2:48AM - Entertaining Kuwait since 2003
Whoever they put in charge of the Jazeera Airways lounge design should have been put in charge of the Pearl Lounge revamp. The new lounge is located next to gate B3 and I’m trying to find out if you can get access to it using certain credit cards but I doubt it.
Even though the MOI website looks like it was designed by a high school student back in 1998, it still gets updated every so often with new features. The latest feature added to the website is the ability for tourists visiting Kuwait to apply for a visa online (eVisa). There is a very short list on the website of nationalities that can use this service, but those nationalities should find this service useful since it will speed up the entry process. Here is the direct link to the eVisa page [Link]
City Group (the company behind CityBus) have introduced a new service called CityVan which is a carpool service. CityVan allows you to select your pick up and drop off locations and then find a carpool option that is available. If there isn’t one available, then you could propose a trip and when enough people want a similar journey then you’ve got yourself a carpool. All the vehicles and drivers belong to City Group so it’s basically a door to door mini-bus service.
Prices vary depending on pick up and drop off locations but just to give you an idea:
Pick up point: Salmiya
Drop off point: Kuwait City
Single Trip: KD1
Return Trip: KD1.5
Weekly Package: KD7
Monthly Package: KD20
Quarterly Package: KD57
So if you go with a quarterly package your return trip will cost you just 650 fils. The service is priced somewhere in the middle between a regular bus ride and a cab service. CityVan just launched so there are not much pools available at the moment but once people start proposing times then pools will start coming together. I love what City Group have been doing recently, first with their airport express busses and now this. If you’re interested to find out more about this service check out the CityVan website [Here]
Thanks Muntasar
The long awaited indie game ‘No Man’s Sky’ was supposed to come out in Kuwait yesterday but got held up at customs so I only was able to get my hands on it a few moments ago. The official worldwide release date is August 9th so Kuwait wins again with another early release date. If you want a copy, I got mine for KD19 from @q8_complex
Posted by Patrick
Back in April I posted that the popular coffee place ARABICA was opening a second location in Shuwaikh, this past weekend I found out that they’re opening another location as well. ARABICA are opening a new third location in the Arraya Plaza, the open air shaded space between Arraya Mall and the parking lot, the same spot where the first Qout Market took place.
The new ARABICA will be called ARABICA Gardenia and was designed by a Japanese architect based in Tokyo. Both ARABICA Gardenia as well as the ARABICA location in Shuwaikh are both expected to open in October.
Update: Due to an issue with the original design, the opening of the Arraya location has now been pushed back to November/December.
Not sure when they started but iHop in Jabriya is now open 24 hours a day. Previously they were just open from 7AM to midnight. I’ve updated the Breakfast Places in Kuwait list accordingly.
Last year Q8Books moved from their Bayt Lothan location in Salmiya to DAI (Dar Al Athar Alislamiyah) since Bayt Lothan closed down. This weekend I finally got to pass by and check out their new space and there were some good stuff and bad stuff.
First the good stuff. Visually I like the new space, it looks better, its spaced out nicer and it feels larger. They have over 15,000 books spread out across three different rooms and they even have a kids room and a reading room. It feels like a cozy high school library.
But there were a few things I didn’t like. The location, Yarmouk where DAI is located is just not as accessible as Salmiya is. It’s not near anything and it’s out of everyones way. DAI is also not a very inviting space, it doesn’t feel or look as casual as Bayt Lothan and you won’t find teens hanging around playing music, skateboarding or anything of the sort at DAI. There were also no Q8Books signs, not outside and not inside. I had to call Fajer who owns the place to ask her where the bookshop was since there was nobody at DAI to ask and no signs pointing towards the shop. Turns out I had to walk to the back of the building and then take the stairs one floor up.
If you’re looking to buy, donate or read books then you should pass by and check the place out. They’re open daily from 5PM to 9PM except on Saturdays when they open from 11AM to 9PM. Once you walk into DAI, walk to the back where there is a seating area and then take the stairs up and you’ll find Q8Books there at the end of the corridor on your left. Here is their location on [Google Maps] and they’re on instagram @q8bookstore
Last month the power went out in my neighborhood for around 8 hours, this weekend it went out for 13. The thing is, it shouldn’t have been out for that long.
At exactly 9PM the power was cut in my neighborhood, the fact it was cut at exactly 9PM leads me to believe this was a planed maintenance cut. The problem though the portable generators like the one pictured above only arrived to my neighborhood at 1AM. There were 8 trucks and by the time they were all connected to the various power transformers around the block, buildings only started getting electricity by 3AM. By 4AM all the buildings got electricity except mine. Now if you’re planning on cutting the power off to hundreds of families in the middle of the hottest month of the year, at the very least have the generators ready to be plugged in ASAP so that people don’t have to suffer. Or, how about notifying the neighborhood by placing posters at the entrance of the buildings that will be affected to let them know that power will be cut off at this day at this time so that people can be prepared.
Now as I mentioned, by 4AM power was restored to all the buildings except mine. So me and some neighbors called up 152 which is the hotline for Electricity & Water Emergency. 152 was pretty useless. They transferred us to the electricity office up the street from my building in Salmiya. We explained to them what the problem was and they told us they had nothing to do with it and that we needed to contact the electricity office in Jabriya. We called Jabriya up and they were like this has nothing to do with us and that we need to contact the Salmiya office. So after running around in circles Jabriya finally agreed to send someone to check it out. by 5:30AM nobody had come yet so we called Jabriya up again. They told us there isn’t anything they can do now since the shift is nearly over and we would have to wait for the new shift at 6AM. 6:15AM we call them back up again, they were like they aren’t going to send someone over because there is maintenance work going on and power will be back soon. We asked if they could tell us where in Salmiya the work was being done so we could pass by them and get a time estimate from them. The guy on the other end got super pissed off, started yelling and telling us its none of our business and we had to end the call. Power came back four hours later 10:12AM.
What a clusterfuck. Whomever is in charge in Salmiya obviously doesn’t care about the residents. I’ve posted about the horrible garbage situation a million times before (still hasn’t been fixed btw), the horrible urban planning, the tall residential buildings with zero parking and now the complete lack of empathy towards its residents. There should be town hall meetings where residents can meet with whomever is in charge so we could voice our complaints. Better yet put me in charge of Salmiya already!
There are nine Kuwaiti athletes competing at the Olympics under the IOC flag. They are:
Abbas Al Qali (Swimming)
Abdulrahman Al-Faihan (Trap)
Abdullah Al-Rashidi (Skeet)
Abdulaziz Al-Shatti (Fencing)
Ahmad Al-Afasi (Double Trap)
Faye Sultan (Swimming)
Fehaid Al-Deehani (Double Trap)
Khaled Al-Mudhaf (Trap)
Saud Habib Al-Kandari (Skeet)
If you’d like to watch them compete, below is their schedule (Kuwait time):
August 7
Khaled Al-Mudhaf: Shooting – Men’s Trap 3:30PM
Abdulrahman Al Faihan: Shooting – Men’s Trap 3:30PM
August 9
Abdulaziz Al-Shatti: Fencing – Men’s individual épée 3PM
August 10
Fehaid Aldeehani: Shooting – Men’s Double Trap 3PM
Ahmad Alafasi: Shooting – Men’s Double Trap 3PM
August 11
Abbas Qali: Swimming – Men’s 100m Butterfly 8:16PM
August 12
Abdullah Al-Rashidi: Shooting – Men’s Skeet 3:30PM
Saud Habib Al-Kandari: Shooting – Men’s Skeet 3:30PM
Faye Sultan: Swimming – Women’s 50m freestyle 7:02PM
I’ve heard two different stories about the video above. The first story is that the gas pedal got stuck and the second story is that the driver was intoxicated.
The Memorial Museum at Al Shaheed Park opened a couple of days ago on the anniversary of the 1990 Kuwait invasion. The exhibit space is really beautiful as you can see in the photos and features interactive displays. The opening hours are from 9AM to 9PM but I’d highly recommend you don’t go during the day in the summer.
The museum is located on the far end of the park, opposite where the parking is located. I wanted to visit the museum during the day time so I could have daylight in my shots and so passed by around 3:30. There was literally no shade from the parking to the museum and by the time I got to the exhibit I felt like I had just crossed the Sahara. If anyone in Al Shaheed Park is reading this, you guys need to have some sort of shuttle service from the parking to the museum or at least plant trees that would shade the walk path.
The movies below are now showing at Cinescape and Grand Cinemas:
New This Week:
Suicide Squad (8.2) ♦
Sheep & Wolves (6.9)
Other Movies:
Alice Through The Looking Glass (6.4)
Central Intelligence (6.6) ♦
Finding Dory (7.8)
Jason Bourne (8.3)
Now You See Me 2 (6.9)
Star Trek Beyond (7.6)
Submerged (4.0)
Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles: Out Of The Shadows (6.3)
The Legend Of Tarzan (6.7) ♦
The Conjuring 2 (7.8)
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 love this, a lot. The car is from Kuwait and I’m guessing its probably the same group of guys who do the yearly Jahra to Europe trip. If anyone knows them please put me in touch. I’d love to join them on their next trip and document the whole experience. I’ve got my Datsun, just need to plaster some cheesy stickers on it and it will be ready. [YouTube]
In case you’ve missed the posts from the previous years, here are some links:
No Speak English – Kuwait to Paris 2015
Donuts in the Alps
From Jahra to London
The height of the society-wide insanity occurred when eight speculators, known as “the Cavaliers,” floated a total of $55 billion in postdated checks, seemingly in an attempt to corner the market. The most prolific check writer among the Cavaliers was Jassim al-Mutawa, a Passport Office employee in his early-twenties, who managed to pass off $14 billion all by himself. Sloppy accounting on the part of his brother and partner, Najeeb al-Mutawa, caused Jassim to become a staggering $3.4 billion overdrawn.
A really fascinating article on Souk Al-Manakh in the early 80s. The numbers quoted in the article are insane! I had always been curious about what happened and how it all happened so I thoroughly enjoyed reading this. [Link]
Also, here are some photos of the Souk Al-Manakh building taken in the early 80s via the MIT Libraries.
Thanks faahqueimmanutjawb
