Tiger Tiger
Originally a pop-up restaurant, Tiger Tiger is finally opening up a physical location and its going to be located at the end of the same strip where Gia, Joa and Habra are located in Kuwait City. Tiger Tiger will be located where Shisha Bar used to be.
White Robata
The owner of Slider Station and Burger Boutique is opening a robata restaurant at the Sheikh Jaber Al Ahmad Cultural Centre called White Robata.
Sintoho
Opening at the beginning of September, Sintoho will be a fine dining Pan-Asian restaurant that will be located on the rooftop of the soon to open Four Seasons Hotel.
For those of you wondering what that huge plume of smoke in Kuwait City was, according to Al Rai newspaper it was a bunch of tire garages that caught fire. The fire is under control now and no injuries were reported. For more pictures click [Here]
Forbes released a list of Top 100 Most Powerful Arab Businesswomen and 10 Kuwaiti women made it on the list. UAE had the most amount of women on the list with a total of 16 while the top position went to the Saudi Arabian Lubna S. Olayan. Below are all of the Kuwaiti women who made the list along with their rankings and their job titles:
8 – Shaikha Al Bahar (Deputy Group CEO – NBK)
10- Henadi Al Saleh (Chair – Agility)
15- Eaman Al Roudhan (CEO – Zain)
34 – Hosnia Hashem (Deputy CEO – KPIC)
38 – Suad Hamad Al Saleh Al Homaizy (Board Member – Bank Audi)
46 – Sara Akbar (CEO – Kuwait Energy)
48 – Ghada Y. Al-Amer (Vice President – KUFPEC)
59 – May Al Mudhaf (CEO – National Bank of Abu Dhabi)
73 – Ghosson Al Khaled (Deputy CEO – ACICO)
98 – Nawal Mulla-Hussain (COO – Global Investment House)
To check out the full list and for more details, click [Here]
I’m in California for the next two weeks on vacation so my posting timings will be a bit different from usual. The last time I went on holiday was last September and it was just a week in Bulgaria so I’m really looking forward to this break.
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!
Timmycatdog (Taymour Khajah) has a new music video out for his track “Flower Power”. The video also features appearances by Mosab, The Goddess Dalal and Turk Himself. If you like the track you can follow Taymour on instagram @timmycatdog
The Scientific Center will have discounted tickets for Secret Ocean 3D this weekend up till July 27th because of Shark Week. The discounted ticket price is KD3.
Numbers in brackets refer to the IMDB rating at time of publishing.
★ is for movies I’m interested in. ♦ implies movie might contain censorship.
This is going to be one of my venting posts on Salmiya. The sidewalks situation on Salem Mubarek Street in Salmiya is a horrible mess. It’s a very pedestrian heavy strip, and probably gets the most amount of foot traffic compared to any other strip in Kuwait, yet the sidewalks are miserable.
There are a number of issues with the sidewalks in Salmiya including:
– lack of wheelchair or stroller friendly sidewalks
– building construction occupying the whole sidewalk
– large bushes taking up the whole sidewalk (pictured above)
– sidewalks that have deteriorated
– sidewalks that were opened up for work but never put back together right
Yesterday I spotted the woman in the photo above with her two kids having to get off the sidewalk and walk in the street because of a large bush. Recently I’ve also been noticing a man in an electric wheelchair roaming around Salmiya occupying the same road as the cars. It’s a total mess but of course nobody cares.
Mark Lowey (AbuJack), a construction project management professional and an amateur photographer lived in Kuwait between 1985 and 1988. The past few months he’s been scanning and posting some of the pictures he took during his time in Kuwait (and KSA) on his twitter account. I’ve taken a few of his photos along with the captions and shared them here but you can check out more photos on his twitter account @molowey
High technology in 1987?
A man and his dog, Mangaf Beach, Kuwait in 1988.
Shopping in Fahaheel, 1988.
Jack bin Mark and neighbor friends in Mangaf, Kuwait, 1988. (One cool kid has a sling-shot.)
Toshiba power plant at Mina Al-Zoor in southern Kuwait. Under construction in 1985; nearly completed in 1987.
Interpol released a list of the 24 most wanted Britons in the world and a reader recognized one of them as the child sex offender who previously taught in Kuwait. Paul Meekin whom I posted about back in 2014 was teaching Social Studies at one of the local American schools before he quit and left Kuwait. He was later suspected of using forged documents to teach here and it looks like he still hasn’t been caught.
You can check out all 24 wanted criminals by clicking [Here]
Yesterday I dropped by the soon to open Four Seasons Hotel in Kuwait City for a quick tour. I hadn’t been there since back in September when the place was still mostly under construction so I was pretty excited to see how things turned out. My first impressions of the place is that its simply stunning and very tastefully done. It’s has a very contemporary look yet with some Arabic elements injected into the design. It’s going to be by far the best looking hotel in Kuwait.
Four Seasons will be soft launching in around 2 weeks time with the official opening at the beginning of September. From the five restaurants they have, the following three will open up during the soft launch:
Dai Forni – An Italian restaurant
Elements – A buffet restaurant
Al Sour – The lobby lounge
Sintoho the Pan-Asian restaurant and Al Bandar, the poolside lounge/restaurant will both open in September. The outdoor pool will also open in September while the indoor one will be open during the soft launch. Finally, the Aveda salon (for men and women) will also be opening up as part of the soft launch.
I took a few quick photos during my tour which you can check out below. Since I was also taking photos with my phone for my instagram story, I realized later that there were some shots I forgot to take with my regular camera. So check out the photos below and once you’re done head over to my instagram account @mark248am and check out my story there (from your phone). It should be up till around 3PM.
Four Seasons Kuwait is located in Kuwait City [Google Maps]
Update: As of August 14th the hotel has still not opened
I doubt anyone still watches KTV, but if for some very odd reason you feel like watching it, the Ministry of Information has live streams available on their website. All in all there are 8 KTV channels available to stream and you can check them all out [Here]
The popular breakfast spot The Early Bird is expanding with two new locations. The first (pictured above) is going to be located in Central Plaza Salmiya, the same mall that houses International Optics and Costa Coffee.
The second new location and the one I’m interested in is going to be in Crystal Tower in Kuwait City. It’s the same tower as my gym and right across the street from Arabica Coffee.
Movies get censored in Kuwait, thats a fact and no matter how much we complain about it there isn’t anything that can be done. Knowing and accepting movies get censored, how can movie theaters improve the experience for movie goers? One reader proposed an idea recently in the comments and it got me thinking, why haven’t local movie theaters implemented his idea yet?
The reader (Ally) suggested that local movie theaters should start declaring if a movie has been censored or not, and if it has been, then they should declare the duration that was cut and what was cut. So for example:
Right now with my weekly movies list, I check the films content advisory on IMDB, and if I read that there is nudity or scenes of sexuality, I mark the movie on the list that it might contain censorship. But this isn’t accurate and a lot of times movies I marked as not containing censorship ended up being censored. The most accurate way right now to tell if a movie is censored or not is to ask someone who has already watched it, but that isn’t practical obviously.
So Cinescape and Grand Cinemas, if you’re reading this, start being transparent with us, let us know if a movie is censored or not.
I wasn’t planning on posting about the DJI Spark until I got to use it on my upcoming trip, but because of the amount of interest I got on it from my instagram story and twitter over the weekend, I decided I’d at least post my first impression. First full disclosure, DJI released the Spark last month and when I saw Xcite had a preorder page for it, I got in touch with them and asked them if they could send me one over to review. They couldn’t get me a Spark from their first shipment since it quickly sold out, but Thursday they got in touch with me to let me know they secured me a drone from their second shipment and I passed by and picked it up.
The DJI Spark is tiny, like super tiny. Its around the same size as my iPhone 6 and it weighs just 300 grams. But don’t let the size fool you, this isn’t an indoor drone and it’s packed with advanced features of its older brothers. I’m not going to go into too many details since there are a ton of YouTube videos that do that, but I will highlight some things in this post which I think are cool.
There are three ways to control the Spark, either with your phone, with the optional remote, or using hand gestures. The last one is a bit of a gimmick but it works and it can be useful.
Hand Gestures
The Spark has a sensor at the front that will recognize your face and then detect your hand gestures which you can use to control the drone. You wave goodbye at the drone and it will fly up and hover away from you. You want it to snap a photo of you? Just give it the correct gesture and it will take your photo. This is pretty cool because it keeps things simple for those who don’t want more out of the drone other than snapping selfies. You can watch the video above of how this works.
Using Your Phone
The Spark doesn’t come with a remote control, instead you can download an app onto your phone and use it to control the drone using wifi. This means you don’t have to carry a remote around which keeps the Spark portable. The only downside is that the Spark’s flight height is limited to 50 meters and the flight range to just 100m when using the phone due to the wifi’s limited range. The top speed is also limited to 20km/h.
Remote Control
The first thing I did after picking up the Spark was buy the optional remote control. Personally I can’t use virtual control sticks in apps, maybe I’m old fashioned but I like physical buttons and joysticks. The second reason I wanted to get the remote control was because it increases the flight height from 50m to 500m and the flight range from 100m up to 2KM. That’s a HUGE increase. With the remote control you can also put the drone into sport mode which increases the top speed to 50kmh. Really impressive specs for something so freakin tiny. I still can’t believe how high it can fly.
I spent the weekend playing around with the Spark and as a complete drone newbie, I did find the experience overwhelming at first but that’s probably because I didn’t read any instructions and just winged it. Friday morning I woke up early and headed to my favorite open area in the desert to take some photos. There was an overcast so my photos were coming out very flat and dull, but I did manage to take one photo which I added to my instagram story. Saturday morning I decided to take the drone near Scientific Center and fly it there, that was a pretty scary experience because when I told the drone to come home and land, I freaked out because I got worried it would decide to land in the sea. It did’t thankfully and instead came back down to it’s original launching point. That same afternoon I wanted to see if I could fly the drone from my hand and then have it land back in my hand when I was done, all without having to leave my car. It worked! Because the drone is so tiny you could use your palm as a launch and landing pad.
If you’re a beginner like me, the drone has a bunch of automated and smart flying modes that will make your videos look professionally shot including:
Active Track: You highlight the subject you want the Spark to follow and it will follow it Tripod: Keeps the drone stable and slow allowing you to film cinematic shots Rocket: Starts filming you from eye level and then flies straight up while still focusing on you Dronie: Starts filming you from eye level and then angles out and away from you while still keeping you in focus Circle: The Spark films you while rotating around you Helix: Rocket + Circle combined
Battery life is my only issue with the Spark so far. The total flight time is just 16 minutes which isn’t a lot especially if you factor in the time it will take you to get to the height you want, position your drone and also the amount of time the drone needs to fly back down to you. You’re definitely gonna need more batteries and I already ordered 2 from Amazon and they’ll be waiting for me in L.A. when I get there end of the week.
Overall I love this little thing. It kinda feels like having an invisible photographer friend with you everywhere you go. When I went out to the desert to take some photos, I tried the active tracking feature and had the Spark follow my car around shooting video of it while I was driving. In the winter when I go snowboarding I could have the Spark follow me shooting video of me face planting all the way down the slope. It’s tiny and light enough to take everywhere with you which is why I’m looking forward to using it on my trip.
If you’re interested in the DJI Spark, Xcite are selling them for KD169. Here is the [Link]
