2:48AM - Entertaining Kuwait since 2003
Jamie’s Italian by the popular British celebrity chef Jamie Oliver opened yesterday at The Warehouse Mall.
The franchise was brought to Kuwait by Apparel Group, the same group that are bringing Nando’s to Kuwait.
If you haven’t been to the Warehouse Mall it’s actually really nice. Here is the location on Google Maps.
The 46th book fair started today at the Kuwait International Fairground and will continue until December 2nd. The fair is located in halls 5, 6, and 7 but most of the English books are located in the last two lanes of hall 6.
For me the star of the fair has to be the new book published by Maraya Publishing in collaboration with Cinescape and titled “Screens & Memories Since 1954”. The big book with nearly 450 pages covers the history of cinema in Kuwait and is filled with photos, posters, information and an unlimited pool of nostalgia. The book is in English and Arabic and costs only 15KD which is really a steal for what you’re getting. Maraya Publishing are also located in hall 6, in wing #72 and the guys manning the booth are super friendly and knowledgable.
The timings of the book fair is as follows:
Daily: 9:00 AM to 1:00 PM and 4:30 PM to 10:00 PM
Friday: 4:00 PM to 10:00 PM
Saturday: 10:00 AM to 10:00 PM
So this is a quick update on my previous post about the garbage issue behind my house. It’s taken me a while to post this update because I was waiting for things to settle but I do have some very interesting information.
In my last post I posted about how after complaining to the baladiya about the overflowing garbage, they started removing the bins one by one until there were none. After sharing the photo of the huge pile of garbage on the floor because there were no bins, the baladiya came and cleaned it up. They didn’t replace the bins but went around warning all the buildings not to dump garbage there anymore. Overnight there were no longer any bins or any garbage.
So I was talking to our building manager about the garbage situation and he filled me in on how the whole thing works and this is where it gets interesting.
If you look at the photo above you’ll see the bins are different colors. Each color represents a different garbage collecting company. There are a number of companies that are licensed by the baladiya to collect the garbage, different buildings work with different companies. Our building works with a company that has blue bins and we pay 50KD a month to dump our garbage in their bins. The building next to us might have a deal with the red bins or yellow bins and pay 35KD a month to dump their garbage in it. When I flagged the garbage issue with the Baladia, they told the companies to remove their bins which is why every day one bin was disappearing, it was the companies coming and collecting their bins.
So when that happened, the buildings in the area got stuck with no where to throw the garbage. If you have a contract that says you can throw your garbage in the red bins, you can’t throw them in the blue bins and vice versa. Luckily for our building, there was a blue bin down the street so our building cleaners had a place to dump our garbage, they just had to walk further down the street. Not sure what other buildings did, but for a few days, there were no bins and no garbage in the sand lot.
Then bins started arriving, but it wasn’t like before:
– The bins were newer and cleaner (photo on top)
– They were laid out in pairs with two from every company
– We finally got 6 bins instead of 5
– The garbage hasn’t overflowed since
It’s been over a week since the new system was implemented and the garbage hasn’t over flowed since. Not sure if adding one extra bin is the reason the garbage stopped overflowing, maybe the red company had too many contracts for one bin and the Baladia forced them to put a second bin, I’m not sure. Also, there no longer is a blue bin so I’m guessing our building has now signed up with another collector, or we’re still dumping our garbage in the bins further down the road.
Whatever the case, the whole thing was interesting and the garbage situation seems to be sorted… for now.
Because of my Popeyes post this morning a few people asked me if I had any updates about ALBAIK opening in Kuwait. ALBAIK is a very popular Saudi fried chicken concept and from what I’ve been told, they’re planning to open in Kuwait next year with the first two locations in Al Khiran and Aswaq Qurain. They also have plans to open two more locations in the north but they haven’t decided where yet.
Thanksgiving is in a couple of days so I’ve put together two lists, one of restaurants that are serving Thanksgiving dinner, and the other of restaurants that have turkey to take home. If there is a place you know I haven’t listed, let me know so I can add it:
Dine-In
Four Seasons Hotel @fskuwait
Hilton Kuwait Resort @hiltonkuwaitresort
Radisson Blu Hotel @radissonblukuwait
Take Away
Baker & Spice @bakerandspicekw
Dean & Deluca @deandelucame
IKEA @ikeakuwait
Little Deli @littledeli
Madison & Heig @madisonandheig
Safir Fintas Kuwait Hotel @safir_fintas_hotel
St. Regis @stregiskuwait
Sultan Center @sultan_center
SVN @svn_kw
Symphony Style @symphonystylekuwait
The Hungry Vegan @thehungryvegankw
Popeyes, the popular fried chicken chain is coming back to Kuwait. Tanmiah, the Saudi food company that owns and operates Popeyes in Saudi Arabia announced in a press release that they will be expanding into two new markets, Kuwait and Bahrain.
Popeyes used to be open in Kuwait until they closed down back in 2014. Interestingly, we’re now seeing a trend of brands making a comeback in Kuwait with Nando’s, Magnolia Bakery, Little Caesars, and now Popeyes all reopening again. Hopefully A&W and Arby’s are next!
Last year I visited Riyadh to check out the Noor Festival, the largest light art festival in the world. Noor means light in Arabic and last year they had 44 different light installations spread across Riyadh and some were really epic. This year the festival is going to be even bigger with over 80 artists invited to participate.
Monira Al Qadiri (@moniraism), the Kuwaiti visual artist whom I’ve previously featured on the blog before is one of the artists invited to take part in the festival this year which starts on November 30th and continue till December 16th.
Visiting the different light installations is free and finding them is easy using the festival app.
If you’ve never been to Riyadh it’s a fun road trip if you want to drive down. Any resident of Kuwait can also apply for a Saudi tourism eVisa no matter of your nationality. There is a lot to do in Riyadh in terms of things to see and restaurants to experience. Last year I went for one night only because there were a handful of light installations I wanted to see but it was really hectic and I wished I stayed a night longer. You can do it in just a night if you really want but two nights would be much better experience.
For more information on the festival, visit @noorriyadhfestival or riyadhart.sa/en/noor-riyadh
Although I knew there was a big chance this wasn’t going to happen to begin with, it still feels sad now that it’s been officially canceled.
The Supreme Committee of the Public-Private Partnership Projects Authority has decided to cancel the Kuwait Metro project, which is part of the Rapid Transport Systems Project. This decision, made in lieu of the Authority’s Board of Directors, was based on the project’s significant administrative and financial burdens on public funds, amounting to 2.152 million dinars, as reported by the Audit Bureau. Source
Back in 2012 they had stated the metro project would be completed by 2020. That didn’t happen but in 2020 they did say the project was still happening and gave more details would about:
Metropolitan Rapid Transit System Project (KMRT) will be built over five phases stretching over 160 kilometers, and will have 68 stations along three lines, according to the plan. The first phase of the project includes a railway stretching 50 kilometers from Kuwait City to Kuwait International Airport, with 27 new stations, 30 percent of which will be underground with two underground stations. Source
Since the metro is now canceled I’m not sure what’s the plan to improve the public transportation system will be, if there is one.
Yesterday I experienced the worst rain I’ve ever experienced in my life. It was insane, and it feels like it only hit Salmiya.
Last night I decided to walk to Marina Mall but as I left my apartment it started to drizzle and my Apple Watch told me there would be light showers. So went back home, took my car and drove to Marina and then Symphony Mall since I needed to pass by AAB World.
While in Symphony I started hearing loud bangs, one of the shops under construction hoarding was fluttering from the wind. I looked at my Apple Watch and it said the windspeed was 24km/h which wasn’t that bad. But then I noticed people starring up at the glass roof and thats when I realized it was raining, heavy.
My car was parked a short walk from the mall and because I didn’t have an umbrella, I kinda was waiting for an opportunity to get to my car when I got a call from my building guy telling me I should get home and move my cars because the parking was starting to flood.
My underground parking is 3 basements, the last basement usually floods ankle deep during storms and so I tend to move my cars up to the middle or top level basement. When there is a storm warning, I sometimes move my cars to a multistory lot down the street and park it on the high floors. This time I didn’t get any warnings (light showers my ass weather app) and ALL my cars were parked in the most bottom basement.
Realizing the urgency of the situation I ran to my car (getting super soaked in the process) and drove back as quickly and safely as possible. Traffic was moving slow on the Gulf Road but thankfully it was moving. The water was so deep you couldn’t tell where the road ended and the sea began. You also barely could see because it was raining so heavily and there was even hail.
By the time I got to my neighborhood, the rain had stopped but the roads were all flooded but I was in my lifted Hilux so I wasn’t too worried (thank you Hilux for being a beast). I knew I didn’t have much time, I only had three out of seven car keys with me with the rest up in my apartment, but my priority was the Lotus since it’s the lowest of all my cars and I had that key on me. When I got to the basement the water was still shallow but there was a river coming down the parking entrance and a pipe in the basement had burst.
I first moved my Lotus up right away and then I’m not sure how, but I managed one by one to move all my cars up to the higher floors safely. I started with my lowest car and moved to the next tallest car until they were all on the safer higher floors. My Datsun had a fuel leak which I luckily just repaired this past weekend. My BMW M3 had a dead battery but I knew that and had a battery booster with me so managed to start the car easily. Suburban I hadn’t started in months and luckily just started. I feel really really lucky all the cars started and I was there in time to save them.
The water eventually got knee deep in the basement to the point even my tall knee high Hunter boots were filling up with water. I actually had four shoe changes starting with the sneakers I was originally wearing, to my water proof ankle hhigh hiking boots, to tall knee high boots to finally realizing I should just be in shorts and flip flops cuz the water was too deep.
I’ve never seen a storm like this. Sadly one of my neighbors wasn’t home and couldn’t get his car out in time and it’s now half deep in water and flooded on the inside.
After I calmed down and my adrenalin rush subsided, I decided to get online to see how the rest of Kuwait coped. To my surprise, all the drama seemed to have just been in Salmiya. wtf!
Below are some events taking place this weekend, as usual, let me know if I missed anything:
Thursday, November 16
Gardenia Pop-up
TK Market
GulfRun GP 2023
GR Yaris Cup 2023
Friday, November 17
DAI Fall Festival
GulfRun GP 2023
GR Yaris Cup 2023
Gardenia Pop-up
TK Market
Classic Cars & Trucks Gathering
Saturday, November 18
GulfRun GP 2023
GR Yaris Cup 2023
Tape Painting in the Garden
Gardenia Pop-up
Basta Gardening Workshop
Kashta with MADANG
Storytelling with Mariam AlEissa
Winter Market
TK Market
Classic Cars & Trucks Gathering
Exhibitions
Arabia Felix and Rome
Palestine Art Stands
The Eye of The Sky Drone Photography Exhibition
SIF, An Introduction by Mohammad Kassem
I think I watched more TV on TikTok this week than I did on my TV. I’m still watching Lessons of Chemistry, it’s still pretty good. Also started the new season of For All Mankind, I think it’s gotten fairly boring, even last season wasn’t that great. Can’t wait till Saturday though when the first episode of Monarch: Legacy of Monsters comes out.
Let me know what you watched this week in the comments below.
Movies at the Cinemas
The movies below are now showing at the local cinemas:
New This Weekend:
Boonie Bears: Guardian Code (7.0)
The Good Mother (4.6)
The Hunger Games: The Ballad of Songbirds & Snakes (6.9)
The Piper (6.2)
Other Movies Showing:
Deep Fear (4.0)
Five Nights at Freddy’s (6.2)
Freelance (5.3)
Killers of the Flower Moon (8.6)
On Fire (5.9)
PAW Patrol: The Mighty Movie (6.1)
The Inseparables (7.0)
The Marvels (6.1)
The Snow Queen and the Princess (5.2)
The classic films below are currently showing at the 1954 Film House:
Dirty Harry (7.7)
The Hunchback of Notre Dame (7.0)
The numbers in brackets refer to the IMDB rating at the time of publishing.
Khalifouh Village opened this past February, but I only found out about it in April and by then the village had already closed down for the season. Now the village is getting ready to open again and I was lucky enough to be given permission to pass by and get a sneak peek.
The village is owned by the popular Kuwaiti actor Khalifa Khalifouh who is known for his roles on a few popular tv shows and plays. Khalifa is very passionate about the Kuwaiti heritage and while working on shows involving old Kuwaiti villages, he didn’t like the way they were being poorly built so he decided he wanted to build a proper village, which he did. Khalifouh Village isn’t the first village he built, he originally built one in Salmi but then decided to knock it down and build another one in Wafra to make it more accessible to people.
The village is big with lots of buildings and alleyways connecting them all. The village has the basic necessities that a real village would have like a mosque, a baker, a tea shop, a theater and a main square. When the village officially opens for guests it will have more props and activities happening, but since it was closed when I visited, it was just me and an empty village.
I really wanted to visit the village for two reasons. The first is obviously to post about it, but the second reason was to take one of my classic cars so I could take photos of it with the village as a backdrop. Driving through the village in my old car felt weirdly real, like I had stumbled upon an old, abandoned village in the desert. Because the village is in Wafra where there are no tall buildings, once you’re inside all you see is the village and nothing else from the outside world.
There is no set date for the reopening of the village. They were targeting this month, but the weather hasn’t really cooled that much so it now looks like it will be in December. To stay posted on the opening, follow their account which also has some great photos @khalifouhvillage
Here is their location on Google Maps.
Backburner the coffeeshop quietly opened a new location last week in the old-school neighborhood of Souq Altujjar (the old traders market) across from the Grand Mosque and Seif Palace.
What’s very interesting about this location is they have a nostalgia room on their second floor. The room has shelves filled with a variety of old items from our childhood, some from the 80s, some much older. They have a Hungry Bunny section, a small Showbiz section, Sakhr (MSX), Ifta7 Ya Simsim and more items all from our past and all on display.
I actually sold them one of my very clean and copies of the 1955 Violet Dickson book “The Wild Flowers of Kuwait and Bahrain”. It’s a very rare book so if you’ve wanted to check it out, this is your chance.
If you want to check it out they open daily from 7AM to 10:30PM, and they’re located next to the Seif Palace roundabout in Block 4 of Souq Altujjar, the same block that has Starbucks. Google Maps
This is just a quick update on my 9 year long ordeal with the garbage dump behind my house. Next year will mark the 10 year anniversary of my first post on the issue. It’s basically the same crap over and over.
9 years ago there weren’t enough bins, since then more towers have come up and Barayih Salem was built and so the area is more popular than its ever been. As you can imagine that means more waste and more garbage.
Even though the garbage dump is my view every morning as I grab my coffee and sit down on my computer to post about Kuwait, it only really starts to bother me when the weather gets nicer and I start taking out my classic cars. The cars don’t have AC and so I need to have the windows open but as I drive by this garbage dump on my way home, I have to put up with the horrendous smell.
So I decided to send a WhatsApp to the 139 Baladia number to complain. There were originally 5 bins with garbage overflowing. First day they came and cleaned up the overflowed garbage.
Next day it was the same issue so I sent them another message. They came back but they ended up removing one of the bins bringing it down to a total of 4.
Next day the garbage problem was worse because now we were down a bin. So I sent them a WhatsApp again and they removed 3 bins and left just 1.
I swear I’m not exaggerating, I have this all documented with photos and text messages. As you can imagine I sent a complaint again. So I wake up next day and we have no bins at all, just a pile of garbage all pilled up on the ground.
It’s both funny and sad at the same time. I sent them another complaint today, not sure what they might do since they’ve already taken all the bins. I’ll let you guys know tomorrow!
This is something I never thought I’d write about, Kuwait’s National Ski Team. Over the past few weeks, Kuwaiti athletes have been participating in competitions organized by the International Ski and Snowboard Federation (FIS) and Ski Dubai.
Four Kuwaiti athletes took part in various competitions:
Salman Alkandari
Abdulwahab Almaatouq
Faris Alobaid
Abdulrahman Alwahibi
The journey to get to this point took Faris Alobaid (@therealcurator) nearly 5 years of intense lobbying to make it happen. The team eventually became fully affiliated with “Kuwait Winter Sports Club” which is how they were able to get an FIS seat and become the first athletes to compete under the Kuwait National Ski Team banner.
The athletes are now planning to compete extensively during the winter seasons to rack up as many points as possible with the aim to qualify Kuwait to enter the Winter Olympics 2026.
Training is going to be challenge for obvious reasons. To compete at an international level requires a lot of investment, correct gear and training, which they had none of. They just winged it with their own equipment because it was a last minute thing and they needed to desperately start collecting points.
Now that they’re back in Kuwait after taking part in the competitions, the ski team is hoping to get more financial and moral support from the Kuwait Olympic Committee.
They also want to start rallying the private and government sector to financially invest in winter sports to help put Kuwait on the international map. Both UAE and Saudi Arabia have made skiing a national priority by investing heavily in the sport. Saudi Arabia, for example, is set to host the 2029 Asian Winter Games in NEOM.
Most importantly though, the ski team right now needs investment in gear and the hiring of a coach. They really want to pave the way and inspire the next generation of Kuwaiti male and female skiers.
To stay updated on their progress and other winter teams and athletes, follow @kuwait_wgc and @fahad_alajmi_10