Mercer’s Quality of Living rankings list was recently released and the regional order has pretty much remained unchanged. I thought Saudi Arabia might move up from the previous years because of the recent changes that have taken place there but their ranking hasn’t really changed. Mercer puts together this list by evaluating a number of factors including recreation, housing, economic environment, consumer goods availability, public services and transport, political and social environment, natural environment, socio-cultural environment, school and education and medical and health considerations.
1 – Vienna, Austria
74 – Dubai, United Arab Emirates
78 – Abu Dhabi, United Arab Emirates
105 – Muscat, Oman
110 – Doha, Qatar
126 – Kuwait City, Kuwait
136 – Manama, Bahrain
164 – Riyadh, Saudi Arabia
168 – Jeddah, Saudi Arabia
231 – Baghdad, Iraq
The list above shows Kuwait’s ranking compared to neighboring countries but if you’d like to see how your home country ranks in the world, you can check out the full list on Mercer’s website [Here]
Recently a decision was made to cancel the use of residency stickers inside passports. Instead, you’ll need to have a valid Civil ID card when traveling as a means of verifying your residency. The name on the Civil ID card has to match your name in your passport or you’ll risk being denied travel in or out of Kuwait. Having weird spellings or incorrect data on the Civil ID is pretty common, so if your info doesn’t match your passport, you now have to fix it. Yesterday someone on Reddit posted the steps below on how to go about doing this:
Step 1) Go to the PACI eEnvelope system website, if the website is in Arabic you can change the language to English, there’s an option at the top of the page
Step 2) Click on non-Kuwaiti Renewal
Step 3) Enter your Civil ID and serial no. which is shown on the back
Step 4) You’ll have to verify your mobile no. so they’ll send you a verification SMS
Step 5) Enter all data required (blood type is optional but if that needs changing too then you’ll need to also upload a lab report)
Step 6) Upload the required documents
Step 7) You’ll be sent an application’s reference number to your registered mobile no., which you can use to track your application’s progress
Step 8) Wait and wait, this will take a few days as your application needs to be checked manually, once it’s approved you’ll be sent a link on your mobile to make the payment of KD5, after that you’ll just go have to go to South Surra to replace your old ID with the new one
Hey, this is your local film buff checking in on my yearly visit to this blog to spout out my favorite films of the year (because my opinion is right and everyone else is wrong).
Disclaimer: At the time of writing this article, I hadn’t seen the following highly acclaimed films that might have had a spot otherwise: Border, Caphernaum, Minding the Gap, The Rider, and Suspiria
Note: This year has proven to be one of the worst years for Hollywood Big Studio films, but an incredible year for independent cinema. As such, you may have never heard of some of the films listed below, but how boring would it be if I wrote this entire giant article just talking about films you already know. Wouldn’t it be great to be recommended stuff you haven’t heard of, so you can find it in you to take a risk and watch it? Who knows, you might find yourself surprised to discover a gem you would have never searched for otherwise…
Yesterday I launched the new and improved look for the blog which I worked on with the team at Wavai. I tried to keep everything mostly in the same place, I just cleaned up and simplified the layout a bit. The biggest change is that the blog is now finally mobile-phone friendly. If you access the blog from your phone (which 65% of you do), then you’re going to see a much simpler and clearer 1-column layout.
There are a lot of issues that still need to be worked out with the new design, and I’m still working on a lot of random little things behind the scenes so please be patient. It’s probably going to take a couple of more weeks for me to finish everything. Once I’m done with the main page I’ll work on applying the new look to all the other sections on the blog like the Events page and Classifieds. For now, let me know what you think.
Around a decade ago, maybe more, there used to be a store in Muthana Complex that used to just sell telescopes. That store closed down ages ago and after that, the only other place I knew of that sold good telescopes was Xcite in Avenues. But, they no longer seem to carry them anymore so right now if you’re looking for a telescope, your best option is the Abdullah Al Salem Cultural Centre (ASCC).
Inside the space museum at ASCC there is a gift shop that sells Celestron brand of telescopes. Below are the models I spotted along with their prices and a comparison to Amazon.
The pricing seems pretty decent on most of them especially when you consider the Amazon prices I’ve listed don’t include any taxes or shipping costs. So if you’re looking for a telescope, you should head to the space museum gift shop.
Update: If you want to buy a telescope or get into astronomy then check out this local website called Ikarus Tech.
Horologists in Kuwait (all 4 of you) will be interested to know that we’re finally getting a Richard Mille store. While in Salhiya recently I noticed a hoarding up for Richard Mille in place of where the Vertu store used to be located.
Vertu used to be a luxury mobile phone brand but the company shut down a couple of years ago so makes sense that they finally closed the local location as well. I don’t think I had ever seen a single customer inside the store, like ever.
Richard Mille on the other hand is a high end luxury watchmaker with their most affordable watch starting at around KD15,000 (give or take) and can hit a few hundred thousand dinars easily. I was lucky enough to see two Richard Mille models being put together when I visited watchmakers Renaud & Papi in Switzerland a few years ago. Good times.
Not sure when this happened, but the Gazelle Club Facebook group yesterday shared photos of where Gazelle Club used to be located and the buildings have now all been demolished and cleared. They did leave the pier on the other hand which is pictured above.
Gazelle Club was a very popular beach resort in Kuwait back in the 60s and up until the 1990 Gulf War. During the Gulf War the resort was badly damaged and it was never rebuilt again. I’ve posted and shared photos before and after photos on the blog before and you can check those out [Here]
But, I just realized while writing this post that there are a few photos of the club which I had acquired from the KOC Archive which I never shared before. So, I’m also sharing those photos below.
A couple of weeks back, The Regency Hotel got in touch with me and asked me if I’d be interested in experiencing “Le Petit Chef” since they were hosting it in Kuwait for a limited time. I quickly googled it and found the video below and it looked interesting, so I accepted their invitation.
Le Petit Chef is a dining experience based around a mini animated chef and his culinary adventures following the footsteps of Marco Polo. The experience combines 3D projection onto your table and a 6-course meal composed of dishes from around the world. I was told the show was 2 hours long so I had warned my friend we might end up leaving before the show was over if I got bored. Surprisingly, I didn’t and we ended up staying till the very end.
The show started at 8:30PM but we were told to get there early for pre-drinks. The 6-course meal also has an option of drinks to go along with it, and I’m pretty they’re all meant to be alcoholic drinks that were turned into mocktails for Kuwait. When one of the drinks arrived I told my friend it looked like a smoked rosemary whisky sour and when I tried it, I realized it was, just without the whisky of course. At one point during the dinner, the waiter even asked us if we wanted white or red wine with one of the courses. Cute.
Just before the show started we were all led downstairs to one of The Regency’s restaurants which is currently hosting Le Petit Chef. The setup is pretty simple, but it works. Every table had a projector over it that projected 3D footage onto the table. Items like plates and trays get placed in predefined spots on the table so that whatever is being projected looks like it’s interacting with the real physical items.
The show was pretty cheesy, but I actually enjoyed it. The food was ok, nothing really special but I still had a good time because I hadn’t experienced anything like it before. It’s like those restaurants that serve you food in complete darkness or the sub zero ice bars, they’re gimmicks you experience once with a friend, have fun but never go back to. Le Petit Chef is pretty much the same. Two hours ended up flying by without feeling too long nor with me getting bored (which is impressive).
The price, on the other hand, is going to be a bit hard to swallow. The 6-course meal costs KD39 per person, while the accompanying drinks are an extra KD12. So it’s not a place you’d want to take kids to. My recommendation? Skip the drinks, they’re too many and there’s no alcohol involved so you won’t enjoy them. The show is running for a limited time only and takes place daily at 8:30PM except for Sundays. If you’re interested you need to call and book ahead of time on 25766880.
This weekend isn’t as busy as last weekend, but I did find some cool events so there should be enough in the list below to keep you busy. If I missed anything let me know in the comments:
Now that Deliveroo has been operating for sometime I wanted to see how they’d match up with Carriage on delivery speed. So, I decided I’d place an order with both services at the exact same time and see which would get to me faster. The first step was to find a restaurant that was on both services, for that I decided to go with Eighty Six.
I ordered the same item on both Carriage and Deliveroo which was “The Scrambled” sandwich and I put the delivery address as my office which is down the street from Eighty Six.
So which got here faster?
Before placing an order I checked the estimated delivery times on both and they had Eighty Six listed with the following average delivery time:
Deliveroo: 15-25 mins
Carriage: 25-30 mins
Order was submitted at 12:58PM for both.
While tracking the drivers to my office, the Carriage app suddenly stated that the order had been delivered to me. Carriage drivers have a habit of marking an item as delivered before they get delivered which is annoying. Then my phone rang and I looked outside my office and spotted the Deliveroo driver there. So I opened the door and as the deliveroo driver was handing me my order, the elevator door opened behind him and the Carriage driver was there also with my order.
Conclusion of my very unscientific test? Both Deliveroo and Carriage were exactly the same speed in this occasion which is why I feel like I kinda have to turn this experiment into a best of 3. So stay tuned for a second run at this.
When it comes to purchasing video games online locally, my two go-to places are usually GamesQ8 and Alfuhod. They tend to offer prices similar to what you’d find at Rihab Complex, and so are a good alternative to me going there. But, recently another online store popped up called Level-Up that’s run by gamers and has pretty competitive prices. I checked out a few different games and I found that they were usually always cheaper than Alfuhod and sometimes cheaper than GamesQ8. Here are some random examples:
Jump Force (PS4 R2)
Level-Up: KD13.9
GamesQ8: KD15
Alfuhod: KD15.9
Super Mario Bros.u Deluxe (Switch)
Level-Up: KD18.5
GamesQ8: KD16.5
Alfuhod: KD19.5
The one thing to keep in mind though is if you want same day delivery, Level-Up charge KD2.5, but offer free next day delivery. Alfuhod, on the other hand, offers free same day delivery while GamesQ8 charge KD1.
So although Level-Up aren’t always the cheapest, they could be which is why they’re worth checking the next time you want to buy a game online. Here is the link to their [Website]
Back in October I picked up an iPhone XS from Digits. My previous iPhone X had failed due to water damage and so wasn’t covered under warranty even though the iPhone X is meant to be water resistant. Anyway, last month I noticed the volume on my iPhone XS wasn’t that loud. Turned out the bottom speaker had stopped working. Since it was covered under warranty, I decided to take it back to Digits to get repaired. But Digits wanted to keep the phone for a few days and since I didn’t feel like wiping everything off my phone and handing it over to them, I decided I’d just live with the speaker issue or maybe take it to an unauthorized Apple repair shop and have them fix it for me while I wait. It would void the warranty, but it would also be a lot more convinient.
I called up my favorite iPhone repair shop to see if they stocked the iPhone XS lower speaker but they didn’t, which ended up turning out to be a good thing! Around a week after passing by Digits, my iPhone XS modem started to fail and I was getting a weird cellular update message. My phone stop connecting to my cellphone network and removing or reinserting my sim card wouldn’t make a difference. The modem would just stop working, I’d get an onscreen update error, then my cell coverage bars turn into a warning triangle. All I could do was wait for it to start working again.
So I backed up everything on my phone, wiped it clean and dropped it off at Digits for them to repair. Around 10 days later, I get a phone call from Digits telling me that they’ve replaced my phone with a brand new one under warranty, and to come by and pick it up.
If I had gone to my usual unauthorized repair shop to fix the speaker, my warranty would have been voided and my phone would not have been replaced for free when the modem failed. This whole experience has changed my view on iPhone repairs. I usually replace my cracked screens at unauthorized repair shops because they’re a lot cheaper and a lot quicker, but after this incident, I don’t think I’m going to do that anymore. Something to keep in mind next time you crack your phones screen.
A couple of months ago a new hot pot place opened in Salmiya called Da Wang. It’s a small hole in the wall located right behind Holiday Inn. I passed by in the evening and the first thing that stuck out for me was how incredibly bright the interior was. Just super bright white lights with very white walls. The place was empty except for one table that had a couple who were finishing up their meal and watching TV which was hanging on the wall in front of them.
Da Wang’s menu is fairly small [Link], on one side they have 10 Asian dishes with favorites like Bulgogi and Bibim Bap, while on the back side they have their Hot Pot menu. Their Hot Pot menu is pretty cool, you get to choose between a normal chicken broth, a spicy one, or a hot bot split into two, normal and spicy. You then have a large list of all the proteins and veggies you can order for the hot pot and since we were there for the hot pot, that’s what we ended up ordering.
If you don’t know what a hot pot is, this is how wikipedia describes it:
Hot pot is a Chinese cooking method, prepared with a simmering pot of soup stock at the dining table, containing a variety of East Asian foodstuffs and ingredients. While the hot pot is kept simmering, ingredients are placed into the pot and are cooked at the table, in a manner similar to fondue.
But if you’ve never had a hot pot before you shouldn’t worry, what I loved about Da Wang the most was the extremely friendly service. Every step of the way the waiter would double check with us if we knew what to do and if we didn’t, he was willing to step in and show us or explain things.
The reason I felt like having hot pot is because I recently had an amazing experience at a place in Dubai called Fujiya. It was an eat all you can eat Wagyu Shabu Shabu Japanese restaurant that a friend recommended, and there might have been a lot of alcohol involved, but I do remember the food being incredibly good.
My experience at the Da Wang wasn’t as good as at Fujiya, and it’s mostly because of the quality of the meat. I ordered lamb and beef and between the two I preferred the beef but, it could have been sliced a lot thinner and the quality could have been a lot better. A friend told me I did it wrong and I should actually buy my own meat and then take it with me to Da Wang. I guess I’m going to have to try that.
The bill didn’t come out to much but if you do decide to go to Da Wang make sure you take cash with you since they don’t have knet yet. If you forget it’s not that big of a deal since there is an ATM machine inside Holiday Inn across the street. Da Wang are on instagram @dawangkuwait and here is their location on [Google Maps]
If you have a favorite hot pot place in Kuwait let me know about it.
Yesterday I took part in the first open track event at Kuwait Motor Town and I had such a great experience I had to share it on the blog. The day after it still feels a bit unreal, not only do we finally have our very own race track in Kuwait, but it’s a great one as well!
National Circuit (4,540M)
Our track layout is just incredible! They had the National Circuit layout open for yesterdays event (pictured above) and compared to the two track layouts I’ve raced on in Bahrain, I think ours is way more fun. It’s fast, long and there is a lot going on all the way. I was worried the track might favor larger more powerful cars but I think it works really favorably for mine.
The video above is a full lap around the track starting from the pit lane exit. Sorry about the sound, and RIP little bug my GoPro killed halfway through.
The open track started from very early in the morning. According to the schedule they sent us we were meant to arrive around 8:30 so we could start with the registration process before the drivers briefing at 9:20. I got there early around 8:15AM and to my surprise, there were cars there already. People actually started showing up on time and so the drivers briefing started on schedule with a brief about the track, the different warning flags as well as giving us a bunch of safety tips. Super informative for first time open trackers.
This is probably a good time to highlight the fact that the team working at KMT yesterday were extremely professional. Everyone knew what they were doing and the whole thing was extremely organized. It didn’t feel like their first open track event, it felt like it was something they had been doing for years and that was impressive.
I didn’t count the number of cars yesterday, but I think we were around 60 in total since I was #59. They divided us into two groups, I was in Group B. Another example of how organized they were, they handed out lanyards with our names and group letter on the front, while the backside had the days schedule. That was incredibly practical, in Bahrain we’re always asking what time lunch is or when our turn is etc..
Once we were done with the briefing we took our cars into the pitlane. The pits I think were the most disappointing part about KMT. They were small, had low ceilings and the bathrooms felt cheap and flimsy. That’s one thing I prefer about Bahrain’s circuit over ours and it’s my only complaint about Kuwait Motor Town. But, it’s not a deal breaker.
The first sessions of the day involved following a lead car. This wasn’t at very high speeds and it was to familiarize ourselves with the track and the racing lines. Once those practice sessions were done, it was flat out racing and it was so much fun. I had a bunch of friends in the same group as me so we just spent the day racing each other. The video above was shot from inside my car and kind of gives you an idea of how it feels to race in an open track event. The track is overexposed in the video but you can still make out the tarmac and the cars so it’s watchable. Keep in mind there are no winners in an open track event, it’s all just for fun.
The event finished at 5PM just as the sun was setting. It’s a beautiful track and looked even better as the sun was setting. I really had such a blast yesterday and now I can’t wait till the next open track event. No offense to ASCC and JACC, but this is by far my favorite Diwan Al Amiri project. Thank you KMT for hosting such a great track day. For more information about Kuwait Motor Town and a list of their upcoming events, here is a link to their [Website]
