’m in Lebanon on a short vacation which is why posting has been slow this week. I should have posted this at the start of my trip but I originally thought I was going to continue to post normally which I’m clearly not doing.
News tips are appreciated a lot more than usual when I’m on holiday so if you have anything interesting for me to share on this blog, send it in!
For non-coffee drinkers out there, you’ll be interested to know that a new matcha place has opened up in the downtown area, specifically on Coffee Boulevard. The matcha place is called Cha Matchacha and they’re describing themselves as the first matcha bar in Kuwait.
I haven’t tried them since I prefer coffee over matcha, but if you’re looking for a new non-coffee shop to try out, they’re located at the start of Coffee Boulevard, near Koi and Little Purple Door. Here is their location on [Google Maps] and their instagram is @cha_kw.
Screenshot from Blindspotting
The movies below are now showing at Cinescape, Grand Cinemas, Sky Cinemas and VOX:
New This Weekend:
Blindspotting (7.7) ♦
Duck Duck Goose (5.5)
Enchanted Princess (4.6) ♦
The Catcher Was a Spy (6.0)
The Meg (6.8)
Other Movies Showing Now:
Ant-Man and the Wasp (8.0)
Billionaire Boys Club (5.6) ♦
Hotel Transylvania 3: Summer Vacation (6.5)
Incredibles 2 (9.2)
Leo Da Vinci: Mission Mona Lisa (5.4)
Mission: Impossible – Fallout (8.9) ★
Ocean’s Eight (6.3) ★
Our House (5.3)
Patrick (5.8)
PLOEY – You Never Fly Alone (5.5)
Shock and Awe (5.0) ♦
Skyscraper (6.0)
Teen Titans Go! To the Movies (6.8)
The Lullaby (5.8)
The Spy Who Dumped Me (6.3) ♦
The movies below are also now showing at the Scientific Center IMAX theater:
Amazon Adventure 3D (6.6)
Amazing Mighty Micro Monsters 3D (7.4)
America Wild: National Parks Adventure (5.9)
Hurricane 3D (7.0)
Tiny Giants 3D (8.0)
Watermelon Magic 3D (7.4)
Numbers in brackets refer to the IMDB rating at time of publishing.
★ is for movies I’m interested in. ♦ implies movie might contain censorship.
We launched our PantryBee iOS app yesterday and Mark asked me to write about why we made that decision for our business. As a small business with limited cash reserves, it’s always hard to make the decision to invest in a new platform, and it was a year of back and forth before we decided to finally go ahead.
Why did we do it? Well, it’s obvious to everyone that mobile usage is super high in Kuwait, and that a lot of purchases are done through mobile. We knew that, but we also wanted to verify against our own traffic. So after a year of data collection, we did find that most of our users were indeed purchasing PantryBee meal kits from their phone and that the majority of those were iPhone users. Armed with that info we decided to go for it. The biggest hurdle, of course, was cost. We didn’t have thousands of KD to throw on something that might not be useful, so we went about it as economically as we could with the goal of making our customers experience better.
The first step to creating an app is setting up an account with the Apple Developer Program. This honestly wasn’t that difficult of a process, there’s just a bit of waiting time in order to be verified as a legitimate business. The second step for us was finding an appropriate third party to assist with the App creation process. Seeing as we already had an existing e-commerce backend (Shopify), we searched for companies that had an app that would integrate with the Shopify platform. The whole process from A-Z took about 3 months to get to the current app we have out right now.
Though our site is already mobile friendly, our new app allows a more seamless navigation of our offerings, including app-specific promos, notifications and more. It has all the info and products available on our site, just better suited to a mobile experience. So head to the app store and tell us what you think! You can download our app from this [Link]
If you have any specific comments or want to know more about the process for your own business, feel free to email us at [email protected] and we’ll try and help as much as we can.
Post by Hind
CoFounder of PantryBee where home cooking is made easy.
Have you guys been to the Tampopo ramen restaurant yet? I’ve been wanting to go back ever since I posted about them but I’ve just been waiting for the line to get smaller and it doesn’t look like that’s happening anytime soon.
The picture on top was taken by me last week while the picture above was taken by my brother yesterday. If you missed my post on the place, check it out [Here]
The Kind Ones is a local breakfast place located in Mangaf. I’ve never been to it because it’s so out of my way but I recently found out that they’re opening in LA. According to the website Eater LA, The Kind Ones is opening up in Beverly Hills this coming September. This would make them the second local restaurant after Rock House Sliders to open up in LA this year. Like RHS they’ll also have some pretty strong competition there so I’m curious to see how they’ll do.
The local Ferrari dealership is currently running a campaign this week on their Ferrari approved range of pre-owned cars. I passed by their showroom yesterday and they’ve basically removed all their new vehicles and replaced them with pre-owned Ferrari 488’s, Californias, FF’s and even the incredible GTC4Lusso I just recently test drove.
One of the biggest advantages of buying a Ferrari approved car other than getting an extra two years warranty is that the cars have to go through a 190+ point check by the dealership. Any issues that pop up during this check have to be repaired before being given the certification by Ferrari to be allowed to be sold to their customers. So you’re getting a car that’s basically new.
If you don’t have time to pass by the dealership, they have all their pre-owned cars uploaded online and you can check them out [Here]
Barakat is an old school store located in Salmiya that has been open since the early 80s. They sell supplies for knitting, crochet, embroidery, needlework, sewing, weaving, as well as hobby and crafting materials, and magazines relating to all these.
I thought they had closed down their old Salmiya location since they had opened a small shop in Al Bustan Mall, but turns out the original store is still alive and kicking.
I passed by with a friend the other night and it reminded me of when I was a kid and I would accompany my mum. When I was a kid I hated trips to Barakat since I used to get super bored, but now as an adult, I appreciate the place a lot more.
I was tempted to get something, so ended up leaving with a “My First Embroidery” kit of a cute cat. Since I’m always curious to try new things, I figured I could try embroidery for fun and this kit contained everything I needed to learn embroidery.
If you’ve never been to Barakat, you should pass by to check the place out especially if you’re looking for a new hobby to get into. They’re located on the first floor of a building near Beit Dickson Restaurant in Salmiya. Here is the building on [Google Maps]. They’re also on instagram @barakat_kuwait. If you do pass by, make sure you pick up some kunafa from Al Tibawi down the street before you leave the area.
I keep seeing more and more of these stickers on cars, if you hadn’t noticed them before you will now. Do you still have this sticker on your car?
Kuwait Airways launched an outdoor campaign last week to highlight the fact their new terminal is opening this month. One thing I don’t get is the date format they’re using on all their advertising material which is 08-08-08/018. The date doesn’t make any sense.
The new terminal is opening on August 8th with a limited number of flight routes which is already going to be confusing to travelers, and now you have this abstract date format they’re using.
Over the weekend I asked my followers on twitter if they could translate the Kuwait Airways date format and nobody could.
08-08-08
This date is August 8th, 2008.
08-08-08/018
This could be read as August 8th, 2008/2018 although it doesn’t make sense why they’re using 018 and not 18, and what does 2008 have to do with this?
08-08-18
This is the actual date they should be using.
A follower suggested the first 08 might mean represent that fact they’re opening at 8AM but it wouldn’t make sense to insert a time into a date format. IF they could do that it would have at least made more sense to have it 08/08-08-18 for example.
Even with the Kuwait Airways tweet above which says the terminal is opening on 08-08-18 at 8AM, and the first flight will be KU0808, it still doesn’t explain what 08-08-08/018 is. What a confusing mess.
