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Big news for wildlife in Kuwait when K’S PATH, together with KOC, released the first mammal into the recently completed Abdaliya nature preserve. The animal in question, a long-eared hedgehog, was found in a garden near the city. Long-eared hedgehogs are solitary mammals that spend much of their lives alone, except during breeding season which occurs in March, just after hibernation. This year, we are planning to relocate many more hedgehogs and fox into the preserve, taking them from high-risk areas or from areas where they are abundant.

Our goal is to create an ecosystem thriving with native wildlife. In the coming months, we will begin efforts to release more hedgehogs as well as Ruppell’s Fox in to the preserve and will be installing nesting boxes and perches for native birds.

You can look forward to more updates on this project soon. Want to make a difference? Keep wildlife wild. Don’t hunt. All forms of hunting are illegal by Kuwait law. Illegal hunting (poaching) has caused the local extinction of many species, and we are constantly finding dead birds around Kuwait. Finally, keep up with or even contribute to our work by visiting K’S PATH on [Facebook]

Post by John Peaveler
Managing Director
Kuwait Society for the Protection of Animals and Their Habitat (K’S PATH)

Kout Way is a small Kuwaiti fast food restaurant that opened up last summer in Salmiya. I love murabyan (rice with shrimps) but wasn’t really sure what to expect with a “fast food” version of the dish. Turns out it’s pretty much the same.

I really like how Kout Way looks like on the inside. It has a modern and trendy interior with hints of tradition here and there. Like all fast food restaurants it’s self service, you order at the counter and then go sit down and wait for your meal. I of course ordered the murabyan, I had two sizes to choose from regular or small, I ended up going with the regular size. I also ordered cheese sambousa and cucumber yogurt for my sides.

Regular size it was not that’s for sure. The portion was pretty huge and they weren’t stingy with the quantity of shrimps either. At first I thought the shrimps were just on top of the rice but the more I kept digging into the rice the more shrimps I found. It also tasted pretty good specially considering this was a fast food version of the dish. The cheese sambousa on the other hand weren’t that great while the cucumber yogurt, well it’s just cucumber and yogurt so you can’t go wrong with that.

Overall I really like the place and at KD3 for the regular sized murabyan or KD2 for the small it’s pretty decently priced. The restaurant is located on Baghdad Street right next to Dodo [Google Maps]. They also deliver and their number is 94006767.

Over the weekend I decided to pass by three museums with a friend of mine. All three museums are located right next to each other so you could cover them all in under two hours. There’s actually a fourth museum right next to the Maritime Museum which you could visit as well, the Modern Art Museum, but they were closed when I passed by.

Maritime Museum
Our first stop was the Maritime Museum which is located opposite Souk Sharq. It’s easy to spot since they have to large wooden ships parked outside with a miniature light house [Google Maps]. The museum is pretty nicely designed on the inside, it’s two floors and pretty modern looking with a ship like structure being the main inspiration to the design. They have a lot of sea related items on display from old tools used to build the ships to fishermen gear. Really worth checking out.

Here is their visiting hours:

Monday to Saturday
8:30AM to 12:30PM and 4:30PM to 8:30PM

Friday
4:30PM to 8:30PM

Dickson House Cultural Centre
Further up the road was the Dickson House Cultural Centre. The Dickson House served as offices and residences for the British Political Agents in the early 1900’s. I didn’t like this place much since there wasn’t much to see inside and the whole interior was refurbished but not to the original state. The outdoor yard in the back on the other hand was nice and the Dickson House caretaker Fayez, whom one of my readers nicknamed the Tour Guide Nazi (in reference to Seinfeld’s Soup Nazi) was a really interesting character. I actually enjoyed sitting on the bench in the yard chatting with him more than the actual tour. [Google Maps]

Here is their visiting hours:

Monday to Saturday
8:30AM to 11:30AM and 4:30PM to 8:30PM

Friday
4:30PM to 8:30PM

Amricani Cultural Centre
The final destination was the Amricani Cultural Centre which is located across the street from the House of Parliament. The Amricani was originally the American Mission Hospital and just recently got renovated and opened to the public. Lectures and exhibitions take place there occasionally but when I passed by there wasn’t anything going on. They do have a 20 minute movie you can watch about the history of the hospital but personally I’d go there just to see their freaky looking display. It’s a small corner showing how the hospital used to look like when it first opened but it really looks like a scene from the movie SAW. Definitely worth checking out. They didn’t have opening hours displayed and I couldn’t find anything on their website but my guess it’s similar to the other two museums above. [Google Maps]

Monday to Saturday
8:30AM to 11:30AM and 4:30PM to 8:30PM

Friday
4:30PM to 8:30PM

All the museums above are free of charge to enter.

The Menus Complex is located in Abu Halifa and by the looks of it will be opening pretty soon. As of now the complex will house the following restaurants:

Ribs and Rumps
Elevation Burger
Zaatar w Zeit
Lorenzo
Millions of Milkshakes
Nestle Toll House
Stone Grill
Dip n Dip

The first restaurant that will be opening at the complex is Elevation Burger (pictured above) and they’ll be opening this coming Tuesday. Compared to Spoons this complex seems to have more parking space and less traffic in the general vicinity so that should make it more convenient. Menus is located right after Hilton (if Hilton is on your right hand side). Here is the location on [Google Maps]

Last week I got invited to Dubai to take part in the Porsche World Roadshow that was taking place there. I wasn’t sure what to expect I was just hoping I would be able to drive some cars really fast around the track and that’s exactly what happened.

Once we arrived to the Dubai Autodrome race track we were greeted by nearly 30 Porsches parked nicely outside the pits. The cars looked beautiful and I couldn’t wait to get in one. After a short briefing by the instructors we were divided into four groups and taken to our cars.

We had four different exercises we took part in, Handling 1, Handling 2, Off-road and Slalom. Handling 1 involved taking the brand new 911’s and Boxsters out onto the track where we drove them as fast as we could. Handling 2 involved taking out the Panemaras around the track. Off-road was obviously where we took the Cayenne’s and finally the slalom was a small competition involving the new Boxster.

I hadn’t driven any Porsche before so I really had a lot of fun driving them around the track through out the day. My favorite car had to be the Porsche 911 4S but the Boxster S was also surprisingly fast and nimble. With the amount of Porsches on the streets in Kuwait I keep forgetting that they’re not really affordable even though everyone seems to have one. Now like everybody else, I also want one.

Everyone who’s been to the Kuwait Zoo knows how sad and depressing the place is. I’ve written about it a number of times and it’s just something that has bewildered me for a very long time. Why is the zoo the way it is? I always figured the people who worked at the zoo didn’t care about the animals but after meeting a few of the staff members recently I now know that’s not true. Turns out there are two main reasons why the zoo is a disaster, the first is the zoo visitors and the second is they just don’t have enough money to make it better.

The Visitors
Majority of the people who visit the zoo do not respect the animals nor do they respect any of the rules. On one trip to the zoo during the daytime when it was fairly empty I witnessed three different incidents in a space of 15 minutes that summarizes the problem with the people at the zoo. The first incident took place at the elephant enclosure. We noticed a woman with her young kid had climbed over the fence, through the cactuses all the way to the wall of the elephant enclosure and were taking pictures next to the trunk of the elephant that was sticking out. One of the zoo employees who was with me yelled at the women to get away from the elephant because it was dangerous and the woman just coldly took her time making her way back out over the fence as if she had done nothing wrong. A few meters away on the other corner of the enclosure there was a kid next to his mother with a bag of oranges throwing them at the second elephant. Again the zoo employee had to stop the kid from throwing oranges at the elephant while the mother was pretending she wasn’t noticing any of this.

The third incident occurred just a short distance away at the baboon enclosure. As we arrived we noticed a kid was on top of the fence sticking french fries into the baboon cage trying to feed them. His mother and his sister were standing next to him watching and then the baboon stuck his hand out of the cage and the little boy tried to kick it hard but ended up missing and hitting the cage. The zoo employee I was with yelled at the boy to get down and then pulled the kid down but the kid kept climbing back up wanting to feed the baboons. The employee was telling the kid how dangerous it was since the baboons can bite and scratch people when his mother started shouting at her. She told the employee that no one cares about her kids more than her and if this was dangerous she wouldn’t be letting her kids feed the baboons. I was just standing there going WTF?

Visitors are one of the biggest issues of the zoo. I’ve already posted about how some kids try to kill the animals with slingshots and how the trash people throw into the cages end up killing the animals as well. A lot of kids are uneducated and abusive throwing whatever they can at the animals or in the case above trying to kick them. This is why the zoo tries to protect the animals using chicken wire (a fence with very small openings) around the cages, cactus plants, higher fences and security guards. But even those defenses fail all the time, people still manage to shove food into the cages, they pull down the chicken wire fence and put it on top of the cactuses so they can walk on them towards the cages. Even security guards get ignored and the guards are too afraid to confront the visitors anyway.

No Budget
Now this second issue is the bigger of the two. The zoo has limited financial resources. Although Kuwait is a rich country, the zoo and animals aren’t really a priority. Right now there are two major enclosures for example that need to be changed or fixed but the zoo staff haven’t been able to secure the budget for them.

The first problem is the elephant enclosure. Right now there are two elephants and the enclosure is pretty tiny. The larger of the two elephants has started destroying the walls of the enclosure because of frustration. The zoo submitted a proposal to double the size of the enclosure since there is an empty plot right next to the elephant enclosure but the proposal was rejected. Instead a construction company was brought in to install large metal beams around the elephant enclosure as a solution (pictured above).

The second problem that is in dire need of attention is the chimpanzee cage (pictured above). There are four chimps in one of the most depressing cages I’ve ever seen. They have no entertainment whatsoever inside, it’s just a rectangular dark cage with concrete floors and thats it. But, there’s a great spot in the zoo which the staff want to convert to a chimp enclosure. It’s a large space (see below) that can be planted with trees and greenery and chimps can roam free in it. The plan was proposed but rejected due to budgetary reasons. So now the space is gonna be turned into a reptile enclosure filled with a few crocs and turtles which is going to be a complete waste of space.

So although the staff do want to improve the zoo they just don’t have any money do so. It’s very depressing. Even when it comes to fixing enclosures or purchasing new medical equipment it’s all handled in the same low priority “put a bandaid on it” way.

The Solution
The visitors problem is very difficult to fix. One way would be to increase the prices of the tickets (currently it’s 500fils) in hopes that would stop or lessen the amount of visitors that come to the zoo. Educating the parents and the children is too large a task for the zoo to handle and signs and leaflets really have no effect. The most realistic solution to the people problem is to continue and try to protect the animals (I suggested replacing cactus plants with barbed wire) and hiring Kuwaiti security to replace the current expats.

The solution with the budget should be simpler… just increase the budget, but that’s not happening. A more realistic option we discussed is sponsorship by private companies. Companies could sponsor an animal enclosure and the money would be used to build it or improve it. It’s something that’s done in other zoos around the world and in this situation it would be a great way to solve a lot of the problems.

By the way you’re a company and are interested in doing this, email me for more details [Here]

It’s really sad that the zoo doesn’t have any money to improve the situation for the animals. It’s not only the elephants and the chimps that are in trouble but those two are the priorities right now. The baboon cage for example has around 70 baboons inside and is over crowded. The tiger needs more space, the hippos need a new water filter for their pool and one of the giraffes is limping but they don’t have a portable xray machine to check and see why. They even have one animal enclosure nicknamed Guantanamo because it’s that bad.

The problems with the zoo are major and hopefully I was able to bring it some exposure.

Thai Chow King is a small hole in the wall Thai food restaurant that was recommended to me by one of my readers. It’s a tiny place run by a Thai family. The father who used to work at Sheraton before does the cooking while his wife waits on tables. This little gem of a place has suddenly become my favorite Thai food place.

I passed by for lunch today with a friend and we ended up ordering the following dishes:

Tom Yum Soup with Shrimp KD1.500
Tom Kha Kai Soup with Shrimp KD1.500
Shrimp on Toast KD1.500
Fried Shrimp Wanton KD1.500
Seafood Salad KD1.500
Red Curry Beef KD1.500
Pad Thai with Chicken KD1.250
Mixed Vegetables KD1.250
Chicken with Cashew KD1.500
Steamed Rice KD0.500
Large Water KD0.250

Notice anything with the prices? The most expensive dishes we had cost just KD1.500! This place is such a good deal specially since the food was really good. The curry was delicious, the pad thai was also really good and the chicken with cashew dish was nice and crispy (although had only 2 cashew pieces). Even the shrimp on toast and fried wantons were appetizing and served with great tasting dips.

The restaurant is small with just 5 tables and every dish on the menu has a picture next to it which makes choosing something very easy. I really can’t think of anything to fault about the place. I loved it and how could I not when the food was delicious, filling and our bill came out to just KD13.750.

Thai Chow King is located in Al-Regae and their phone numbers are 24893338 or 66527388. Finding them is easy, here is their location on [Google Maps]

From what I know it’s illegal to make/get permanent tattoos in Kuwait but I found a local tattoo artist based in Salmiya advertising his services with a banner on Facebook. Dude, tip #1: If you’re doing something illegal you shouldn’t be advertising it. [Link]

Lidia al-Qattan explaining the Big Bang Room

I’ve being thinking about this post for the past few days trying to figure out what I was going to write exactly. The place turned out to be such a cool and surreal experience that I just couldn’t figure out where to start or how to say what I wanted to say. In the end I decided that I’ll be brief and not go into details so that you go there with no expectations other than having a good time.

Me posing outside the house with @kuzmoz

Last week a friend asked me if I wanted to join them on a tour of the House of Mirrors and since I had never been I decided to join them. The House of Mirrors belongs to Lidia al-Qattan, the widow of Khalifa al-Qattan, a renowned Kuwaiti artist. She started decorating one small wall with mirrors and through time more and more walls were decorated until the whole house inside and out was covered with mirrors.

The reception area with munchies

As I said, I’m not going to go into details because I don’t want to ruin the experience for you but simply put Lidia is such an amazing person. We were expecting the tour of the house to take around 30 minutes but it took us 3 hours and the 3 hours literally flew by. She was such an incredible host full of stories and the whole experience was seriously pretty trippy.

If you’ve never been to the House of Mirrors you should and when you do make sure you go with a bunch of friends since its an experience that should be shared. The cost of the tour is KD2 per person on weekdays and KD3 on weekends. The location of the house Street 94 Qadisiya, House 17 Block 9. You need to call ahead and make an appointed on this number 22518522.

With all the problems with the Kuwait Zoo we sometimes forget it still can be a nice place to visit. A friend of mine passed by last week and she wrote about it in a much more positive way than I could ever do.

Did you know that the entrance fee is [500 filss] ONLY?! And now that the weather is still breezy & the sun isn’t eating our heads, half a KD will grant you scenery, active animals, great open space, clear skies, and best of all- an adventure to remember.

Her pictures are also really great so check out her post [Here]

Last week I posted about how a tall metal fence was being constructed around Kuwait’s Constitution Monument. Well a reader who I presume is somehow connected to the project left a comment explaining why the decision to erect a fence was made:

Initially the monument and the garden hosting it were supposed to be opened to the public, as the garden was designed to tell a story, the story of the state of Kuwait before and after the constitution. The side of the garden as you enter it from the Tijaria tower represents the past, you`ll see only desert plants arranged in randomly and in groups, planted in sand, representing the tribes scattered over the deserted area of the country. Once you pass trough the monument, which represents the Kuwait Constitution (and which is actually built from titanium plates electroplated with bronze and the bronze blocks you see on the monument are representing the articles of the constitution, one block for each article) you enter the garden representing the present, on the right, and the future on the left. The fountain to the right has few vertical sprinklers representing the oil-wells. The flowers are representing the people of Kuwait (diversity of flowers for diversity of people) and a stream of water that goes to the roots of the monument is the symbol of the will of the people feeding/changing the constitution according to the modern needs. The left side has a mirror fountain, still water, beautiful flowers; is the future of Kuwait.

This is how the park was designed/imagined by the architect.

All those olive trees were brought from Italy and carefully selected to look almost the same in shape and height. Flowers have been brought from outside most of them. The marble used for pathways is also from Italy.

A lot of work/expensive materials/money have been invested in this project. It was supposed to be a place for leisure/ relaxation.

Few days after it was inaugurated flowers/plants were uprooted, stones and plants thrown in the water olive trees with broken branches and the disaster continued. Two times the plants/flowers were replanted with the same effect on people (uneducated / unsupervised kids mostly).

As so.. the decision to place a fence around this area has been taken very easy. This fence will be in place until the second phase of the project (rehabilitation of the entire park) will start/finish.
In conclusion, THAT fence is there because of the people (not drawing a conclusion that all people are the same so don`t jump with lame comments, who wants to understand what i mean will understand; see Mark`s article related to the Zoo) not because someone wanted to stop access of the people to the park. Hopefully one day will be open for everyone to see and admire.

This past weekend I traveled to Dubai to take part in the Dubai Marathon that was held there early Friday morning. Me and my running partner took part in the 10KM run and it was so much fun. I hadn’t taken part in a marathon before and the furthest I had ever run previously was around 6 or 7KM so it was such a rush to actually finish the race. Not only that but I had set a personal target of completing the 10KM run in under an hour and I managed to do it in 00:57:31 and with just 3 hours of sleep that night.

There were close to 20,000 people competing in the marathon and it was really like nothing else I had done before. The run started near Dubai Mall and when we got there around 6:30AM it was super packed everywhere with loud music playing. Even though it was pretty cold and foggy I don’t think anyone cared.

If you’ve never taken part in a marathon before you need to add it to your bucket list. The experience of running with thousands of people is like nothing else. Here is the link to the Dubai Marathon website [Link]

With all the gun control talk that’s currently taking place in the States right now I thought this little bit of information was interesting. According to gunpolicy.org, the rate of private gun ownership in Kuwait is 24.82 firearms per 100 people. When I first heard that figure it sounded like a lot until I realized the rate in the US in comparison is 88.8 firearms per 100 people. But, confusingly, the rate of private gun ownership in Lebanon is just 21 per 100 people.

You can get a lot more information on gun numbers in Kuwait along with more facts and figures by checking the following [Link]

Back in November a Golden Jubilee monument of Kuwait’s Constitution was revealed in Martyr’s Park in Kuwait City. The monument looked really cool surrounded by a beautiful garden and a water fountain. Fast forward a few months and the design of the monument and surround garden is being finalized and two things caught my attention.

The first is they’ve now erected a high metal fence around the monument and monument garden. There is literally another park inside the Martyr’s Park and one that is going to be closed off to the public.

The second issue is they’ve basically cut the Martyr’s Park in half by building the Golden Jubilee monument park across the Martyrs Park from one side to the other. The oval running track which people used for exercising now ends in the middle as roughly demonstrated by the yellow box in the image above.

These two issues kinda seem like poor planning to me. I understand they probably erected the high metal fence to stop barbequers from barbequing inside the monument park but I think they could have created some sort of path way that would still allow people to at least walk up close to the monument but keep them outside the monument garden. Right now there is a hole in the metal fence which is how I got in a took my picture but once the hole is closed you won’t be able to stand in front of the monument or even get near it. It also sucks that the running track has been sliced in half since they could have shrunk the Golden Jubilee monument space slightly and built the whole thing inside the oval instead of over it. Oh well…

[YouTube]

Local label Mouse Music have launched a remix competition for the track Little Girl by tamtam with $750 as the prize.

To enter the Competition and create a remix, go to the Competition’s Folder Page, download the Official Competition Rules and the available Track Samples’ folder at: https://bit.ly/WQI99z

Judging & Prizes
Submitted remixes will be reviewed by the sponsor for eligibility and posted on Zahed Sultan’s Facebook Page https://on.fb.me/dZSjMo, where fans will be able to vote for their three favorites for a limited voting period. After voting closes, Zahed Sultan will pick one Grand Prize winner and two Runners‐Up from among the fan favorites.

One Grand Prize Winner will:
• Receive US $750 (Seven Hundred and Fifty United States Dollars only) in cash
• Have their Remix released on the official “tamtam – Little Girl Remixes EP” (alongside Runners-Up) under the Mouse Music record label

Two Runners-Up will:
• Have their Remix released on the official “tamtam – Little Girl Remixes EP” under the Mouse Music record label

Important Competition Dates
• Download track parts; create and submit a remix: Jan. 21st 2013 to Feb. 24th 2013.
• Voting by fans: March 1st 2013 until March 15th 2013.
• Grand prize and runners-up announcement: March 15th 2013.

About The Artist
tamtam is a young lyricist and singer of mixed heritage. tamtam draws upon personal experiences to tell passionate and relatable stories for listeners, while leaving her songs open to interpretation. tamtam has been most influenced by Michael Jackson’s showmanship when performing live. Onstage, tamtam truly comes into-her-own.

Website: https://www.mousemusic.org
iTunes: https://bit.ly/SICTFU

Contact Information
Tel. +965 2252 4614 Fax. +965 2252 4615
Email. [email protected]