Search: “kuwait”

Ibrah is a new ethical and sustainable online fashion store designed and produced in Kuwait. They recently launched a new look book showcasing their ‘serene pajama collection.’

The collection features pajamas with unique prints inspired by the breathtaking landscapes of Kuwait. There are six distinctive patterns, each capturing the diverse natural elements found in Kuwait.

The pajamas are for both men and women, and there are kids sizes as well.

The whole concept is very interesting, and I like the fact that they were inspired by Kuwait, but then actually went ahead and produced them in Kuwait. Browsing their website the prices also seem very reasonable considering they’re a limited run.

If you want to check them out, visit their instagram account @shop.ibrah and also make sure you visit their website ibrah.com.kw

Here are this weekends events, let me know if I missed anything.

Thursday, March 7
Astronomers Diwaniya
IMPROV Comedy: The Last Laugh
Kuwait Inspire Drag Race Championship
Murouj Graish Market

Friday, March 8
Cleanup & Kashta
Kuwait Inspire Drag Race Championship
Murouj Graish Market
Spring Bazaar

Saturday, March 9
Red Bull Quicksand 2024
Madang Market
Shakshooka Market
Murouj Graish Market

Kuwait Airways is currently celebrating their 70 year anniversary, so I decided to share some old photos my mum took back when she was a Kuwait Airways flight attendant.

Back in the early 70s, my mum traveled to Iran via Kuwait Airways from Lebanon. On the way back while transiting at the Kuwait Airport, she saw a Kuwait Airways ad looking for flight attendants. So once she got back to Lebanon, she applied, got the job, and ended up moving to Kuwait a few months later.

Anytime my mum brings up her experience as a Kuwait Airways flight attendant, she always mentions how great it was, and how she got to travel to so many places and meet a lot of people.

Some of the photos I’ve shared here, I previously posted on the blog around 18 years ago, but in low res. I’ve now rescanned all the photos including new ones I hadn’t shared before, and then tried to restore and recover as much of the details and colors as possible without over editing the images.

Just to add a bit more context, the photos here range from 1974 to 1976, with the oldest being the one of my mum in the orange colored uniform. The uniforms in the photos were also designed by Dior, except for the orange one which was designed by Nina Ricci. Finally, the last photos which look like they were taken on a private jet were in fact taken onboard the Emir’s plane (Emir Sabah al-Salim Al Sabah) which she served on during the last period of her career.

I’ve uploaded all 16 photos to my Flickr account, to check them out click here.

This past week felt long and exhausting but if you have the energy for it, here is this weekends list of different things you can do:

Thursday, February 29
Artisan Expo at Al Shaheed Park
Perfume Expo
Ramadan Food & Household Exhibition
Campfire Kashta
Scientific Center Green Market
Disney’s Peter Pan in the Courtyard

Friday, March 1
Artisan Expo at Al Shaheed Park
Perfume Expo
Ramadan Food & Household Exhibition
Scientific Center Green Market
Sharing is Caring Bazaar
BLS Spring Market

Saturday, March 2
Qout Market
Artisan Expo at Al Shaheed Park
Perfume Expo
Ramadan Food & Household Exhibition
Much Ado About Nothing
Scientific Center Green Market
Sharing is Caring Bazaar

Last week I was given access to the Tareq Rajab Museums’ private photography archive, and over the coming weeks I’ll be sharing my favorite finds. But, since it’s raining today I figured I’d share the first batch of photos taken after “The First Flood”.

I posted about the first flood back in September, but the photo I had found then was low resolution. That’s why I was pretty surprised to come across three high resolution photos in the Tareq Rajab Museum’s archive.

In Kuwait, the year 1934 is sometimes called Sanat Al Haddamah (the year of destruction) since torrential rains caused a lot of destruction to the old town of Kuwait.

Within only an hour, Kuwait witnessed unprecedented torrential rains that reached 300mm and caused raging floods and waters that swept away a third of the mud houses in Kuwait.

These three photos show the aftermath of the flood.

According to an article on Arab Times, Kuwait Airport is ranked the 7th worst airport in the world according to Skytrax, the airline and airport review and ranking site. I tried to figure out how Arab Times got their top 10 list but I couldn’t figure it out, on another list also by Skytrax, Kuwait is ranked the 6th worst airport.

6th or 7th, it doesn’t matter really. Previously another airport and airline review site, AirHelp, had ranked Kuwait Airport the 2nd worst in the world, but suspiciously after that ranking, Kuwait stopped appearing on their list.

I’m traveling tomorrow with British Airways from Terminal 1 and not really looking forward to it, although truthfully, since Terminal 4 and the Jazeera terminal opened, Terminal 1 has been pretty chill. It’s just visually an ugly terminal with nothing to do once inside.

While on the subject of airports, I remember reading online somewhere that the fee for long term parking at Terminal 1 got increased from 2KD per day to 5KD per day, can anyone confirm that?

Over the past couple of days there have been rumors floating around about Elon Musk coming to Kuwait. It’s being reported by some local news sites which I hadn’t heard of before, which is why I’m marking this as a rumor for now.

Allegedly, Elon Musk is expected to visit Kuwait in the next few days for discussions aimed at establishing Kuwait as a global hub for artificial intelligence.

This is where things gets strange, there is a secretive GPU cloud startup in Kuwait called Omniva that have plans to build a huge data center in Kuwait. The company is headed by big names who came in from companies like Amazon AWS, META and Microsoft. The data center which is under construction is located at the entrance of Sabah Al Ahmad Sea City (Road 278). source

I reached out to Elon Musk and Omniva to confirm all this, but I haven’t heard back from them yet.

Here are this weekends events, let me know if I missed anything:

Thursday, Feb 22
Winter Garden Market at Al Shaheed Park
Hala February Market at Murouj
Classic Car Show at The Promenade
Fireworks at Khiran Mall
COMFEST
K-POP Night

Friday, Feb 23
Winter Garden Market at Al Shaheed Park
Hala February Market at Murouj
Celebrations at ASCC
Al-Farsi Kite Festival
Classic Car Show at The Promenade
Fireworks at Khiran Mall
Cars & Coffee at Green Island
COMFEST
Khalifouh Heritage Village

Saturday, Feb 24
Winter Garden Market at Al Shaheed Park
Hala February Market at Murouj
Celebrations at ASCC
Al-Farsi Kite Festival
Classic Car Show at The Promenade
Korean Market at MADANG
Fireworks at Khiran Mall
COMFEST
Khalifouh Heritage Village

Sunday, Feb 25
Winter Garden Market at Al Shaheed Park
Hala February Market at Murouj
Celebrations at ASCC
Al-Farsi Kite Festival
Free Entry to Scientific Center
Fireworks at Al Kout Mall
Khalifouh Heritage Village

Monday, Feb 26
Winter Garden Market at Al Shaheed Park
Hala February Market at Murouj
Celebrations at ASCC
Al-Farsi Kite Festival
Free Entry to Scientific Center
Drone Show at The Walk
Hike Mutlaa
Khalifouh Heritage Village

A reader left a comment recently letting me know that F1 TV Pro now works in Kuwait. If you’re an F1 fan, F1 TV Pro is the best way to watch the races. It costs around $80 for a year and you can watch the practice, qualifications and the races live, as well as the pre race and post race shows among other things.

The app also allows you to also pick between two different English commentary teams, different driver cameras and access to lots of data.

Previously F1 TV Pro would only work in Kuwait if you used a VPN, so this is really good news.

Forbes Middle East revealed their annual list of Middle East’s 100 Most Powerful Businesswomen and 7 Kuwaiti businesswomen made the list for 2024. Even more impressive is that 3 of the top 5 most powerful businesswomen are from Kuwait.

Here are the most powerful Kuwaiti women and their position in the top 100:

2. Shaikha Khaled Al Bahar
National Bank of Kuwait Group (NBK Group)

3. Wadha Ahmad Al-Khateeb
Kuwait National Petroleum Company (KNPC)

5. Dana Nasser Al Sabah
Kuwait Projects Company (Holding) – KIPCO

18. Henadi Al-Saleh
Agility

28. Nadia Bader Al-Hajji
Petrochemical Industries Company (PIC)

67. Donna Sultan
KEO International Consultants

86. Nadia Akil
United Projects for Aviation Services Company (UPAC)

UAE hosted their annual UAE SWAT Challenge earlier this month and the Kuwait National Guard and the Kuwait Commandos took part in the 4 day competition. Although they didn’t end up winning, it’s still fun watching them compete in the events.

Here are two videos showing the team in action, the one above starts at the 4:42:47 mark while the one below starts at the 3:46:50 mark. If you hit play the videos should start at the correct times.

Here are this weekends events, let me know if I missed anything:

Thursday, Feb 15
Military Band Show at The Avenues
Auto Land Car Show
SADI 2024: Materiality of the Desert
Al Khiran Marina Market
Ramadan Market at The Food Hall
Film Night: The Merchant of Venice

Friday, Feb 16
Auto Land Car Show
SADI 2024: Materiality of the Desert
Robotics Open Activity at ASCC
Al Khiran Marina Market
Clean Up & Kashta!
Ramadan Market at The Food Hall
Audition: Little Shop of Horrors
Porsche Club Kuwait Festival
Is this thing on? Open Mic

Saturday, Feb 17
Auto Land Car Show
Ford Desert Challenge 2024
SADI 2024: Materiality of the Desert
Beach Clean Up
Al Khiran Marina Market
Army Marching Band at 360 Mall
Science in the Garden
Ramadan Market at The Food Hall
Porsche Club Kuwait Festival
Bloom Sustainability Market
Escalate Conference
Qout Market

Kuwait’s National Planetarium was one of the first in the Gulf Region and originally opened back in 1986. But a lot has happened to it since then.

During the 1990 Gulf War, the planetarium was destroyed and the signature dome remained visibly damaged for many years after. Eventually, the planetarium was rebuilt and it reopened again in 2002 but then closed down again in 2016 due to the major renovations that were going to take place at the National Museum. Now, 8 years later, it’s set to reopen again.

The technology at the planetarium has been fully upgraded with a new system consisting of nine 4K video projectors, new computer technology and the modernization of the sound system. But, at the heart of it all is the Zeiss STARMASTER projection system which has been at the planetarium since the reopening in 2002. The STARMASTER replaced the Zeiss SPACEMASTER which was installed in 1986 and was badly damaged during the 1990 invasion (It’s now displayed in the planetariums lobby). Only 19 STARMASTER projection systems are installed worldwide and they’re known for their high level of brightness, pinpoint sharpness, and providing a realistic starry sky.

Work on the planetarium is basically complete with only minor maintenance work left. Their aim is to open it as soon as the work is complete, but most likely it will be right after Ramadan.

If you’ve never been to the planetarium before, it’s located on the Gulf Road, opposite Seef Palace and is part of the Kuwait National Museum.

Since the Apple Authorized Resellers won’t be selling the Apple Vision Pro anytime soon, the only way to get your hands on one locally is through the grey market.

Ordering online and shipping to Kuwait isn’t an option and I’m glad I canceled my Vision Pro order before it shipped. Turns out if an item is valued at more than $2,500, then it’s considered high valued and requires a special process to ship it. Shop & Ship have a page about it where you can read more on this.

So far, I’ve found five stores in Kuwait that sell it, @alfuhod, @bestalyousifi, @emarketkw, @mobile2000 and @soooq.global. Here are their prices for the 256GB version:

Alfuhod: 1,399.9KD
Best: 1,299.9KD
eMarket: 1,399.9KD
Mobile2000: 1,279KD
Soooq: 1,279KD

In comparison, it costs around 1,155KD for the Vision Pro with tax in the US. Add around 20KD to ship to Kuwait (if it was easy to do), and that would bring the total to around 1,175KD. Paying 104KD premium and getting it from Mobile2000 for example, isn’t actually that bad.
If you’re interested, according to Best, their next shipment arrives on Tuesday. If you know of another place in Kuwait selling the Vision Pro, let me know.

Two Kuwaiti female artists, Aseel AlYaqoub and Monira Al Qadiri are taking part in this year’s Desert X AlUla 2024 open-air art exhibition.

15 artists from around the world were invited to take part in the exhibition under the theme of “In the Presence Of Absence”. The exhibition is taking place in AlUla area in Saudi Arabia and is open to all to visit.

Aseel’s work is the one on top, while Monira’s are the black enlarged meteorites above. For more information and photos of their installations, head over to their instagram account @aseelalyaqoub and @moniraism.

Desert X AlUla 2024 runs from 9 February to 23 March. For more information on the exhibition, visit @artsalula⠀

Photos: Courtesy of The Royal Commission for AlUla