2:48AM - Entertaining Kuwait since 2003

Hashtag #kuwaitfail on instagram or email me a fail and I’ll share the best one every week.

Thanks Mathai

This is a little bit off topic from my usual posts but I need two things:

Badminton
So recently I started playing badminton with a friend with IBAK (Indian Badminton Association – Kuwait) and I’m not that great. So I’m looking for a private trainer, if anyone knows of one let me know.

Skateboarding
I also recently fell in love with a skateboard (pictured on top) and I bought it. I’ve been wanting to skateboard ever since I was a kid but never got the chance to so if any skateboarder here is willing to give me some private lessons as well, let me know.

#midlifecrisis

“Choose the one you want,” says one agent with a smile. “I will give you a hundred days’ guarantee. If you don’t like her you can send her back.”

The Guardian published an article two days ago on the treatment of domestic workers in Kuwait, specifically ones from Sierra Leone. They compared it to slavery with every right to do so. One interesting fact the article highlighted is that nearly 90% of Kuwaiti households employ at least one foreign maid. That’s just an insane figure. Check out the full article on The Guardian [Here]

Also Fajer the Lawyer previously posted on Domestic Workers Rights [Here] in case you missed it.

Thanks Laila

Another busy weekend but my personal picks are The Spring Bazaar for tonight followed by The Spring Comedy Show if it isn’t sold out. Tomorrow I’d pass by Open Mic at Bayt Lothan and finally on Saturday I would pass by the last Qout Market of the season which is going to be held in the evening this time around. Check out the full list of events below:

Thursday
Exhibition: A Wonderful World Under Construction
Kuwait Dino Park
The Spring Bazaar
The IBAK-PROSPORTS Badminton Challenge Cup
The Cube Market
Rooftop Movie: Forks Over Knives
The Spring Comedy Show
MILSIM Failaka

Friday
Kuwait Dino Park
The IBAK-PROSPORTS Badminton Challenge Cup
The Cube Market
Book Club Meeting
Open Mic
Play: The Glass Menagerie
Culinary Event: Pasta Pronto

Saturday
Kuwait Dino Park
The Cube Market
Qout Market
Play: Love Letters
Rooftop Movie: Lock, Stock, and Two Smoking Barrels

If you’d like to share an event on the blog [Email Me]

Acura, the luxury division of Honda have opened up their first showroom in Kuwait. I passed by the first time two weeks ago before they opened and was given a tour of the place, and earlier today I went back to take some photos now that it’s actually open. According to the Acura representative who was showing me around, the Acura showroom in Kuwait is the largest Acura showroom in the world. They actually don’t like calling it a showroom but instead prefer using the world facility since it’s a one stop shop for everything Acura.

Acura is a premium brand and the showroom lives up to it. The building is huge and very tastefully decorated with lots of light colors and lots of natural daylight everywhere. As I said earlier, they prefer to call it a facility because of the fact you have the main showroom in the front, a quick service garage in the back, a body and paint shop in the basements and a spare parts store all under the same roof.

Right now the dealer is carrying two Acura models to start off with, the TLX which is a four-door luxury sedan and the MDX which is their luxury SUV. My first question obviously was if they were getting the NSX since thats the car I’m extremely interested in. Turns out they will be getting it once it launches next year. Not only that but their facility is already prepared for it, they have a special location on the showroom floor where they will be displaying the car as well as a special section of their garage designed specifically for the NSX maintenance.

I can’t believe its taken this long for Acura to get here but glad it’s here now that the NSX is getting released. The new showroom is located in Al-Rai right next to Xcite Electronics. Their opening hours are from 8:30AM to 8:00PM.

No idea who Raising Cane’s are honestly but I just read that Alshaya decided to bring them to the Middle East. I’m guessing Alshaya probably wanted to bring a chicken franchise to the region and Chick-fil-A would have been too controversial so they ended up with Raising Cane’s. According to the article, Raising Cane’s will open their first location in Avenues this July (probably at the recently closed Olive Garden or Red Lobster locations. [Link]

Thanks James

This past weekend Harley Davidson sent me to Lebanon for a bike ride as part of a media trip. They took care of my airline ticket and I hadn’t noticed until the very last minute that they had booked Kuwait Airways for me. If I had noticed earlier I would have obviously requested to change my flight to MEA but it was too late to change the ticket and I was stuck flying Kuwait Airways.

While checking in at the airport I asked if I was flying a new plane and turns out I was. I still wasn’t too thrilled about flying on the new planes because based on the photos Kuwait Airways had published in their instagram account (here and here), the new planes looked outdated, ugly and gloomy. Not sure why Kuwait Airways posted those horrible pictures but turns out they’re misleading and not an accurate representation of how the planes actually look like.

When I got onboard the new plane I was completely taken a back by how nice and bright the interior was. In the photos on the Kuwait Airways instagram account, the chairs looked dark and the walls and ceiling had a dull grey tone but in reality, the blues were vibrant and the walls and ceiling were bright and light colored. I sat down in my seat and noticed I had really good legroom as well, so far I was really impressed. I started flipping through the media center checking it out while the passenger next to me plugged in a USB stick with movies and started watching something. This is a completely new Kuwait Airways and I was liking it.

I flew both ways with the new Kuwait Airways plane and honestly I think the planes are better than the MEA ones which I normally fly with to Lebanon. There was even internet onboard the Kuwait Airways plane which I tried out on the way back ($10 for 30mins, $20 for 1 hour and $40 for 3 hours). Even the food wasn’t too bad at all and because no one flies Kuwait Airways, the plane wasn’t very packed making the experience even more enjoyable.

[YouTube]

I did have an issue though and it was with the flight attendants. When I headed to the bathroom at the back of the plane while we were flying, I noticed one of the flight attendants was sitting in a passenger seat with the headphones on watching a movie. I thought that was pretty unprofessional. Another incident which also showed a lack of professionalism, when we landed and the plane was still on the runway heading towards our parking spot, a passenger got up from his seat and started getting his bag from the overhead compartment. Instead of the Kuwait Airways flight attendant telling the man to sit back down she got up and walked over to him and helped him carry his bag down from the overhead compartment. Then other people started getting up to get their overhead bags while the plane was still moving. Total chaos and I though it was ridiculous that the flight attendants weren’t telling the passengers to stay seated until the plane stopped. But then again this was Kuwait Airways. Although everything does look new, modern and up to date, end of the day this is still the same airline and the flight attendants are a reminder of that.

Putting aside my issue with the flight attendants I actually had a great experience with Kuwait Airways. In fact I would choose Kuwait Airways over MEA in a heart beat if the Kuwait Airways flight wasn’t an hour longer (they don’t fly over Syria, Jordan or Israel so they take a big detour). I thought the in-flight entertainment system had more than enough entertainment for the 3 hour flight, I found the seats comfortable, the legroom was great and my overall experience was very positive. The only thing I would say though is that they can update all their planes as much as they want, they can get the new A380s even and have onboard showers but that’s not going to be enough to move the airline forward unless the employees get retrained and their professionalism reestablished. And I’m not talking about just the onboard flight attendants but every employee you interact with from the minute you checkin to the last Kuwait Airways employee you see should reflect this new and improved Kuwait Airways. Other than that they’re off to a pretty good start.

A reader posted the following story in the community forum and I figured I would share it here as is:

It was a routine day with a regular issue “I didn’t receive my registered mail”. I bought an item and that was shipping via registered mail from Singapore; status is showing that it has reached Kuwait on 10th of March and today was 24-March-2015.

During this gap from 10 to 24, I’ve been to Kaifan Central Post Office, Abu Halifa post office, KOC post office Ahmadi and Ahmadi Post office 3 Times.

Long story short either I was told to go to my area post office which is Ahmadi or simply “Maa Fi” and waived away. During my 3 visits to Ahmadi post office; I heard it a lot “Maa Fi” and few times that it didn’t came.

Luckily one day I was surfing net for any possible help or solution, I came to Ministry of Communication “Postal Sector” Site; on that page is a picture of Asst. Undersecretary and link to the site which is in Arabic and contains some basic info.

Site: https://moc.kw/English/post.html

Randomly I sent a text to Asst. undersecretary Engineer Meiagib Nasser Al-Dossary, and after 45 minutes I got a mobile call from Airport Post office, that guy asked my tracking number and found it in less than two minutes saying that “We received it back from your area Post Office” and you will receive it after 2 days from your own area.

I didn’t almost believed that, kind of shock that a mail I’m searching can be found so easily. I got a call from another guy and asked me same details and asked about problems I faced at area Post Office. I told him that they have found it at airport “returned”.

I believe all thanks to Mr. Meiagib Nasser Al-Dossary (Asst. Undersecretary). After those two calls, I got a call from him “sorry for delay and in future if I need any postal help I can contact him”; that felt very nice.

To check that further, I spread the word out of this help and asked my friends (who are also waiting for their registered mail) to contact him and results was again the same. He was helpful and guided them to write person.

I believe Mr. Meiagib is kind enough to let anyone contact him for help and solve the issues.

It surely can be one of the good things in Kuwait. I hope anyone get help from this incident.

I have a package that I need to pick up this week from the post office, should be routine but we’ll see how it goes.

Photo by Mathai

Mercer’s 2015 Quality of Living rankings was recently released and Kuwait came 4th in our region with UAE, Oman and Qatar coming ahead.

1 – Vienna, Austria
74 – Dubai, UAE
77 – Abu Dhabi, UAE
104 – Muscat, Oman
108 – Doha, Qatar
125 – Kuwait City, Kuwait
130 – Manama, Bahrain
138 – Hyderabad, India
163 – Riyadh, Saudi Arabia
166 – Jeddah, Saudi Arabia
170 – Cairo, Egypt
181 – Beirut, Lebanon
203 – Tehran, Iran
230 – Baghdad, Iraq

No surprise really with UAE topping the list or Qatar coming ahead but, I am surprised with Oman just because I’ve heard its a great place for a vacation but a boring place to live.

Check out the full list of cities [Here]

The Scientific Center is set to double in size with a new expansion project. The expansion will add the following new sections:

– Dolphinarium (Al Dalaphene)
– Exploratorium (Dar Al-Estikshaf)
– Education and Conference Center
– Visitor Service Facilities
– Exhibit Halls
– Shaded Surface Parking

I’m not too sure how I feel about the Dolphinarium since I highly doubt the dolphins here will be taken care of properly or be given enough space. But, I do like the expansion idea and going by the renderings in the article it’s going to look world class when completed.

[Source 1] [Source 2]

Nuqat is the largest creative conference in the MENA region and the most recent one was held back in November. Over the weekend Nuqat released a flashback video of that event and I loved it. The video was shot by the very talented cool friend of mine Tarek Jammal and is composed of like a zillion still photos to create the animated film. It was a spectacular event and this video makes me want to go through it all over again. [YouTube]

In this weeks episode of Mishwarna, Rawaf and Tamara visit the soon to open Al Shaheed Park which I also posted about last week. [YouTube]

Meanwhile in Riggae…

Hashtag #kuwaitfail on instagram or email me a fail and I’ll share the best one every week.

Thanks Scarface

The weather is great at the moment and there are a lot of outdoor events taking place this weekend. Cinemagics has two great outdoor movies they’re showing this week, Boyhood and Looper. I’ve watched both and they were really entertaining with Boyhood also being epic. There are also two markets taking place this weekend, Discovery Mall has one called Future Entrepreneurs while 360 Mall has one called The Hits. Putting their weird names aside, both markets should prove to be entertaining. Lots more stuff taking place as well, check out the full list below:

Thursday
Exhibition: Al-Seef
Exhibition: A Wonderful World Under Construction
Kuwait Dino Park
Solar Impulse – Photo Exhibition
Rooftop Movie: Boyhood

Friday
Kuwait Dino Park
Solar Impulse – Photo Exhibition
Future Entrepreneurs Market
The Hits Market
X 1.0 Entertainment Show

Saturday
Kuwait Dino Park
Solar Impulse – Photo Exhibition
Future Entrepreneurs Market
The Hits Market
Operation Hope Yard Sale
#INeedMySpace
K’S PATH Treasure Hunt Event
Earth Hour
Rooftop Movie: Looper
The Sound Social

If you’d like to share an event on the blog [Email Me]

The popular website Vice have featured Kuwait again, this time in a negative light since they highlight the illegal wild animals people in Kuwait are keeping as pets. The video is nearly half an hour long and features interviews with some of the owners and traders of exotic pets. Hopefully now that this video is out authorities will take action and confiscate the animals but I highly doubt anything will come of it. Truly embarrassing. [YouTube]

Thanks Habib