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Kuwait: Continuing its slow climb. Kuwait (9th) rises three spots as its economy grows steadily and outlook remains favorable amid increasing consumer spending and a greater presence of international retailers.

In line with an optimistic economic outlook for 2013, the retail sector is expanding and demand for retail space is growing despite expensive real estate. The country’s largest mall, The Avenues, opened its phase-three extension in 2012, and other developments, such as the Gate Mall, are opening their doors in 2013. The country’s mostly urban and suburban population has high levels of disposable income, and Kuwaitis are drawn to luxury products and high-end concepts. The Avenues’ new extension includes a street area of high-end standalone shops to cater to this luxury demand.

Kuwait is typically the second MENA location (after the UAE) for international brands. International retailers Cheesecake Factory, Victoria’s Secret, and COS entered in 2012 with franchise agreements with Kuwaiti retailer M.H. Alshaya Co. Prada opened its second Kuwait store at The Avenues in early 2013.

While the luxury market remains bright, Kuwait is a difficult environment in sectors with slim margins. In grocery, for example, large and well-established retailers (such as Sultan Center, City Centre, and Casino), expensive retail estate, and limited space for expansion pose obstacles for entry by foreign grocery retailers.

It’s all very interesting but I’m more interested to know where this Casino is located please. [Link]

The Kuwait National Assembly have a logo competition taking place, if you’re interested to give it a shot head over to their website [Here]

The rules and details are in Arabic and I can’t seem to find the English version. Don’t worry though the last day to submit a logo is November 1st so you have lots of time to have someone translate it for you.

Oh and the first prize is a cool KD5,000.

Photo by Jeff van der Wees
Thanks Rayboy

Update: Mustapha translated the competition guidelines into English. You can check it out [Here]

Arabian Business has a list of top 20 banks in the region and I was expecting NBK to be like in the top 3 but according to them, NBK came in 10th place. The only other Kuwaiti bank in the top 20 was KFH who came in 12th place. Check out the full list [Here]

Visual Therapy presents their first ever art show, “Not Just a Pop-Up”, featuring original artwork and prints by Kuwaiti artist F160 and Brooklyn-based artist Zebadiah Keneally.

Local graffiti artist Monstariam will be painting a live mural during the show which will also include a graffiti shop offering a unique selection of street art supplies and merchandise. In addition, the shop will debut Visual Therapy‘s 2nd t-shirt collaboration. This time they teamed up with Iranian artist A1one, a pioneer of the street art movement in Tehran.

Date: July 16th 2013
Time: 8-11PM
Location: Dar Al-Funoon.

Please visit www.visualtherapyonline.com for more details, and follow @VisualTherapy on Facebook, Twitter, and Instagram.

Oliversan is a new Asian cuisine restaurant that has opened up in Burj Jassim Tower in Kuwait City. The concept belongs to the same owners as Maki and right now they’re in their soft launch phase opening in the evening from 7 t 11PM.

They serve mostly Chinese and Thai food and they’re located on the mezzanine floor. I haven’t tried them out yet since I just found out about the place and they were still closed when I was there.

In case you missed the Red Bull 5 Pics exhibition at 52 Degrees, photographer Alex Dennis Bolado created a virtual tour of the exhibition that took place there a couple of weeks back. Red Bull 5 Pics was a competition in which each photographer using just 5 photographs had to answer the brief “Kuwait through your eyes”. Check out the virtual tour [Here]

Once you’re done with the tour you can check out all the submissions including the winners on the Red Bull website [Here]

A few days ago I found out one of my friends (Abdulwahab Alansari) has the strangest/coolest/wtf/successful/creative local business which I thought would be amazing to share as an example of how local businesses don’t have to be all about cupcakes and burgers.

My friend manufactures cheer leading outfits in Kuwait for the UK market.

I thought he was pulling my leg at first but turns out it’s true. Back when he was in university in Liverpool he used to coach their gymnastics and cheerleading team and he was really good at it helping them go from an average team to a team that would come in first place in two out of the three annual competitions. Cheerleading kits in the UK were very over priced and of low quality so he did some research and decided to manufacture his own kits so he could help out his team. Ironically though, his team only placed an order for kits just 8 months back… after supplying over 5,000 kits over a period of 2 years to other universities and private clubs. In fact his small Kuwait based business now supplies 30-50% of UK universities and well over 30 private clubs. His clients include all the universities in Liverpool as well as the big ivy league unis in the UK like Oxford University.

Sebs Cheer Apparel don’t design outfits although they do help teams with elements of their design. Their main focus is manufacturing the outfits with the fabrics ordered from suppliers in LA, China and sometimes Kuwait. The outfits are all manufactured locally and then shipped to the various teams in the UK.

The name “Seb” was Wahabs alter ego and what most people in the “cheer world” knew him as. It’s that recognition that got him his first 10 clients since coaches and athletes he worked with respected him as an athlete and knew he would do a good job of getting efficient kits out. The business started off small with him supplying people he knew but soon word of mouth spread and more and more universities wanted to do business with him.

So there you have it, an interesting and successful small Kuwaiti business that doesn’t involve cupcakes. If you want to find out more about his business you can check out the following links:

Website
Facebook
Twitter
Instagram

The Daily Mail has photos and an article about the two executions that were carried out yesterday. Their article also has over 900 comments so far with the majority of the commentators praising the executions. Here are some of the “Best Rated” comments on the article:

Well – THEY won’t be raping and killing again… what a concept!
– John

Nice one Kuwait …… hanging is the ‘green option’…. hardly any carbon footprint.
– Captain Calamity

Rape a child, you need to die. Period.
– farsideoftheworld

People may say that it’s inhuman and barbaric, but crimes like these are very rare in Kuwait due to the death penalty. Sadly in this Country of ours, there are no deterrents for any crime!
– UK was great

Now why can’t we do the same here in Britain.
– david

Check out the photos, article and all the comments [Here]

Thanks Kashif

Just a quick note. If you ever come in here and don’t find a new post but still want something interesting to read or check out then visit 248PM. It’s just a random place where me and my brother just post interesting videos or anything else we deem interesting that’s not related to Kuwait.

You can visit that blog by hitting the link on the top navigation strip or just by clicking [Here]

Two days ago I was parked at the traffic light on the Gulf Road before KFC heading to Kuwait City when a cop in a tracksuit walked out onto the road towards a Ford Mustang that was a couple of cars in front of me. I recognized he was a cop because he was wearing a fluorescent orange vest with the words “POLICE” printed on it plus it looked like he was wearing his badge on a necklace.

Last night I was dropping a friend off near Holiday Inn Salmiya when I noticed a checkpoint on the opposite side of the road with cops again dressed in casual civilian clothing with the same fluorescent orange vest and badges hanging around their necks.

Not sure why they’re in civilian clothing but my guess is it’s connected to the recent crackdown. I’ve been hearing a lot of stories recently in regards to the crackdowns and it’s hard to tell what is real and what is just a rumor. Fajer has been trying to find out more in regards to that but she’s been facing difficulty as well.

I really shouldn’t be posting about this place since I love it so much and don’t want it to be fully booked every time I want to go down to Lebanon. But, since I always put the blog ahead of myself, here is everything you need to know.

Hayete is a small bed & breakfast situated in the very beautiful and super busy Achrafieh area. It’s an apartment located inside a traditional/old Achrafieh style building that was converted into a cozy little guesthouse. The place is managed by a very friendly husband and wife and I’ve stayed there two times so far and on both occasions I had a great experience.

Hayete which means “My Life” in Arabic has just 4 rooms. Two of the rooms share a bathroom, the third room has its own bathroom and the 4th one has its own bathroom and an extra room (so it’s actually two rooms with two beds). The first time I stayed in the large two room room while the second time I stayed in the regular room with a shared bathroom. I loved staying there on both those visits.

No two rooms are furnished the same or even look the same. The floor tiles are exposed showing the original apartment tiling while the furniture is all vintage and really beautiful. There is a nice lobby area for entertaining guests and a balcony as well with a wooden table and benches in case you feel like sitting outside. I usually rent a car when I’m in Lebanon but since Hayete is located in Achrafieh, I usually prefer to skip the rental and cab it instead. Hayete is a 5 minutes walk to the main road where you can easily find a cab. More importantly though, Hayete is a short walk to the trendy Gemayzee street.

The rooms are pretty affordable starting at around $75 a night and that includes a traditional Lebanese breakfast served on the balcony every morning. It’s a super cozy guesthouse that feels like an apartment which is why my friends always love coming over to hang out a bit before heading down to Gemayzee. I highly recommend the place unless I find it fully booked the next time I plan a trip and then I’m going to delete this post. For more information and beautiful pictures of the place, checkout their Facebook page [Here]

The cheapest salmon sashimi I am aware of is at Satchi, 5 good sized pieces are for KD1.850. Is there any other place in Kuwait that serves salmon sashimi at a cheaper price?

Update: I stopped going to Satchi since the last few times I went there I noticed the sashimi portions were half the size compared to my photo and they were a very light pink orangish color and didn’t taste as good anymore.

According to the 2013 Global Fire Power Index, Kuwait ranks 63 worldwide in military strength. It’s a low ranking but thats because the index doesn’t take into consideration foreign military support. The highest ranking GCC country is Saudi Arabia in 27th place. Below are some interesting numbers related to Kuwait’s military:

Active Frontline Personnel: 14,500
Tanks: 368
Armored Fighting Vehicles: 932
Total Aircraft: 108
Helicopters: 44
Coastal Craft: 39

For the full ranking list and more details click [Here]

This past long weekend I spent it in Lebanon and among the activities I did the most fun was an ATV road trip adventure. I didn’t really know what to expect, I had just previously heard off a friend that you can take an ATV trip with a guide from the popular ski area Faraya, all the way to the Cedars (a few mountains away) and back. The trip ended up being just unbelievably fun.

Depending on where you stay in Lebanon, getting to Faraya will take you anywhere between 30 minutes to an hour with no traffic. Faraya is a popular destination in the winter since a lot of ski resorts are based there, but in the summer, it’s a popular destination for outdoor activities like offroading, mountain biking, camping and ATV exploration. I had booked a bunch of ATVs for me and my friends before arriving to Lebanon and because we wanted to start the day early we got to the starting location in Faraya at around 9:30AM. From there we got geared up, given basic safety tips and the chance to try out the ATVs before heading out on our trip.

The trip is 80% off road with the rest of the time being tiny tarmac roads. It was an incredibly fun journey full of beautiful scenery and general seclusion with no people for miles and miles away. The route heading out was different than the route coming back so that way we didn’t get to experience the same scenery twice. We weren’t expecting the weather to be cold so we didn’t get jackets but our guide recommended we got some since we would be going up to the highest peak in Lebanon (around 2,750 meters high). Luckily we found a small store near the starting point that rented out ski jackets and good thing we got them because with the jackets on we were still freezing our asses off in some stages of the trip.

The journey in each direction took around 3 hours and we past through a variety of different environments and terrain. We were constantly putting on and taking off our jackets and the road surface would change from rocks to dirt and to sand as we went up and down different peaks and valleys. Our destination was a small restaurant in the middle of nowhere next to a beautiful lake. Once we were done with lunch we headed back to our starting point but this time on a different route and an extremely beautiful one filled with green fields, lots of hills and a dirt trail (a lot more comfortable than a rocky one).

The total journey with lunch lasted just over 7 hours but time really flew by quickly and I even wished it had lasted longer. There were a lot of interesting things we got to see along the way as well. At one point I thought I was going to get kidnapped when a man on the side of the road walked towards me with an M4A1 Carbine Assault Rifle as I drove by. Luckily turned out he was after something/someone on the other side of the road and not me. We also got to drive through huge (and I mean HUGE) cannabis fields where at one point a dodgy looking lifted pickup truck filled with men tried to stop us as well. Our guide had also told us we would be driving through snow walls as high as 6 meters. Of course none of us had believed him since we were in June so you could imagine our surprise when we did end up surrounded by 6 meter snow walls at one point of the trip.

This was an incredibly fun adventure and one I really can’t wait to go on again. Since we were four people the cost for the trip was $225 per person (guide included). If you’re less than four it’s $250 and if you’re more than four you could probably negotiate a better price. You could also share an ATV with someone else since it can hold two people and that way split the amount. But I have to say it was EXTREMELY worth $225. Make sure if you do take this trip to expect to end up covered in dust and dirt. Also bring a jacket with you as well. We rented the ATVs with the guide from a place called Red Runner. Their phone number is +9613178866. Have fun!

Pecha Kucha Night #9 will be held on June 26 at the Amricani Cultural Centre on the Gulf Road at 7PM. 20 images x 20 seconds will be presented by:

Laila Al-Hamad
Tara Norris
Rana Alomani
Liali&Lamees Nijem
Nada Al-Ragom
Hussa Al-Humaidhi
Ali Al-Yousifi
Faisal Al-Nakib

Date: Wednesday, June 26th 2013
Time: 7:00PM to 9:00PM
Location: Amricani Cultural Centre on the Gulf Road

For more information visit their Facebook page [Here]