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[YouTube]

Monstariam, Artspace and Red Bull recently teamed up to give talented artists in Kuwait a chance to win a trip to South Africa. They held a doodle art competition and the winner was chosen today and it was the doodle below by Mohamad Mayya. Mohamad will now be going to Cape Town where he will compete with other international artists for a chance to have their art put on a special edition Red Bull Can. Check out the video above on the competition.

Thanks TJC

If you’re going down to Lebanon for Eid at the end of the month, here are my favorite places you need to visit for 2014:

SUN.DAYS at Skybar
Skybar Beirut have something new going on this year and it’s called SUN.DAYS. Starts at 6:30PM on Sundays while the sun is still up and goes on till past midnight. The whole Skybar gets a major makeover for SUN.DAYS with fake grass flooring, a raised bar area and colorful lounges and chairs all over. It actually takes them nearly 12 hours to setup this conversion, that’s how dedicated they are to SUN.DAYS. There are also special guests on SUN.DAYS and while I was there HVOB were performing and I ended up capturing the great shot below. Reservation is a must.

Le Montagnou
Probably the nicest looking pool in Lebanon with the greatest view. Located up in Faraya, Le Montagnou is a restaurant with an outdoor pool and bar. Caters mostly to the fancy schmancy crowd of Faraya and Faqra but still cheaper than many pools in Beirut and cheaper than most of the pools in Kuwait. Stay for the sunset and reservation is a must.

The Gärten by Uberhaus
They’re only open Saturday night from around 8PM to 6AM and it was favorite place last summer and again this summer. It’s an outdoor club that’s open just for the summer with a large green garden filled with bean bags on one side and a huge open dome which is the dance floor on the other.

Internazionale
There are a ton of great pubs in Mar Mikhael but my favorite this trip was Internazionale. It’s owned by the same owner as another favorite pub of mine Torino Express. Internazionale has two advantages over Torino, a larger space and the fact it’s located in the more vibrant Mar Mikhael area. Just like at Torino, the owner DJ’s here as well.

The Train Station
I wish I had taken pictures of this place but I didn’t have my camera on me then. The Train Station is located on the grounds of the old Mar Mikhael train station. They’ve taken one of the abandoned rusty 50+ year old trains and setup a DJ booth inside. They then setup a bar along with tables all around and they’ve kept everything intact including a rust old water tower which the bar surrounds. Pricy for what it is but it’s worth checking out.

The Junkyard
Also located in Mar Mikhael, The Junkyard is located in a large space between a heavily packed residential area and the theme of the place is a giant junkyard. There is indoor and outdoor seating it’s also worth passing by and checking out since it’s visually interesting. The place is a bit too bright so best to start off your evening with The Junkyard which makes sense anyway since they have a good food menu filled with friendly dishes like burgers and fish & chips.

Make sure you check out last years Ultimate Lebanon Summer Guide since most of the recommendations are still applicable as well [Link]

Last week while in Lebanon I stayed at a guesthouse called BEYt. They’ve been open for nearly a year now and I found out about the place by chance on my last trip there while visiting a small bookshop (Play BEY which belongs to them) and overhearing the owner talk about it. The guesthouse was located on top of the bookshop on the main Mar Mikhael street (where all the pubs are) and when I got a tour of the place I knew I would be staying there on my next trip, which is what I ended up doing.

As I mentioned above, BEYt is located on the very popular Mar Mikhael street. It’s on the first floor of a traditional Lebanese building with high ceilings, wooden shutters and beautiful floor tiles. They only have four rooms available which are:

Master Bedroom (90$ for 1 person, 110$ for 2, 130$ for 3)
Private bedroom with its own en-suite bathroom
1 queen-size bed & 1 single bed

Private bedroom (75$ for 1 person, 95$ for double occupancy)
Private bedroom with its dedicated bathroom across the corridor
1 queen-size bed

Twin Bedroom (60$ for 1 person, 80$ for double occupancy)
Private bedroom with shared bathroom across the corridor
2 single beds (1.20 meters)

Corner Bedroom (50$ for 1 person, 70$ for double occupancy)
Private bedroom with shared bathroom
2 single beds (1.10 meters)

Those are the prices as of this post.

I ended up taking the “Master Bedroom” and found the room fairly spacious with a pretty large bathroom area thats nearly as big as the room itself. The whole guesthouse is fitted with vintage furniture and various vintage electronics like record players, TVs and cameras. It’s a beautiful space and all the furniture was handpicked by the owner. The biggest seller for me though was the location, being situated right on Mar Mikhael street meant I could walk to my favorite pubs and then clumsily stumble back at the end of the night. For those of you who know Lebanon, BEYt is located 2 minutes away walking from pubs like Radio Beirut, Internazionale, The Train Station and The Junkyard. Walk a minute longer and you’re at Bar Tartine, SUD and The Sandwich Shop. I can’t really imagine a better location to be staying at in Beirut. Because there are no pubs below or right across the street from BEYt the place was actually pretty quiet especially the room I stayed in which didn’t overlook the main road. BEYt also had WiFi and it was a pretty reasonable speed compared to Beirut standards.

With all the positives I did have a number of issues though. When we first arrived at the guesthouse we were told that they needed our rooms for 2 hours because they were installing new vintage lights in our rooms. Nice but why couldn’t they have done that before we arrived or after we left? The first thing I wanted to do was unpack and head out. Another day I walked into my room and noticed they had removed the window shutters and a guy was standing outside my window working on them while looking into my room. That made me feel really uneasy since I was just sitting there on my computer with a guy looking in from my window. Again it wasn’t anything urgent that needed fixing so they should have done it before or after we left. I called the owner and told him how weird that was and he told me the guy just needed 10 more minutes. I had to wait until he was done so I could go and shower which annoyed me since I don’t like other people managing my personal time. The next morning I woke up to find the guy was back at my window, he had removed the shutters and was working on them again. It was really annoying and an invasion of my personal space.

Other issues I faced, the original room description which I listed above stated my room would have two beds but when I got there I found only one. It didn’t turn out to be an issue for me but it would have for someone wanting the second bed. Finally, the last issue I had was with the AC. We were told that we should shutoff the AC when we leave our rooms. I hate doing that especially when the AC isn’t really powerful like the ones they had installed. I usually come back to the room to sleep and don’t want to come back to a hot stuffy room and wait an hour till it cools. Luckily we managed to keep it on the whole time without any issues.

There were a few more things that bothered me like the smell of the cooking every morning or the really rough and hard towels. But all the issues were relatively minor and nothing really took away from the whole experience except for the guy with my shutters. I thought the price of my room was pretty fair and the fact they have rooms starting at $50 is ridiculous. It’s all about the location and that’s why I’d stay there again with all the issues I had. For more information on BEYt, check out their website [Here]

Another similar place I would recommend staying at is the Hayete Bed & Breakfast which I’ve previously written about [Here]

Note: Picture of the room taken from the BEYt website

Last month I posted about the new revamped Pearl Lounge and based on the photos I assumed the new lounge looked better. Well I’m in the lounge right now and I think the images I saw of the lounge made it look a lot better than it actually is. I’m sitting in the lounge waiting for my flight and there are two main issues I have with the place:

1) The new lounge looks and feels very cold and I don’t mean temperature wise which right now is actually pretty warm along with the rest of the airport (the AC must be down). The beige tiled floors, the fake beige leather chairs along with the plain beige walls makes the lounge feel like a boring doctors waiting room sans the magazines.

2) The new chairs are stiff with very upright backs making them extremely uncomfortable to sit on not only for long durations but even for a few minutes.

The old lounge was very cozy and comfortable, sure the couches needed some TLC but even if they had left them the way they were I think it was better than the lounge right now. On the plus side there are power plugs everywhere now which is great in case you want to charge your electronics but urgh!! I hate the new lounge!

Back in April the government forced all the scrap yards in Amghara to close down and relocate to a new location further up north near the Saudi border. The previous location used to be located off of the 6th Ring Road, around 10-15 minutes from 360 Mall but the new location is around 45 minutes further away from that location. I’ve been wanting to visit the place but I kept putting it off because I thought it was too far away until yesterday I decided to finally check it out.

Before I headed out I filled up my car with a full tank of gas, got a few bottles of water with me and set up a music play list. If this was going to be a long trip I wanted to make sure it was a comfortable one. The location of the new yards was on the same road as the Ali Al Salem Air Base, an area I know pretty well since it’s where I usually drive to when I take cars on a test drive. It’s very easy to get to, you just take the 6th Ring Road and drive north until you see an exit for Ali Al Salem Air Base, you then take it and drive 30 minutes further down past the base until you see the scrap yards on your right hand side. It’s not complicated and I have the exact location linked at the end of the post.

Once I got near the scrap yard location I noticed a small sign on the main road, it had a Mercedes logo and an arrow pointing right so I exited the main road headed down a dirt road towards the area. It suddenly felt like I was in a post-apocalyptic future where I was driving in the middle of the desert looking for supplies and I just found this small lawless city. It literally was a city in the middle of the desert surrounded by sand on all four sides.

When I finally got to the junkyards the sight was very familiar, different fenced up yards all located side by side with each one specializing in a style or brand of vehicles. I wasn’t looking for anything so I just drove around scouting the area before heading back to the city.

The journey really wasn’t bad at all, there is never any traffic on that road and it’s really peaceful. If you’re interested in heading out there, here is the location on [Google Maps]

The European production company behind the 4 part documentary on Kuwait that is being aired on British Airways will be in Kuwait next week and they need your help. The 4 part series is being spread out over a one year period, the first part was released last week while the second will be released before the end of the year.

[YouTube]

The second part of the documentary will be focusing on tourism so they’re looking for places or activities to film that are off the beaten track. Meaning, they know about Souk Mubarkia and the Scientific Center, what they’re looking for is less popular but still very interesting things to do. I’m not sure how long the team will be in Kuwait for but here are my suggestions:

Sabah Al Ahmad Sea City (aka Khiran)
Paddle Boarding
Wakeboarding
House of Mirrors
Fish Market Auctions
Powered Paragliding
Friday Market
Weekly Al-Farsi Kite Show (not sure if they’re active in the summer)
Cinemagics Rooftop Movies (currently not active because it’s summer)
Qout Market (currently not active because it’s summer)
Shakshooka Market (currently not active because it’s summer)

This is all I could think of for now but if you have any other suggestions leave it in the comments below.

Around a month ago I got a phone call from a reporter at Al Qabas newspaper. He was doing a story on the state of the local blogging scene and had some questions he wanted to ask me. On Saturday the article was finally released with a large dramatic headline that roughly translates to “Blogs have Declined by 97% while Instagram Grows and Grows”.

I started blogging back in 2003 when me and a friend started Qhate, which at that time was the first and only blog in Kuwait until Zaydoun launched Kuwait Unplugged soon after. I’m going to sound like a grand parent reminiscing about the past but I’ve seen hundreds of blogs come and go during this time and the whole local blogging community evolve. It wasn’t just us geeks and dorks anymore sitting on a computer and writing into the wee hours of the morning while snacking on Nutella sandwiches. Everyone suddenly wanted to become a blogger and one by one people started setting up their own blogs and posting. Many and by many I mean 97% of them were rubbish either just copying pasting articles from other international blogs or just became a tool for local advertising and media agencies to hawk products and services to readers who were naive enough to fall for the posts.

The fact that blogs in Kuwait have declined by 97% is a good thing.

A lot of people ask me all the time why I haven’t shifted to Instagram. Simple, Instagram isn’t a replacement for blogs.

What I found ironic about the Al Qabas article was how they made it seem like blogging as a medium itself was dying when ironically it’s the newspapers who are the ones suffering because of blogs and other online news sources. I mean the article itself uses a screen capture of my blog from back in 2012 and what I am guessing is a screen capture of The Blogs Lounge from around the same time. Where the hell did they even manage to find a capture of my blog from 2012 and why couldn’t they get a recent one? Newspapers are large companies while blogs are like mom-and-pop stores, we actually care about our posts and readers.

I don’t think of myself as a great writer and I never pretend to be one either. But I can tell you one thing and that is the fact that I dedicate every waking hour to this blog trying to find something to write about so everyone else can read it. It’s in my head all the time, everything I do everywhere I go I’m always looking for something to write about. It’s taken over my life and my thinking process. It’s become my life actually. It’s so difficult for me to focus on something because I’m always distracted, I’m always reading, I’m always trying to absorb as much information as I can hoping one thing or another will trigger an idea for a new post. It’s a challenge every single day because this is Kuwait and not a lot of things happen here. It’s exhausting and sometimes I just wish I didn’t have this blog just so that I could shift my focus onto other projects.

But I love it, I love what I do and I love how I somehow manage to find stuff to write about on a daily basis and I’ve been doing this for over ten years now. It’s something I’m really good at and as long as I can keep coming up with interesting content for my readers this is something I am going to keep doing.

So yes most of the blogs in Kuwait are dead but mine isn’t and I’m not going anywhere.

Lillywhites, UK’s oldest and the world’s largest sports store is going to be opening soon in Kuwait. They will be replacing all the current Go Sport locations in Kuwait including the huge Avenues location which is currently undergoing a major facelift in preparation for the opening sometime next month. If the brand sounds familiar it could be because you’ve seen their store in London which has been at Piccadilly Circus since 1863.

Full disclosure: I’m currently involved in this project but was only able to post about it now

I hadn’t heard of Khalli Walli until a few moments ago when I watched the parody music video above on another blog. Turns out they’re a group of Pakistani artists living in Saudi Arabia who use comical relief to highlight some of the issues facing low income workers. They’re the only non-Saudi group licensed by the Ministry of Culture and Information.

The video above is about a runaway maid who wants to leave her sponsors home but their driver doesn’t want her to leave because he’s in love with her. Watch it till the end for a surprise ending.

Check out their official YouTube channel [Here] and their Facebook page [Here]

I heard about 5 Stripes from a friend of mine and I thought it was an interesting idea. 5 Stripes is a local creation and according to their website they’re the first company in the Middle East that allows you to custom mix your own cereal from a wide range of organic ingredients. They also have pre mixed cereals but whether you custom mix or go with a pre mix, they all come in cool long cylindrical containers.

You can custom mix your ingredients using their website and once you place an order you get a special code which you could use the next time you want to reorder the same mix. That way you don’t waste time creating your custom mix over and over again. If you’re interested, check out their website [Here]

When the KIPCO Tower was still under construction I had heard that the first few floors were going to be residential apartments. I’d love to live in the city and I’d love living in a skyscraper especially one as stunning as KIPCO Tower. Residential apartments in skyscrapers are common in places like Dubai but not in Kuwait so I was pretty curious about them and how much they’d be going for. After KIPCO Tower opened I never heard about the residential apartments again but whenever I drove by I could see curtains on some of the floors which I figured were occupied apartments. I was a bit jealous honestly since I wanted to live there myself and I kept imagining this large open loft like space with concrete floors and an exposed ceiling. I basically created this whole scenario in my head and every time I drove by I’d be like damn, those must be the nicest and trendiest apartments in Kuwait.

Finally a few days ago I decided I wanted to see these apartments myself so I shot an email out to KIPCO whom quickly replied telling me the residential supervisor is on duty daily until 5PM. So once I finished up a few things I headed straight into the city to check the apartments out.

The entrance to the residential section of the tower looks and feels luxurious. The entrance is at the far end of the mall and has a nice looking lobby with brown wooden walls and a security desk. Once you enter the lobby you have a seating area on the right hand side and the elevator hallway in the far right corner. On the left you have an street side entrance.

The residential apartments are located between floors 6 and 16. They have 1, 2 and 3-bedroom apartments and every floor has either 4 or 6 flats depending on how they’re divided. I wanted to see all three apartment sizes and when they asked me what floor did I prefer I told them the highest available. We headed to the 16th floor first to check out the 2-bedroom apartment.

The floor hallways are long, quiet and covered in marble. There are multiple doors separating the elevator section from the apartments and the apartments from one another so it’s always going to be super quiet. Once we walked into the first apartment I just headed straight to the window to check out the view. The whole apartment is covered wall to wall with large windows and even without direct sunlight the apartment was filled with soft bright light. This is the life I thought to myself. After I was done staring into the horizon I started walking around and checking the apartment out. First thing that struck me was how small it was. It’s similar in size to apartments you’d find in large cities like London or New York but not the sizes we’re accustomed to in Kuwait. The main reception area had an open kitchen which I loved and a large round pillar which gave the room some personality but the space was a bit small and awkward. I had trouble trying to figure out how I could have a seating area as well as a dinning room in this space. The bedrooms on the other hand were decently sized with built in closets and their own personal bathrooms. Like the rest of the apartment though, they weren’t as big as I was expecting them to be.

Once I was done we headed to check out the 3-bedroom apartment which as expected was larger but just slightly. The biggest difference other than the extra room was the hallway we walked into which was large and had closets and shelves built into the right hand wall.

The main reception area was maybe slightly bigger but not by that much. One thing is for sure though the finishing of the apartments was great and they had some nifty features. For example all apartments have a digital keypad so you don’t need to use keys to enter. The apartments also have digital light switches, built in kitchen electronics and other small things like closet railings with LED lights. The apartments and the building as a whole definitely give off a luxurious vibe.

The last apartment we checked out was the 1-bedroom and I thought that sized worked the best. It was the perfect bachelor pad. The main reception and kitchen area was as big as the other apartments but when you’re just one person living alone, the size works. The apartment cozy and I could easily see myself moving into the space even though it meant I’d have to give away 80% of my belongings so I could fit into this space.

By now I had started guessing how much the apartments were worth. I figured the 1-bedroom would be around KD1,200 a month with the 3-bedroom close to KD2,000. Turns out I wasn’t even close. The 1-bedroom apartment starts at KD650 and goes up to KD750. The 2-bedroom goes for KD1,000 to KD1,160 while the 3-bedroom is between KD1,300 and KD1,500. I’m not going to comment on the 2 and 3-bedroom apartments but at KD650 I think the 1-bedroom is a really good price. A couple of years back when I was looking for an apartment I had put a KD500 budget to find a decent 1-bedroom flat and I couldn’t find anything close to this. Actually other than this KIPCO 1-bedroom flat I don’t think there are any other luxury 1-bedroom flats available in Kuwait or at least not that I know of.

That being said I do have some issues with the whole concept. Generally apartments in the skyscrapers are located on the highest floors not the lowest. With office towers right across the street you don’t really have much privacy all day long. With the lowest floors you don’t have much privacy from the street as well which explains why most occupied apartments on the lowest floors keep their blinds shut. They also don’t have any apartments with a sea view even though the building has a sea view. All their apartments are facing the city which is a shame since I know many would prefer the sea. These issues aside, unless Hamra Tower opens up residential apartments, KIPCO Tower is probably the best option available right now for those wanting to live in a skyscraper.

Update: For those of you contacting me, I don’t have their phone number but you could email them on [email protected]

Last month I posted about a new multibrand store that’s opening in Hawalli called eFashion. What grabbed my attention was their teaser image on Facebook which had multiple brands that weren’t officially available in Kuwait yet like A&F, Hollister and Under Armor. I didn’t really understand how they were getting all these brands but I assumed it was just old stock. That comment irked the team behind the project which is why they invited me to pass by the store and get a sneak peek.

eFashion is a new project by Eureka electronics and it’s going to be located in their new eMall building located in Hawalli opposite Sultan Center. eMall is what Eureka are calling the building which houses Eureka electronics, eToy family amusement center, eFashion which I am going to talk about now and a bunch of restaurants including Zaatar w Zeit, Cafe Supreme, Nestle Cafe, Mrs Fields, Chiquita Fruit Bar and opening soon the popular Turkish bakery Simit Sarayi and the Lebanese restaurant Villa Fayrouz. There’s also an eSocial Cafe that is opening in a couple of months where all the tables will consist of Microsoft Surface multimedia tables.

eFashion is located on the second mezzanine floor of eMall. Once you step out of the elevator you will walk out into the cosmetics department which separates the sports wear on the left hand side and casual wear on the right. We walked into the sportswear section first where I was met with the familiar Nike section followed by other sections like Puma, Adidas, Umbro, Speedo and more.

What I wanted to pass by was the Under Armor section since it’s a brand everyone wants but nobody had carried until now. I asked them how they were able to get the brand to Kuwait and turns out that Under Armor will officially be coming to Kuwait in around 10 months time but until they do, eFashion will be stocking up on their gear.

Once we were done with the sportswear section we headed into the casual wear section which was divided into three parts, men, women and kids. I walked around the whole area which was still being put together and noticed many brands including A&F, Hollister, Tommy Hilfiger, Polo Ralph Lauren, Ralph Lauren RLX‎, Lacoste and more. Thats when I brought up the question on how they were able to bring these brands to Kuwait when some of the brands don’t exist at all or even when some of them already do. Specifically I wanted to know how they were able to get A&F and Hollister. According to the person I spoke, the A&F and Hollister clothing is brought in from the US with some strict restrictions by the company which I am guessing is a very limited range of products. You won’t find everything on the A&F website in their store for example and the section is fairly small consisting of one corner and a few tables in front of it. But they’re official A&F products which is all some people will care about. Other brands like Lacoste for example, the line they’re importing is different from what you will find at the Lacoste store in Kuwait.

We started talking about prices and I mentioned Sears which I had also mentioned in my previous post on eFashion. According to them, unlike Sears all their products are current to the season and they also have full size runs of all the items they’re stocking. Price-wise they will also be similar to US prices, so if you find something on the A&F website for example that’s $40, it should cost you around $40 at the store as well.

eMall is currently open but the eFashion floor will be opening in ten days time on August 15th. If you don’t know where eMall is located, here it is on [Google Maps]

Kuwait along with Armenia, Belarus, Venezuela, India, Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan, China, Mongolia, Russia and Serbia is participating in the 2014 Tank Biathlon in Russia. The championship is being held in four stages:

The first one – an individual race – will be held from August 4 through 6. August 4 will see the first crews competing in three races with four tanks in each. The first race will include tank crews from Angola, Kazakhstan, Mongolia and Serbia. The Russian national team will be performing in the second race along with teams from China, Kuwait and Armenia. The first day of the championship will end with a race among the crews from India, Belarus, Venezuela and Kyrgyzstan. The individual race envisages a seven-kilometer three-round itinerary.

The second stage – the sprint – will be held on August 8-9. The sprint distance, as is traditional in biathlon, will be the shortest one: three kilometers. It will be this stage that will set the sequence and temporary start-time gap in the pursuit race.

The third stage – the pursuit race – will be held on August 11-12. This type of biathlon race will be based on the results of the sprint (individual start) race.

The final stage will see the first four teams resulting from all three stages identifying the winner during a relay race. Three crews from each national team will make three four-kilometer rounds on one tank (with crew replacement). [Source]

[YouTube]

I didn’t know such a competition existed and Kuwait seems like the odd one out amongst the 12 countries. Video from the first day of the championship is already online, you can see Kuwait come in at the 2:14:44 mark.

Thanks Abdul

So you know that parking lot in Salmiya I’ve posted about that’s filled with graffiti and is now getting demolished? Well whoever is demolishing the building messed up, not just once, not twice, but three times!

As you can see from the photos, the demolition has damaged the still brand new unopened mall in three different places.

What probably is worse is the fact that the demolition area isn’t cordoned off which means kids from the neighborhood could just walk into the demolition site or just go up the easily accessible stairs of the partly demolished lot. Sadly it’s not a big deal because most of us here have grown accustomed to the lack of professionalism involved in demolition. On a similar topic, a reader the other day left the following comment under the Family Bookshop post:

Speaking of demolishing. An Indian that works for our company became paralyzed from the waste down just this past month because the building next door was being demolished. The side wall of the building fell into their building knocking down the wall to his room.

That’s messed up.

A couple of weeks ago, me and a friend where looking for places to travel this coming October and Cuba was on the top of our list. We didn’t manage to do much research other than finding out which airline would take us there but, the local travel blog Hello 965 just posted some information on Cuba including how to get there and what to do once you’re there. So if you’re ever considering flying to Cuba, this post should interest you. Check out her post over [Here]