2:48AM - Entertaining Kuwait since 2003

This past weekend I picked up the Apple Vision Pro and since then I’ve been using it daily, mostly exploring it and trying to figure out what to do with it.

First things first, if you’re planning to pick up an Apple Vision Pro in Kuwait, you need to know that you won’t be able to pick the proper sized light seal. Before purchasing the AVP from the Apple Store, they ask you to scan your face so they could recommend the proper light seal. You can do that through the Apple Store app and according to the scan, I needed a size 21W. If you’re buying an AVP from the grey market, there is no way to know what size light seal you’re getting since Apple doesn’t mention the size on the outside of the box. So it depends on your luck, I ended up with the light seal size 33W which was what Apple recommended for my wife. It doesn’t fit well on my face but I’m dealing with it till my light seal arrives. I got a brand new one off eBay for $150 but Apple sells them for $199. So just something to keep in mind.

Secondly, the AVP prices in Kuwait are quite a bit cheaper than Apple prices in the US. The cheapest price I found locally was 999KD at Best Electronics. In comparison, it costs around 1,160KD in the States with tax, but without shipping to Kuwait. Expect to pay around 20-30KD on top of that to ship to Kuwait since the box is pretty heavy. But then again, if you don’t end up with the correct light seal size you’ll have to pay for that, but it would still be cheaper to buy it locally and you’ll end up having an extra light seal.

Other than that, if you already have a US Apple Store account which I assume everyone already has, then you’re pretty much set. If you have a Kuwait Apple Store account it won’t work in the AVP since the AVP is only available in the US at the moment. If you want to use streaming services like Disney and Max, you also need a smart DNS proxy. Disney Kuwait won’t work (uses app from Kuwait store) and I don’t think there is a VPN option on the AVP, but smart DNS is easier to set up anyway.

My first impression of the AVP? It’s difficult to explain. I love it, it’s definitely the future, but if you’re asking me if you should get one, then the answer is no. If you already got one or are planning to get one, then you made the right decision. It’s confusing I know but if you already decided on the AVP it’s most likely for the same reason as me, to be there at the start of what I think is the future, and not because it’s worth getting one now.

It’s such an incredible device, using it and doing things with it is like nothing else I’ve experienced, so much so that I keep wanting to share my experience with someone else. That’s what’s also so weird about the AVP, it’s such a solo device but yet the experiences are ones you want to share with others. I’ve been constantly annoying my wife asking her to put on the AVP so I could let her experience various things I got to experience.

I will have to do a proper review of the device, but right now I’ve mostly been using it for two things, watching TV and playing ToXun. ToXun is a game that randomly puts you somewhere on Earth in Google Street View, and you need to guess where you are in the world. It’s pretty difficult but I’ve been quite good at guessing at least which country I’m in.

Watching TV on the other hand is just a really really incredible experience. For one thing, you can now have a TV anywhere. I have just one TV by choice in my apartment, but with the AVP I can now set up a large Cinescape movie theater anywhere I want in my place. I’ve watched a variety of content so far from simple TV shows to what Apple calls Immersive Videos. I’m not sure how to describe immersive video because until I experienced it I hadn’t experienced anything like it anywhere. Imagine a super large Imax screen that towers above and below you but is also in 3D. Actually, I don’t think that describes it properly. Imagine, you’re standing inside the film watching, that’s what these videos feel like. There aren’t many of them but my favorite is called Adventure and takes place up high in the mountains where a female climber sets up a high line to cross over a cliff. It’s really well shot, the 3D scenes make me feel like I’m right there, and anywhere I look I see beautiful views. They’re not 360 videos, but they do wrap around your peripheral vision.

But your regular 3D movies look great as well. I was never a fan of 3D movies because of the glasses you had to wear and how they darkened the screen. With the AVP they’re much much better. I watched the movie Gravity last night in 3D inside my theater and it was incredible, I felt like I was up there with them in space.

So far the AVP has been a great experience. I just ordered a compact carrying case for it from Waterfield in case I want to travel with it and use it on the plane. Not sure I’d be comfortable doing that just yet, but will see how it goes.

If there is anything specific you want to know or want me to try out, let me know in the comments.

The popular car vlogger Shmee was in Kuwait last week to film the car collection of Dr. Adel Quttainah, the plastic surgeon. I had assumed it was his first visit to Kuwait but in the video he mentions it was his second time although I couldn’t find any details of his first visit. If you’re into cars, check out his video on YouTube

Young Po is a new Pan-Asian restaurant opening soon, created by local chef Khaled AlBaker (@chefkb). When I found out he was opening an Asian concept I was pretty excited since I love Chinese food and there aren’t that many “nice” Chinese restaurants in Kuwait. I had the opportunity to try out Young Po last week, and I had a great overall experience.

Young Po isn’t limited to just Chinese food but also covers a wide range of Asian food including Japanese and Korean. The menu was divided into six categories:

• Starters
• Dim Sum
• Sushi & Sashimi
• Special Quests
• Robata
• Wok

The special quests category is for items like roasted duck and shabu shabu, while the rest of the categories are pretty self-explanatory. I ended up ordering the following dishes:

• Master Garden Salad
• Lobster on Toast
• Deobokki (Rice Cakes)
• Prawn Jiaozi (Dim Sum)
• Not-so California Roll
• Chu Toro Nigiri
• Wagyu Tenderloin (Robata)
• Baloul Clay Pot (Robata)
• Brocollini (Robata)
• Sweet & Sour Shrimp
• Egg Fried Rice

It was a lot of food for just two people, but it gave me a chance to try out a variety of dishes I usually wouldn’t order. I ended up loving everything I tried but, my go-to dish is always sweet & sour (I’m boring like that) and the one at Young Po might be the best I’ve ever had.

There were no prices on the menu when I was there, and of this post they’re still being finalized. But, it will be an “upper” casual dining experience.

If you want to try Young Po they’re opening in Shuwaikh this Wednesday, May 1st. Reservations are currently open on their website but there will be tables available for walk-ins as well.

The Instagram account is @youngpo.me, but to reserve a table, head over to youngpo.com

Over the weekend there was a bit of drama in Kuwait. Word got out that a PlayBoy model called Lina Bourghol was in Kuwait last week, and although it didn’t look like she did anything wrong while here, she still managed to ruffle some feathers.

Lina posted a photo of her in front of the Kuwait Towers which exacerbated the controversy. That photo now has over 3,000 likes but no comments since she closed it due to the abuse she was getting. In a video that popped up on my Tiktok feed she mentions that she doesn’t understand why authorities had a problem with her being in Kuwait, but were fine with Kim Kardashian being here. She denied that she was here because a guy paid her to come, and she brought up a good point that why would he bring her to Kuwait when they could fly out to a more interesting play like Miami. She said she came in here on a visit visa and that she wore the abaya everywhere she went out of respect for the local culture.

In any case she ended up leaving Kuwait, some people were saying she got deported but she mentions in her video she had left on her free will. The whole coming in on a visit visa thing I can believe since every now and then Tiktok pops up videos on my feed of what I assume are escorts temporarily in Kuwait. Don’t think there is a way to stop them from coming in unless you stop issuing visit visas completely.

This week I binged watch Manhunt on AppleTV+. Would not really recommend it, it’s good background TV but nothing really compelling. But I did like that it starred comedians Patton Oswalt and Matt Walsh (from VEEP) in serious roles.

I also watched the season finale for Shogun, such a great show. Since it’s on Hulu once I was done with that I decided to watch another new Hulu series called Under the Bridge. It was recommended by a reader and I’m hooked, but sadly it’s one episode a week and only 3 are out so far.

I’m also still watching Elsbeth, it’s actually entertaining and every episode stars a big celeb so it still has my thumbs up.

Shows I’ve abandoned: Bodies and 3 Body Problem.

Let us know in the comments what you’ve been watching this week or planning to watch this weekend.

Movies at the Cinemas
The movies below are now showing at the local cinemas:

New This Week:
Black Dragon (N/A)
Boy Kills World (6.7)
Butterfly Tale (5.8)
Civil War (7.6)

Other Movies Showing:
Dune: Part Two (8.8)
Godzilla x Kong: The New Empire (6.5)
Heat (Classic/1995) (8.3)
Kung Fu Panda 4 (6.4)
The First Omen (6.9)
The Ministry of Ungentlemanly Warfare (7.1)

The numbers in brackets refer to the IMDB rating at the time of publishing.

Last week Kuwait came second in the IIHF World Championship Division IV, but a couple of days ago the Kuwait under 18 team lost 57-0 to Thailand in the opening game of the U-18 Asian and Oceania Championship. source

57 to 0!

It’s now considered to be the 5th worst beatdown in international hockey history. Kuwait only managed 1 shot at Thailands goal while Thailand had 122 shots on Kuwait.

Keep in mind hockey is composed of 3 periods of 20mins each, so Thailand basically scored 1 goal a minute. Pretty crazy but the good news is, it’s not the worst beatdown ever. The worst beatdown ever goes to the South Korea vs Thailand match from 1998 where South Korea beat Thailand 92-0. 57-0 would put the Kuwait game 5th on the list.

Kuwait’s goalie actually managed to make 65 saves, so the blame can’t all go to him. This was also Kuwait’s debut at the tournament.

The tournament is taking place in Uzbekistan, with nine teams – Thailand, Kuwait, India, Indonesia, Iran, Macau, Malaysia, Mongolia and the United Arab Emirates. You can watch the full game above.

Update: In their second game, Kuwait were losing 17-0 against Uzbekistan in the first period when they decided to forfeit the game.

The Palestine Film Festival Kuwait kicks off tomorrow, (Thursday, April 25th) as part of the Palestine Days event that’s taking place this weekend at the Contemporary Art Platform in Shuwaikh.

The festival is dedicated to promoting and celebrating Palestinian life, art and culture, and they will be showcasing a curated selection of feature films, documentaries and shorts.

In addition to the films, there will also be book launches, talks and an exhibition by the Palestinian Cultural Center in which they will be selling beautiful, artisanal Palestinian products.

The event and screenings are free, but registration is required for the films as seats are limited. Find the registration form in the festival’s bio @palestinefilmfest_kuwait

Benny’s Books is a new business that’s opening its door tomorrow (April 23rd) on World Book Day. Their mission is to provide children aged 0-12 with access to curated books that ignite their imaginations and inspire a lifelong love for reading.

I posted about another book box subscription service a few years ago but that business isn’t around anymore. Benny’s Books is a similar concept where for a monthly fee they’ll mail you curated books of their choosing every month. Their prices will start as low as KD9.6 per month and that includes the shipping cost.

The baby book club includes 3 engaging books featuring cuddly characters and vibrant illustrations designed to stimulate your baby’s senses and encourage an early love for books right from the start.

If you’re interested in signing up for finding out more, check out their instagram account @bennysbookskw

Some of you might not know this but the Bayan Palace has a botanical garden inside. It was designed by Dutch architect Peter van der Toorn Vrijthoff from the firm ALLDESIGN, and it was officially opened in 2015.

The botanical garden is composed of 3 large glasshouses containing 6 different gardens with 4 different climate zones and exhibiting tropical, dry, Mediterranean and European plants. It’s one of the main attractions for official state visitors and until a couple of years ago, was actually open to the public.

I passed by for the first time back in 2016, and looking at my notes from my visit it seems I had mixed feelings about the place. The garden was smaller than it looked but it was still pretty interesting with most of the exotic plants inside labeled with their names. One thing I didn’t like about the place was the limited accessibility; the gardens were only open to the public on Thursdays, from 9AM to 1PM. So if you had a day job you wouldn’t be able to visit the gardens unless you took time off work.

For reasons unknown to me, the botanical garden closed to the public a couple of years ago and hasn’t opened again since. I even passed by last week to double check and it was indeed still closed.

If you’ve never been to the gardens before, check out my post on Instagram where I have more photos up plus a couple while it was still under construction @248am.

You can also follow the botanical gardens instagram account to be notified once/if they reopen again @botanicalgardenkw

This past Friday was the opening of the Ascend Rock Climbing Center in Hawally. Ascend initially started off as a small local community for climbing enthusiasts in Kuwait by a climbing enthuisiast, @ali.ascends.

I’ve been posting about Ali (and Ascend) for nearly 10 years now. I first found out about him in 2014 after he moved back to Kuwait from university and started recording videos of himself climbing random rock walls in Mutlaa. His aim from the very beginning was to build a climbing community in Kuwait and so he started the group “Kuwait Climbing” (later became Ascend).

The group used to meetup in Mutlaa as well as whatever climbing walls were available in Kuwait at that time. Ali eventually built a small climbing wall outside his family home which became popular, and later expanded it to meet the demand. Now I imagine the community is going to grow even larger with this new climbing center which he was able to open with the help of his partner Hanan, and the help of the climbing community.

The Ascend Rock Climbing Center located inside Emall in Hawally, across the street from Andalus Complex. The climbing center boasts the tallest climbing wall in Kuwait at 14.5m tall. I passed by yesterday for the opening and it was pretty busy with a lot of climbers from the region who had come to Kuwait to check out the center. There were even climbers who flew in from Europe, that should give you an idea of how much Ali is loved by the climbing community.

If you’re interested in getting into the sport of climbing, the center is open daily from 11AM to 11PM. The first hour of climbing costs 5KD and its then 2.5KD for every additional hour. There are also day passes as well as monthly memberships. For more information, check out @ascend.kw

Here are this weekends events, let me know if I missed anything.

Thursday, April 18th
KASA’s 18th Annual Students’ Exhibition
Ice Hockey World Championship

Friday, April 19th
MACBETH
KASA’s 18th Annual Students’ Exhibition
Ice Hockey World Championship
Brainiac Live

Saturday, April 20th
MACBETH
Augmented Reality Treasure Hunt
KASA’s 18th Annual Students’ Exhibition
Trash Tag Beach Clean Up
Brainiac Live
Fusion Fitness

Last weekend I binge watched the first season of Fallout on Amazon and it was very entertaining. I played the video game years ago when it first came out and so it was really cool to see it turned into a TV series. Fallout and The Last of Us are two shows that were based off a video game and turned out to be very good, I tried watching the series Halo but didn’t get into it, so now thinking of giving it another shot because of Fallout.

Let us know in the comments what you’ve been watching or planning to watch this weekend.

Movies at the Cinemas
The movies below are now showing at the local cinemas:

New This Week:
Godzilla x Kong: The New Empire (6.5)
Heat (Classic/1995) (8.3)
Mothers’ Instinct (6.5)
The Ministry of Ungentlemanly Warfare (7.1)

Other Movies Showing:
Dune: Part Two (8.8)
Kung Fu Panda 4 (6.4)
The Bricklayer (5.1)
The First Omen (6.9)

The numbers in brackets refer to the IMDB rating at the time of publishing.

Dalal Khajah is a Kuwaiti author and the Co-Founder of Manservants, a US-based company that allows women to order chivalrous gentlemen for launch events, red carpets, or just for a girls’ night out.

The company started off as a joke that Dalal and her colleague took too far, but then it went viral and took off to become a serious and successful business that now serves Palm Springs, Los Angeles, San Diego and New York. Each ManServant is trained in their signature service, which includes, but is not limited to, pouring drinks, serving compliments and adoration, taking photos, and waiting on the women hand and foot.

“ManServant Guide to Modern Chivalry” is a book that was born out of the business. It’s a book that details how men should treat women in the 21st century from doing laundry, carrying shopping bags, cleaning the bathroom, or watching the kids.

The book has just been released and is already garnering media attention, including Dalal being invited onto the show “Watch What Happens Live with Andy Cohen” a few days ago. If Andy looks familiar, it’s because he also hosts “The Real Housewives.”

I downloaded the book on my Kindle and it’s fun little book thats not meant to be taken too seriously. It’s also reasonably priced, at just $10.99 for the Kindle version and $20 for the hardcover.

If you want to buy the book or just find out more about Dalal and Manservants, head over to @manservants_co or their website manservants.co

Sprinkles & Spice is a locally produced and recorded podcast by two girls, Zainab and Mia. They’ve been doing it now for around 6 months and it’s mostly either just the two of them talking about girly stuff, or they have a guest on to interview.

Their most recently episode with Ali Al Khudhair (above) was fun to watch, but then again Ali is pretty entertaining himself. I think the first time I saw him on TikTok he was selling banak at a roundabout at night, or at least I think it was him, I thought it was pretty funny. Anyway, if you’re looking for a fun and light hearted local podcast to listen to, check the girls out on Instagram @sprinklesandspicepodcast or on YouTube.

I’ve only been drinking coffee since 2016, and since then I’ve been mostly been making my coffee at home. I started off with a De’Longhi bean to cup coffee machine, and then later upgraded to the Breville Oracle, followed by the Rocket Appartamento and then finally to a La Marzocco Linea Mini a couple of years ago. Along the way I upgraded my grinders as well, the first two machines had grinders built in, but with the Appartamento I got a Rocket Faustino Grinder for it, and with the Linea Mini I got the Mahlkönig X54 grinder.

I didn’t end up liking the X54 at all even though I love the Mahlkönig brand (they make some of the best commercial grinders). The X54 wasn’t very consistent, it was slow, and the grind adjustment knob felt horrible, the whole tactile experience actually was poor. Compared to the experience of using the commercial quality Linea Mini machine, the X54 felt very plasticky. So I decided I’d upgrade my grinder to one that would match the quality of my coffee machine. I did a lot of research and had eventually settled on the Ceado E37s.

I found a website online that would ship it to Kuwait and after their Black Friday discount and removing VAT, the price shipped to Kuwait was 525KD. Not cheap, but it was commercial quality, had large 83mm burrs and highly recommended by reviewers online. Just as I was about to make the plunge, I found out about the Mahlkönig E65S GbW. GbW stood for grind by weight, it was a new grinder by Mahlkönig where you could set the weight of coffee you wanted grinded, and then just place the portafilter into the machine and it would grind enough beans till it hit your weight. It was also fast, commercial grade, had a large adjustment ring as well as a large digital screen. It wasn’t cheap, online I found it for around 690KD after discount shipped to Kuwait, but since I knew the local dealer, I figured I could try and get a better deal locally.

The local dealer referred me to Coffee Tools who were selling the machine for a whopping 836KD (they since dropped it down to a more reasonable 731KD). I tried to work out a barter deal but that didn’t pan out but they did offer me a 25% discount which brought the price down from 836KD to 627KD. It was around 70KD cheaper than the price I found online so I decided to pull the trigger and get it (along with a much shorter 250g hopper). It was the best decision I made.

The E65S is such an incredible grinder. Firstly performance wise, it’s fast grinding out 18g of coffee in under 6 seconds (compared to 18-20 seconds of the X54). It’s also been really consistent and I’ve been using it daily since January. I don’t adjust the grind settings as much as I used to, and if I do it’s generally minor adjustments. It’s also really easy to adjust the grind size since the adjustment ring is large and the screen displays a digital read out of the distance between the two burrs. So I have my baseline set at 0.094mm and I generally adjust anywhere between 0.088 and 0.0096mm. It’s minor adjustments which I can do accurately because of the digital read out. But, the best feature is grind by weight. I use 18g of beans for my coffee, with regular grinders you use a timer to measure that out. So for example with my previous grinder, 18 seconds would grind around 18g of coffee, sometimes it would grind 16g in that time, sometimes 19g. It wasn’t a very efficient workflow either. You’d first put the portafilter on the scale and reset it to 0g, you’d then place portafilter in the grinder and have it grind for 18 seconds, you then put the portafilter on the scale again and see how much coffee it grinder, if its under 18g you have to put it back in grinder and manually grind a bit more coffee, if it’s more than 18g then you have to remove some coffee. It was a slow process and messy. The new workflow is so much better because of the grind by weight feature. All I have to do is place the portafilter into the grinder, and the grinder takes over and does all the calculations for me. As soon as I place the portafilter into the machine it starts grinding the coffee while measuring the weight. I think I read somewhere it does 6,000 calculations a second. Once the machine grinds 18g of coffee out, it stops and flashes green to let me know it hit the weight.

My coffee making process in the morning is a much more pleasant experience. I know a lot of people won’t understand or care about any of this, but as I’ve gotten older and I can afford nicer things, I’ve started caring about my experiences with objects a lot more. It could be a fork, it could be a car, I just like the experience of using nice things. My grinder and coffee machine are the first things I interact with in the morning. Then it’s my computer and then it’s my car. So having a good coffee making experience, then sitting in front of a fast computer with fast internet followed by driving to work in a 1970 Alfa Romeo, it’s really a great way to start the day. So would I recommend this grinder, yes. Do I recommend investing in expensive coffee equipment, for most people no. But if you enjoy using nice equipment and like the process of making coffee then yes. It’s actually cheaper to spend 3,000KD on coffee equipment than to have two coffees a day at a coffee shop. If you have 2 coffees a day, thats around KD1,460 you’re spending a year. So you’ll make your money back pretty quickly making coffee at home. If you’re married and your wife also drinks coffee then you’re going to make your money back twice as fast. And a commercial grade coffee machine is going to last a pretty long time at home.

I also highly recommend La Marzocco in Kuwait, their customer service department is one of the best I’ve experienced in Kuwait. Because they’re commercial machines, anytime I have an issue I’m treated like a coffee shop where any downtime is bad for business. I usually get a service person over either the same day if I report a problem in the morning, or the next day if I report a problem in the evening. So 5 stars to them.