Search: “kuwait”

zMacShop (Hawally)
4GB: KD77
8GB : KD88

Mac & More (Marina Mall)
2GB: KD63
4GB: KD80
8GB: KD95

Mac City (Virgin Megastore)
8GB: KD114

I was just given this link by a friend (Holla), the site helps you figure out how much of a salary you can make in a certain proffesion in a certain city. Its only meant to check US cities BUT, if you type a certain proffesion and for the city you put Kuwait you still get funny results. Here are some interesting ones we found:

What – Where – Average Salary
Creative Director – Kuwait – $84,000
Dentist – Kuwait – $128,000
Ministry – Kuwait – $34,000
Hooker – Kuwait – $41,000
Crack Whore – Kuwait – $208,000
Egyptian – Kuwait – $12,000
Black People – Kuwait – $89,000
Whitey – Kuwait – $72,000
Hot Chick – Kuwait – $48,000
Hot Guy – Kuwait – $16,000
Shark – Kuwait – $75,000

Try to find some cool ones and post them in the comments below [Link]

Porsche Kuwait recently launched a local website and they’ve been advertising it kinda heavily in the papers and magazines. So I just checked the site out and the coolest thing has to be the fact they have the prices listed. Porsches seem a lot more affordable then I thought they were. I thought the Boxster started at 16,000 but it actually starts at like 13,000 while I used to think the Cayenne started at 22,000 but it actually starts at like 14,500. [Link]

Found this via Hilaliya, some teacher who was living in Kuwait in the 80s scanned some old pictures he had taken here and uploaded them to his flicker account. Some cool stuff, Kuwait really hasn’t changed much. [Pictures]

I just read on Kuwaitism’s blog that the English version of BBC World is now available in Kuwait on 100.1 FM. I used to listen to the station the whole time while I was in Lebanon on the frequency AM 1323. It was the coolest station filled with news, documentaries and interviews. Here in Kuwait I listen to VOA news on FM 96.9 but early in the year they changed their programming to focus more on educating people on the English language and its just really crap now. Can’t wait till I get into my car and try tuning to BBC World.

I was just checking the blog story from KUWAIT and he has a Kuwait Airways advert which says they won Best Airlines in the Middle East and South Africa. That didn’t sound right, I figured maybe since the headline of the ad says “Our last victory” it could be a victory from the 80’s or something. So, I went and checked the Kuwait Airways website and guess what, I found a press release from late May stating they won Best Airlines in the Middle East and North Africa! How did that happen? They must have been the only airline that participated. Also notice their ad says South Africa but their website says North Africa.

Kuwait Airways ad on story from Kuwait [Link]
Press release on Kuwait Airways website [Link]

Saw the funniest thing today on my way back from Marina Mall. A large bus with Bahrain Limo written on the side was parked on the side of the road and a bunch of Bahraini tourists were getting out. Makes me wonder how boring Bahrain must be for people there to be coming to Kuwait for tourism.

I found this pretty strange.

Today morning I went with Nat and the mandoob from TriStar to get our motorbike learners permit. I don’t know what mandoob is in English, but he is basically the guy who helps out with government paperwork. Todays experience like most government related work was exhausting, and the terrible humid weather didn’t help.

I picked up the mandoob at 9:30 and we headed to the Hawlly Traffic Department located in Jabriya. First place we went to inside was the typing room, there you give some guys your documents and for 1KD they fill out the forms for you on the computer and then print them out. Once we got the forms we headed into another much larger room filled with chairs and numbered booths. We headed to the very far end where we waited inline to get our papers signed by a high ranking police officer. This guy was very nice, he took a look at Nats form and he was like in English “you want to drive bicycle?” she was like yeah I want to ride a motorbike. He then proceeded to explain to her how driving in Kuwait is not easy and that if you are in a car its really dangerous so you can imagine how dangerous riding a bike is. He was like I could sign this paper for you if you want but I wouldn’t recommend it, she told him sign it please and he did. After that he told us we needed to go to Qurtoba to get an eye test so we left the place and headed there.

Once we got to Qurtoba I was worried I would fail the eye test. My vision isn’t perfect, I wear glasses when I am in front of the computer but I should be wearing them the whole time. Nat also has glasses which she wears in front of the computer and TV so she was worried she would fail too. So we go into the building and give in our forms and wait for our turn. 5 minutes later they call Nats name and she goes in for the test. A minute later she comes out telling me she passed although she made a mistake, her score was 24/6 for her left eye and 6/6 for her right. They called my name next and I went in. I don’t think I have seen an older eye test setup before. You sit in an old wooden school chair on one side of a room with a tall white plastic lamp behind you with the letters stuck onto it. You look ahead into a mirror stuck on the wall, cover an eye and read out the letters. It was really easy since they let me read out the big sized letters so I aced it with a score of 6/6 for both eyes. They signed the papers and we headed back to Hawally.

The weather was incredibly hot and humid and traffic was a bitch but we got to the traffic department and went back into the big room again back to the nice high ranking cop. He looked at the papers and told us to go to counter number 1. I get to counter 1 show him my papers only to have them rejected. The guy told me because I got my eye test today I needed to come back tomorrow to get the learners permit. I told him why do I have to do that, can’t I just get the permit done today? He was like come back tomorrow. So we were leaving the place when the high ranking cop asks us if we were done. I told him what the guy at counter 1 told us, he seemed irritated at the guy and took out some stamps from his pocket and stamped and signed out papers. He told us we needed to get a 10KD postage stamp and head over to counter 7. We got the stamps and headed to counter 7 where a guy took all our papers and filled them into the computer. He then told us to go get our pictures taken at the far end of the room.

There was a young woman sitting in a small room with a computer, a scanner and a small Canon digital camera attached to a cheap tripod. She told us to sit on the chair in front of the camera and she took our pictures. She then sent us back to counter 7. We got there and the guy started printing out our learners permit on his HP color laser printer. Although all the equipment they were using were off the shelf consumer electronics it was still cool that they were doing this. Finally the guy sent us to office 20, yes office, thats where the highest ranking official is located, we gave him our freshly printed learners permit and he signed it and we were done.

The whole process took around 2 hours and cost us KD11 per person. I am not sure but I am guessing this is the same process for getting cars learner permit. Below you will find some helpful information like papers needed and google map of the locations.

Papers needed for motorbike learners permit:
– 2 photographs, 3×4
– Work permit copy
– Passport copy (picture and visa page)
– Civil ID copy
– Driving license copy (if you dont have it then I believe you are required to do a medical test)

Location Maps:
– Hawally Traffic Department
– Qurtoba eye test place

K.thekuwaiti just emailed me these pictures. Someone in Kuwait owns a K.I.T.T replica from the show Knight Rider. Its really fucking cool.

Picture 1
Picture 2
Picture 3
Picture 4

These are the current DSL prices in Kuwait for a 512KB connection.

Qualitynet: KD24.5 a month (You need an NBK account for this price)
UnitedNet: KD25 a month (Yearly contract paid montly)
Fasttelco: KD70 a month (KD50 if paid 1 year in advance)

Just a note, Fasttelco had the lousiest sales guy when I called, really crap. UnitedNet don’t seem to have a website which I think is very ify Turns out they do have a website but google doesn’t know about it. With Qualitynet if you don’t have an NBK account then you need to pay the full year subscription in advance or you will have to pay the monthly fee of KD38.

You guys remember Shark of Kuwait? I think the last post about him got the highest amount of comments so far on this blog. Well he redesigned his website recently and added more stuff. I personally prefer his old site but never the less check it out. [Link]

Kleio posted the following comment under the Kuwaitis Stuck in Damascus post:

I was one of those people who was lied to by the Kuwaiti Embassy. They told us all to go up to the Safir hotel in Bhamdoun and that we would be able to catch buses out from there, so we did (two of us) on Friday morning. Once we got there, it was pure chaos. The embassy was totally unorganized and only had about three employees there at the hotel. Why tell all the Kuwaitis to go there if you don’t know how to deal with that many people? The embassy staff (consul and ambassador included) were unhelpful and rude. We couldn’t get on a bus that day because they were giving priority to people with children and elderly. We were told to wait for a phone call telling us when we were assigned to a bus. We naively believed that that would really happen. We missed like 8 buses out merely because we were following the “rules” that turned out to be complete bull. Then, the embassy didn’t offer to pay for the hotel room we had to reserve for the night (even though they had told me when I called that morning that we would “certainly” get a bus out that day).

Next morning, we were told that every single person who was put on a bus to Syria would be guaranteed a seat on a flight out that day. They also told us there would be embassy officials accompanying us to the border, more officials at the border, and then officials from the Kuwaiti embassy in Syria would be there to greet us at the airport. All B.U.L.L.S.H.I.T. Nobody accompanied us – our Lebanese bus driver and one guy on our bus who volunteered to take charge took care of things at the border. Then once we got to the airport, there was no trace of the embassy. It was each man for himself. Went up to the Kuwait Airways office and it was chaos with an enormous waiting list. Guaranteed a seat, my a@@! Luckily, like Nat, we had our tickets booked for Sunday night on Jazeera from Beirut anyway (same flight as Nat, turns out), and so we were confirmed on the replacement flight leaving from Damascus on Sunday. However, we arrived at the airport on Saturday, thinking we had a Kuwait Airways guarnateed ticket out. Of course, all hotels in Damascus were fully booked, and the embassy did nothing to help us find accomodation (I never saw anyone from the embassy in the two days I was in Syria). We had to find our own shelter.

I’m not saying the embassy has to pamper us and do everything for us – quite the contrary, we were perfectly capable of making our own arrangements. All I’m saying is, don’t bloody lie to us and hundreds of others! I would rather they had told us up front: “Look, we’ll try to get you out but there are thousands of you and only a few buses at a time, so we don’t know how long before we can get you across the border. And all we’re doing is getting you to Damascus – from that point on, you have to make your own arrangements. We have extra Kuwait Airways flights arranged, but it’s up to you to get yourself on one of them.” Was that so hard? Why make empty promises and “guarantees” to people who YOU told to come to YOU for help?!

Kleio also has pictures and a video from her evacuation.

So yesterday was my day off. I didn’t go in to work or do any posting, instead I decided to stay home with Nat who was still exhausted from her evacuation. Thanks to everyone who left comments welcoming her, she will most probably post about her experience today. One thing I realized is that leaving Lebanon isn’t a problem, its the Syrian airport that is.

According to a Kuwaiti lady Nat spoke to at the Damascus airport, it seems some Kuwaitis are really pissed off at the Kuwait embassy. According to that lady, the Kuwaiti embassy dropped them off at the airport with the promise they would be able to find a plane back to Kuwait but she had been in the airport for 2 day and she still is on the waiting list. There are also no representatives from the Kuwaiti embassy at the airport either, they were just dropped off and left alone. Hopefully the lady is back in Kuwait now and that there are no more people stuck like that at the airport.

update: just spoke to a friend who arrived yesterday from Damascus. She told me that she was able to get on an earlier Jazeera flight because they has 16 seats free so I guess there shouldn’t be any more Kuwaitis stuck waiting for a vacant seat.

Carlsb3rg posted this link to an article on ticketing corruption in the forum. Two researchers found that the number of parking tickets that legally-immune foreign diplomats acummulate in NYC and refuse to pay is a great measure of how corrupt their home countries are. Guess which diplomats blew away the competition… Kuwait! [Link]