For those of you who follow my blog regularly, you probably know that my favorite podcast is called Kill Tony, a comedy show run by the popular comedian Tony Hinchcliffe. In the show, Tony randomly selects a name of an audience member from a hat (the audience members are young striving comedians) and they have to come up and do a stand up set for 60 seconds in front of Tony and his guests. After the 60 seconds, Tony and his guests roast the comedians while also interviewing them to find out more about them. The show takes place at The Comedy Store on Sunset Boulevard here in L.A., it’s my favorite comedy store, it’s where Joe Rogan and his friends perform, and I always drop by whenever I’m in town. Today I got to watch Kill Tony perform their 224th show live and I loved it.
Me and my friend got there a bit early so we managed to get a table right up front and dead center which was amazing. Tonight the three guests were comedians Benji Aflalo, Jak Knight and a surprise appearance by the legendary Ron White who came in 30 minutes into the show with a bottle of tequila. I can’t remember the last time I laughed so hard, the podcast is funny as is but watching it live and half drunk is a completely different level of funny. Everyone was also super down to earth and after the show all the comedians including Ron and Tony were in the main patio drinking and talking with all of us.
If you listen to podcasts and like comedy then you need to check out the Kill Tony podcast if you haven’t already. I was a fan before and a much bigger fan now.
Jazeera Airways just rebranded their identity and launched their new face lifted website. Not sure how I feel about their new logo yet, going to wait and see their new plane livery before I make up my mind on it. [Link]
A reader who’s traveling to L.A. next week asked me if I could share a list of places to see and places to eat at. Problem with L.A. is that its huge and spread out so I’m not sure how practical a list like that could be. Traffic here is insane so trips around L.A. usually take an hour easily and most of the time a lot more than that. I’m also staying and hanging out mostly in the Armenian areas like Glendale and Burbank which are not close to any touristic spots I’m aware of, maybe the Griffith Observatory but thats about it. So again not sure my list would work for anybody else but I’ll share some below.
The best way really to find some great eating spots in general is to just open up Yelp whenever you find yourself hungry. If a place has 4+ stars and 200+ reviews then most likely that place is gonna be great. Since I’ve got relatives and friends in L.A. I’ve been pretty lucky so far on this trip with some really great food recommendations, but whenever I’m stuck I just go back to Yelp. Below are some of the best places I’ve gone to on this trip but for all the places I’ve been to, check out my yelp account mark248am.yelp.com
El Faro Tacos – I just found out on this trip that Lebanese immigrants to Mexico had a small influence on their cuisine in the form of the Al Pastor, which is basically a shawerma taco. This small hole in the wall specializes in the Al Pastor and is super authentic and super cheap, just $1.24 for a taco. They were so good I had 4.
Afters Ice Cream – Like In-N-Out but for ice cream. Afters is a California based brand and is currently only located there. I dropped by and picked up their “Anti Diet Diet Club” tshirt which is a spoof of the “Anti Social Social Club” brand, and while I was there I also enjoyed their billion calorie Cookie Monster ice cream in a hot glazed milky bun.
Baja California Fish Tacos – Best fish tacos I’ve ever had, they were crazy good. Order any of the fried fish tacos since there is no way you can go wrong. This place along with El Faro are the only two places I’ve given a full 5 out of 5 on this trip so far.
Eggslut – So this place I wasn’t really going in with high expectations but I ended up leaving impressed. I’ve had a ton of egg sandwiches in Kuwait mostly from EightSix and Eggcellent so really didn’t figure Eggslut could be that much better. It was! I ordered the Fairfax which had scrambled egg and cheese topped with their special sriracha mayo sauce, maybe it was their bun or the sauce but damn it was so good. Actually might go back there tomorrow morning for breakfast.
Sugarfish – Simple straight forward authentic sushi. They have set menus which is what me and my friends all ordered and everything on it was super delicious… except for the blue crab. AVOID the blue crab, it tasted like canned tuna.
The Drunken Crab – A Louisiana-style seafood spot with delicious crawfish tossed in their special spicy drunken sauce and served authentically in plastic bags. Its one my have to visit places every time I come to L.A.
Verve Coffee Roasters – If you’re looking for some good coffee while in L.A. and a place to get some work done, this is a great spot. It’s located in downtown so it’s probably going to be close to where you are and it’s super chill and not too packed.
786 Degrees – They make the best Napoletana pizza I’ve ever had, but not only are their pizza’s delicious and award winning, the people working there are the friendliest people I have every encountered anywhere. Super polite and super nice, they won’t let you pay for the pizza unless you love it!
Just found this video while looking for stuff to post about. It took place around a month ago based on the upload date and it happened right in front of Abyat. No clue what it was about but a number of cars were attacked and one car even tried running over a bunch of guys.
A couple of weeks back I posted about Blaze Pizza coming to Kuwait and the Middle East. I had never had Blaze Pizza nor even heard of them up until a few days before that announcement, so I was curious to try it out. Since I’m currently in L.A., I ended up stopping by Blaze Pizza yesterday and figured I’d let you know what to expect.
What makes Blaze different from other pizza places is that it was modeled after the Chipotle concept with a made-to-order approach. As a customer you create your own pizza which they then cook in a high-temperature open-flame oven in 3 minutes. They have a few signature pizzas on the menu if you don’t feel like creating, but all the fun is in the creation.
To start with you get a choice of three doughs to choose from, the original, the high-rise (thicker) and the gluten free. You then get to choose your sauce, they had four kinds, regular tomato sauce, spicy tomato sauce, a white cream sauce and a garlic pesto sauce. After that you get to choose the kind of cheese you want followed by all your toppings. The process is pretty quick and familiar if you’ve ever been to a Subway or a Chipotle. Baking the pizza takes just 3 minutes unless you order the gluten free dough which takes 6. So by the time you are done paying and find a table to sit down at, your pizza would be ready.
If you manage your expectations beforehand, the pizza isn’t too bad. My friend ordered the gluten free dough and I thought that was a better option compared to my original one since it was thinner and crispier, but overall I didn’t like my pizza and only ended up eating half of it. Blaze Pizza isn’t going to taste better than Solo PN or even try to compete with it or similar real pizza joints, instead it’s going to compete with the likes of Pizza Hut and Papa John’s. I’m not so sure how it will end up doing in Kuwait, but more options is usually always a good thing.
For the past week I haven’t been in the mood to post at all. I’m on vacation and like everyone else who goes on vacation, I want to leave my work behind. But with the blog, its not that simple.
With your normal job you tend to handover your work to another employee and then take off, with the blog I don’t have anyone to hand over the posting to. I also can’t just stop posting, I mean I can if its a short trip but I’m out now for nearly three weeks so I can’t just not post for that long.
Putting that aside I also struggle to find stuff to write about when I’m not in Kuwait. When I first started blogging I used to post about my trip, places I’m checking out, things I recommend other people do and if you’re lucky, you’d catch one of my drunken rants before deleting it. But overtime I just kept getting more and more private. I don’t post about my trips anymore and I barely instagram anything as well. I’ve been to the States 4 times over the past 3 years but nobody except my closest friends knew about them. I did Kentucky, Tennessee, Washington, and Philadelphia on one trip and barely posted two abstract pictures on instagram from my whole stay. I like it that way, I like my privacy.
But I think I’m going to go back to how things were before. I think I’m going to start posting about my trips again since it will give me stuff to write about which in return will reduce my stress when I’m on vacation. I do have a bunch of cool things coming up on my trip so we’ll see how things turn out.
Yesterday I dropped by the soon to open Four Seasons Hotel in Kuwait City for a quick tour. I hadn’t been there since back in September when the place was still mostly under construction so I was pretty excited to see how things turned out. My first impressions of the place is that its simply stunning and very tastefully done. It’s has a very contemporary look yet with some Arabic elements injected into the design. It’s going to be by far the best looking hotel in Kuwait.
Four Seasons will be soft launching in around 2 weeks time with the official opening at the beginning of September. From the five restaurants they have, the following three will open up during the soft launch:
Dai Forni – An Italian restaurant
Elements – A buffet restaurant
Al Sour – The lobby lounge
Sintoho the Pan-Asian restaurant and Al Bandar, the poolside lounge/restaurant will both open in September. The outdoor pool will also open in September while the indoor one will be open during the soft launch. Finally, the Aveda salon (for men and women) will also be opening up as part of the soft launch.
I took a few quick photos during my tour which you can check out below. Since I was also taking photos with my phone for my instagram story, I realized later that there were some shots I forgot to take with my regular camera. So check out the photos below and once you’re done head over to my instagram account @mark248am and check out my story there (from your phone). It should be up till around 3PM.
Four Seasons Kuwait is located in Kuwait City [Google Maps]
Update: As of August 14th the hotel has still not opened
I wasn’t planning on posting about the DJI Spark until I got to use it on my upcoming trip, but because of the amount of interest I got on it from my instagram story and twitter over the weekend, I decided I’d at least post my first impression. First full disclosure, DJI released the Spark last month and when I saw Xcite had a preorder page for it, I got in touch with them and asked them if they could send me one over to review. They couldn’t get me a Spark from their first shipment since it quickly sold out, but Thursday they got in touch with me to let me know they secured me a drone from their second shipment and I passed by and picked it up.
The DJI Spark is tiny, like super tiny. Its around the same size as my iPhone 6 and it weighs just 300 grams. But don’t let the size fool you, this isn’t an indoor drone and it’s packed with advanced features of its older brothers. I’m not going to go into too many details since there are a ton of YouTube videos that do that, but I will highlight some things in this post which I think are cool.
There are three ways to control the Spark, either with your phone, with the optional remote, or using hand gestures. The last one is a bit of a gimmick but it works and it can be useful.
Hand Gestures
The Spark has a sensor at the front that will recognize your face and then detect your hand gestures which you can use to control the drone. You wave goodbye at the drone and it will fly up and hover away from you. You want it to snap a photo of you? Just give it the correct gesture and it will take your photo. This is pretty cool because it keeps things simple for those who don’t want more out of the drone other than snapping selfies. You can watch the video above of how this works.
Using Your Phone
The Spark doesn’t come with a remote control, instead you can download an app onto your phone and use it to control the drone using wifi. This means you don’t have to carry a remote around which keeps the Spark portable. The only downside is that the Spark’s flight height is limited to 50 meters and the flight range to just 100m when using the phone due to the wifi’s limited range. The top speed is also limited to 20km/h.
Remote Control
The first thing I did after picking up the Spark was buy the optional remote control. Personally I can’t use virtual control sticks in apps, maybe I’m old fashioned but I like physical buttons and joysticks. The second reason I wanted to get the remote control was because it increases the flight height from 50m to 500m and the flight range from 100m up to 2KM. That’s a HUGE increase. With the remote control you can also put the drone into sport mode which increases the top speed to 50kmh. Really impressive specs for something so freakin tiny. I still can’t believe how high it can fly.
I spent the weekend playing around with the Spark and as a complete drone newbie, I did find the experience overwhelming at first but that’s probably because I didn’t read any instructions and just winged it. Friday morning I woke up early and headed to my favorite open area in the desert to take some photos. There was an overcast so my photos were coming out very flat and dull, but I did manage to take one photo which I added to my instagram story. Saturday morning I decided to take the drone near Scientific Center and fly it there, that was a pretty scary experience because when I told the drone to come home and land, I freaked out because I got worried it would decide to land in the sea. It did’t thankfully and instead came back down to it’s original launching point. That same afternoon I wanted to see if I could fly the drone from my hand and then have it land back in my hand when I was done, all without having to leave my car. It worked! Because the drone is so tiny you could use your palm as a launch and landing pad.
If you’re a beginner like me, the drone has a bunch of automated and smart flying modes that will make your videos look professionally shot including:
Active Track: You highlight the subject you want the Spark to follow and it will follow it Tripod: Keeps the drone stable and slow allowing you to film cinematic shots Rocket: Starts filming you from eye level and then flies straight up while still focusing on you Dronie: Starts filming you from eye level and then angles out and away from you while still keeping you in focus Circle: The Spark films you while rotating around you Helix: Rocket + Circle combined
Battery life is my only issue with the Spark so far. The total flight time is just 16 minutes which isn’t a lot especially if you factor in the time it will take you to get to the height you want, position your drone and also the amount of time the drone needs to fly back down to you. You’re definitely gonna need more batteries and I already ordered 2 from Amazon and they’ll be waiting for me in L.A. when I get there end of the week.
Overall I love this little thing. It kinda feels like having an invisible photographer friend with you everywhere you go. When I went out to the desert to take some photos, I tried the active tracking feature and had the Spark follow my car around shooting video of it while I was driving. In the winter when I go snowboarding I could have the Spark follow me shooting video of me face planting all the way down the slope. It’s tiny and light enough to take everywhere with you which is why I’m looking forward to using it on my trip.
If you’re interested in the DJI Spark, Xcite are selling them for KD169. Here is the [Link]
I only first heard about Blaze Pizza last week when I read an article on Bleacher Report about how LeBron James was a part owner, and how the brand was off to fastest-ever start for food chain. Then a few days later, Blaze Pizza announced that they’ve partnered up with Alshaya to open locations in Africa and the Middle East.
What makes Blaze different from other pizza places is that it was modeled after the Chipotle concept with a made-to-order approach. Customers create their own pizza which then gets cook in a high-temperature open-flame oven in just 3 minutes.
According to the press release, first location should open up in 2018. [Link]
My mum moved to Kuwait back in 1968 to work as a personal trainer at a local gym (yup, she was an OG PT) before joining Kuwait Airways as a flight attendant. My dad on the other hand moved to Kuwait in 1972 and worked as a self employed interior designer. They eventually met, got married, had kids and continued to live here until last week, when my parents moved out of their apartment and left Kuwait for good.
People always ask me if I have any plans on leaving. The thing is, eventually, all expats have to leave Kuwait.
Even though my parents were living in Kuwait for nearly 50 years, they had as much rights and benefits as someone who just moved to Kuwait last week. They still needed a sponsor, they still needed to renew their papers every year and they couldn’t own any property.
I was thinking how depressing that must be, living and working in a country for nearly 50 years and still have to put up with so much bureaucracy. Not only that, but they moved to Kuwait when it was expat friendly, and then watched it over the years turn into a country that dislikes its expat population (not all of you), thats difficult to take in as well. If you can’t get permanent residency or own property after living all your life in a country that doesn’t want you here in the first place, how can you retire in it?
I’ve already been in Kuwait for 38 years and I call it my home, but the reality is, no matter how long I’ll be here for, Kuwait can sadly never be my home and eventually, I’ll have to leave as well.
Galaxy Juice are one of my favorite local bands and they just released a music video yesterday for their new single ‘Awaken The Sunshine’. It’s a pretty nice video and the track is really great so check it out.
According to a recent article in The Telegraph, Kuwait is one of the top 20 fastest growing travel destinations in the world. The article doesn’t mention why or how that came to be, and I also couldn’t find their original source of data, so I don’t really have more more information other than the ranking. Kuwait was also the only Arab country to appear on the list which you can check out below:
The top 20 fastest growing travel destinations
1- Sierra Leone +310%
2- Nepal +39.7%
3- Iceland +39%
4- South Korea +30.3%
5- Moldova +28.6%
6- Chile +26%
7- Vietnam +24.6%
8- Japan +21.8%
9- Liechtenstein +21.7%
10- Kiribati +21.6%
11- Kuwait +20.7%
12- Madagascar +20%
13- Cyprus +19.8%
14- Georgia +19%
15- Turks & Caicos +17.5%
16- Cook Islands +17.1%
17- Slovakia +16.9%
18- Kenya +16.8%
19- Tanzania +15.6%
20- Indonesia +15.5%
Jaber recounted an incident that took place in January 2017, while she was in Egypt training for her masters degree. She asked a close friend to take care of the cheetahs, but a fire broke out in the apartment and the fire brigade saw the wild felines and reported them to the police.
“I directly called somebody high-ranking at the police station of the district to replace the mention of ‘cheetah’ with ‘big cat’ on the complaint. It is necessary to act very quickly, so that the wasta works,” Jaber tells MEE.
Owning exotic animals is illegal in Kuwait yet these guys are parading them in this article for Middle East Eye and on their personal instagram accounts. Then to top it off they talk about how they have wasta to help them stay out of trouble and give examples of situations where their wasta helped them out. I really do hope because of this article they’ll all get arrested and their animals taken away from them. [Link]
The Central Bank has placed eight ATM machines around Avenues to dispense money for Eidiya’s. The ATM machines can dispense KD1 and KD5 notes in addition to the usual KD10 and KD20 notes. Four of the machines are located in Grand Avenue (pictured above) while the other four are located in the 2nd Avenue near H&M.
Distributing money (eidiya) to children during Eid is a popular tradition not just in Kuwait but throughout the Gulf.
