Search: “cop”

Yesterday I started watching the new AppleTV+ show “Sunny” starring Rashida Jones (from parks & rec). Only two episodes are out and my first impression is that I like it. The aesthetics of the show give it a retro 70s vibe but it’s combined with tech from the future so it’s kinda like Fallout in that sense. Worth watching so far.

Also the teaser trailer for season 2 of Severance got released last night, that’s a show I’m looking forward to as well although not sure why release this teaser now when season 2 is scheduled to be released in January next year!

Finally, the trailer for Gladiator II got released this past week and I can’t wait for that movie to come out. I’ve actually only watched the original Gladiator once when it first came out, so I should watch it again now that the sequel is being released.

Let me know in the comments what you recently watched or planning to watch.

Movies at the Cinemas
The movies below are now showing at the local cinemas:

New This Week:
Arcadian (5.5)
Fly Me to the Moon (6.7)
The Last Breath (6.1)

Other Movies Showing:
A Quiet Place: Day One (7.0)
Bad Boys: Ride or Die (6.8)
Despicable Me 4 (6.4)
Harry Potter and the Chamber of Secrets (Classic) (7.4)
Harry Potter and the Sorcerer’s Stone (Classic) (7.6)Inside Out 2 (8.2)
Inside Out 2 (7.9)
Kingdom of the Planet of the Apes (7.4)
The Garfield Movie (5.8)
The Strangers: Chapter 1 (4.7)

The numbers in brackets refer to the IMDB rating at the time of publishing.

The oldest memory I have of Hardee’s is this 3D kids meal box. It’s from 1983 and I remember vividly picking it up from Hardee’s in old Salmiya, the location that was opposite Fay and Barakat (the shawarma place). The memory I have is being in the car parked outside Fay, and I remember as soon asI got in the car, the first thing I did was look through the red and blue windows to see if I could see anything inside. I also remember I had ordered a roast beef as my kids meal burger.

Back in 2015, I found the advert above in an old bookshop in the city which helped me re-spark that memory and I knew I needed to get the box again. Fast forward to last week, I finally found a box that was reasonably priced, was of Spiderman, and most importantly, included the comic. And now I have it thanks to eBay.

Update: I have an old photo of the building that used to house the Swan Lake music shop, Barakat and Fay. The photo was taken from my PDA, a Sony Clie UX40 back in the early 2000s and was posted on MoBlog back in 2004 (usurp.textamerica.com). Text America died and I never backed it up but I have the image as a thumbnail which I enlarged. Posting it here just for Google incase anyone in the future is ever looking for it. Hardees is the red lit up sign on the bottom left. Previous location of the first Wimpy location in Kuwait.

Random fact I recently discovered, the manager of the Swan Lake music shop in the 80s was the owner of the Bells music shop in the 90s.

Fashion Way, the complex right across the street from Fanar Mall in Salmiya is getting demolished. I personally don’t have much attachment to it but I know a lot of people do.

Construction on that building started in the late 80s and it was rumored to be Safeway the supermarket chain opening there, right next to Sultan Center. The building wasn’t covered in the ugly grey alucobond panels like today, I think I remember it being white ribbed metal panels. But then the 1990 invasion happened and the main Safeway store in Farwaniya got burnt down and they never reopened in Kuwait again. I also just realized while digging up old photos of Safeway that Americana owned it in Kuwait. I never knew that even though it clearly says Americana right next to Safeway on their sign. It now makes sense why Americana had their fast food brands there 90s onwards.

The building eventually finished construction and opened in the mid 90s I think. I remember Sbarro Pizza opening there, it occupied the whole area where Americana was today, but back then it was just Sbarro and it was a dine in experience. Hardees was located in a blue and white colored standalone building next door where Starbucks is right now. When that Hardees building got demolished, they eventually moved in with Sbarro and KFC into Fashion Way.

Inside Fashion Way was Mothercare with their huge animated tree inside. Mothercare was still there until they closed down a couple of months ago as well.

I just tried finding out when Sbarro opened in Kuwait but couldn’t find anything. I found an article from 1995 in the New York Times which mentions Gennaro (Jerry) Sbarro being 29 years old when he came to Kuwait to open Sbarro. I tried to find his date of birth online and I found multiple Jerry’s but the closest one might be 1966 which means Sbarro opened in 1994-1995. I contacted Jerry to find out and see if he has any photos, will see if he responds.

Anyway, the building is getting demolished. Not sure what the plan is, but my guess is they’re going to build an office tower in its place.

If you work at Americana, get in touch with me since I’d love to dig up old stuff with you together. I previously got in touch with the Wimpy social media team because I was working on a post about the history of Wimpy in Kuwait and they were a disaster. Firstly they replied saying they would get in touch with me if there was a potential for future collaborations. I told them they misunderstood and I wasn’t looking for them to advertise with me or send me free food. I explained that I just needed some information for a post I was working on. So then they gave me a phone number to call.. the Wimpy delivery phone number. I called them out on that move and they just copy pasted the same information all over again about how they would get in touch with me in the future if there is potential for a collaboration.

This past week I watched the film “The Unbearable Weight of Massive Talent” starring Nicholas Cage (as himself) and Pedro Pascal (from The Last of Us and Mandalorian). The film was really entertaining, hilarious and my favorite Nicholas Cage film since Face Off and Con Air. I had to rent it on AppleTV but was totally worth it. Nicholas Cage is such a great actor, but we tend to forget that since he’s in tooooo many b-rated films.

Other than that I started watching Presumed Innocent, I’m only one episode in (started last night) and although it started off a bit slow it picked up right at the end and I now am looking forward to watch the next episode. I also got to finally watch the last episode of Under the Bridge, a show that should have ended two episodes ago. I haven’t started on House of Dragons yet, I’m going to start this weekend along with season 4 of The Boys.

Let me know in the comments what you recently watched or planning to watch.

Movies at the Cinemas
The movies below are now showing at the local cinemas:

New This Week:
Breathe (3.8)
The Bikeriders (7.3)
The Lord of the Rings: The Return of the King (Classic) (9.0)

Other Movies Showing:
Bad Boys: Ride or Die (6.8)
Dragonkeeper (5.8)
Furiosa: A Mad Max Saga (8.1)
IF (6.8)
Inside Out 2 (8.2)
Kingdom of the Planet of the Apes (7.4)
Tarot (4.9)
The Garfield Movie (6.0)
The Lord of the Rings: The Two Towers (Classic/2002) (8.8)
The Strangers: Chapter 1 (4.7)
The Watchers (5.7)

The numbers in brackets refer to the IMDB rating at the time of publishing.

There is a rumor going around that Lana Del Rey is planning to come to Kuwait and perform as part of her Middle East tour. Turns out the rumor originated from a couple of popular instagram accounts that posted an audio file where Lana supposedly mentions she will be performing in Kuwait and Qatar. Sorry to be the bearer of bad news, but that’s not true.

The audio file is actually from a really old Lana Del Rey interview with an Australian radio station from back in 2015. The funny thing is, Lana doesn’t even say she is coming to Kuwait. During the interview Lana mentions that if she was going to do another real tour, Australia would be one of the first places she would think of, other than the Middle East. When the host asks where she would like to tour in the Middle East, Lana then mentions she’d like to perform in Kuwait and Qatar.

You can hear the audio snippet that has been going around above. Don’t believe everything you read online, even if they have over 100,000 followers.

This week I started watching the new Star Wars series The Acolyte. It has a 4.1 rating on IMDB and I have no idea why because it wasn’t bad at all. I also watched the movie Godzilla Minus One. I found it on Netflix and started watching it not realizing it was actually a Japanese movie dubbed in English. But something about the way it was shot caught my attention, it was a really beautiful looking film and it’s why I continued watching it. Turned out to be pretty good so glad I watched it.

This long weekend I’m going to watch Presumed Innocent which just got released on AppleTV+ and I need to start the new season of The Boys and finish up Clarkson’s Farm and Palm Royale (have like 2 episodes left I think). I might also watch Bad Boys at the theater, but need to find out first if anything is cut or not.

Oh and Netflix just announced “CHESTNUT VS. KOBAYASHI: UNFINISHED BEEF”. I’ve been following their story since before Kobayashi got banned from the Nathan’s Hot Dog Eating Contest, and this past week there was a lot of drama because Chestnut was also banned this year because he signed a deal with Nathan’s rival, Impossible Food. In my head yesterday I was thinking both should team up and do their own thing and I woke up this morning to find out Netflix is doing exactly that. It’s going to be such an exciting face-off!

Let me know in the comments what you recently watched or planning to watch.

Movies at the Cinemas
The movies below are now showing at the local cinemas:

New This Week:
Inside Out 2 (8.2)
The Strangers: Chapter 1 (4.7)

Other Movies Showing:
Bad Boys: Ride or Die (6.8)
Dragonkeeper (5.8)
Furiosa: A Mad Max Saga (8.1)
Godzilla x Kong: The New Empire (6.5)
IF (6.8)
Kingdom of the Planet of the Apes (7.4)
Kung Fu Panda 4 (6.4)
Tarot (4.9)
The Garfield Movie (6.0)
The Lord of the Rings: The Two Towers (Classic/2002) (8.8)
The Watchers (5.7)

The numbers in brackets refer to the IMDB rating at the time of publishing.

There are plenty of public beaches in Kuwait but not that many swimming pools you can access without being a member or staying at a hotel. But, some hotels do offer day passes to their pools so I called as many hotels as I could until I had enough to put a list together. This is the 2024 edition list so the prices are current.

All the pools on this list are singles friendly except for Seashell Julaia Resort which isn’t. None of the pools require you to be invited by a member except for SVN. SVN gets an exception for this list because it’s the nicest place with lots of very cool facilities. So for a very premium members only club, it’s actually great value compared to a lot of other places, so find a friend with a membership.

The list below is arranged from least expensive to most expensive:

Al Jahra Copthorne Hotel & Resort
Telephone: 24590000
Price: 10KD

Seashell Julaia Hotel & Resort
Telephone: 1844444
Price = 15KD

Crowne Plaza
Telephone: 1848111
Weekday/Weekend: 20KD

Symphony Style Hotel
Telephone: 25770000
Weekday: 20KD
Weekend: 25KD

Holiday Inn Salmiya
Telephone: 25760000
Weekday: 20KD
Weekend: 29KD

Hyatt Regency Al Kout Mall
Telephone: 23931234
Weekday/Weekend: 25KD
Ladies only on Monday and Wednesday

Millennium Hotel
Telephone: 22050505
Weekday/Weekend: 25KD

Mövenpick Hotel Resort AlBidaa
Telephone: 22253100
Weekday: 25KD
Weekend: 30KD

Hilton Resort
Telephone: 22256222
Weekday: 30KD
Weekend: 35KD

SVN Club (member invite required)
Telephone: 1876777
Weekday: 30KD
Weekend: 40KD

Marina Hotel
Telephone: 22230030
Weekday: 35KD
Weekend: 40KD

Four Seasons
Telephone: 22006000
Weekday/Weekend: 40KD (70KD Couple)

Waldorf Astoria
Telephone: 24774444
Price 1: 40KD (Inc. 1 Mocktail)
Price 2: 50KD (Inc. Food + Mocktail)

If I missed a place where you can access a pool with a day pass, let me know in the comments.

One day late but because I was flying back to Kuwait yesterday so didn’t have time to put this together. While in Copenhagen I got to watch Furiosa and it was ridiculously good, and Anya Taylor-Joy is such an incredible actress. I’d highly recommend you watch the movie while it’s still in the theater, and I don’t think anything would be cut in Kuwait, maybe 1 useless scene but that’s about it. One weird thing about my movie experience, I went to watch the film in one of their most popular and largest theater, but out of the 1,000+ seats we were just 6 people in total watching the film. It was weird but since the weather was good I figured most people wanted to spend the evening outdoor even though I went to the 10PM showing. No idea.

On the plane yesterday I got to watch the first 6 episodes of The New Look and loved it. Such a great story and now that I’m back home I can’t wait to watch the rest of the episodes.

Let me know in the comments what you recently watched or planning to watch.

Movies at the Cinemas
The movies below are now showing at the local cinemas:

New This Week:
Bad Boys: Ride or Die (6.8)
Dragonkeeper (5.8)
The Watchers (5.7)

Other Movies Showing:
Asphalt City (6.1)
Damaged (4.6)
Darkness of Man (4.5)
Furiosa: A Mad Max Saga (8.1)
Godzilla x Kong: The New Empire (6.5)
IF (6.8)
Kingdom of the Planet of the Apes (7.4)
Kung Fu Panda 4 (6.4)
Possessions (3.9)
Tarot (4.9)
The Fall Guy (7.3)
The Garfield Movie (6.0)
The Lord of the Rings: The Fellowship of the Ring (Classic/2001) (8.9)
The Lord of the Rings: The Two Towers (Classic/2002) (8.8)

The numbers in brackets refer to the IMDB rating at the time of publishing.

I traveled a couple of days ago and ended up watching two shows on the flight, Tires and Obliterated (both on Netflix). Tires just came out this past week and stars the comedian Shane Gillis. I liked the show, not sure if anyone else will unless you’re a fan of Shane since his humor isn’t for everyone. It’s only 6 short episodes so very quick to go through.

I also started watching Obliterated but haven’t finished it yet. Not as good as I was expecting it to be, but if you like the series Reacher you might like this since I find them pretty similar in style (comedy and story wise).

Let me know in the comments what you recently watched or planning to watch.

Movies at the Cinemas
The movies below are now showing at the local cinemas:

New This Week:
Asphalt City (6.1)
Damaged (4.6)
Darkness of Man (4.5)
Ezra
Possessions (3.9)
Tarot (4.9)
The Lord of the Rings: The Fellowship of the Ring (Classic/2001) (8.9)

Other Movies Showing:
Abigail (6.8)
Furiosa: A Mad Max Saga (8.1)
Godzilla x Kong: The New Empire (6.5)
IF (6.8)
Inception (Classic/2010) (8.8)
Kingdom of the Planet of the Apes (7.4)
Kung Fu Panda 4 (6.4)
Prey (3.8)
Sting (5.7)
The Fall Guy (7.3)
The Garfield Movie (6.0)

The numbers in brackets refer to the IMDB rating at the time of publishing.

I hadn’t heard of “F1 in Schools” before so was confused when I found out they were opening in The Avenues. I thought it might be a racing school but it turned out to be engineering related. This is how it’s described on Wikipedia:

F1 in Schools is an international STEM (science, technology, engineering, mathematics) competition for school children (aged 11–19), in which groups of 3–6 students have to design and manufacture a miniature car out of the official F1 Model Block using CAD/CAM design tools. The cars are powered by CO2 cartridges and are attached to a track by a nylon wire. They are timed from the moment they are launched to when they pass the finish line by a computer.

While researching I found out that in Kuwait, BSK were already involved with F1 in Schools (Check the post above). With The Avenues location opening the program will become accessible to more children. The Avenues location will be managed by the non-profit organization Sabah Al-Ahmad Center for Giftedness and Creativity and KFAS.

I’ve reached out to find out more about this and when they’re planning to open, but for now you can check f1inschools.com for more information or watch the video above to watch the 2023 world finals

Here is a feel-good story to start the week. Six lions rescued from Kuwait finally have a new home at a wildlife sanctuary in South Africa. Known as the ‘Kuwait 6’, the males Muheeb, Saham, Shujaa, Saif, and females Dhubiya and Aziza were victims of the illegal pet trade. All the lions were less than two years old when they were either surrendered, confiscated, or captured in Kuwait after being abandoned by their owners.

Staff and volunteers at the Kuwait Zoo nursed the lions back to health and looked after them until they were able to find them a home. After a long 15-hour journey, the lions arrived in South Africa last week.

Animal Defenders International (ADI), the non-profit organization that campaigns against animal cruelty and exploitation, offered the lions a new life at the 455-acre ADI Wildlife Sanctuary in South Africa. Qatar Airways Cargo assisted ADI in transporting the animals as part of their WeQare ‘Rewild the Planet’ initiative. Qatar Airways Cargo has an amazing and very caring program where they offer free transport to organizations involved in returning wild animals to their natural habitat.

For their first two weeks, the lions will be in quarantine before being released into the main habitat. ADI have been posting photos and videos of the ‘Kuwait 6’ on their instagram account @animal_defenders_international and it looks like the lions are in a really good place.

If you’d like to donate for the care of the ‘Kuwait 6’, you can by clicking this link. But, you also have the option to adopt one of the lions starting from just 20KD. For more on adoption, click here.

Ten years ago, Kuwait held the largest sand sculpture festival in the world, the Remal International Festival (@remalfest). The festival took place at the Kuwait International Fairgrounds and covered an area equivalent to six football fields. Now a decade later, Damon Langlois, the creative director behind the project is releasing a book called “Stories in Sand” that documents his experience.

Damon was a five-time world champion and Guinness World Record holder for the tallest sand castle before getting hired to come to Kuwait and lead the project that would be based around the Arabian Nights. He spent over seven months researching and designing the scenes before bringing together 72 of the world’s best sand artists to reimagine the stories from 1001 Nights.

The sculpture park was constructed out of only sand and water, it was a major artistic feat, and extremely risky. The artists were all reminded of this when the park was destroyed by a devastating three-day storm halfway through the build. At the time, it was the worst storm to hit Kuwait in over 50 years.

I remember reading that “some” sculptures had been damaged, but now I realized how bad it really was. The destruction caused Damon and his team to feel defeated after all the hard work had been washed away. But, they were able to recover and complete the project, and the park eventually opened in January 2014 before closing 4 months later in April.

Damon’s book “Stories in Sand”, is part art and part storybook. The initial print run is set at only 260 books and contains 276 pages filled with behind the scenes and final creation photos and stories. There are limited copies of the book so if you want one you need to act fast. I’m assuming they will get sold out quickly after this post which is why I already ordered my copy. The book doesn’t ship to Kuwait directly so I had to put my Shop&Ship address instead.

If you want to pre-order a copy, here is the link to the Kickstarter.

For my old posts on the Remal Festival, click here.

I was looking for something when I came across a journal by ARUP, the British engineering and architect firm. The journal was from 1979 and discusses in great technical detail their involvement in the construction of Salhiya Complex. If you’re into this kind of thing, here is a link to the PDF.

For everyone else, here is a video of Salhiya Complex taken in 1984. (starts at minute 4:40)

Since a lot of record stores pop up and close down often, I tend to update this list every few years.

All the small online stores that sold new records have closed down, including @vinyldestinationkw, and so if you want a new release, your best bet is ordering from Amazon.

But, if you’re looking for old used records, you actually have multiple options in Kuwait.

The Antique Basement
This basement in Salmiya has various stores selling vintage and antique items, three of them also have a small collection of old records. They’re not organized but instead are either just pilled up on top of one another, or randomly stacked in boxes. Finding stuff is a bit of an adventure, but on the bright side, they’re mostly English records. Here are the instagram accounts of those stores:

@tathkron
@fahad___bokhaled
@alnasser_antiques_kuwait

Nawader
This guy has the most insane collection of old music since he acquired all the remaining stock of the old record label “Bou Zaid Phone“, one of the most important Kuwaiti record labels. Nawader has a huge collection of new-old-stock records, cassettes and even 8-track tapes. Nearly all of the records he has are in Arabic, and he also has many very hard to come by ones. I got my 4-volume vinyl set of the “Kuwaiti Television Artistic Group” from him, and although he wouldn’t sell me his copy of the Iftah Ya Simsim record, he did hook me up with someone else who sold me theirs. He has a location thats by appointment only, but you can also purchase or request items through any one of his three instagram accounts:

@nawaderq8
@q8nawader
@istuwanat

Moqtanayaty
If you’re looking for a vintage record player, boombox, 8-track or even reel-to-reel players to buy, the best store in Kuwait is Moqtanayaty, or “My Belongings” when translated to English. I bought my vintage record player from there and they can even repair vintage music players, VCRs, or really old TVs. You can check them out on instagram @vintage_radio_

If you know of another place that sells records, let me know in the comments.

I don’t recall coming across a photo of Kuwait’s shoreline that was older than this. I was doing some research for an upcoming post when I went down a rabbit hole and ended up coming across a report from 1903 that contained photos, maps and some interesting information on Kuwait. One of the photos was the image above of Kuwait’s shore which I hadn’t seen before, but there were also some other ones inside I also hadn’t seen which I’ve shared below.

The report is made up of 2 volumes and the original copy is part of the British Library: India Office Records and Private Papers . The report was compiled by Captain H. H. Dowding after his visit to Kuwait during the winter of 1901-02 while the photographs were supplied by Baron Curzon of Kedleston.

You can actually download the whole report as a PDF from the Qatar Digital Library. If you want to check it out, click here.