Categories
Mags & Books

English Books at the International Book Fair

In case you weren’t aware, there are English books being sold at the International Book Fair that’s taking place at the fairgrounds. If you visit hall 6 there are two aisles dedicated to just English books. I passed by over the weekend and picked up some beautifully illustrated English books myself: I Want My Hat Back, This Is Not My Hat and We Found A Hat. They cost KD4 each on Amazon but they were being sold for KD3 each at the fair. So pass by the if you’re looking for English books.

For more information on the fair including the timings, click [Here]




Categories
Food & Drinks

30 Minutes or Less Delivery

Ever since Elevation Burger started offering delivery on Carriage I’ve been harassing them to let me in on their secret, how are they the only ones on Carriage able to deliver in 30 minutes or less? I’m always super curious about how things work and I really wanted to know how they were doing this. My assumption was that they must have worked out some sort of deal with Carriage where their drivers would just camp outside the Elevation stores waiting for the orders because I couldn’t figure out how else they managed this. I finally sat down with Elevation last week to hear how the backend works and turns out, it’s a bit more complicated than that. So there are two parts to the formula on making the 30 minutes or less delivery happen, one involves Elevation, the other Carriage. So how does it work? If you’re curious read on.

Elevation Burger
From Elevations side, to make the 30-minutes or less delivery time they first needed to be able to get the food prepared as quickly as possible. That involved upgrading their kitchens as well as lots of staff training. This allowed them to bring down the prep time down considerably while remaining consistent. By having a consistent and short prep time, Carriage would be able to send their drivers a lot earlier to pick up the food. The second thing Elevation did was to limit the delivery locations to 30-minute radiuses around their branches. This limited their overall delivery radius around Kuwait, but it allowed them to keep their fast delivery speed.

Carriage
The other side of the equation is Carriage. Because they know exactly how long a meal takes to be prepared at Elevation, they are able to disperse their drivers a lot sooner than they would usually do. Carriage also have an algorithm that can predict based on the time of day where most of the orders will come from. So for example Carriage knows that at 2PM a lot of people in one area order a lot from specific restaurants. So they’d send their drivers ahead of time to that area near those specific restaurants in preparation for the spike they’re expecting. Elevation is one of the brands on Carriage that have a lot of orders so Carriage drivers are usually located near their branches. For example at Seef, drivers tend to hang around the parking lot near Elevation because of the fact that location has a number of restaurants like Prime & Toast, Pizetta and The Burger Hub while also being close to other popular restaurants further down the street like Joa, Gia and Eighty Six.

So in summary, the combination of a consistently fast prep time, a lot of branches and Carriage drivers always being close by is how you end up with a delivery time that’s under 30-minutes. Currently, only Elevation seems to be delivering in under 30-minutes but from what I’ve been told, more restaurants are trying to get in on this as well.




Categories
Events Things to do

Things to do in Kuwait this Weekend

Crazy amount of things to do over this weekend with lots of musical events, two comedy shows and some exhibitions and even a marathon taking place. Check out the full list of events below:

Thursday
Exhibition: The Box
Watercolor Exhibition: Yasmin Al-Mutawa
42nd International Book Fair
#WHATIFITWEREME
Back with IMPROVengeance
Modern Heritage Festival: Eskenderella

Friday
42nd International Book Fair
#WHATIFITWEREME
London Symphony Orchestra – Music of the Twentieth Century (Contemporary)
British Ladies Society Bazaar
Stargazing in Al Salmi Desert
The Warehouse Series Vol.1
Charity Gala Concert
Nemr Stand Up Comedy

Saturday
42nd International Book Fair
#WHATIFITWEREME
Yoga with the 3
Gulf Bank 642 Marathon 2017
Car Museum and House of Mirrors Tour
Guided Tour: Arab Organization Headquarters
Born to Walk
London Symphony Orchestra – Music of the Nineteenth Century (Classical)
Kuwait Jazz Collective

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

The movies below are now showing at either Cinescape, Grand Cinemas or Sky Cinemas:

New This Week:
Earth: One Amazing Day
Justice League (8.1)
Monster Island (5.0)
Wonder (7.2)

Other Movies Showing:
6 Below: Miracle on the Mountain (5.6) ♦
Geostorm (6.9)
Jigsaw (8.4)
Murder on the Orient Express (6.7)
On Wings of Eagles (6.9)
Only the Brave (8.1)
Suburbicon (4.7) ♦
Thank You for Your Service (6.5) ♦
The LEGO Ninjago Movie (6.8)
The Little Vampire (5.7)
Thor: Ragnarok (8.2)
Victoria and Abdul (6.1)

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

A Beautiful Planet 3D (7.9)
Dream Big 3D (7.9)
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.




Categories
Mags & Books

Kuwait’s 42nd International Book Fair

bookfair

The 42nd International Book Fair starts today at the Kuwait International Fairground. This is the largest book fair that takes place in Kuwait and is spread out across three halls. The book fair will be there for the next 10 days so if you’re interested in checking it out and need more details, click [Here]




Categories
Fashion

Bloomingdale’s Kuwait to Bring Menswear

According to a contact of mine at Bloomingdale’s, the Kuwait branch might eventually start carrying menswear at their store in 360 Mall. Currently, they only sell womenswear but starting soon they’re going to start selling some men’s accessories as well. Next month they’re also going to bring their exclusive collection by Les Benajmins to Kuwait.

I personally think they should bring menswear and I never understood why they didn’t have it initially at launch. Right now I seem to be spending all my money at Allsaints which I don’t mind, but I’m also starting to look like an Allsaints billboard. So having more options works for me.




Categories
50s to 90s

Ice Skating Rink Arcade

Someone tagged me on this short video the other day that shows parts of the ice skating rink arcade area during the early 90s. If you used to hang out at the ice skating rink back then like I did, then you’ll appreciate this.




Categories
Fashion

Where to Find Swarovski Crystals in Kuwait

On more than one occasion I’ve been asked if I know a place that sells Swarovski crystals, usually by girls who might have had a crystal element fall off their shoe, purse or some other kind of accessory. I’ve previously sent them to Barakat but because they don’t have that big of a collection of elements, the girls usually don’t find what they’re looking for.

Yesterday I was heading from my gym to MEAT by foot and spotted this small place with jars on display in the window. I was curious so I got closer but I still couldn’t really tell what was inside the jars, so I walked into the shop to get a closer look. Turns out the shop was covered in these jars and inside each one were different kinds of Swarovski crystals. It was just a shop dedicated to selling Swarovski crystals.

So if you ever need any crystals to replace ones that have fallen off, you probably won’t find a place in Kuwait with a larger collection than this place. The shop is located behind Crystal Tower in Kuwait City [Google Maps] and their phone number is 22419172.




Categories
Events Food & Drinks

Qout Market is Coming Back

Starting from next month, Qout Market will be starting back up again and go on until March. Last year Qout Market took place at Al Shaheed Park Phase I and this year its going to take place at Al Shaheed Park again, but this time around, it’s going to be in Phase II next to the musical fountain. The first Qout Market should take place on Saturday, December 2nd.

To stay posted on the upcoming markets, you can follow Qout on instagram @qoutmarket




Categories
Kuwait

What Earthquake?

Am I the only one in Kuwait who didn’t feel the earthquake. A short while ago my phone and twitter blew up asking me if I had felt the earthquake. I didn’t! I was shopping with a friend at Wholesome Foods when the earthquake hit and neither me nor my friend felt anything. So weird, I feel like I’ve totally missed out!




Categories
Promoted

Sponsored: Carriage – Now Delivering Flowers on Demand

We’ve officially started delivering flowers! You can switch from restaurants to flowers from the little fork and knife icon on the bottom right. Our flower delivery is ON DEMAND, which means it’s the perfect solution for forgetting your mom’s birthday, because you can have it delivered to her within an hour.

Our newest feature is the “Go Green” one which allows you to opt out of having all the unnecessary cutlery and napkins that you were going to throw away anyway, especially if you’re ordering in. Every little bit helps!

Our new working hours are now from 6:30am to 1:00am.
Download Carriage on iOS and Android.




Categories
Interesting

50 Days in Kuwait with Anna

If you’re a regular at the coffee shop Arabica, you might have noticed an American barista working there a few months ago called Anna. She was here temporarily as part of a barista exchange program, and after she went back to Japan she wrote about her experiences in Kuwait. You can check out the quick Q&A [Here]




Categories
Events

IMPROV Comedy Night this Thursday!

improv

The Staged in Kuwait IMPROV Comedy Night is back this Thursday with a show titled “Back with IMPROVengeance”. Their improv nights are one of the best kept secrets in Kuwait (well at least were a secret) and is by far my favorite comedy show in Kuwait. I actually try to go to everyone of them and have been going to them for the past 3 years.

If you’ve never been to any of their shows I highly recommend you do so. For the event flyer and link to tickets, click [Here]




Categories
Information Shopping

New Brands Opening at Assima Mall

Last month I posted that the UFC Gym would be opening up at Assima Mall, but since then Assima have announced that a few other brands will also be opening there.

The upmarket French department store Galeries Lafayette, the French retail chain Monoprix and the National Geographic store are three new brands that will be opening at Assima. The Assima project is located in Kuwait City across from KIPCO Tower and is expected to be completed in 2019.

For more information on Assima, you can visit their website [Here]

Thanks Zaydoun




Categories
Events Things to do

Things to do in Kuwait this Weekend

The weekend events are starting to pick up again with a ton of stuff taking place over the next few days. Check out the list below for some of the most interesting events taking place around Kuwait:

Thursday
Exhibition: The Box
Exhibition: Mohammed Ahmed Ibrahim
Arts & Crafts Decopatch
Live Music: Be Cafe Opening
Live Music: Armored Groove
Movie Night: The Founder
Barba Private Dinner: Sleepy Hollow

Friday
Arts & Crafts Decopatch
Live Music: The Afterthought

Saturday
Run Kuwait
Arts & Crafts Decopatch
Guided Tour: Grand Mosque
KTAA Winter Bazaar
Beach Cleanup
Chess & Backgammon
Live Music: The Bandaids

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.