2:48AM - Entertaining Kuwait since 2003

The Shakshooka Market is back this weekend and it’s my personal favorite event for this weekend. But there are other honorable mentions like the Winter Land Carnival which seems interesting (they’ve got a large outdoor ice skating rink). For the geeks over here there’s Global Game Jam 2016 taking place this weekend as well. Finally there is the Camel Classic RC Race, for those of you who aren’t aware, we actually have one of the largest off road RC tracks in the world so that event should be cool as well.

I also think there is a military event taking place near the Kuwait Towers this weekend but I haven’t been able to get any info on it. If you know something let me know but for now, check out the full list of events below:

Thursday
Art Exhibition: Complicity
Winter Land Carnival
Harry Potter Night
Rooftop Movie: Two Days, One Night
Camel Classic RC Race

Friday
Winter Land Carnival
Global Game Jam 2016 – Kuwait
The Hits Market
Mental Health Movie Night: A Beautiful Mind
Camel Classic RC Race

Saturday
Winter Land Carnival
Global Game Jam 2016 – Kuwait
The Hits Market
Yoga at the Park
Remedy Carnival
Protein Sheikhas: Boot Camp
Shakshooka Market
Cross Cultural Diwaniya
Rooftop Movie: The Fisher King
Camel Classic RC Race

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 double check info with organizers.

Photo taken this morning in Al Salmi area. [Source]

Update: Got a few more pictures, check them out below:

Arabian Business have released their World’s 50 Richest Arabs list for 2016 and Kuwait made the list three times:

10- The Al Kharafi Family
11- The Bukhamseen Family
26- The Alghanim Family

The richest Arab is Prince Alwaleed bin Talal Al Saud from Saudi Arabia but thats not a surprise. What is a surprise to me at least is that 7 people from Lebanon made the list including Joseph Safra whom I hadn’t heard of before coming in 2nd place. Due to the amount of wealth in Kuwait I just expected more people from Kuwait to make the list although a lot of Kuwaitis are not on the list like Mohammed Alshaya because Alshaya is a private and family-owned business and so their finances are a secret.

Check out the full list [Here]

As I’m getting ready to move apartments, I can’t help but feel like I’m going bananas! Which, brought me to think about discussing bananas. I’ve realized that people can be divided into 2 groups – a group that loves bananas and think they’re healthy and a group that wants to stay away from one of the starchiest fruits out there. So are bananas worth the calories? Let’s take a look.

Taking a look at the Nutrition Facts (please keep in mind that a banana comes in a variety of sizes and ripeness, this information is for the average medium sized banana)

– Energy: 105 kcals
– Carbs: 27 grams
– Protein: 1g

The calories in bananas are mainly from 2 types of carbohydrates – resistant starch and pectin. Both are mainly found in unripe (green bananas).  These type of starches are essential in maintaining gut health (feed your good bacteria), keeping you full, and helping avoid a blood sugar spike post meal. All of which are key factors to helping anyone eat less and hopefully lose some weight regardless of the caloric amount. This makes banana an excellent choice for a quick and easy breakfast, along with a nut butter, or alone as a snack. Keep in mind that the more ripe a banana is the less pectin and resistance starches are available, BUT don’t let that bring you down, ripe bananas contain a good amount of soluble fiber, the kind that attracts water turning the food into a gel-like consistency and slowing down absorption. I guarantee you you’ll be full regardless of the ripeness of the banana.

Bananas are also high in antioxidants like dopamine and catechins (similar to those found in white tea), provide your body with many nutrients and help protect your heart’s health. The antioxidants and nutritional profile make a banana an excellent snack for athletes as it provides a quick source of energy as well as many electrolytes to help avoid dehydration.

I personally find bananas to be worth every single calorie. I know that some may prefer another 100 calorie snack, but not all calories are the same, and if you choose to alter your taste buds to favor the unripe kind, bananas could actually keep you full and help you achieve your weight loss goals. In the midst of packing up my kitchen and not having any cookware to prepare a meal, a banana with 2 tablespoons of almond butter might just be my dinner of choice.

Post by Hyatt Al Sayegh, a Clinical Dietitian and Dr. Sears Health Coach.
Founder of Fork Fed.

Last month an ebook containing 1,001 vintage ads from old Kuwaiti newspapers was released by the Dawood Treasury. The ads are grouped into categories to make it easier to navigate but sadly the whole ebook is only available as an Adobe Flash based flip book. It’s difficult to navigate, it’s slow, it spends forever loading and there is no way you could download it to view it later on your iPad or laptop. It sucks that they went through all that effort to create this ebook but then to make it so inaccessible. In any case check it out [Here]

Thanks Adnan

For the people who were doubting the project would be completed in 2 years, looks like you were wrong. I’m hopefully going to get a site tour of the Cultural Centre soon and once I do I should have more pictures and information on the status.

So a new sushi place opened up in Kuwait called RAW and I’m in love with their branding. But, nobody seems to know where they are located, their website rawsushibar.com doesn’t work and I can’t find any info about them. Does anybody have an idea where they’re located?

Recently I’ve been doing a bit of maintenance work on my car and one of the things I badly needed to sort out was my windshield. The windshield had thousands of tiny pits that were mostly invisible unless the sun hit the windshield at a certain angle and then my visibility would completely get killed. Last time I swapped out my windshield was at the dealership, it cost me around KD180, I needed to book an appointment and I needed to leave my car with them overnight. It was just too much of a hassle which is the main reason I had put this job off for some time. But, last week a friend of mine snapchatted a video of his windshield getting fixed at a place called Glass Clinic so I decided to pass by and check them out.

When I got there and started talking to the employees I realized the place was legit so I told them to go ahead and swap out my windshield. There are plenty of places on Canada Dry Street that can swap a windshield but majority of them are pretty sloppy with their work, reuse your rubber moldings and most importantly, use silicon instead of a windshield polyurethane sealant. Glass Clinic solves all those issues.

Firstly the place is pretty clean with a waiting area upstairs that overlooks your car. They covered my interior seats before they started any work and the employees wore latex gloves the whole time while working on my car. Instead of using a silicon sealant, Glass Clinic use the Totalseal brand of sealant which is specifically made for automotive glass and is a lot safer and stronger than regular silicon. If you’ve ever replaced a windshield on Canada Dry Street you probably had to suffer with the horrible smell for days after installing the glass, thats the smell of the silicon. With a proper polyurethane sealant there is no smell. The whole installation process took around 2 hours, which is more than double the time it would usually take you on Canada Dry Street so you get an idea of the amount of care they put into the job.

I opted not to install an original Toyota windshield since it was going to cost me KD135 without installation. Instead I went with an OEM version and the final cost with installation was just KD55. Slightly more than what it would cost me on Canada Dry Street but a fraction of the dealership cost. They also fix tiny windshield cracks and they also offer the service of coming to you wherever you are for an extra KD3. If you’d like to find out more, they’re on Instagram @glassclinic and here is their location on [Google Maps]

If you haven’t visited the Bayan Botanical Garden yet then the video above should be interesting to you. A reader uploaded a video tour he made on his most recent trip it does a much better job of showing off the place compared to the still photos I had previous posted. [YouTube]

If you want to find out more information on visiting the garden, check out my post [Here]

Yesterday I posted that Cinescape had finally set a release date for the Indian film “Airlift” which is based on a true story from the 1990 Iraq invasion of Kuwait. Soon after I linked to the film’s coming soon page, Cinescape took the page down and removed the movie from their website. This morning I finally got confirmation from Cinescape that the film Airlift has now been banned in Kuwait and so they had to remove it from their website. I’m trying to find out why it was banned and once I do I’ll update this post.

InfoConnect takes place at the end of January every year and its usually the best time to renew your internet subscription since all the internet providers and mobile phone operators have the best deals. InfoConnect was supposed to take place from January 24th to the 30th of this month but a couple of weeks ago a small messaged popped up on their website stating:

INFOCONNECT/INFOBIZ exhibitions have been postponed. New Dates will be advised in due course.

Yesterday I heard from a friend that InfoConnect has now been canceled for this year. Supposedly the internet providers came together and decided they would rather not pay the exhibition fees and instead offer their discounted prices directly to consumers. The three big players, Qualitynet, Fast Telco and KEMS have already started teasing their offers on their instagram accounts. That actually sucks since we don’t have that many interesting expos that take place at the fair grounds, and InfoConnect was one that a lot of people went to. In any case once all the ISP’s have their offers up I’ll post a comparison chart like I do every year.

Does anyone know if there is any place in Kuwait that offers stem cell therapy for the knees? My mum has an issue with her kneed and I took her to a doctor at Seef Hospital who recommended operating on it. But, from information I’ve gathered, stem cell therapy seems to be a better alternative. From what I understood they inject healthy stem cells into the knee and it starts repairing itself, does that sound accurate? Biggest advantage though is you can walk right after getting the stem cell injection while with a knee surgery you’re going to have to be off your feet for some time. If anyone has any information on this I’d really appreciate it.

The Indian film “Airlift” which is based on a true story from the 1990 Iraq invasion of Kuwait just got a local release date. According to the Cinescape website, the film will be released locally on January 28th. Some readers had emailed me concerned that the film was being banned because KNCC had removed it from the coming soon list but its now back up there along with a release date. I’ve shared the official trailer above although it doesn’t have English subtitles (I couldn’t find one with). [YouTube]

Update: Here is the link to the trailer in low-res but with English subtitles [Link]

Update2: Airlift has now been banned in Kuwait. [Link]

Back in 2012, 965 Flowers launched as a local online flower delivery website and I ended up posting about them after I needed to use them one day. Over time though they started adding other items that also fit with the different occasions people gifted flowers, items like chocolates, baked goods and other kinds of small gifts. They also started expanding to other parts of the GCC so their name 965 Flowers became an issue for them. They were no longer just based in Kuwait and they no longer just had flowers so they decided to rebrand and starting today they’re going by Bleems.

They chose the word Bleems because it doesn’t mean anything and works in Arabic and English. They chose a word that had no meaning because they didn’t want to end up with a name that would limit their ability to expand their business later on down the line. Personally Bleems reminds me of the old PlayStation emulator for the PC called Bleem! while a quick search on Urban Dictionary pops up some interesting other definitions. In any case, it’s still a much better name than 965 Flowers (or 965 anything).

Their official re-launch is today and the owners sent me the video above which basically explains everything I just wrote. Here is a link to their [Website]

There are a bunch of interesting things taking place this weekend. Tonight theres the NANTA Korean Cultural Performance which is also free to watch. Then there is the Auto Moto 16 car show which I have yet to pass by but I’m hoping to do so today. I’m also a sucker for car boot sales and there is one this Saturday at The English School. Check out the full list of events below:

Thursday
The Honey Bee Exhibition
Auto Moto 16
Art Exhibition: Complicity
NANTA – Korean Cultural Performance
Rooftop Movie: The Purple Rose of Cairo
The Avenues Food Market

Friday
The Honey Bee Exhibition
Auto Moto 16
The Avenues Food Market

Saturday
The Honey Bee Exhibition
Auto Moto 16
Qout Market
Yoga at the Park
Car Boot Sale at The English School
Madeenah Tour: Sulaibikhat Coast
K’S PATH Shelter Open Day
Protein Sheikhas: Bootcamp
Rooftop Movie: A Girl Walks Home Alone At Night
The Avenues Food Market

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, postponed or have details changed. Always double check info with organizers.