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Classic Burger Joint, the most popular Lebanese burger joint is opening in Kuwait right next to The Village. They’re also opening right next to another new burger place called Big Smoke Burger. I’m not a big fan of CBJ and I have no idea why they’re so popular in Lebanon since I didn’t think their burgers were any good. You can check out my review on CBJ [Here]

tiles from Dana Aljouder on Vimeo.

Filmed in a neglected expat housing complex in Hawalli, this out of context mirage disorients the familiarity or nostalgia of the space. The multicultural neighborhood vibrates with a multicultural working force who have consciously migrated from their diverse backgrounds to participate in the daily routine designated by a profiting developer. The tiling of the colonnade, as is the tiling of the dress, is reflective of the blurring of these expat cultures to camouflage within the existing- the existing which is not only foreign to them but foreign to the space – creating the out of context “Where am I?” phenomenon. These diverse cultures try to adapt to a “?” culture imposed by another country whilst struggling to identify between pre-imposed ethnic stereotypes and their traditional heritage. The freedom of the body is limited to the disproportion of the imposed cage, irritated within the larger cage of the structure.

I love the tiles. They don’t make buildings like they used to.

As inspiration from an app called “The Dumbest Laws” I have decided to make a series of posts called “Kuwait laws you don’t need to know” so I could inform you on things you don’t need to be informed on. I don’t know how many of these posts I can come up with but one of my favorite things to do while working is finding and reading these weird laws.

So anyways, here is the first one, it’s an excerpt from an officially translated version (ignore their grammatical errors) of Law No.9 from 1969 “With Regards To The Possession of Dogs and Preventive Measures Against Rabies”:

Article 1
Possession of dogs is not permitted unless a license is obtained from the Ministry of Health

Article 2
License of one or more dogs requires an application to be submitted to the competent veterinary center giving the following details:

1- Name of applicant, title, age, nationality and address
2- The location where the dog will be kept
3- Breed of dog, color and distinctive marks
4- The source of where the dog was imported

Article 5
A collar with a metal plate shall be put around each dog, giving the serial number referred to, the plates are obtained from competent veterinary free of charge, the dog owner should request a replacement, in which case he will have to pay 250 fils.

If a dog is arrested without a plate it will be sent to the Dog Detainment Center, and will not be handed to the owner, unless he requests so 7 days from the day of arrest, and pays a fee of KD1

Article 6
All dogs of all types shall not be left in public places without being controlled with a mask on their mouth

Article 15
The provisions herein apply to Kuwait City. The City of Kuwait with regards to the implementation of this article means the vicinities surrounded by the third ring road, the Health and Educational Areas and the Sulbikhat area, unless the dog belongs to a Bedouin as watch or hunt dogs, whether the owners live in the city or the desert

Article 16
Violators of this law will be liable to a maximum term of one month imprisonment maximum and/or KD30 fine.

Keep in mind, this was back in 1969.

Post by Fajer Ahmed – Legal Counsel
Have a Kuwait law related question? Email me at [email protected]

The legal opinions expressed in this post are those of the author Fajer. Opinions expressed by Mark or any other writer on mark248am1.wpenginepowered.com are those of the individual’s and in no way reflect Fajer’s opinion.

Instagram user @mohammedaltourah has been posting photos taken from old newspapers of various events that were taking place in Kuwait back in the 70s. Among the photos was this Boney M ad above dating back to 1978. I also found the video below that according to the uploader was taken in Kuwait back in 1978. But, the video also says it was shot in UAE. Since I don’t think UAE existed back then (you know what I mean) it’s very possible that this was shot in Kuwait. [YouTube]

Check out more old newspaper clippings [Here]

Last week when I passed by the new revamped Peacock restaurant at Radisson Blu I also got a tour of the hotel. I didn’t check out the rooms since they didn’t interest me but I did check out the lobby area and the new Sky Lounge.

The lobby area is a lot brighter than before with a lot more daylight coming in and a brighter color palette. They’ve removed their famous floating 4-ton marble sphere from the entrance and moved it outside. They also expanded the little cafe that used to be there and they kept Peacock in the same location with just the entrance now moved to the main side.

The Sky Lounge is a new addition to the hotel that didn’t exist before. It was still under heavy construction when I passed by but I found the rendering above of how it will eventually look like. The Sky Lounge has a panoramic view of the sea and they want it to be the “it” place to hangout at night. Once the sun sets the whole place dims down and mood lights come on. They’ll have a DJ playing house music and they’ll also have a bar that serves non-alcoholic cocktails. They want the place to be a chill-out lounge and I’m personally curious to see how that works out.

Last night was the launch of the Class of Chairs exhibition at the Contemporary Art Platform. The idea behind Class of Chairs is pretty simple and fun. The space at CAP was set up like a classroom with each chair in the class representing a certain stereotypical character you had back in school like the nerd, the tall guy, the pervert, the hairy guy etc..

The event itself was pretty fun last night since it was a social gathering and everyone knew everybody else. If you’re interested to check it out, Class of Chairs will be exhibiting until tomorrow (Friday). For more information on the event click [Here]

Travelogue is a new short film travel series by Zahed Sultan. It’s a fast-paced video diary that captures the little moments Zahed gets to experience as he takes his music to different countries and cities around the world.

I was just thinking the other day of a cool way to document all my traveling and I think local musician Zahed Sultan cracked it. All I do at the moment is Instagram pictures with the hashtag #markinsomewhere. Some people collect shot glasses, some people collect fridge magnets and I’m collecting hashtags I guess. So far this year I’ve collected the following:

#markinjapan
#markinrotterdam
#markinamsterdam
#markinparis
#markinprague
#markinbarcelona
#markinbasel
#markinmilan
#markinmanchester
#markinliverpool

Zahed Sultan’s video diaries (I think he is going to be doing a bunch of these) is a fantastic way to document all his traveling. I love it. [YouTube]

Note: You can’t view my Instagram photos unless you’re following me @mark248am

The majority of the emails I get are regarding employment rights or should I say the lack of. I completely understand why I am getting all these questions. I am personally tired of how every time I walk into a store and ask an employee how long their shift is I get ridiculous answers like 8AM to midnight!

I realize how tough it is to go and speak out to your employer about a violation since I’ve been in that situation before. I also realize how bad Kuwait’s reputation has been over the years because of the way employees are being treated.

Recently I was hired by a company to help with some employee issues. The owner of the company stated that he didn’t know how he was supposed to treat his employees so I made an easy to read table with all the obligations of an employer as well as the rights of the employees. The full version of the law is hard-to-read and long so I rewrote it into a more direct and easy to understand language and placed them in a table for you below.

The law articles are mentioned in brackets for easy reference and the full version of the law is available [Here]. Click on the link below to view the rest of the post that includes the easy-to-read the table.

Knafeh with Nutella. I found this on my Facebook feed, supposedly a place in Egypt makes it. No idea if anyone in Kuwait does as well.

Last week I was craving Chinese food so I headed with a friend to Oliversan in Burj Jassim. Oliversan is the new Asian restaurant owned by the same owners as Maki. On any other day I would have visited Caesars or China Kitchen, my two favorite Chinese restaurants, but that evening I felt like going to a “nicer” place and until Peacock reopens, Oliversan is the only alternative.

The interior looks nice and cozy but like most restaurants during Ramadan, it was empty when we arrived. We were given the menu and I started looking for sweet and sour chicken (my favorite dish) which turns out they didn’t have. That was a good thing since it allowed me to try something new which wasn’t hard to do since their whole menu was full of dishes I hadn’t heard of before. We ended up ordering the following:

Velvety Creamy Chicken Corn Soup KD1.5
Spicy Garlic Sweet Snap Peas KD2.5
Oliversan Duck Salad KD4.5
Sweet and Sour Ostrich Fillet KD5
Braised Short Ribs with Oolong Tea Leaves KD6.5
Regular Oliversan Fried Rice KD2.5

The soup arrived first. I generally wouldn’t order cream of chicken soup at a Chinese restaurant but they only had three soups on the menu and I felt like soup that night. Glad I did because the soup was actually the least disappointing thing I had that night. The Spicy Garlic Sweet Snap Peas came once the soup was done along with the Duck Salad. I wasn’t too impressed with the Duck Salad, not for that price point at least since I didn’t think there was enough duck in it. The dressing was good though and it was a pretty light starter along with the snap peas which left lots of room for the main course.

Once we were done with our starters the waiter brought us our main dishes. The food presentation looked great specially the sweet and sour ostrich. Taste wise my friend liked both dishes but I personally didn’t. I thought the sweet and sour ostrich was the better of the two dishes but it was slightly bland. The meat was surprisingly tender and had good flavor, its just the sweet and sour sauce that let it down. The braised short ribs I had high hopes for but I didn’t end up liking it at all. I thought it was too dry and it should have been served a lot hotter. My guess is since they’re still in a soft launch phase the menu is still being fine tuned which is why I left them this same feedback before I left.

The service was great but since we were alone in the restaurant I wouldn’t have expected anything less. One thing that I found odd was the food plates. The main courses were served in huge plates while our dinner plates were tiny (similar in size to the bread and butter plates). I found it very unpractical eating out of a small plate since I could barely fit a bit of rice with two pieces of ostrich without food starting to spill out of the plate.

In the end I wasn’t too impressed. Maybe I should have gone for the Spicy Chicken with Box Choy or the Mongolian Ostrich with Thai Basil since those two dishes were the other ones I was considering. Anyway if you’re interested in trying them out they’re located in Burj Jassim and their phone number is 22901051.

[Menu Shot 1] [Menu Shot 2]

Note: Interior shot taken from their website

As much as we like to highlight how some things in Dubai are better than Kuwait, they still have their own share of problems.

Norwegian woman: I was raped in Dubai, now I face prison sentence

Dubai police arrest ‘shock video’ uploader (Guy who uploaded video above)

Kinda reminds me how at one point Dubai had Flickr blocked but kept the prostitute hangout Cyclone open. It’s like they’re not sure if they’re an open liberal country or a closed one and they just flip flop between the two.

Update: The Norwegian woman has been freed. [Link]

The Peacock Chinese restaurant at Radisson Blu will be reopening along with the hotel around mid September. I passed by today to get a sneak peek and I am please to say the place looks practically the same. It’s gotten a minor facelift with new materials for the seats and nicer ceiling and lights but generally the restaurant hasn’t changed. The original chefs are all still there and the menu will remain the same which is great. If it’s not broken don’t fix it. Check out two pictures of the interior [Here] and [Here]

I’ve got some more pictures of the hotel which I’ll also be sharing in a separate post.

Al-Shaheed Park in Kuwait City is currently going through some major construction. At first I was upset because I thought they were removing the park but turns out they’re actually going to be improving the space. Turns out the new park will include a museum, a memorial and 800 underground parking spaces which should please the employees at Al Tijaria Tower across the street. Construction is set to be completed by 2nd quarter 2014.

I have a PDF which outlines some of the main ideas that will be integrated into the park along with some 3D renderings on how some of the spaces might look like.

You can download the PDF by right clicking and saving from [Here]

I really hope the park will continue to remain open to the public once the project is completed and not locked off like the constitution monument.

This past weekend I was in Lebanon and up in the area Tannourine so I decided to pass by the Baatara Gorge. I had only seen pictures of it before and really wasn’t expecting it to be so huge. The gorge is around a 5 minute drive off the main road and then around a 15 minute hike down a valley. There is no tour guide there or any fees you need to pay its just there for you to see and explore.

During the spring there is a large waterfall that flows down through the gorge but when I was there it was just a small stream of water dripping down. Still it was a beautiful sight to see and since it’s in the middle of nowhere it was very peaceful. There are no fences or any kind of safety features so it wouldn’t be recommended to go with children. I took a bunch of pictures but they really don’t do the place any justice.

You can check out some great photos of the gorge [Here]

While in Tannourine I would also recommend you visit the large Cedar Reserve (pictured above), it’s a great hike on a trail with beautiful views as well. [Link]

We’ve moved up from 104th place last year to 72nd. Hong Kong has the fasted download speed average in the world with 49.10 Mbps. [Link]

via BlogBaladi