2:48AM - Entertaining Kuwait since 2003
Back in March, I posted about a local shop called Onebase that sold weighted blankets. Not a lot of people managed to grab one before they sold out but I noticed last night that they were back in stock.
Weighted blankets are considered to be therapeutic and can benefit people with anxiety, autism, and insomnia. Some people find sleeping with a weighted blanket very calming like they’re being hugged.
If you want to check out the weighted blankets at Onebase, click here.
Last week Cari, the new food delivery app soft launched in Kuwait. It was more of a beta launch than a soft launch since the app was constantly crashing at first, there were barely any restaurants and there was no sign of one of their most aggressive features which was 30 minutes delivery. Since then there have been at least two software updates sorting out the bugs so I decided to finally try them out.
Inside the app there are two main categories, one for all the restaurants and then another one just for restaurants that offer 30 minutes delivery. I decided to try out their 30 minutes delivery by ordering lunch from BBT. It wasn’t the most scientific experiment since my office is only a couple of blocks from BBT in the city, but I also wasn’t trying to make Cari fail the test or anything. Here is how the timeline looked like:
12:06 PM – Order placed
12:14 PM – BBT started preparing my order
12:29 PM – Driver arrives
12:31 PM – Order delivered
My order took 25 minutes to deliver from the moment I placed the order which is pretty cool and fast.
Right now they’re also not charging a delivery fee which is great for us. Not sure how long this is gonna last but it gives us a good reason to use Cari for now at least. There aren’t that many restaurants on the app that offer 30 mins delivery, in the city, there were like 10 only and they were either burger or coffee places.
As of this post, Cari still hasn’t officially launched so if you want you to try it out you need to click the download link on their Instagram page @getcari and follow the instructions.
Update: I’ve been told that the official launch of Cari will be happening today
Update2: They’ve officially launched, here is the direct link to the app on the Google Store and Apple Store.
The CAP Bookshop which carries books by publishers Assouline, Phaidon, Taschen, and Thames & Hudson has moved locations for the third time. Back in 2021, they moved to a larger location next to the CAP gallery in Shuwaikh and now they’ve moved once again, this time to the ground floor next to the main entrance.
I think their new location is the best one so far since it looks great but also feels cozier than the last one. If you’ve never been to the bookshop before, they mostly carry books related to architecture, art, design, fashion, photography, culture, and travel. They also have really great kids’ books mostly by the publisher Phaidon
If you want to pass by and check the bookshop out, here is the location.
I like how the GCC is starting to open up to each other. After Saudi opened its borders to GCC residents a few weeks ago, now Oman announced that any GCC resident could enter Oman without even needing a visa (source).
I have to embarrassingly confess I’ve never been to Oman but it is on my to-do list. I’ve actually been thinking of just driving there since it’s definitely a place I’d want to have a car and go driving around for a couple of weeks. From the pictures, it seems like such a beautiful and chill place, and it’s so close to Kuwait.
It doesn’t look like there are any conditions for entering Oman other than the fact that your Kuwaiti residency should be valid for a minimum of three months. I’m sure this is great news for a lot of people.
Every time we get heavy rainfall and Kuwait floods I tell myself I should get rainboots. For the past few years, I’ve been wearing my Yeezy 950’s during floods but they aren’t really that waterproof. Plus I just checked to see how much they sell on StockX and I definitely shouldn’t be using them as rainboots anymore. A couple of weeks ago while out exploring in Jahra I got into a situation that involved mud and had to turn back because I was wearing sneakers. So I decided I’d buy a pair of rain boots and just keep them in the back of my Hilux for when I need them.
I wanted to get a pair of dark green Hunter wellington boots but couldn’t find any place locally selling them and so started looking online. I was hoping to find a shop online that offered free returns in case the size wasn’t the correct one and after looking at a bunch of places, I found out Selfridges did free returns. So I ordered the boots from there. Turns out there are actually a bunch of good reasons to shop on Selfridges online which is why I’m posting about it.
Free Returns
So firstly the point I just mentioned is they have free returns. This is great because you could order stuff, try them on, and if anything doesn’t fit the way it should you can return them.
Tax-Free
The second good reason is that shopping is tax-free. Because you’re shipping from Selfridges straight to Kuwait, they remove the VAT from the price which is an instant 17% discount.
Cheap and Unlimited Shipping
Their shipping rates are really really cheap. The boots I ordered are fairly heavy, came in the biggest box I’ve ever seen and it cost me only £25 (KD9) for shipping. And it’s not like they shipped it with regular mail, they shipped using Aramex. To top it off it didn’t matter what I added to my cart, or how many items I added, the shipping price stayed fixed at £25. What’s even crazier is the fact they have unlimited deliveries for £40 (KD14.5) a year which is like wtf, how do they even make money? I’m seriously contemplating just signing up for their unlimited delivery plan and just doing all my shopping there. And just to be clear, this is unlimited shipping to Kuwait.
The boots ended up fitting me fine so I’m keeping them but I was kinda curious to try out their return policy. I should also mention they were selling the boots for pretty cheap as well compared to other places. After removing the VAT I paid 37KD for them without shipping. So great prices, cheap shipping and free returns, basically everything you want when shopping online. selfridges.com
This is an officially licensed remake of The Office but as a Saudi Arabian edition and I just added it to my to-watch list. Link
Last week I spotted this cool-looking sneaker cleaner at Xcite and since it was selling for around 10KD I decided to buy it and try it out. I wear Ultraboosts 90% of the time and when I want to clean them I just throw them in the washing machine and they come out looking brand new. But, for the remaining 10% of the time, I wear sneakers that need to be cleaned with a brush by hand. This sneaker cleaner is basically a battery-operated brush.
I tried using it to clean a few pairs of sneakers and I don’t think it does a better job when compared to a normal brush nor do I think it cleans any faster. It comes with different brush heads for different sneaker materials and you still need a good sneaker soap but those can be found at local sneaker shops. When I picked up the unit they had an offer where if you spent 20KD or more you could get the sneaker cleaner for 4.9KD. I didn’t have anything I needed to get so paid full price.
Would I recommend it? I mean if you’re a sneakerhead it might be worth getting to add to your collection of cleaning tools, but if you’re getting it with expectations that it’s going to clean your sneakers better, it won’t. If you want one, here is the link.
Over the weekend I visited the Outdoor Sport & Safari Expo and found out we now have a Solo Stove dealer in Kuwait. Solo Stoves are really great outdoor fire pits that are very practical for lighting a fire in your backyard or when out in the desert. Their firepits also have the added benefit of being smokeless due to the way they’re designed. Since winter is coming you might want to pick one up before they sell out. Here is the price comparison between the local price and Amazon if you were to ship them:
Solo Stove Ranger (Small)
Kuwait: 105KD
Amazon: 116KD
Solo Stove Bonfire (Medium)
Kuwait: 138KD
Amazon: 154KD
Solo Stove Yukon (Large)
Kuwait: 215KD
Amazon: 290KD
If you’re interested, here is the link to the local dealer outdoor.com.kw
The expo was actually pretty cool, I ended up picking up a few things that were on sale including a couple of collapsable camping chairs (8KD each), a small collapsable table to go with it (also 8KD), and an ARB recovery snatch strap (priced 22KD instead of the usual 28).
I was planning to get these camping chairs so I can throw them inside one of my storage trunks in the back of my Hilux and had one by a company called OneTigris on my Amazon wishlist. But, the total for two shipped to Kuwait was coming out to 40KD which was overkill considering I might only use them a couple of times. Then I found similar chairs but obviously not the same quality at JYSK for 5.5KD and bought a pair. I decided to buy those and figured if I did actually get some use out of them I could then splurge on better quality ones.
Right after buying the chairs from JYSK I headed to the expo and found better quality ones on discount for 8KD from a place called Extreme Outdoors. So I ended up picking up a pair from there and a small table to go along with them and they fit in my storage trunk with plenty of room left for me to store other things. Now I need to return the ones I got from JYSK but they’re actually really good value if anyone is looking for chairs to take into the desert this winter (pictured above). Here is the link for them on the JYSK website.
Lots and lots of things to do this weekend! If I missed anything, please let me know in the comments:
Thursday, Oct 27
Perfume & Cosmetics Exhibitions
Bazzar Expo
Basmat Kuwaiti Expo
Workshop: Palestinian Embroidery
Street Food Festival at Blajat
Young Italian Musical Talents Around the World
Huntertones Live at Abdulhussein Abdelredha Theater
OCCTI at Arraya
Outdoor Sport & Safari
Bloody Good Time: Karaoke in Costume
Friday, Oct 28
Perfume & Cosmetics Exhibitions
Bazzar Expo
Basmat Kuwaiti Expo
Old Cars at Marina Crescent
Padel for Paws Market
Street Food Festival at Blajat
American Car Show
Kids Cooking Class: Mini Burger Adventure
OCCTI at Arraya
Outdoor Sport & Safari
Family Fun Friday
Trunk or Treat 2022
Saturday, Oct 29
Perfume & Cosmetics Exhibitions
Bazzar Expo
Basmat Kuwaiti Expo
RunKuwait 2022
Al Hamra 2022 Rowathon
Sailing: Saturday Morning Cruising
Miseen Scene Club: Frantz
KASA Film Festival
Art Therapy Workshop
Halloween Workshop for Kids
PSYCHO at JACC
RISO Halloween Workshop
Treasure Hunt at Shaheed Park
Kids Story Time: Maybe Something Beautiful
Barriers – Storytelling with Seham Al Khrayef
Street Food Festival at Blajat
Fright Fest
Outdoor Sport & Safari
Harley Davidson Ride
Barba Brunch & Yoga
Benefit Sale of International Art & Artifacts
Exhibitions
Sara Shamma “Age”
Warhol of Arabia by Raed Yassin
Activities
Ascend Rock Climbing
Cable Park
Ice Skating at the Winter Games Club
Indoor Karting
Little Jungle
Murouj Farm
Movement Classes at Omni Studio
Roller Blade at Roller Hub
Try Windsurfing
Yoga at Darātma
Museums to Visit
Abdullah Salem Cultural Center (ASCC)
Amricani Cultural Center Museum
Bait Al Othman Museum
Tareq Rajab Museum
The movies below are now showing at Cinescape, Grand Cinemas and VOX:
New This Weekend:
Detective Knight: Rogue (3.5)
Prey for the Devil (5.0)
The System (N/A)
Other Movies Showing:
Barbie: Mermaid Power (6.5)
Big Trip 2: Special Delivery (N/A)
Black Adam (7.5)
DC League of Super-Pets (7.9)
Halloween Ends (5.0)
Lyle, Lyle, Crocodile (6.5)
Smile (6.6)
Tad the Lost Explorer and the Emerald Tablet (4.7)
The Woman King (6.3)
Ticket to Paradise (6.3)
The classic films below are currently showing at the 1954 Film House:
Classic Movies Showing:
Good Will Hunting (8.3)
The Exorcist (8.1)
The films below are also showing at the JACC Cinema:
Classic & Indie Films Showing:
Psycho (8.5)
Numbers in brackets refer to the IMDB rating at time of publishing.
I’ve never been an Apple Watch fan, I didn’t like it when it came out, and I didn’t like it 5 years later. I didn’t like the way it looked or the fact I had to raise my wrist just to turn on the screen. I also hated the idea of having to remove my watch to charge or to shower, because I never remove my watches no matter if it’s a cheap Casio or an expensive AP, my watch is always on me no matter what. Then I saw the new Apple Watch Ultra being introduced during Apple’s Keynote event, it was the first time I actually saw an Apple Watch and actually cared for it. It looked great, had a large screen, and had great battery life. I wanted it.
Full disclosure, I have a long-standing relationship with Xcite who provided me with this watch to keep. They’ve been very supportive of the blog from the very early days and they’ve lent or given me a number of items over the years to review, as well as hooking me up with discounts. I’m a huge Xcite fan and they’re an Apple Authorized Reseller.
I picked up the watch a week ago from my friends at Xcite and ever since I got it, I haven’t removed the watch except occasionally to charge it. I really don’t have a lot of requirements from a watch, I need it to tell time (easily), show the date, look good on my wrist and I don’t want to have to keep removing it from my wrist. I’ve tried watches with leather straps or vintage Casios that weren’t water-resistant, I hated having to take them off before showering. Before Covid, I was mostly rotating between two of my expensive watches, one made out of titanium, and the other forged composite, both pretty large but both very light watches (same formula as the Ultra). During Covid, I got a Casio calculator watch, similar to the one Michael J. Fox wore in the movie Back to the Future. Ever since I’ve gotten it I’ve basically stopped wearing all my other watches. It’s such a simple watch that I think looks great with its 80s design, and it was very practical. I didn’t have to worry about scratching it or banging it around, and if something did happen to it I could just get another one without going broke. But, I did have two issues with it, the first being that to see the date I had to press a button, and the second was that it didn’t have a backlight. This meant I couldn’t read the time if I woke up in the middle of the night.
This is going to sound weird and obvious, but the Apple Watch Ultra is a better version of my 1980s Casio. The new Ultra although big is actually really light for its size because of the fact it has a titanium case. It has a beautiful large screen that can show me all the information I need at a glance, and at night when I fall asleep, I have it set up to change screens to a much simpler one that only shows the time in an x-large font and in red, to ease eye strain in the dark. So functionality, it does everything I need and more. But the regular Apple Watch has all this, what sets the Ultra apart is mainly that it looks way more interesting than the regular watch which to me always looked really boring. Most of my watches are either chronographs or dive watches, I’ve never been into simple clean-looking watches, even my first watch as a kid was a Snoopy watch that looked like a dive watch. If I’m going to be wearing and using something all day, I need to like the way it looks and feels, and for me, the Ultra is the first Apple Watch I want to wear.
Another big selling point for me is the battery life, even in the first few days of owning it when I was playing around with the watch non-stop, it lasted me two days on a single charge. The fact that I can use the watch all day and then go to sleep with the watch on my wrist monitoring my sleep and knowing that I’m still going to wake up and have more than 50% battery life is such a satisfying feeling. I don’t want to deal with another device in my life that I have to worry about the battery life. So now I’ve created a routine where every morning when I sit on my iMac to type out my blog posts, I put the watch on the charger. By the time I’m done with my posts, my watch is fully charged and goes back on my wrist until the next morning. I noticed it charges really really fast over USB-C.
One of the things I was worried about initially when I saw the watch was if it was going to be too big on my skinny wrists. It’s not. Even though the watch has a 49mm diameter case, it doesn’t look huge on my wrists and so most likely won’t look big on yours either. I’m wearing the watch with a medium-sized Green Alpine Loop strap which I think is the best-looking strap on the watch. I thought initially it might be a bit annoying to put on and take off, but after using it for a week now, I’ve found it not an issue. The only issue with the strap if I’m being picky is the fact that it does get wet when showering but tends to dry fairly quickly after so not too big of a deal.
I’m trying to think of a negative thing to say about the watch but I can’t seem to think of anything. Even if I’m trying to be extra picky, there doesn’t seem to be anything that I find really annoying about it. The orange action button doesn’t have a lot of customization options right now, I can just pick a handful of different things it can do and right now I have it set to turn the watch into a flashlight. Actually, since I’m being picky, the location of the action button is where I usually place my thumb when I want to click the crown with my other finger. So on more than one occasion, I’ve accidentally turned on the flashlight when I’ve just wanted to click the crown. Just a minor issue.
When I was growing up in the 80s, the Casio G-Shock was the watch I wanted because it looked rugged and had various features I would never use like a stopwatch or altimeter. To me, the Apple Watch Ultra feels like a modern-day G-Shock and I think a lot of people see it that way. It’s going to be really popular and you can already tell by how quickly they’re selling out.
If you’re looking to buy an Ultra there is only one model but comes with different strap options. My favorite strap is the alpine loop I have but I’ve tried the trail loop and found it really comfortable. The price of the watch is 290KD and here is a link to the watches on the Xcite website.
If you have any questions about the watch, let me know in the comments.
Altersal, the lead singer of my favorite local band Galaxy Juice released a new single yesterday called “Green feather” made in collaboration with local artist and producer Bazila. The music videos was shot on Failaka island and directed by Argentinian animator Marina Di Milta.
Not sure how I feel about this single, to me it sounds more like a background sound in a movie than an actual song. My favorite tracks by Altersal are Saneman and You Never Listen, both of which have an 80s vibes to them so I kinda want him to do more of that. But you can listen to the single and decide for yourselves.
Next weekend there is a new racing event taking place at KMT called Kuwait Track Challenge. What sets this race apart from other local races is the fact that they’re offering fairly large sums of cash for the winners totaling KD65,000.
When they first announced the event I was pretty impressed by the prizes but I didn’t really realize how much more exciting it would be making the competition until this week. For those of you not into cars or racing, there are different classes for the cars during races to make it fair. The classes for Kuwait Track Challenge are divided by tire size because usually, the more powerful and larger the car, the larger the tire sizes. So for KTC, they’ve split it up into the following three classes:
Pocket Rocket – 245 tires and below
Sleeper – 285 tires and below
Outlaw – All tire sizes
Every category will have 5 winners who will each win:
1st – $32,000
2nd – $13,000
3rd – $9,700
4th – $6,500
5th – $3,250
Because of the large cash prizes, what I realized this week is a lot of people are taking this competition very seriously by actually investing money into their cars with hopes the upgrades they make will pay for themselves if they win. It’s actually gotten me excited to watch the races because I now want to see what everyone has done to their cars.
The event will be taking place next week over two days, November 4th and 5th at Kuwait Motor Town. There will be food trucks and music as well for people who want to come by and watch the event. If you’re interested in participating in the races registration as of now is still open. Here is the link to register, and they’re on Instagram @challengethetrack
If you aren’t already aware, there will be a partial solar eclipse taking place today.
Starts: 1:20 PM
Maximum Eclipse: 2:35 PM
Ends: 3:44 PM
Total Duration: 2 hours, 24 minutes
Do not try to view the eclipse with just sunglasses. The easiest and cheapest way to view the eclipse safely would probably be to pick up a welding shield (shade 12 or higher according to the internet). Ace sell small ones like the one above, but the specs say it’s shade #5 so won’t work. You can probably find the correct shade in Shuwaikh.
Update: Scientific Center will be providing free glasses for the viewing! Link
Update2: Ikarus are selling certified eclipse glasses for 1KD as well. Link
Looks like Gulf Bank has activated Apple Pay for their customers because they just announced it on their website:
Gulf Bank is excited to announce the Apple Pay Digital Wallet for Gulf Bank cardholders. The Apple Pay service enables you to pay using your iPhone, Apple Watch, iPad, or Mac. The Apple Pay payment method is available in most stores that accept contactless/ tap & pay transactions in Kuwait and abroad, making your purchases more convenient and secure. Link
NBK, hope you’re next!
Update: Gulf Bank have taken down the announcement page but CBK and NBK have both uploaded their pages. Here is the NBK page and here it the CBK one. I just tried adding my NBK card and it didn’t work so looks like they’re preparing for launch but haven’t actually launched it yet.
Thanks Bo Talal!
