Search: “kuwait”

If you missed ComFest Con this past weekend, UrbanQ8 has a video recap of it which you can watch above (warning, its SUPER long). According to a friend of mine who goes to all the comic festivals that take place here, this one was the best one yet and will probably end up being THE comfest for Kuwait.

Kuwait just scored it’s lowest ranking ever since the World Press Freedom Index was created back in 2002. In the latest index, Kuwait came in 104th place out of 180 countries, a far cry from when Kuwait placed 60th back in 2009. According to Reporters without Borders who put this list together every year, Kuwait scored badly this year because of the new cyber-crime law that took effect in January of last year:

The vaguely-worded provisions of a cyber-crime law that took effect in January 2016 pose a threat to bloggers and online journalists who post any critical content. A new electronic media law adopted the same month forces them to apply to the government for a license. [Source]

Here is Kuwait’s current ranking compared to some of our neighboring countries:

99 – Lebanon
104 – Kuwait
119 – UAE
123 – Qatar
126 – Oman
138 – Jordan
158 – Iraq
161 – Egypt
164 – Bahrain
165 – Iran
168 – Saudi Arabia

For the full list and more information, check out the Reporters without Borders [Website]

If you’re in Kuwait this weekend there are surprisingly a lot of things going on. If you’re a Game of Thrones fan, Jaqen H’ghar is in Kuwait this weekend for the Comic Festival. There are also two movies showing at Al Shaheed this weekend, a photographers bazaar and a Vietnamese food pop-up. Check out all the events taking place this long weekend below:

Wednesday
Exhibition: Byproducts of Development
Performance: Rise Up
Good Game: Dungeons & Dragons Encounters
The Legit Open Mic

Thursday
Exhibition: Byproducts of Development
Performance: Rise Up
Comic Festival Convention
Movies at the Park: The Sound of Music

Friday
Hatha Yoga in the Park
Good Game: Magic – The Gathering
Salwa’ Walk and Socialize Meetup
Comic Festival Convention
Red Bull BC One Kuwait Cypher 2017
Voices and Verses – The Season Finale

Saturday
Yoga with the 3
Performance: Rise Up
Comic Festival Convention
The Tailor’s Club
OYSHO Outdoor Yoga Event
Viet Nom + Barba
Photographer’s Bazaar 2
Movies at the Park: The Pursuit of Happyness
Peak Vertical Marathon

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.

The movies below are now showing at either Cinescape, Grand Cinemas or Sky Cinemas:

New This Week:
Free Fire (7.2) ♦ ★
Monolith (4.7)
The Assignment (4.5) ♦
The Circle (7.5) ♦
The Lost City of Z (7.2) ♦

Other Movies Showing:
Colossal (6.8)
Fast & Furious 8 (7.5)
Ghost in the Shell (6.8) ♦
Max Steel (4.6)
Mine (6.1)
The Boss Baby (6.5)
Unforgettable (6.3) ♦
Smurfs: The Lost Village (5.8)

The movies below are now showing at the Scientific Center IMAX theater:

A Beautiful Planet 3D (7.9)
Flying Monsters 3D with David Attenborough (7.6)
Humpback Whales 3D (7.2)
Jean-Michel Cousteau’s Secret Ocean 3D (N/A)
Journey to Space 3D (6.5)
Kenya 3D: Animal Kingdom (6.0)
Mysteries of the Unseen World 3D (7.5)

Numbers in brackets refer to the IMDB rating at time of publishing.
★ is for movies I’m interested in. ♦ implies movie might contain censorship.

A few years ago I posted about a Kuwaiti violin maker and since its a slow news week, I decided to repost that article. You can check the original post [Here] but I’ve also copy pasted it below. It’s a very interesting story if you haven’t read it before:

Article originally posted on July 24th, 2013

Last night I passed by and met Haitham Al-Ghareeb, a local violin maker. We met at his small cozy workshop in Rawda located right outside his home. When you walk into his dimly lit workshop you’ll see a small diwaniya on the left with around a dozen violins hanging on the wall, while on the right hand side is his workstation where he crafts all his violins. He filled a kettle with water and put it on a small electric stove next to him and we started talking.

Back in 2000, Haitham was a oud player but was interested in getting into violins. He started looking for a good violin to buy in Kuwait but he couldn’t find any. Most of the violins available in the market back then were of poor quality from low end brands. That’s why Haitham decided to make his own violin using documents and instructions he found online.

Haitham hadn’t crafted any musical instruments before, he had dabbled with some minor oud repair but nothing major. This got me even more curious, how can a 25 year old with no previous woodworking skills be able to craft such a delicate instrument as a violin? Well the answer I believe might be in his genes. Haitham’s father, grand father and great grand father were all dhow builders. Woodworking had existed in his family for generations and it was just natural for him to be good at it.

Haitham’s first violin wasn’t flawless, it had mistakes and was made using locally sourced wood but yet the sound it produced to his ears was beautiful. This encouraged him to build a second better violin with imported tonewood (wood cut specifically for musical instruments). He started frequenting forums and participating in online communities where other violin craftsmen from around the world would share their tips and techniques. His violins kept improving with every build and soon he had his own tips and tricks to share with the community. He loved crafting violins so much that he quickly forgot about wanting to play them. He became obsessed in building and perfecting his own creations.

When Haitham first started making violins he was spending 4 hours a day working on them and each violin would take around 2 months to complete. Nowadays he’s too busy with work and family so it takes him around 9 months to complete a single violin. But he’s fine with that. He never started making violins with the intention to turning it into a profitable business. Even his prices have remained the same over the years even though his violins kept getting better and demand for them kept increasing. He just loves making violins and isn’t interested in expanding. It’s a hobby he’s just really good at. He also does a lot of repair work on violins which to many musicians is a lifesaver. Musicians bond with their instruments and having a local violin maker means that a damaged violin no longer needs to be discarded but instead can be repaired. Only two of the violins hanging on the wall were his, the rest were either in for repair or were being sold by other musicians.

Once we were done with the interview, Haitham served us some tea. Throughout the whole interview which lasted around 40 minutes I had watched him make us the tea using two kettles, a can filled with what I assume is tea leaves and a box filled with I don’t know what. He then skillfully poured the tea from the large kettle into three glasses that were sitting amongst a dozen on the table in front of us. The tea was delicious and to me summarized the kind of person that Haitham is, a perfectionist.

If you’d like to contact Haitham for any reason you can do so by emailing him on [email protected]

I’m sending my Lotus to Bahrain this coming weekend so I needed to get a Power of Attorney done for the trailer driver. The process turned out to be pretty simple and the experience surprisingly good. Since I originally had trouble figuring out where to go, I wanted to post about it in case somebody googles this question in the future.

Kuwaitis
Originally I was told to get a POA I needed to head to the Liberation Tower [Map]. Once I got there though I found out it was only for Kuwaitis and instead I was directed to the Ministries Complex which is a short drive away. If you’re Kuwaiti, the area to get the POA done is located on the first floor of what they call the Ministry Mall at the Liberation Tower. Just head up the escalator, take a left, then another left and then one more left and head straight through the door ahead that says Ministry of Justice.

Expats
If you’re an expat and need a POA done, you need to head to the Ministries Complex [Map]. If you’re driving there in the middle of summer then be aware, the parking is a good walk away from the complex and there is no shade until you’re inside the Ministries Complex. Once you get to the Ministries Complex there are no signs to let you know which building to enter so just follow the crowd. Once you’re inside you also won’t find that many signs and when you do they’ll only be in Arabic. So ask around or look for the sign above that says Ministry of Justice, once you enter that doorway you’ll find the POA department.

When I got there I took a number and waited, there were around 15 people ahead of me but the POA department also had around 16 stations with employees manning them so the wait wasn’t that long. The employee I dealt with was very helpful and spoke both Arabic and English. The trailer company I’m using is based in Bahrain and they sent me copies of 10 ID cards of the different drivers they might send to Kuwait to pick up my car. I had to get the POA done for all 10 drivers and the government employee didn’t blink an eye, she took all the ID cards and told me it wasn’t an issue and typed all their info out.

The cost of the POA was a KD2 stamp and no running around involved, you just deal with one employee for the whole process. A super smooth experience.

Photo on top by Nawaf Ahmed

As Americans become increasingly health-conscious and junk food sales plateau in the States, fast food companies are spreading to new global markets, expanding their revenue — and the waistlines of their customers.

VICE correspondent Gianna Toboni travels to Kuwait, now one of the most obese countries on the planet, to witness the health effects on a country deep in the throes of an unlikely obsession with U.S. fast food. “Fast Food of Arabia” airs on HBO Friday, April 21 at 11pm.

I just watched this episode a few moments ago and although it doesn’t bring to light anything we (as in people living in Kuwait) didn’t already know, it did make me realize two things:

1) Some of the most prime seaside real estate is occupied by fast food chains
2) There needs to more education by the government on healthier living

I don’t have any numbers to back this up but I personally don’t think Kuwait is as obese as it used to be 10 years ago when I first brought to light the obesity issue. Back then we didn’t have close to as many gyms as we have today, people were a lot less active (even I used to be an overweight couch potato) and we definitely didn’t have as many healthy food options as we do today. But there still are a vast majority of people who don’t know how to eat healthy. We tend to assume everyone knows what is good or bad for them but thats not the case which is why I think there needs to be more education on this subject. Maybe nutrition classes should be mandatory in schools or something along those lines.

Here are also some interesting dates I got from this episode of VICE:

First KFC in Kuwait – 1973
First Hardees in Kuwait – 1980
First Pizza Hut in Kuwait – 1982
First Mcdonalds in Kuwait – 1994
First Burger King in Kuwait – 1997

I also found out that the Hardees in Kuwait was their first Hardees outside of the U.. So now I’m interested to know the story on how that came to be.

This episode of VICE is 30 minutes long but only the first half focuses on Kuwait so it won’t take too much of your time. Based on Gianna Toboni’s instagram account, she filmed this in Kuwait last August. If you have HBO NOW, you can watch this episode [Here]

Update: If anyone wants the lyrics to the Domino’s Pizza cult song, here they are:

Who are we?
Domino’s Pizza!
What are we?
Number 1!
What’s our job?
Make more pizza! Have more fun!
Make more pizza! Have more fun!
Make more pizza! Have more fun!
Wooow!

Domino’s asking all the right life related questions…

A good amount of events are taking place this weekend, check them all out below:

Thursday
Exhibition: Third Identity
Exhibition: Byproducts of Development
Concert: Al Hassan Brothers
Concert: Yanni
The Community Table Presents: Việt Nam
Dual Bowls Launch Party

Friday
Exhibition: Dual Bowls
Hatha Yoga in the Park
Good Game: Magic – The Gathering
Concert: Yanni
Art & Burgers with Elevation
Salwa’ Walk and Socialize Meetup
The Community Table Presents: Việt Nam

Saturday
Exhibition: Dual Bowls
Yoga with the 3
Guided Tour: Arab Organization Headquarters
Caravan Market
Shakshooka Market: End of Season
Q8 Readers Book Club: Kafka on the Shore
The Community Table Presents: Việt Nam
The Divan’s JamJam: Bringing Back The 90s
Movie Night at Masaha 13: Dianosour

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.

The movies below are now showing at either Cinescape, Grand Cinemas or Sky Cinemas:

New This Week:
Colossal (6.8)
Ghost in the Shell (6.8) ♦
Mine (6.1)
The Boss Baby (6.5)
Unforgettable (6.3) ♦

Other Movies Showing:
Fast & Furious 8 (7.5)
Max Steel (4.6)
Smurfs: The Lost Village (5.8)

The movies below are now showing at the Scientific Center IMAX theater:

A Beautiful Planet 3D (7.9)
Flying Monsters 3D with David Attenborough (7.6)
Humpback Whales 3D (7.2)
Jean-Michel Cousteau’s Secret Ocean 3D (N/A)
Journey to Space 3D (6.5)
Kenya 3D: Animal Kingdom (6.0)
Mysteries of the Unseen World 3D (7.5)

Numbers in brackets refer to the IMDB rating at time of publishing.
★ is for movies I’m interested in. ♦ implies movie might contain censorship.

Yesterday I finally backed my first Kickstarter campaign, the Dual Bowls project by Kuwaiti artist Kawther Al Saffar. Dual Bowls are one of a kind, hand crafted pieces made in Kuwait by pouring two different metals together in a mold to form a rough bowl. I fell in love with the bowls when I first got a sneak peek at them early on in the month. Then yesterday, when the Kickstarter page finally went live, I grabbed the super early bird deal on one.

I’ve actually been a fan of Kawther’s work for some time now. I originally fell in love with her stools, then her chairs and now her bowls. I think she’s extremely talented and theres always a strong concept behind her work. When she first told me about her Dual Bowls project I had a lot of questions, so we ended up having a pretty thorough discussion about her idea. I wanted to share two paragraphs from one of her emails that resonated with me the most:

The intention with creating them in larger quantities, is to make them affordable art pieces. My aim is to build a high end, multinational brand that fosters collaboration and craft in Kuwait. One that can compete within the spectrum of businesses such as Tom Dixon, Ned Debs, and Tiipoi. I’d like to show that Kuwaiti craft and production can have international and commercial value, but I think the way to show value is by marketing it abroad. I’m aiming for high end because after studying the production scene in Kuwait for the past 3 years, I feel thats what our production is capable of catering too. This might seem counter intuitive, but I feel this is the case because a lot of the work is done by hand, and our low cost products such as merchandising can’t compete with quality abroad. My tag line is: Personal.Local.Universal. 

I think there exists a distorted view of product cultural value in the world, where countries somewhat fulfill a stereotype of their worth. For example Kuwaitis are willing to spend a large amount of money on furniture branded as Italian. While some Italian design is great, that doesn’t mean they are investing in design thats well made, or that the products they buy are truly Italian. They are investing in the stereotype. The way this generalization applies to Kuwait is through a false distinction of luxury and Orientalism. That means the way we apply Islamic geometries and patterns with no context or translation of their purpose. My aim is to create a dialogue around these issues and facilitate a better translation of our identity thats more honest and experience based. I want to create products that are Kuwaiti through their origin and story. 

I loved that.

If her Dual Bowls project wasn’t interesting enough, there is a second part to this project that I also found fascinating, her partnership with Kickstarter on this. When Kickstarter heard about the Dual Bowls project, they reached out to Kawther and asked her to launch her campaign on their platform. Most of the big and popular Kickstarter projects are electronics related, but Kickstarter is more than just electronics and gadgets, they actually care about creativity and supporting artists. So recently Kickstarter has been trying to promote a more diverse offering, and they saw a great opportunity to work with Kawther on the Dual Bowls. Her project has a very strong narrative and so requires a platform like Kickstarter to be able to tell her story. There is actually a great article on FastCompany that was published yesterday that discusses this further and even mentions and highlights Kawther and her project. You can check that article [Here]

Kawther (pictured above on the left) is aiming big, she’s hoping to sell a 1,000 bowls by the end of her campaign. I already pledged for mine yesterday, a medium sized bowl. If you’re interested in finding out more about her bowls, she has a great video on her Kickstarter page that explains the whole project as well as photos of the different kind of bowls she’ll be making and a much more thorough explanation on the project. So make sure you check her out on Kickstarter [Here]

There is also a Dual Bowls launch party taking place tomorrow, details on that [Here]

Yesterday I got my driving license renewed for the first time in like a decade. Previously they’d renew the license for 10 years but now its year by year which is super annoying but whatever, there isn’t anything I can do about it. What I wanted to write about was the required documents you need to renew your license, and the process you have to go through at the traffic department since the information on e.gov.kw is inaccurate. This way if anyone is googling information, they’ll hopefully end up on this page. So lets begin.

Required Documents:
– Civil ID Copy
– Passport Copy (photo page and visa page)
– Work Permit Copy
– Your Company’s Notarized Signatures (e3timad tawkee3)
– Two Personal Photos, Blue Background 6×4
– Your Expired License

Once you have all your documents head to the traffic department near you, I live in Salmiya so I headed to the traffic department in Jabriya. As an expat I can only renew my license in the afternoon starting from 4PM. Get there early. On arrival first thing you need to do is go to the typists who are usually located near the main entrance. Tell them you want to renew your license and hand them all your paperwork. They’ll type out the correct form with your details and then staple all the documents together. They’ll charge KD1 for this process not including making copies of any documents. You could ask them what you have to do next and they’ll point you in that direction.

The next step is to hand your paper over to the license renewal desk (it’s marked) and in my case was located inside the main hall of the traffic department. Make sure you don’t have any fines, if you do they’ll make you go settle them first. If you don’t have any fines they’ll print out a paper for you stating that. The next step is to get your documents signed by the officer in charge. The officer wasn’t at his desk when I went so they told me to go to another officer outside the main hall sitting at the front desk. When I went there I swear there was a queue with around 100 people in it. I couldn’t see the end of the line kind of queue and I’m not exaggerating. While standing there in shock and regretting not bringing my Nintendo Switch with me, I spotted an officer nearby so I went up to him just to make sure this was the line I had to stand in. So I went up to him and in English asked him where I should get this signed. He told me he doesn’t speak English, then I pointed at the document and he said go stand in that line. So I pointed to the line and was like this line?? He then asked me if I had my old license with me, and I showed him, then he asked to see a few other documents which I showed him. He then told me to get a KD1 stamp which I did. He stuck the stamp on my form, took all the documents, went behind the desk and had the officer there sign my document. That was super nice of him and I got to avoid standing in line for an hour. So good luck with this step.

Once you have the documents signed you head over to the driving license renewal desk again and hand them the papers. You’ll now have to sit and wait for your name to be called out. If your license is already expired then they’ll call your name out and tell you to go pay a KD5 fine. This fine will only pop-up at this stage, you can’t get it paid before the process. Once you pay the fine you come back and give your papers again. After a short while they’ll call your name again and send you to a room to get your photo taken. Once you get it taken you’ll have to wait for your license to get printed.

When I was there yesterday they were having technical issues with the license printing machine so I had to wait two hours to get my license printed. The employees actually stayed late after their working hours to make sure everybody got their license printed including the main officer. They were pretty apologetic about the delay. Thankfully there was a Formula 1 race taking place last night, and so I got to watch it live on my phone while I waited which wasn’t too bad.

So there you have it, this is what you need to do to renew your license.

My favorite dosa place in Kuwait has been Saravanaa Bhavan for some time now. But I’m kinda bored of it and want to try out a new place. Can someone recommend another Indian restaurant that does great dosas?

Over the weekend I had to use the Kuwait e-Visa website to apply for a visit visa for my mum. While filling in her details I noticed some major spelling mistakes, ones I’m surprised haven’t been fixed already since the website has been active since last summer. Here are the mistakes just from the partial screenshot above of the e-Visa form:

– biulding should be building
– forth should be fourth
– governate should be governorate
– flour should be floor

Since this website is being used by visitors hoping to get entry into Kuwait, it’s not really a great first impression, and we haven’t even discussed the 90s look of the website either.

When I applied for my mums visa on Friday, it got denied the first time and even the denied page had a major grammatical error. “Your eVisa application was been denied” should be either “has been denied” or “was denied”.

If I’m correcting spelling and grammatical errors, then you can imagine how bad things are.

I applied for my mums visa again yesterday and it got approved the second time around. Completely random. On the plus side, even though it was the weekend, the approval/rejection process took a few hours and was pretty fast.

So whoever is in charge of the website, please fix these mistakes. I haven’t checked the other pages but I’d imagine there are probably mistakes on those as well.

Update: Spelling has been fixed!

It was pretty difficult finding events that are taking place this weekend but I think I put together a pretty decent list. Check out all the events below:

Thursday
Exhibition: Third Identity
Exhibition: Byproducts of Development
Live Music at the Institut Français du Koweït
Classical Music: Oxford Maqam
Kuwait International Boat Show
QUAD Pop-up

Friday
Tai Chi in the Park
Hatha Yoga in the Park
Salwa’ Walk and Socialize Meetup
Good Game: Magic – The Gathering
Film Festival: For Our Society
The Big Comedy Show
Kuwait International Boat Show

Saturday
Yoga with the 3
Guided Tour: Grand Mosque
Conference: CELL
Scents & Sensibility *Canceled*
Kuwait International Boat Show

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.

The movies below are now showing at either Cinescape, Grand Cinemas and Sky Cinemas:

New This Week:
Fast & Furious 8 (7.5)
Rabbit School (7.3)
Their Finest (7.2) ♦

Other Movies Showing:
Aftermath (7.4)
Get Out (8.2) ♦ ★
Going in Style (6.9)
Kong: Skull Island (7.6) ★
Max Steel (4.6)

The movies below are now showing at the Scientific Center IMAX theater:

A Beautiful Planet 3D (7.9)
Flying Monsters 3D with David Attenborough (7.6)
Humpback Whales 3D (7.2)
Jean-Michel Cousteau’s Secret Ocean 3D (N/A)
Journey to Space 3D (6.5)
Kenya 3D: Animal Kingdom (6.0)
Mysteries of the Unseen World 3D (7.5)

Numbers in brackets refer to the IMDB rating at time of publishing.
★ is for movies I’m interested in. ♦ implies movie might contain censorship.