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When Kuwait Airways introduced their new fleet back in 2016 my initial impression of their business class was that it didn’t look premium and it felt overcrowded with their 2-2-2 seat configuration. My favorite business class configuration has always been the Qatar Airways 1-2-1 arrangement on their 787 Dreamliners and it looks like Kuwait Airways will be adopting a similar setup on their new planes.

According to a recent press release, Kuwait Airways will be installing B/E Aerospace Super Diamond seats on their upcoming A330-800neo which are the seats used on airlines like Qatar Airways and Virgin. The current seats in comparison are the regular B/E Aerospace Diamond seats so it’s going to be a really good upgrade.

Kuwait Airways is expecting to enter 8 A330-800neo aircraft into service in 2020.

If you’re vegan and are looking for a new place to eat there is a new restaurant that recently opened up called Wilgrow. I haven’t been to the place yet since I’m generally only interested in vegan food when my vegan best friend is in town but, going by the pictures alone, it looks like a cute place.

Wilgrow is located in Al-Bidea area at the Dhai Complex and you can find them on Google Maps. They’re open daily except for Sundays. @wilgrow.kw

Photos from @formkw

There’s a new ice skating place at The Avenues called Below Zero. It’s located in the basement right below The Forum (the large dome in Phase 4 where Arabica and Baker & Spice are). Sadly the place is just for children up to 13 years of age which got me thinking. Wouldn’t it have been nice if the whole lower level of The Forum was a large circular ice skating rink? Currently, that space is empty with nothing there except for those open-air elevators and a large robot.

So this is a funny story that recently happened that made me appreciate car detailing a lot more than I already did.

One of the guys in my WhatsApp group has an old 1995 Acura Integra which he’s turned into a track car. He’s upgraded the engine and brakes on it, stripped out the interior to reduce weight and he has a ton of fun with it on the race track. Since the end of last year though he’s had the car parked in a dirt lot outside another friends place gathering dust. Not that it was in good condition before he parked it, half the car was covered in ducktape while the rest of the car really needed a paint job.

Last week the guy whose house the car is parked outside of took the picture above and shared it on our whatsapp group. Right away we started teasing the car’s owner with jokes about how he should scrap the car and other silly stuff. As a joke I suggested he should get the car detailed which he replied to saying he was waiting for a sponsor. Within seconds one of the guys captured a screenshot of the conversation and sent it to another friend of ours who owns Al Falah Car Wash. Al Falah have a detailing service called Showshine which I’ve posted about on the blog before and after seeing the screenshot of the conversation, they responded with “bring it on” in full confidence not really knowing how bad the condition of the car was.

A week later they got to see the car in person after it was dropped off to them and I wish I was there to see their faces. They knew it was going to be a challenge, but they didn’t think the car was in this bad of a condition. They started posting pictures on their instagram account and started calling it the “Disaster Car Detail”.

One of my friends even joked that he would give them a trophy if they can get it just decent looking. I dropped by to take some before pictures of the car and when I saw it in person I thought it was a hopeless case. The car had no shine whatsoever, the paint was completely flat and patchy, it was truly a disaster car.

Over the next two days, Showshine worked hard on the car, they started off with a regular wash before moving it into their detailing department to start the difficult process. Finally, when they were done and pictures of the car started leaking into our group we couldn’t believe it. The car looked new and shiny! When I passed by and saw the car in person I couldn’t believe it was the same one. They did such an incredible job detailing the car and somehow managed to bring the color and shine back to life.

My friend who joked that he would give them a 🏆 also kept his word.

For the past couple of weeks, I had been thinking about giving my Datsun 240z which I recently purchased a paint job. But now after seeing what they could do with a disaster car, I’ve actually decided to get the car detailed instead. If they could bring back so much color and shine to my friend’s car, then it should be fairly easy with mine which is in so much better shape.

Thank you Al Falah for going along with this. If you want to get your car detailed their prices start from KD30 (depends on the size of the car). Al Falah are my favorite car wash and they’re on instagram @showshinealfalah.

Over the weekend a video started making its round via social media of a bullfight that took place in Kuwait back in 1972. The video was fairly low quality and the audio was completely broken so I did a bit of research and turns out the original video is actually owned by Reuters and you can watch the longer and much better version on their website.

According to Reuters, the bulls were imported from Spain for this event which was the first ever bullfighting show in Kuwait. The video is from the show that took place on Thursday April 6, 1972 but there were two other shows that took place on Friday 7th and Saturday 8th of April. Below are some more details:

A Spanish bull faced Spanish matadors in Kuwait on Thursday. It was the first time the Arabian Gulf state has seen a bull-fight. The event was organized by the Salmiya Sports Club and sponsored by the Kuwaiti Minister of the Interior and Defence, Shaikh Sa’ad Al-Abdalla As-Sabah.

A large crowd of spectators packed into the arena to see the novel exhibition of bullfighting skills and physical courage. Among those watching were the Speaker of the Kuwaiti National Assembly and other Assembly members. The event was much enjoyed by the spectators.

Aficionados in Spain may know more about the technicalities, but in Kuwait the crowd understood well enough the perfect judgment needed to plant these darts in just the right place.

The show had opened with the playing of the Kuwaiti and Spanish national anthems and the grand entrance of all the bullfighters. There was no doubting the success of this first bullfighting spectacle in Kuwait. Other shows were scheduled for Friday and Saturday.

So if you want to watch the video, click here.

I haven’t posted a shawarma review here in nearly a decade but that’s mostly because no new shawerma place has really interested me until now. Recently a new shawarma place opened up in Al Rai called Shakir and there has been a lot of hype surrounding it which is why I wanted to pass by and try it out. I think what grabbed my attention the most about the place was the fact they used freshly baked breadrolls for the shawarma, and after trying it out yesterday, I think that’s my favorite thing about the place.

Shakir is located pretty much walking distance from The Avenues, on the same street as Party Land and True Value. It’s a super busy area all day long so by the time you walk into the place you’re already stressed out from traffic. Your stress level will only get worse once you’re inside since there will most likely be a really long queue to order food. I stood in line at 5:47PM and got back to my car with the food by 6:22PM. That’s over 30 minutes just to pick up shawarma!

The place doesn’t have chicken shawarma, just meat with two sauces, either the regular tahina or the spicy tahina sauce. Other than that the menu only has fries, juices and laban. Pretty simple which I like although as a chicken shawerma guy, I would rather they have chicken instead of meat or the option to choose between either. While waiting for my food I spent most of my time watching them bake the breadrolls and I think that’s just the smartest idea and I don’t know why no other place does it. Plain fresh bread tastes good as is, so imagine how much better it would taste stuffed with juicy meat and tahina.

I ordered the regular shawerma as well as the spicy one along with fries and juice to go on the side. I think the regular shawerma tasted just ok with the spicy one tasting a lot better because of the more interesting spicy sauce. The best part about the shawerma was the bread as expected, and that’s what would probably make me go back, BUT, only after the hype dies down. It was definitly not worth waiting 30 minutes and I went at an irregular hour, so I can’t imagine how long the line would be during regular lunch or dinner timings. At 650 fils per shawerma I’d also expect the breadroll to be stuffed with a lot more meat which they weren’t. They’re pretty stingy with the shawerma which is a turnoff.

Shakir is on instagram @shawarmashakir and here is their location on Google Maps.

My brother sent me this yesterday and it’s such a sad story. Laila who is a cat owner came back to Kuwait from the States with her cat and at the airport was told the cat would need to be seen by the airport vet. So they took the cat from her and three hours later tell her that the cat ran away when they were on the way to see the vet and the couldn’t find it. You can check out her instagram post on this below:

Im fucking crying my ass off while i type this. Winston is missing. When we arrived Kuwait the officer stopped us at the airport and told us we needed to get a paper signed to get winston in kuwait (even though i showed him all the correct paperwork specifying winston is healthy and up to date in all his shots, ect). Since they are too lazy to accept the documents they made me sign a paper. As i picked up winston’s bag they stopped me and told me that he needs to go see a doctor at the airport to make sure hes not carrying any diseases and apparently thats what happens to all animals that arrive the country. I fought with them and begged them not to take him but the officers said those were the rules.

I waited for 3 hours and in the end they told me that he fucking ran away in the cargo on the way to the doctor. He ran away out in the open where all the planes and trucks are. Ive been crying screaming and hysterical ever since and im not authorized to go search for him. We begged the guards to let us in and we were able to scout the area but i wasnt allowed to leave the car. It’s currently 95 degrees and will continue to get hotter to 114 degrees . I am so devastated and destroyed. I dont know what else to say. I am charging my phone and will be back at the airport in a few hours. If you are in kuwait and can help please let me know. .

They wont even let me SEARCH FOR MY OWN CAT please if anyone has authority and can help please let me know this cat is my entire life please help me

I think the worst part for me is the fact it took them three hours to tell her they lost her cat and then wouldn’t let her in to help them look for him. I understand there are security procedures since it’s an airport but there must be ways around that like by having airport security accompany her. Pets generally will panic in an environment like an airport and there would be a much higher chance of finding the cat if the owner was involved in the search. Cats especially aren’t like dogs and won’t just come to a stranger when been called for.

Laila is constantly posting updates on her pets Instagram account so if you want to know more about what’s happening, check @leya_and_winston

Update: Sadly, the cat was found dead at the airport earlier today. The National Aviation Services (NAS) who were responsible for transporting the cat to the vet posted the following statement on their instagram account:

We regret the unfortunate turn of events with Winston.

We extend our deepest condolences to Ms. Laila and her family during this difficult time.

We are very sorry for their loss.

We are conducting an in-depth internal investigation into the matter.

People will be held accountable.

We will also be putting in place more stringent procedures under “FOSTER” rules to ensure this does not happen again.

To ensure higher safety standards for each animal in our care, we are creating a $100,000 fund – “Foster” towards improvement of animal care facilities at the airport.

We carefully handled over 700 household pets last year without incident. We understand that each animal is unique and precious.

I recently found out that it’s the British School of Kuwait’s 40 year anniversary. What not everyone knows is the little fun fact the school used to be called Sunshine School when it first opened in the late 70s up until 1990. I was in Sunshine School from 1980 to 1990 and I was part of the last class to graduate from it before the Iraqi invasion, after that, things got a bit messy and I ended up bouncing a lot from school to school and country to country until I finally graduated high school.

Because of the 40th anniversary, the school is publishing a small book and asked me if I had any photos to contribute since I’ve previously shared photos on the blog. I did of course and so had my sister mail me all the Sunshine School photos we had stored in our family home in Lebanon so I could scan them.

What’s cool is I posted some of my karate club photos taken in the early 80s and one of my followers recognized the karate instructor and sent me a link to his Facebook account. Turns out up until recently, he was still teaching karate in Kuwait.

There are 58 pictures and you can check them out after the link below. If you want the hi-res scan they’re also available to download on Flickr.

If you recognize yourself in any of the photos let me know!

Not sure what’s with the latest car storage trend in Kuwait but right now I’m aware of four of them and three just popped up recently. A car storage facility is basically a managed parking lot for people who don’t have a place to park their nice cars but don’t want to park them in random public parking lots. Different facilities offer different services like trickle charging for your battery, air conditioning, 24h security and more.

Last year I posted about a car storage facility called The Vault which was aimed towards the high-end market, but recently a more affordable place opened up called Curated. Curated is located in Kuwait City behind Al-Awqaaf Center, in the multistory lot next to Centerpoint. The lowest basement level is closed off from the rest of the parking and only members are allowed to use it. Their prices are as follows:

Monthly = KD65
6 Months = KD360
1 Year = KD660

Currently its the most affordable managed car storage facility I’m aware of but there are two more I need to visit, SERV which I think is priced similarly, and Cartel which is described as a luxury car hotel so most definitely more expensive.

If you’re interested in Curated, they’re on instagram @curatedkwt

The popular Italian restaurant and marketplace Eataly is targetting to open up in Avenues on July 21st. Eataly is already open the UAE, Qatar and Saudi Arabia and although I haven’t tried it myself I’ve heard the food is great. The Avenues location is in Phase 4 near the Mercedes dealership and they’re on Instagram @eatalyarabia

Not many events taking place this weekend but still more than what’s been going on the past few weekends. If I missed anything let me know.

Thursday
Al3ab Village

Friday
Al3ab Village
Fête De La Musique

Saturday
Al3ab Village
Book Club: Lolita Novel by Vladimir Nabokov
Global Wellness Day

If you’d like to share an event on the blog [Email Me]
For a full list of upcoming events click [Here]

Sometimes events get canceled or have details changed so always double-check with the organizers.

This is a long shot but does anyone have a copy of the book “State of Excitement” by James Bond creator Ian Fleming?

The Kuwait Oil Company commissioned Fleming to write this short book about Kuwait. However, the Kuwaiti Goverment disapproved of the final manuscript, which they found condescending, and the book was never published, despite repeated overtures to the Kuwaiti Goverment over the years.

The frontispiece to Fleming`s copy of the book reads: This is the only bound copy of a short book I wrote on Kuwait in December 1960. It was a condition of my obtaining facilities to visit Kuwait and write the book that the text should have the approval of the Kuwait Oil Company, whose guest I was.

The Oil Company expressed approval of the book but felt it their duty to submit the typescript to members of the Kuwait Government for their approval. The Sheiks concerned found unpalatable certain mild comments and criticism and particularly the passages referring to the adventurous past of the country which now wishes to be “civilised” in every respect and forget its romantic origins.

Accordingly, the book was stillborn. [source]

Here is a review of the book as well where they highlight some reasons the book might have been banned including this one:

A second rather humorous story the author relates revolve around an invitation he received to dine at one of the Sheikh’s numerous palaces. It seems that this palace located somewhere along the Persian Gulf coast had a very long dock which extended out far from land and at its end was a beautiful building where the Sheihk invited Fleming and other guests. In grand fashion the guests were carried from the shore in a stretch limousine out along the dock to the mini-palace. He noticed that after the guests had been dropped off, the driver had to back up the entire length of the dock, turn around and then back up the entire length of the dock once again. Fleming surmised that the driver was instructed to do this so that when the dinner was finished, the Sheikh and his guests could get back into the car on the ‘correct’ side and drive “forward” back to the shore. Fleming, almost snidely relates that even with all that money at his disposal the Sheikh couldn’t design and build a dock with a wide enough turn around. In other words, in this little vignette Fleming is mocking his host’s design and thereby his intelligence.

If you have a copy can you please accidentally leak it to me from an anonymous email address? Thank you!

This huge mirrored concert hall was built in the middle of the Saudi desert for the “Winter at Tantoura” festival which ran from December 2018 to February of this year. It hosted a range of activities, including a celebration of the winter planting season, weekly cultural events, and musical performances from some of the world’s greatest musicians.

I’m kinda worried that Kuwait isn’t moving forward at a very fast pace.

Whenever I travel to smaller neighboring countries like Bahrain and Qatar I’m always impressed with what I see from everything like their infrastructure and skyscrapers to the cleanliness and organization. I was in Qatar last weekend and walking outside in a street wondering how the weather is so much cooler than Kuwait, turns out they had AC blasting from the floor. Crazy but it worked. And then, of course, you have UAE which is miles ahead of all of us.

But, no matter what, we always had comfort in knowing that at least we were better than Saudi. Now I feel we’re losing that as well. Not because of just one concert hall, but because of similar small and large scale projects. The country is also starting to loosen up. The WHITE “halal” nightclub in Jeddah turned out to be too much for them, but at least they tried. We’re all here looking forward to the new airport but I don’t think that’s going to be enough.

Just to be clear, this isn’t a rant so don’t start with the GTFO comments, I’m just thinking out loud here.

The Joystixx Barcade located in the basement of Symphony Mall in Salmiya is now finally open. They have a bunch of old school arcade machines as well as a pinball machine and a section with video game consoles.

They have arcade games like Michael Jackson’s Moonwalker, Mortal Kombat 4 (so disappointed they didn’t get MK1 or MK2), Metal Slug, Street Fighter III: 3rd Strike, The King of Fighters ’97 and more. The arcade machines take regular 100fils coins while the consoles you rent out for 1.5KD an hour.

If you want to check the place out they’re open daily except for Sundays from 1PM to 11PM. They’re also on instagram @joystixxbar

Thanks Wahab!

Over the weekend the new Yeezy sneakers launched around the world including in Kuwait. People lined up from early morning for the chance to buy a pair since they’re a limited release and would sell out quickly. I saw some pictures and videos of the lines around Kuwait and they were extremely long and mostly unorganized.

That same morning a reader emailed me about an incident that took place at the Adidas store in Al Hamra and since then I’ve heard the story from one other person who was in line and seen a video that kinda corroborates it. Here is the email I received:

Hey Mark,

I wanted to let you know about this incident that took place at the Adidas outlet this morning.
So today was the launch of this limited edition Yeezy and I was at Hamra mall branch. They said it’ll be first come first serve. There were about 6 Philippine Nationals lined up at like 6am, they were the first ones there. A paper was passed down the line with the name and preferred sizes of people and it seemed completely civilized.

Then at 830am when the doors were supposed to open, a Kuwaiti Adidas representative announced in Arabic that Kuwaitis get priority. And a bunch of Kuwaiti guys rushed in front of the Filipinos and it was utter chaos. Then when one of the Filipino men spoke up and asked “what about us?” The Adidas rep was like “Filipino want to buy shoes?” And everyone started laughing.

And then a bunch of Kuwaiti guys proceeded to walk inside the store.

A woman (Arab) then started shouting at the Adidas representative and was saying that this is straight up racism and unfair. She was ignored. The Filipino group left and some guys just kept mocking them. An overwhelming majority of the Kuwaiti crowd joined in on the mocking. They waited for 2.5 hours to be disgraced like that.

There is a video that was taken that morning which you can watch [Here]

The incident is currently being investigated by the mall as well as the local Adidas dealer so if you were in line that morning and saw what happened, get in touch.

If you’re wondering how people could be so racist in 2019, so was I until I started getting hate on twitter when I posted about this. I actually had to block a bunch of people who were accusing me of hating on Kuwait or who were rationalizing why they were right to sell to the Kuwaitis first. It’s shocking.

Update: I’ve closed the post for commenting, also I’ve been made aware the photo of the Yeezys I posted aren’t the ones people were lining up for.