2:48AM - Entertaining Kuwait since 2003
This has to be the strangest thing I’ve read in ages. According to Badoo the compilers of the world’s largest ever study on online flirting, Kuwait ranked 3rd in flirtatious behavior online. 3rd place out of 200! Isn’t that so very weird?
Top 10
1 Athens
2 Moscow
3 Kuwait City
4 Baku
5 Tunis
6 Kiev
7 Beirut
8= Turin
8= Rome
10 Bari
Here is a link to the article [Link]
Thanks FYI
On my trip to Dubai I decided to stay at EasyHotel. I had a good experience with them on my last trip to London so was interested to see how the hotel was in Dubai. What attracted me to the hotel was the fact rooms start at just KD7.5 a day (99dhms). Yes KD7.5 a day! I thought that was ridiculously cheap and specially for a hotel in Dubai. I looked for reviews online but couldn’t find anything and the only pictures I found were the PR shots. I was a bit worried to book a room but figured what the hell its only for 3 days so worse comes to worse it would be over quickly.
The hotel is located in the Jabel Ali free zone which is around 40 minutes from the airport and 30 minutes from Dubai Mall. I rented a car from the airport and headed with my GPS towards Easy Hotel. Even though the software on my GPS is the 2010 map it seems since the map got released the roads in Dubai changed because the GPS made me take the wrong exit and I spent 40 minutes trying to get back to the main Sheikh Zayed road. Once you find the hotel though its pretty easy to get there.
My first impression with the hotel was positive. The building was very clean and simple on the outside with ample parking underneath. The reception was also very clean with a few vending machines on one side and some computers connected to the internet on the other. I should mention this in case you didn’t know already but Easy Hotel is a no frills hotel in the same way how Jazeera and Fly Dubai are budget airlines. The rooms are cheap but that’s because you get just the basics and you pay for extra stuff. The Easy Hotel I previously tried in London was also extremely tiny (see review here) but if all you care about is a place to sleep at night then you really won’t mind it all.
The rooms at Easy Hotel Dubai are pretty big compared to the London branch. There was ample space around the bed , a flat screen tv (with just 4 channels), a small open closet with shelves and hangers. There was even a little desk next to the window and a small safe to put your items in. The bathroom wasn’t that bad as well, the sink was kinda small but the shower area was pretty big.
As I mentioned with Easy Hotel you pay for extras. For example the fact I wanted a room with a window.. thats an extra cost. If you don’t care about a window then you pay less for the room. TV remote? You pay for that as well (although we were given one for free), extra towels? you pay, Internet? you pay, you want your room cleaned? you pay, water? you pay, room service? its a vending machine in the lobby. Surprisingly I didn’t have to pay to park my car at the hotel!
But with all that I loved staying there and in the end my room with extras came out to just KD10 a night which is still incredibly cheap and this is DUBAI!!. The hotel was super clean, the Internet was fast and the staff were very friendly. From now on that’s the hotel I will be staying in when I fly there.
Things to keep in mind though, you need to rent a car since the hotel is 30 minutes away from places like Dubai Mall. There are no cabs outside or near the hotel so you would have to order one and I don’t know how long that would take. There is a metro nearby but not walking distance. There is also nothing around the hotel, nothing you can walk to. But, because the hotel is so cheap you can splurge on a rental, my Toyota Yaris from Budget cost me just KD15 a day with all the insurance, gas and crossing 4 electronic toll systems a day. Would I recommend EasyHotel? Yes I would.
Just an FYI, I’m going to be talking tonight at GeekFest about blogging in Kuwait and my Benihana lawsuit. I sadly won’t be there for the event but I will be presenting via Skype video. If you’re in the UAE and want to find out more about this event you can visit their website [Here]
I think they’ve arranged for a bus from Dubai to the venue twofour54 (hmmm) and there is more info on that in their Facebook page [Here]
I tried FlyDubai for the first time on my recent trip to Dubai. I booked everything the last minute and FlyDubai had the cheapest prices so I decided to try them out.
My experience with FlyDubai itself didn’t turn out bad. We started off on the wrong foot since when I tried to check in at the airport I had to wait around 20 minutes because the ticket staff lost the list that contains all the job occupations that can get a visa on entry to Dubai. That was extremely annoying and frustrating. Then once we boarded the plane I thought the interior was gloomy. I think its the color of the seats (brownish orange with a dark blue) made the interior look old. But I thought the uniforms of the flight attendants were cool and trendy plus they were also very friendly and polite. On my way there the seats didn’t have a TV screen but on the return flight there was a screen with a credit card slit. You could use your card to purchase movies or tv shows to watch (movie is 25dhm tv show is 5dhm). You could also order duty free and food items using the screen including alcohol.
Actually my only issue with FlyDubai is the airport they fly in and out from in Dubai. FlyDubai uses Terminal 2 which is one of the saddest airports I’ve been to (and I’ve been to quite a few). After falling in love with Dubai on this trip (mostly because of Dubai Mall and Burj Khalifa) I found the airport a step in the opposite direction. It was old, small, dark and had no source of entertainment whatever. The Duty Free looked very poor and the only restaurants available were McDonalds, a Kebab place and Costa. On the bright side there was free wifi at the terminal but after spending time in a very futuristic and modern city to end the trip in that depressing airport was an extreme let down. The airport sadly is a deal breaker for me which is a shame since everything else wasn’t bad at all.
Spotted a golden Bentley parked outside Salhiya today. The car had Saudi license plates and I later spotted it on the road. I have to confess, I thought it actually looked pretty good on the road.
Yesterday I was checking twitter when I read that Sylvester Stallone is going to be coming to Kuwait for the launch of Planet Hollywood. This sounded a bit déjà vu for me since back in December 2009 I posted the exact same thing but that it would open March 2010. That obviously never happened and now it seems they’re opening up this month on the 24th. If its true that Sylvester Stallone is going to be here then I really really REALLY need to meet him. First I need to get my picture taken with him for facebook, and secondly I need him to sign my Cobra DVD for me. Wish I had a Cobra poster for him to sign but I guess there is always time to order one online.
I’m going to be in Dubai for the next couple of days and I won’t be taking my laptop so posting will be slow. Lets call it a small break. Will be back to Kuwait on the 2nd.
In addition to the videos of the fireworks I posted about earlier, Cajie a photographer posted some great shots of the fireworks display in his flickr page which you can see [Here]
Update: Here is another link to photos taken by Bu Yousef. My favorite one is below. [Link]
I walked into 360 Mall today to find a B&O stand right in front of me. Since they’ve closed their Fanar branch and are waiting for their Symphony one to open they’ve temporarily set up at 360 Mall while that happens. I love their stuff but there is no way I can afford plunking down KD3,500 for a pair of speakers yet alone one of their audio systems or TVs. But while checking out their stuff I spotted the BeoSound 8.
I had only seen the BeoSound 8 in pictures online before but never in person. It’s one of the coolest and slickest looking iPod docks as well as being one of the few B&O items that is somewhat affordable. From first impressions the sound is pretty good with a lot of good deep bass but not overpowering and well balanced. It comes with a tiny remote control that looks exactly like the circle controller on the main device as well as a wall mount in case you want to mount it on a wall. Just like other B&O speakers, the two circular cloth speaker covers can be exchanged for different colored ones to match your interior. The BeoSound 8 has auxiliary inputs and a USB input in case you want to connect it to your computer but most importantly you can dock any iPod that ever came out which had a dock connector and you can even connect the iPad to it. Price wise it’s not cheap but it’s a lot more affordable than one of their TVs or audio systems. The BeoSoud 8 is being sold locally for KD400, which is a discounted price since they will be selling it for KD450 once relaunched at Symphony mall.
Here is a link to the BeoSound 8 online [Link]
In case you missed it. [YouTube]
Shot this video on my way to work this morning. There is a lot of prep being done around the Kuwait Towers to get ready for the fireworks tomorrow night. I saw two large white balloon shaped objects (you can spot one in the video) which I couldn’t figure out what they were. Looks like something that belongs on Mars. [YouTube]
I received an email yesterday from a reader who told me that his internet provider had limited his DSL download bandwidth to just 1.6GB a day. He told me that according to his provider every internet provider in Kuwait will be doing the same thing to their customers in the next coming weeks as well. I thought he might have misunderstood and it could have been a problem he was having but I just read in the forum that another person also ran into a similar problem. His internet provider downgraded his speed from 2MB to 512kb because he was downloading on average 3GB a day.
This freaked me out so I called up my provider (Qualitynet) and asked them if they had implemented the same system and according to the customer support guy I spoke to they haven’t. He actually told me I could relax and download the whole Internet if I wanted to and I would be fine.
Anyone have any more information on this?