2:48AM - Entertaining Kuwait since 2003

Video from the last day of school at ASK back in 1988. I didn’t know they had the bubble back then. Very cool video, wish I had a Sunshine School 1988 video.. [YouTube]

The source suspects the peddlers to be cultivating marijuana inside Kuwait, “as it’s not worth the risk to smuggle it in. It is not worth it unless you are smuggling the goods in very huge quantities, running into hundreds of thousands of KD.”

Describing the hemps that are grown indoors by his friends, the source said the plants are grown in earthen pots under artificial lighting; due ventilation is provided for fresh air.”

“It doesn’t take up much space and can be grown in a closet, or on a corner in the bedroom.” One of his friends grows it in the bathroom because the plant gives off a peculiar smell, which is easy to detect.”

I guess when the oil runs out this could be Plan B? [Link]

Mariam Erzouqi grips her German-made air rifle with carefully-manicured hands, steadies her footing, eyes the target and slowly pulls the trigger until a soft crack echoes through Kuwait’s cavernous shooting range.

The 24-year-old, who is set to become the second Kuwaiti woman to compete at an Olympic Games, has an affinity for her rifle and will take dead aim at a medal in the 10 and 50 metres air rifle in London.

You can read the full article on Mariam Erouqi’s Olympic dream [Here]

Picture from Kuwait Times

I was having breakfast at The Early Bird when I spotted a new magazine called The City in their magazine stand. I brought the magazine home with me and have been flipping through it and there are things I like and things I don’t like about it.

One of the things I like is their writers. I recognized a few of the contributes including Dana Madouh who I got to meet the first time I visited Hamra Tower, and Ayeshah Al-Humaidhi and John Peaveler both of which are behind the Kuwait Society for the Protection of Animals and their Habitat (K’SPATH). There were also a few other familiar names as well.

Now what I didn’t like about the magazine is the layout and design. The choice of typefaces, the full forced justification and the very boring grid makes it look too much like a B-rated high school magazine. But, it’s their first issue and maybe the design will improve with the next issues.

One thing I thought was strange is that according to the Chief Editor in his intro column they’re “the fastest growing magazine available across the globe”.

If you’re interested in picking up the magazine I’m guessing it’s available at various coffee shops and restaurants around Kuwait but not sure since they don’t say where you can find it in the magazine. I got mine from The Early Bird.

According to Q80 High Street there is now a miu miu “coming soon” hoarding at 360 Mall (she doesn’t mention where in the mall exactly).

Miu Miu is a high fashion brand of women’s clothing and accessories from the Prada fashion house. [Source]

I guess it’s only a matter of time before Prada opens up as well. [Link]

When I finally decided to travel to Japan the first thing I did was try to find out how much the airline ticket cost. I wasn’t sure what to expect and I had an unrealistic astronomical price in my head to start out with so I started checking the ticket prices for all the airlines in the region like Emirates, Qatar Airways, Kuwait Airways, Gulf Air etc. Surprisingly, ticket prices didn’t vary that much from one airline to the other and I quickly narrowed my choices down to Emirates and Qatar Airways. In the end I went with Qatar Airways because I heard some good things about them plus their offices were located next to mine in Kuwait City.

My experience with Qatar Airways was pretty positive, except for one issue at the start of the trip. My flight took off from Kuwait at 11:10PM and it was supposed to land at the Doha airport at 12:30AM and then my flight to Osaka would take off at 1:25AM. Problem is when my plane got to Doha it didn’t land right away. Instead, the plane kept circling around the airport for quite some time way past my boarding time. When we finally did land I realized three things:

– I wasn’t close to my gate
– The Doha airport is under major construction
– After being dropped off to the arrival terminal I had to take another bus to get to the transit terminal

I was already late for my flight and I started panicking. The bus ride to the transit terminal took around 15 minutes (it felt much longer) and as soon as I got to the terminal an airport attendant came up to me and asked “Osaka?” I replied yes and he then took my passport and started running. I started running as well and when I caught up to him I asked him what was going on with my flight? He laughed and said I was the last passenger and that he was looking for me and was about to give up before I showed up. I was super relieved I didn’t end up missing my flight.

Besides that early drama I loved Qatar Airways. Their seats are comfortable, their food is great and the entertainment system is actually not that bad. One big bonus is that all their economy seats have a USB plug so you can recharge your iPod, iPad or any other USB powered device which is pretty cool. My flight from Kuwait to Doha was packed but I didn’t feel cramped in my seat and the entertainment system had very recent movies and some addictive games to keep me distracted. The flight to Osaka on the other hand is where things got much much better. The plane was practically empty! When I got to my seat I had 2 empty chairs right next to mine, a European couple had an aisle each, an old Japanese man had an aisle to himself, basically each passenger in my section had an entire aisle to themselves. The first thing I did was check what movies were playing and found out that there were about 11 to choose from, all recent except for one (which I chose), Lost in Translation.

Food wise we had two meals, one right after the flight took off and the other before arriving. For flights to Japan you have the choice between “regular” or “Japanese” meals. The regular meals seemed boring to me so I went with the Japanese ones. One meal included beef szechuan, noodles with fish cake, a salmon roll and a small salad with some dessert, while the other meal was chicken noodles and some fruit.

The flight attendants were really friendly and since I had three seats all to myself I took the liberty of raising the armrests and slept across the three seats like a bed. This was definitely the most comfortable and enjoyable flight I’ve ever had and so I highly recommend them. The cost of the ticket was KD518 when I booked it.

Posted by Patrick

That’s kick ass! It’s by Mohamed Kanoo and Khaleejesque have an article about him [Here]

Over the weekend I was at the Avenues and ended up passing by Xcite’s new photography section. Two things grabbed my attention, the first is the fact they have 4 incredibly expensive Nikon lenses on display including the 400mm f/2.8 which I’d love to have at the next Gulf Run event. The second thing that grabbed my attention was the Fuji X-Pro 1 camera.

When the camera was first revealed online my heart sank into to my stomach since I had just purchased the my Panasonic GX1 and there was no way I could buy this as well. The camera was everything the Fuji X100 was except it was better in every way.

Once I got home I sent an email to my contact at Xcite and asked him if they’d be able to hook me up with one to review and they did. Not only that but I’m traveling to Lebanon for two weeks and I’m going to have the camera with me there which is perfect since the X-Pro 1 is a great camera for street photography which is something I like doing in Lebanon.

I’m going to be using the 35mm f/1.4 lens with the camera and expect a thorough review in around 10 days time.

Update: Below is a picture of the X-Pro 1 next to my GX1.

Two days ago I get an email from Smoke House telling me they’re planning to launch a Hashi burger and if I was interested to try it out. Hashi turns out means baby camel and since I hadn’t tried camel meat before I figured why not.

I wasn’t too sure what to expect, I’ve tried ostrich meat before and found it very lean and chewy so I figured camel meat would probably be the same but maybe have a stronger flavor. I wasn’t expecting it to be good but thought it would at least be worth trying just for the experience.

It turns out camel meat actually tastes pretty much like regular beef. I had the burger with caramelized onions, cheese and BBQ sauce, strong flavors which slightly overpower the patty but in this case a great combination since hashi meat is slightly drier than beef so the toppings helped keep things juicy. I’m not sure why other places don’t have Hashi burgers as well, could be a good diet patty due to the fact it contains less fat than beef.

Smoke House haven’t introduced the burger yet nor do they have a price for it but they’ll be updating their Twitter account once they do as well as their website. Fahad if you’re reading this I didn’t have lunch so I could have this burger and I won’t be having dinner. Diet still on.. kinda.

I tend to flip flop between shipping companies A LOT and most of my long time readers know that. Not sure why shipping companies can’t stay consistent but I love the fact we have options to choose from. Two years ago I said goodbye to DHL Borderlinx, they had increased their prices, started charging based on volumetric weight and their customs clearance thing was very random.

Last week I decided I wanted the new Galaxy Tab 2 7″ as my portable movie player for my trips. It was May 23rd and my travel date is May 31st so I needed the Tab before that. I hadn’t used DHL for over 2 years but based on feedback I had read I was told they would be fast. I placed the order on Amazon and this is how it went:

I placed order from Amazon on May 23rd
Package arrives to my DHL mailbox in the States on May 24th
Package ships from my DHL mailbox in the States on May 25th
Package ready for pickup in Kuwait on May 29th

That’s fast and best of all I didn’t pay any tax since their US mailbox is based in Ohio. Shipping cost me KD6.5 and there were no custom duties. Total price I paid for the Galaxy Tab including shipping to Kuwait is just KD82.5!

Tonight I invited myself to Shawarma Shuwaikh, a new shawarma place that’s opening up soon. The place actually belongs to a friend of mine, Bader Alsalem who also happens to be Basil Alsalem’s brother (the guy behind OFK, Slider Station, Burger Boutique etc..). I was supposed to pass by on Wednesday with Marzouq and some other friends but I couldn’t wait that long and headed there right after my gym a few hours ago.

It’s a small place that’s very nicely designed with one wall setup with screens playing different videos and another wall featuring some art and mirrors. The menu is small with around 8 sandwiches, 7 being either beef or chicken shawerma and the last being a halloum sandwich. They also have fries and drinks. The sandwiches are split up into groups based on if they come in Lebanese bread, Sammoun (hotdog bun) or Sajj. I ended up ordering the Shawerma Gass which is their regular beef shawerma in sammoun, a Shawerma 1961 which comes in a sajj bread with chicken, roca, fries, onion strips and chili ranch sauce and also had a cup of fries as well.

[YouTube]

The food reminded me a lot of the shawerma from Falafel & Co which is a really good thing since I used to love their shawermas before they closed down. I also think their prices are very reasonable ranging from 500fils to KD1.000 for the specials like Shawerma 1961. The place is still NOT open so you can’t pass by and try it out just yet. They’re planning to hopefully open next week and once I get a confirmed date I’ll post it with their exact location so stay tuned.

Spotted on Failaka.

Photo by q8tifarmer

[YouTube]

This video has been circulating the web for the past 2 days (warning it’s graphic) but I was wondering if anyone else thinks it could be a fake? For some reason this feels like a Saudi awareness campaign to try and show the guys who street drift like this what could happen. The car rollover effects also kinda reminds me of [This]

Update: Frankom just shared with me some more videos of this incident in the comments below and I’m not starting to think it’s real.

The number of Indians living in in Kuwait has quadrupled in the past decade to an estimated 650,000 – making them the country’s largest foreign population. For a long time seen as blue collar workers – now a new generation of Indian businessmen are changing the perception of their community by being partners in some of Kuwait’s top firms. Howard Johnson has been to Kuwait to explore the secret of the Indian community’s success. [YouTube]

Note to self: I need to try Amman Bhelpuri.

I was recently in Japan and Mark thought it would be interesting if I posted about it. Growing up in the late 80’s and the 90’s in Kuwait I was exposed to a lot of Japanese culture from Super Mario, Zelda & Metroid (Nintendo in general), to watching Captain Majid, Voltron and Grendizer on television. So, it was only natural for me to be fascinated with everything Japanese and thats why I decided to take a two week trip to Japan. The plan was to stay in Kyoto over at a friends place for about 10 days and from there I would visit neighboring cities by train including Tokyo where I wanted to spend at least 3 days. Now that I’m back I have to say Japan was a brilliant place to visit, Kyoto is a great city and for the most part the Japanese people were pretty friendly and enjoyable to be around.

One of the things you’ll probably use a lot if you ever go to Japan is the subway. I used it a lot while in Japan and it was super crammed most of the time. It’s ridiculous how many people can fit into a subway train and it’s also incredibly uncomfortable especially after a whole day of walking around and feeling like your legs are about to give out to be then squeezed inside the train. There is actually a guy that stands on the subway platform during rush hour to help push and squeeze people inside the train. One really cool thing I noticed is that the Japanese sleep (or nap) a lot on the train. That’s normal except I saw guys sleeping while sitting, crouching and even while standing. Basically, they can take naps in any position! They also have a great sense of balance while riding the subway, I saw one guy playing on his Sony PSP without holding onto anything while I was standing grabbing onto a rail and swaying around left and right. Some rules that you should follow while riding the subway and trains in Japan is that you should always put your phone on silent, don’t make or answer calls and don’t eat while riding the train (drinking is okay).

Another interesting thing I noticed is that in the Kansai area (Kyoto, Osaka) when people ride escalators they stand on the right side while the left is for people who want to walk up or down the escalators (like in London). On the other hand in the Kanto area (where Tokyo is) people stand on the left side while the right is for walking up and down. Now the reason I was given for this is that there’s an on-going rivalry between the two areas because Kyoto used to be the capital of Japan before Tokyo so they try to do everything the opposite. But, I’m not sure anyone really knows the reason behind this because if you do a quick Google search you’ll find other reasons to why they do things differently. One reason that I particularly liked is that back in the old days the Kanto region were known for their samurai’s who prefer to stay on the left so they could draw their swords easily. On the other hand the Kansai region were known for their rich merchants who prefer staying on the right to protect their belongings that they hold in their right hands. Standing on the right or left is such a minor thing but even that has an interesting story behind it.

I liked a lot of things in Japan but one of the things that fascinated me the most were their plastic food models. Restaurants, pastry shops and places that sell bento boxes all have extremely detailed plastic models of the food they serve on display. The models look very realistic and the first time I saw one I thought it was real and was wondering how they got the food to stick to the plate that was displayed at an angle. And yes the food in Japan is brilliant. I tried a whole bunch of things including Indian food, a falafel place, a Korean burger joint and more while there and didn’t have one bad meal. McDonalds was pretty great there and even their shawerma’s which they call “kebabs” are also really good. Of course I also had a lot of Japanese food and even got to try whale meat (I didn’t want to but my friends insisted). Another thing I liked about Japan is how everything is (as my friend put it) “cartoonated”. You’d have a poster warning you of danger or risk of death but they’d be illustrated and look very cute even though they’re meant to be very serious. Video game fans should also definitely visit a video game themed cafe while there. I went to a place in Osaka called Space Station that has literally every console released that you could play on while enjoying a drink.

I also love their vending machines. There was one I tried while in Tokyo that had a camera built into it. You stand in front of the vending machine and the camera would scan your face and body posture and then analyze the information and suggest what you should drink. Which brings me to the subject of coins… Buy a coin purse if you plan on going to Japan since they use a lot of coins. If you own a Nintendo 3DS, make sure to carry it around everywhere in Japan in you want to blend in. I saw a lot of 3DS’s more than any other piece of tech (except for smartphones).

Things to see? Well in Kyoto there’s the Fushimi Inari shrine, the Manga Museum, Kinkaku-Ji (also known as the Golden Pavilion), Pontocho (which are old streets you can walk through), Teramatchi (a long street that’s just a massive marketplace), the Botanical Gardens, Kiyomizu Dera (another shrine). Then a little bit outside of Kyoto there’s a small city called Nara that has a beautiful shrine called Tōdai-ji that you can visit. Right outside the shrine there are deers that roam around freely and you could feed them if you want.

In Tokyo you have the Mori Art Museum (which is a great art gallery), Studio Ghibli, Akihabara (for the Geeks) and Harajuku (for the fashion obsessed).

Japan was really an incredible place as you can imagine and it would be a super long post if I were to write about everything I did and even then I don’t think it would do Japan any justice. But I did take plenty of photos some of which I’ve shared in this post. If you’d like to see a lot more photos I took while in Japan then check out my Flickr page [Here] or my Instagram account [Here]

Posted by Patrick.