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Yesterday I dropped off my FJ Cruiser at the Toyota dealer since I’m trading it in for the new Hilux. I’ve had the FJ Cruiser for over 12 years and didn’t really think I’d ever sell it. I loved it so much I even ended up buying a 1980 FJ (video below, more on that another time). But, after test driving the Hilux earlier this month, I decided I’d part ways with it. 12 years! I was still working in advertising when I bought the car, I was married, I had a dog, I had a completely different life and so it all feels really weird.

I bought the FJ back in 2010 for 10,450KD and yesterday when I dropped the car off, it had done 250,053KM. If the dealer had actually called me a day earlier I might have been able to coordinate it properly so I could hand it over to them with a perfect 250,000 mileage. Over the years I’ve had only a few issues with the car so it’s been pretty great considering how much abuse it’s taken from me. Right after the warranty expired I ended up having a problem with my AC. A common issue with the FJ where the AC evaporator needs to be replaced, a job that involves having the whole dashboard pulled out. That cost me around 650KD to get sorted at the dealer. 5 years later the problem happened again although the second time it cost me 400KD to get fixed. Finally, the last issue I had with the car happened last month when I had issues with my brakes. The dealer wanted 1,000KD to fix but I ended up fixing it outside for 220KD with a used part. Other than those three issues, I’ve had no other problems at all.

Servicing the car was never an issue either which is why I really wanted to buy another Toyota. I actually feel lucky that the two dealerships I deal with, Toyota and Lotus both have been really great. I’ve dealt with other dealerships before and these two by far are the best ones I’ve experienced. They’re also the exact opposite of each other. Toyota is probably the largest car dealership in Kuwait with multiple service centers and a ton of staff, while Lotus is probably the smallest dealership with just one tiny service “corner” and only a handful of staff.

The dealer took the car off me for 2,850KD which isn’t pretty bad considering the original cost of the car and the fact it’s 12 years old. I could have sold it for higher myself directly to a buyer, but I didn’t want to go through the hassle of dealing with different people, the price negotiations, or the process of transferring the ownership.

It was pretty sad letting go of the car but I think it’s for the best and I should pick up my Hilux tonight or tomorrow. I ended up going with grey and got to finally see it in person a couple of days ago after it had finished the pre-delivery inspection. The dealer didn’t have any cars in stock other than the white test drive vehicle so I had to wait till their shipment arrived to see the color in person. I’ll probably post about the Hilux once I get it, but for now, I just wanted to dedicated a goodbye post to my FJ.

The first indoor skydiving in Kuwait is set to open soon in Sabah Al Salem. The indoor skydiving place is called Ozone and is part of a larger complex that will house a huge indoor climbing center, a crossfit gym and a spinning studio.

The project is still under construction but they’ve already finished installing the windtunnel and looking at the photos and videos they’ve also been playing around with it.

The climbing wall also looks pretty huge as you can see below. The only thing that sucks about this project is that it will be located in the already heavily congested Sabah Al Salem area.

If you want to follow Ozone, their Instagram account is @o3_kw and here is the location on Google Maps.

Thanks LovelyKuwait

Over the weekend I was reading passages from a book by a British journalist who was describing Kuwait after visiting it back in 1831. The book written by Joachim Stocqueler is called “Fifteen Months’ Pilgrimage Through Untrodden Tracts of Khuzistan and Persia, in a Journey from India to England.” It’s two volumes but the passages I was reading were from volume 1. I thought it was interesting and wanted to share two page from one chapter which you can read below:

Koete, or Grane as it is called in the maps, is in extent about a mile long, and a quarter of a mile broad. It consists of houses built of mud and stone, occasionally faced with coarse chunam, and may contain about four thousand inhabitants. The houses being for the most part square in form, with a courtyard in the centre, (having the windows looking into the yard,) present but a very bare and uniform exterior, like, indeed, all the houses in the Persian Gulph. They have flat roofs, composed of the trunk of the date tree. The streets of Koete are wider than those of Muscat or Bushire, with a gutter running down the centre. A wall surrounds the town on the desert face, but it is more for show than protection, as it is not a foot thick. To keep up the farce, however, a trench has been dug around the wall, and two honeycombed pieces of ordnance protect each of the three gates. Beyond the wall, nothing is to be seen but a vast sandy plain, extending to a distance of more than sixty miles. Not a tree, not a shrub affords the eye a momentary relief.

Koete within the walls is equally sterile, it literally yields nothing; and when to this is added the fact of the water being far from sweet, it is difficult to conjecture how such a site could have been chosen for the establishment of four hundred families. I was informed that the Arabs had only been in possession of the place about one hundred and
fifty years, and that previously to that period it was occupied by Englishmen and their forces, who received or conquered it from the Portuguese, in whose hands it enjoyed some notoriety during the plenitude of their importance in India.

It certainly is a commodious harbour for small craft, and may probably have been occupied by the Portuguese, (the English could have had nothing to do with it, ) on account of the command it gives over the mouth of the river of the Arabs, and the power it thus conferred of interrupting the Turkish and Venetian trade with India.

If you want to read more, the full book is available to download in PDF format. Passages above start at page 18. Here is the link.

Also an original copy of volume 1 is available on eBay if you want to buy it. Seller is asking for $3,000 but I was able to negotiate down to $1,350. Here is the link to the book on eBay.

Photo on the very top is unrelated and from 1903. Source

Yesterday I listed a bunch of landmarks that were demolished over the past few years but I didn’t mention Messilah Beach since I’m not really sure whats going on there. It’s meant to be closed for renovations but I don’t know if they’ve completely demolished it or not. Based on Google Maps, it looks like it’s still there but in any case, the video above is a 3D animation of what Messilah Beach will eventually look like once it’s completed.

Just going off the video it looks like it will be a less approachable more premium beach. What was great about the old Messilah Beach was how affordable and accessible it was to everyone. I used to go there when I was in school since it was the only nice beach we could afford.

The new renovated Messilah will contain:
6 Restaurant blocks
Swimming Pool and Wet Recreation areas
Jogging Track
Hard and Soft Landscaping
450 Car Parking spaces

Back on June 6th, 2016 Entertainment City was closed down for renovations. It was meant to reopen again in 2021 but instead, in 2020 it was completely demolished. Yesterday marked the 6-year anniversary of its closing.

Entertainment City became another landmark in Kuwait to get demolished and joined a long list of other important places that were demolished in recent years including:

Shaab Park
Bait Lothan
Kuwait Airways Building
Al-Sawaber
Aqua Park
Ice Skating Rink
The Original Chamber of Commerce

It’s really sad.

If you’re on the highway right now you might be noticing a large plume of black smoke in the distance. Turns out tent city which is located next to Friday Market in Al Rai caught fire.

@kuwaitnews has some more footage here and @alqabas are also posting updates.

One of the guys at my office just shot this pretty cool timelapse of the dust storm hitting the city. We had a great view since our office looks out at the sea so we saw the storm coming from the North. Check it out below.

Shot by @Oa4_

No idea what’s going on but this weekend is jam-packed with events and things to do. Check out the full list below and as usual if I missed anything, let me know!

Thursday
Exhibition: I Am Here – Manuella Guiragossian
Exhibition: My Name Is Woman – Maha AlAsaker
Exhibition: Deconstructed Phyche – Sheikha Al Habishi
Perfumes, Cosmetics & Watches Expo
French Diwaniya
Dear Zoo Live!

Friday
Perfumes, Cosmetics & Watches Expo
3rd GCC Games
Kids Workshop: What is a Rainbow?
Kids Workshop: What is Light?
Suns of Beaches 2022
Dear Zoo Live!
TrashTag Beach Cleanup – Shuwaikh Beach
Kuwait Music Academy Gala Concert 2022
SUP Race Series

Saturday
Exhibition: I Am Here – Manuella Guiragossian
Exhibition: My Name Is Woman – Maha AlAsaker
Exhibition: Deconstructed Phyche – Sheikha Al Habishi
Grand Mosque Tour
Perfumes, Cosmetics & Watches Expo
3rd GCC Games
Peak 2022 Vertical Race
Summer Music Nights
Shakespeare By Candlelight
International Museum Day Art & Eco Friendly Bazaar
Authenticity Storytelling with Bibi AlSabah
Artists & Muscians Open Day
Our Coffee Trip
Dear Zoo Live!

Registration for the first race of the stand-up paddleboarding race series is now open. The series is organized by the Kuwait Sailing School and will take place this coming Friday, May 20th. If you don’t have a paddleboard you can still take part by renting one from them.

There will be prizes for winners including a KD100 cash prize for first place while every participant will also leave with a medal. After the race, there will be food, drinks, and lots of socializing. Here are some more details:

Registration Fees: KD15
Equipment Required: SUP board not longer than 12’6″
SUP Board Rental: If you don’t have a board you can rent one for KD6

Friday’s race is part of a four-part series that will take place throughout this summer. For more information and to register, click here.

Carol Souki is a Venezuelan singer-songwriter of Lebanese descent living in Kuwait. OLA is her newest single and features her brother Mazz who debuts for the first time. If you’re into salsa/reggaeton then check out the video above.

You can also follow Carol on Instagram @carolsoukimusic or visit her website carolsoukimusic.com

The local racing season is over now because it’s gotten really hot but here is a video of the fastest recorded lap around KMT. The record was broken back in January with the British-made Radical SR3 RSX sports car that managed to lap the circuit in 1:36.27. In comparison, regular sports cars take over 2 minutes, in my Lotus the fastest I’ve managed is 1:56, and better drivers with faster cars generally will be somewhere between 1:45-1:55, so yeah 1:36 is really fast.

The comedian Mo Amer was on Jimmy Kimmel to talk about his new comedy on Netflix when they briefly bring up Kuwait since it turns out Mo was born here. I know Mo from the show Ramy where he plays the role of Ramy’s Muslim cousin but I had no idea he was born in Kuwait and lived here till he was 9. He only ever ended up leaving because of the 1990 invasion. How random.

Zahra Marwan is an extremely talented visual artist who was born in Kuwait. When the British rule ended in 1961, her father failed to register his citizenship and so was considered stateless (Bedoun). Although her mother was Kuwaiti, Kuwaiti law stipulates that the citizenship of the children is passed on from their father so Zahra was born stateless. As more and more rights of Bedouns were removed, Zahra and her family left Kuwait and immigrated to the United States.

Zahra’s Instagram account is filled with beautifully painted memories and dreams, many of which are related to her time growing up in Kuwait. I’ve got one of her illustrations hanging on my wall and I love it along with the story behind it. I actually met Zahra a few months ago when she was visiting Kuwait and she’s as bubbly and imaginative in real life as her illustrations depict her to be. She’s a great storyteller, not only with her illustrations but also with her captions which is why when she recently published a children’s book, I ordered a copy right away.

“Where Butterflies Fill the Sky” is a book based on the true story of her and her family’s immigration from Kuwait. Her story and memories are beautifully illustrated and written making it as fun to go through for adults as it is for children. Sadly, I just checked all the online English bookshops in Kuwait and none of them seem to carry the book. I ordered mine from Amazon so I guess you’d also have to get it from there. She has a Kindle version available if you don’t want to wait, but I’d definitely recommend the hardcover edition. Here is the link to the book on Amazon.

Also make sure you check out Zahra’s Instagram account @zahra_marwan

I think the biggest surprise here is that KTV2 is still operating.

Joe & The Juice the popular chain of juice bars is coming to Kuwait. You’ve probably tried them or come across them while on vacation in the States or Europe and other than juice they also have coffee and sandwiches. A few days ago the CEO announced that they’ll be expanding to the Middle East and opening in Kuwait before the end of the year.

The Copenhagen-based chain will open its first stores in Qatar and Dubai next quarter before setting up shop in Saudi Arabia, Kuwait, Bahrain and Oman by the end of the year. In total it will add 200 to 300 juice bars in the region over 10 years, with the help of a franchise model to accelerate expansion and help reach a goal to grow 20% annually, the CEO said. Source

I haven’t tried Joe & The Juice before since it never seemed appealing but I’m sure someone is gonna be happy they’re opening in Kuwait.

Thanks Moey