2:48AM - Entertaining Kuwait since 2003

Not much happening this weekend since everyone is most likely out of town. Stay off the Gulf Road this weekend if you don’t want to be involved in the National and Liberation Day celebrations, and stay safe. Happy weekend everyone.

Thursday
Exhibition: Harmony in the City
Voices & Verses
Celebrate Kuwait at Boulevard Mall
Spaces in Narrative by Mishari AlNajjar

Friday
Exhibition: Harmony in the City
Hatha Yoga with Rosie
Expats Morning Coffee Meetup

Saturday
Exhibition: Harmony in the City
Yoga with the 3

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.

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

New This Week:
A Dog’s Purpose (4.8)
Hidden Figures (7.9)
Mercury Plains (4.3)
Pet (5.7) ♦
Rock Dog (5.7)
The Devil’s Candy (6.7)
Yu-Gi-Oh!: The Dark Side of Dimensions (7.9)

Other Movies Showing:
Gold (6.5) ♦
John Wick: Chapter 2 (9.4) ★
Kung-Fu Yoga (6.2)
La La Land (8.9) ♦
Ozzy (5.6)
Resident Evil: The Final Chapter (7.0)
Rings (4.6)
Split (7.5) ♦
The Last Face (2.8) ♦
The LEGO Batman Movie (8.1)
xXx: Return of Xander Cage (5.6) ♦

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

A Beautiful Planet 3D (7.9)
Flying Monsters 3D with David Attenborough (7.6)
Humpback Whales 3D (7.2)
Jean-Michel Cousteau’s Secret Ocean 3D (N/A)
Journey to Space 3D (6.5)
Kenya 3D: Animal Kingdom (6.0)
Mysteries of the Unseen World 3D (7.5)

Numbers in brackets refer to the IMDB rating at time of publishing.
★ is for movies I’m interested in. ♦ implies movie might contain censorship.

The Associated Press published an article yesterday on how the new Jaber Hospital will only be for Kuwaitis and also how in general, Kuwait is becoming a lot more aggressive towards expats living here while also making their lives more difficult. The article got picked up by The Washington Post as well as a number of other international publications. This is obviously not something new, but the fact it’s being brought to light by foreign press makes me wonder if more of this negative publicity might actually result in the government backing down and easing things on expats.

Expats in Kuwait have been feeling unwanted for years but with the government recently being pretty trigger happy with deportations, expats probably feel unwanted now more than ever. It’s why expats are always looking for an exit plan. To top it off, the antiquated sponsorship system, the lack of permanent residency and the lack of ability to purchase a home or fully own a business just add to this unwanted feeling.

Check out the article in The Washington Post [Here]

If you’ve been hanging out in the city recently, you might have spotted various yellow colored posters around the coffee district with the hashtag #FilipoTakesKuwait. Typing the hashtag in instagram will lead you to @filipothefilipino where you’ll find very little information as well. So what is it all about?

Filipo The Filipino is going to be a pop-up event thats going to be taking place over two days early next month. The guys behind it are bringing in a Filipino chef from the Michelin Star restaurant “L’Atelier de Joël Robuchon” to serve a menu he created that will include deconstructed popular Filipino dishes like Adobo and Halo Halo.

The event will be taking place at the beautiful Al Khaled Diwan thats located right next to the Sadu House on the Gulf Road. For more details on the event including exact date and a map, click [Here]

There is a low detail 3D walkthrough video of the new Terminal 2 airport available online. It’s divided into two parts, first part is arrival to the airport, checking-in and then heading towards your gate. The second part is getting off the plane and heading to the baggage pickup area. There is no audio in the video and you can skim through it without missing anything important.

Thanks Kutsuit

Guys, if you feel like having a delicious donut, DOH! has a popup at the Food Buzz market thats taking place today and tomorrow at KIPCO Tower. I finally got to try their donuts and damn it was so good. Definitely worth the million calories.

For details on the Food Buzz market, click [Here]

The rendering above is of the new and approved design proposal for the Palace of Justice which was unveiled a few days ago. I think it looks incredible good and I’m so glad they didn’t end up going with a ridiculously tall skyscraper like the new Central Bank building. The project is going to be overseen by the Amiri Diwan which means we can expect it to be completed in the next couple of years.

Thanks ChaoticTranquility!

If you’re looking for a new Mexican place to try out, a Tex-Mex place called La Flor recently opened up in Abu Hassiniya. It’s a small authentic restaurant that’s currently in it’s soft launch phase since they’ve only been open for around a month now. I passed by with a few friends for dinner, one of which had been there a few times already and loves the food. I’m not big on Mexican food myself but their table side prepared guacamole was pretty good and their soft taco was alright. Maybe @randybgoos’s can let us know what he thinks about the place since he’s a big foodie himself AND from Texas.

If you want to try the place out yourself, they’re located in Divonne Complex and their instagram account is @laflorq8. Here is their location on [Google Maps]

Some of you might have already heard about this but for those of you who haven’t, a proposal was put forward to transform Salem Al Mubarak street in old Salmiya (where I live basically) to a pedestrian only street with brand new futuristic looking buildings.

As someone who’s lived on this very street for 30+ years, and as someone who truly loves and experiences this street every single day, I can with full confidence say… none of this is ever gonna materialize.

There is a higher chance that Kuwait will beat UAE to building the first city on Mars, than there is for old Salmiya to transform into this wonderland.

I’m not being pessimistic, I’m just being realistic.

The street is in shambles and the municipality doesn’t care, nobody cares and these renderings to me are a joke, they’re making a mockery of the current situation. It’s like some rich kid passing through some poor village in Africa and decides to stop to take a selfie with some street kids pretending to be helping them out for his instagram account before driving off in his convoy to a luxury resort.

It’s insulting.

There is no way on earth the transformation project will ever happen without demolishing the whole area, kicking out all the low income expats and then rebuilding the street from the ground up, the main street AND all the back streets as well. The metro project? That’s gonna happen. The railway project? That’s gonna happen. Kuwait building a city on Mars? That’s gonna happen. But this Salmiya project, it’s never gonna happen.

If you want to see more renderings on this concept as well as get more information, check out this thread I started on [SkyScraperCity]

There is an underground pedestrian passageway in the city that connects four different street corners together. The passageway is located across from Pick Yo and I was just telling a friend of mine a few weeks back that they should start opening up cafe’s down there. Now it looks like that’s going to happen since a hoarding was recently put up down there teasing a new concept. I tried to find out more about the place but all I was able to get is that they will have coffee and some communal aspect. I’m curious to see how the place will function in the summer since the underground area doesn’t have functioning AC and I doubt whatever opens there will have interior seating. Maybe with all the recent foot traffic the underground has started getting because of all the coffeeshops, the municipality might have decided to fix that area up.

Yesterday while getting my FJ serviced I decided to pass by the dealerships check out if there was anything interesting. One thing I found surprising was the fact a lot of dealerships still had 2015 cars that were unsold. So for example Jeep had a brand new 2015 Grand Cherokee SRT for a heavily discounted price of KD16,000 while a new 2017 model goes for KD24,000. Same with Nissan who had 2015 model year 370’s selling for a heavily discounted price of KD9,000.

Anyway, the cars below are the ones I figured car fanatics might be interested in:

Nearly forgot about this but 12 years ago today, I started 248AM and published my first post. Here’s a line I wrote two years ago but one that still holds true today:

I don’t know how long I will be doing this for, I just know that I really love doing it and I’ll keep doing it as long as you keep coming back here to read what I have to say*. Thank you everyone for being the best readers a blogger could hope for.

*unless I get deported before then

Dear Tourist Enterprises Company, could we please have 90s throwback nights once a month at the ice skating rink?

Back in the early 90s, the ice skating rink was one of the coolest places to hang out in Kuwait. There used to be an arcade over there filled with gaming machines, pool and air hockey tables as well as a small restaurant that served simple food like burgers and fries. The ice skating rink itself used to be packed with people and there was even a DJ that would be pumping out the latest hits. Walking into the ice skating rink felt like walking into a club with now classics like SNAP! – The Power or Soul II Soul – Back To Life blasting loudly over the speakers.

Having a 90s throwback night once a month would be a great way to bring people back to the ice skating rink, DJ Bonita even volunteered to take charge of the music, blasting us with all the great 90s hits. Imagine how much fun that would be? So TEC, lets set it up!

Photo by Junichi Yamaguchi

My favorite coffee place Arabica just opened up their second location in Kuwait and it’s HUGE. The new location which they’ve called the Arabica Roastery consists of two main areas, the main coffeeshop with interior and outdoor seating, and the roastery where they’ll be selling beans to businesses (B2B) as well as offer training on how to make coffee.

Photo by Junichi Yamaguchi

Arabica will also be selling coffee making gear at this location. So for example you’ll be able to buy an AeroPress or a coffee dripper from them, and they’ll show you how to use them properly and get the best tasting coffee out of them. With the new location they’ve also introduced new items on their menu, most notably Matcha Latte and baguette sandwiches.

The new Arabica Roastery is located in Shuwaikh on the same street as Lilly Center and right next to the newly opened Healthy Feast. Their opening hours as of this post is from 4PM to 10PM. Here is their location on [Google Maps] and their instagram is @arabica.kuwait

One of my favorite healthy restaurants just opened up in Shuwaikh a few days back. Healthy Feast is a whole foods restaurant that serves fresh, local, organic and gluten free dishes. I probably pass by their Bneid Al Gar location once a week or so but that location is pretty tiny and difficult to have a conversation with someone without everybody around you eavesdropping. Their new location is a lot bigger and they’ve even added new dishes to the menu.

The new Healthy Feast is located in Shuwaikh on the same street as Lilly Center and right next to the newly opened Arabica Roastery. Their opening hours as of this post is from 3PM to 10PM. Here is their location on [Google Maps] and their instagram is @healthy_feast

If you want to read my previous post on Healthy Feast, click [Here]