If you weren’t aware, there is currently a plant-based meat craze that’s taking over in the U.S. with brands like Beyond and Impossible both being the two most popular plant-based meat suppliers. Even fast food brands like McDonalds and Burger are both hopping onto this trend and South Park had an episode about it a couple of weeks back.
Locally, plant-based meat hasn’t really picked up yet but there are now a couple of places that offer it with one of the newest being Holy Cow. Holy Cow is a new vegan burger bar concept by the people behind the popular vegan delivery concept Clean Eats. It’s basically a burger restaurant except they’ve swapped out all the animal-based proteins with plant-based ones so you still have your meat burgers, chicken burgers and fish burgers except they’re all vegan.
They just opened up a couple of weeks back so they’re still in their soft launch phase so open only from 6PM to 10PM on Carriage. If you’re looking for a new vegan option or just curious to try plant-based meat then check them out. They’re on instagram @holycow.kw
GulfRun is an annual motorsport event that started back in 2005 as a weekend getaway for a group of friends passionate about racing. Because Kuwait didn’t have a racetrack, GulfRun used to take place in Bahrain and all the cars would get sent there for the weekend event and then brought back once it was over.
But, now that Kuwait has it’s own racetrack, GulfRun will be taking place in Kuwait for the very first time!
GulfRun will be taking place this coming Friday and Saturday at Kuwait Motor Town. As part of the GulfRun event, there will be a market taking place at the track, various car dealership experiences and my favorite thing, Caffeine & Wheels.
If you’re looking for something to do this weekend or if you’ve been waiting for a specific event to visit and check out the racetrack, then this is the one. I’ll personally be there on Saturday for the Caffeine & Wheels event and I’ll be bringing my Alfa to take part in it so if you see me come by and say hello.
Altersal, the lead singer of my favorite local band Galaxy Juice released a new EP last week along with a new music video which I’ve shared above. This is what he had to say about his latest release:
“You Never listen” is an ep that follows up to my debut album “Wifi Dreams” that was released in January last year 2018. It is a deep expression and reflection of some personal incidents and low points that I was experiencing with my relationships this year so I tried to transfer all my negative feeling and emotions and turning then into a beautiful bouquet of flowers that I can share with everyone’s who’s been through the same hardship in their personal lives and so that they can dance and sing their troubles away just as I did.
Unlike the music I play with my band Galaxy Juice which is a mixture of guitars and synthesizers. This project is more electronic-based and even though the guitar is my first instrument, I didn’t use any guitar or acoustic instruments so this is a full-on electronic synth-based project that I really enjoyed creating.
The project was mastered by a great engineer called Charlie Vella who produced music by one of my fav bands called Twin tribes, so he helped me take my production to a new level that I’m really happy with.
Here are the streaming links to “You Never Listen”: iTunes / Spotify
Previously I used to renew my driving license once every 10 years since that’s how long they used to be valid for but ever since the government changed it to match the residency period, it’s become the worst thing in the world to do. Trying to get your driving license renewed in Kuwait is a terrible experience because the traffic department just wasn’t prepared to handle the vast amount of people. The lines at the traffic department would be incredibly long and there was no guarantee if you waited in line you’d get your license renewed since they would limit the number of renewals per day. That meant you’d have to go multiple times and it was just incredibly stressful.
This year I used a company called Khadamat Express to renew my driving license and it was a really good experience. They charged me KD10 to do the license renewal for me and another KD10 to pick up my paperwork and old license and then deliver the new one to me when done. The process took around 2 days and it was worth every penny.
But, according to the MOI, you can now renew your driving license online and then pick it up from machines around Kuwait including one that’s in Avenues. Oddly though, I can’t seem to find the link to online renewals anywhere on their website so maybe someone uploaded the video a few days early. In any case, once this is live it’s going to make the renewal process so much easier! If you can find the renewal link please share it in the comments below so I can add it here.
Update: To renew your license you need to click this link and login using your MOI mobile app username and password or register if you don’t have an account.
Update2: Umm wtf, this seems too good to be true. I just renewed my motorbike license in under 5 minutes via the link above and the only document they asked for was a digital copy of my civil ID. After paying the 5KD renewal fee it told me I could go to any kiosk and print out my new license. This is crazy good!! Not only that but it actually gave me a digital copy of my new license right on the spot!
Nuqat is one of my favourite conferences that takes place in Kuwait and this year will mark their 10 year anniversary which they will celebrate over 10 days with activities including talks, workshops, exhibitions, and entertainment. Over the 10 years Nuqat has evolved and developed to become one of the largest creative conferences in the region and most of their activities are free to atend. Actually, all of their activities from talks to musical events are free to attend with only the workshops that require a registration fee.
This year’s Nuqat conference is titled “State of the Elastic Mind: New Mindset for Old Barriers” and will be taking place from November 20 to 29 at various venues around Kuwait. All the talks will be held from the 21st to 23rd at the Amricani Cultural Centre with the workshops, exhibitions and various music events being held in different places all over Kuwait.
There is A LOT going on and I spent the good part of the morning uploading all the workshops and cultural events to the events page and you can check those out here.
If you’re interested in attending a talk then you could check all the different talks talking place here.
Nuqat 2015
You don’t have to attend every single talk and I tend to pop in and out during the day just to watch a specific talk I’m interested in. It’s an informative and educational conference while also being a great event to network and socialize in. If you haven’t been to Nuqat before then I highly recommend you do.
To register for Nuqat (it’s free) just click here.
Last Tuesday I was invited to the premiere of Doctor Sleep by my favorite movie theater, Vox Kuwait at the Avenues Phase 4, and as usual for their premieres, the event was a pleasure for film geeks (full of thematic decor and even two little twin girl actresses which were adorable in their attempts to scare guests). After walking on a red carpet designed after the famous carpet from The Shining, we took our seats and the lights went down.
Regarding the elephant that’s always in the room, censorship, this film has been cut in a few places, but not in a way that makes it unwatchable. It doesn’t affect the plot and you’re aware of what’s going on, but some cuts do come at some moments where you’re really drawn into the film. But all the cuts were momentary, nothing like whole scenes removed. Anyway, onto the review.
You’ve got to have quite a pair to think you can pull of a sequel to The Shining. Not only is it a horror masterpiece, but it is perhaps one of the most obsessed over films in history (watch the documentary Room 237 for proof). Up until now, director Mike Flanagan has been a solid horror filmmaker with a fresh voice and a couple of strong entries under his belt, but he hasn’t attempted anything quite so ambitious as Doctor Sleep. Does it pay off? Well yes… and no.
To be fair, it’s near impossible to create a satisfying sequel to The Shining especially since Kubrick veered way off the Stephen King novel it was based on, creating instead an intimate horror film with a singular vision which benefits most from its ambiguity and its lack of a need for a sequel. So when adapting Doctor Sleep (King’s sequel to his Shining), Flanagan decided to take a route where he bridges the gap between King and Kubrick. The result feels like two interesting films in their own right mashed up messily. The script suffers a lot from it and it’s the script itself which is the weakest link in this film.
The storytelling and filmmaking, however, is where the film shines (ahem). Flanagan does an excellent job of building tension, creating mood, and allowing scenes to be paced calmly and correctly. He doesn’t rush you into “scares”, but rather allows you to get invested into the characters. This is most evident in the first 40 minutes or so where very little plot is divulged, and we are just getting to know our three main characters. These were some of my favorite scenes in the film because Flanagan directs them maturely and really allows us to connect to Danny Torrance’s struggle with his demons. I very much appreciated that the film did not rely on The Shining nostalgia or fan service to create excitement. In fact, the only time we are really given that kind of nostalgia is in the last 30 minutes of a 2.5 hour film, so by then you’ve already emotionally invested into this new story entirely.
Aside from the filmmaking, the performances stand out as well. Ewan McGregor is perfect in the title role, and Kyliegh Curran gives an Excellent child performance that is exciting and convincing. But really it’s Rebecca Ferguson as the antagonist who steals the film. I was worried from the trailers as her storyline looked cheesy, but she is somehow convincing and gives a very interesting performance of a character that is at once cold blooded but somehow understandable. I like her work in the Mission Impossible films, but now I’m a full on fan.
In the end, I felt Doctor Sleep was an entertaining film with some really strong sequences (the Astral Projection moment was visionary, and the Baseball boy sequence was extremely disturbing and effective), but it’s nods to the Shining only reveal how much stronger that film is. To me, this is a pretty weak Kubrick tribute, but a very strong Stephen King film adaptation. It’s different than most films coming out in cinemas these days, and some of it’s inventive filmmaking makes up for its flaws. I still recommend a watch to horror and film fans as it has an original voice and style to it that is a breath of fresh air amongst the hundred of cynical cash grabs posing as cinema today.
Last year I posted about how much I hated the housekeeper’s category on the Q8 4Sale website since people were listing their housekeepers for sale. After my post, the 4Sale website started removing those posts and set new rules for the category but I still wished they had closed it down instead. Well it took a thorough BBC investigation and reporting for that to happen.
Over the weekend, BBC published its investigative video below exposing the trade by interviewing a number of people who were selling their housekeepers including a police officer and a woman who was selling her 16-year-old housekeeper!
Posing as a couple newly arrived in Kuwait, the BBC Arabic undercover team spoke to 57 app users and visited more than a dozen people who were trying to sell them their domestic worker via a popular commodity app called 4Sale.
The sellers almost all advocated confiscating the women’s passports, confining them to the house, denying them any time off and giving them little or no access to a phone.
The 4Sale app allowed you to filter by race, with different price brackets clearly on offer, according to category. Source
After the video and article went viral, Kuwait announced that it was cracking down on slave traders and I checked the 4sale website and it looks like they finally completely removed the housekeeper’s category. Hopefully, this will cause the government to consider reforming the kafala (sponsorship) system which in it’s current state is flawed and being abused. Check out the BBC articles on this subject below:
If you’re itching to buy an interesting book about Kuwait, this is one that came out in 2008 but copies of are still available online. The book deals with the construction of the Kuwait National Assembly building that was designed by Jørn Utzon who was also behind the design of the Sydney Opera House.
Completed in 1982, the Kuwait National Assembly remains one of the outstanding modern buildings completed in the Middle East by a European architect. A tour de force of precast concrete construction, Jørn Utzon’s design also represents the culmination of themes that had preoccupied him throughout his work, notably ways of combining ideas derived from traditional cultures with the ‘additive’ principles of cellular growth found in nature. This beautifully produced book, the latest addition to Edition Bløndal’s acclaimed ‘Utzon Logbook’ series, was developed in close collaboration with Utzon and presents an exceptionally comprehensive account of the Kuwait project through photographs, original drawings and the recollections of key contributors – Utzon’s staff, consulting engineers and contractor, and an extended interview with Utzon himself.
If you check out the publisher’s website they have two videos taken during construction which I had never seen before. You can check those out here.
Last night was the cultural event for the 40th anniversary of the establishment of diplomatic relations between the Republic of Korea and Kuwait. As part of the cultural filled evening, a variety of Korean traditional and modern music performances were meant to take place including a performance by the K-pop group D-Crunch. But just before they were meant to perform, the Ministry of Information ordered a halt to the event.
Meanwhile in Riyad the popular K-pop group BTS performed 2 weeks ago in a packed stadium…
Not only that but the hashtag #dcrunch_come_to_saudiarabia has also been trending with Saudis apologizing to D-Crunch for what happened to them in Kuwait. This is just too weird, how did Saudi Arabia become more liberal than Kuwait overnight?
Back in 1977, Andy Warhol came to Kuwait under the invitation of the National Council of Arts, Culture, and Letters and his work was exhibited at the Dhaiat Abdullah Al Salem Gallery. I’ve posted about his visit a number of times before and you can read more about it in my previous post here.
Earlier in the month, I was made aware that a signed copy of his catalog from his exhibit in Kuwait was up for auction in Germany. The first thing I wanted to do was share it with people but since I wanted to bid on it myself I decided not to. The auction house had estimated that the signed catalog would sell for €250 – €360 so I figured I’d play it safe and put a bid of €1005.
The auction took place this past Friday and because the site was in German and I’ve never really taken part in a live auction similar to this, I didn’t know how it would work exactly. To summarize, I was at the race track taking part in the KMT Open Track event on Friday when the auction went live and someone ended up topping my bid and winning the item for €1200.
It sucks because I really wanted it, but I’m guessing whoever bid on it really wanted it to and most likely had a deeper pocket so I’m kinda glad I missed the auction. I’ve been in bidding wars before and things can get out of hand very quickly. In any case, now that auction is over I’m sharing pictures of the signed catalog. Even without the signature, the catalog would have been an interesting purchase. The description for the item on the auction site was in German but here is the rough translation:
Andy Warhol. Catalog for the exhibition in the MAYOR Gallery London and the Dhaiat Abdulla al Salem Gallery in Kuwait 1977. 7 pages each in English and Arabic with staple stitching. 35.5 x 23 cm. Illustrated original cardboard cover and signed on the back by Andy Warhol (a little bit at the edge of the bend, front cover with small paper abrasion in the edge, back cover a little rubbed).
Very rare catalog for the exhibition in London and Kuwait. – Paper slightly creased.
Here is the link to the item on the auction website and below are links to the high res images in case they get deleted from the auction website.
There is a new reality show on Dubai TV called The Astronauts where 12 candidates from different nationalities compete to become a real life astronaut. One of the candidates who is also the youngest competitor on the show is Bader Al Moulah, a Kuwaiti architect.
The Astronauts reality show is done in cooperation with the BBC and led by the Canadian astronaut Chris Hadfield. It’s in Arabic and airs on Sundays at 9PM on Dubai TV and Wednesdays at 9PM on Dubai One with English subtitles.
Another busy weekend with a bunch of cool things to do. If you’re into electronic music then check out Proof of Concept tonight (promo video above) featuring music by Kadisa & Edith. The Russell Peters comedy show is also taking place tonight and if you’re into Scrabble, Backgammon or Chess, check out the Come Play with Us event below. Here is this weekend’s full list of events:
We’re super excited to announce that we’ve permanently reduced our prices! Now, a Careem ride is comparable with taxis on the street but without all the hassle.
With us, you never need to haggle or negotiate for a good deal. The fare estimate is displayed on the app, so you know the cost in advance. Plus, you don’t have to give our Captains directions or explain how to get there. Instead, you can sit back and relax. Careem’s advanced GPS and ride tracking will get you where you’re going.
No matter where you are in the city, you can get a ride in minutes. And best of all, we’re constantly giving you more with features like Careem REWARDS and Ride packages.
With REWARDS, you earn points with every ride and you can use these points for more rides or donate them to good causes. Ride packages let you plan ahead. You pay for bundles with BIG savings.
We’re always coming up with crazy offers through promo codes to make our rides even more affordable. Codes will be available for certain cities (like Salmiya), areas with limited parking and high-traffic zones.
We also give you so many choices! We know everyone has different preferences and that’s why we’ve created multiple car types to suit your style. Order a Business car type for a premium experience or a Taxi car type to save more.
We’re local, so it gives us pride to be the most affordable ride-hailing service in Kuwait!
Around a month ago Zain sent over a 5G router for me to test out at home. I’ve already posted a first and second impression post and now after trying out the device for a full month, I’m convinced it’s a must-have connection. There isn’t anything faster right now on the market, not even close.
Clearly 5G is super fast but there are two important questions that need to be answered here:
1) Do you really need 5G speeds?
No, I don’t think so, I don’t think the majority of people need 5G speeds, I personally don’t. Someone left a comment the other day under my iPhone 11 Pro post saying it sucks that the new iPhone doesn’t have 5G, and I have to ask, why would you need 5G speeds on your phone? On my home computers, I rarely download torrents anymore which is where I can see speeds of 500 or 700Mbps making the biggest difference and maybe for downloading a new videogame on my PS4 every now and then or a software update but that’s really it. For normal use 100Mbps would be more than enough. The reason I see the need for 5G is because not everyone can get a fiber connection at home and rarely anyone gets decent LTE speeds at home, so 5G is really the only other option.
When I tried downloading a torrent file over 5G, I hit speeds of around 10MB/s and I ended up downloading a 5GB file in around 7 minutes. 5G is so fast that it might have taken me longer to copy a 5GB file off my home server to my Mac. There is a wow factor when downloading large apps or PS4 updates and you see the progress bar fill up so quickly. 5G is so fast its stupid funny, and in my case where just until a few months ago the fastest connection I could get at home was 10Mbps, jumping up to 700Mbps is a HUGE difference.
So no, I don’t think anyone really needs full 5G speeds for normal use, but for the majority of people, 5G is the only way to crack the 100Mbps barrier at home.
2) Is it expensive?
I know a lot of people might disagree with me here but I don’t think 5G is expensive. If you compare 5G to fiber prices or how much I’m paying for Zain Beam, you’ll quickly realize the amount you’re paying for the speed you’re getting is actually great deal. Here is a quick comparison:
I think what really makes 5G seem expensive is the limited bandwidth. Optimally the minimum you would want is 1TB per month. I just checked my usage and from September 12 up to September 30, I consumed around 320GB of bandwidth which is a lot less than I was expecting so 1TB would work out just fine for my needs. If you download tons of PS4 or Xbox games, you’ll probably want more than 1TB and the next step up is a whopping KD65 for 1.8TB.
In conclusion, I want 5G at home even though I just signed up to Zain Beam a few months back. I did ask a Zain employee if I could “upgrade” from Beam to 5G and was told I could without any penalties so that’s good news. I am worried that once 5G becomes a lot more common the speeds would drop, but even if it drops to say 300Mbps I’d still be happy with it. If you haven’t checked out my previous posts on 5G here are the links:
