Search: “kuwait”

The first indoor skydiving in Kuwait is set to open soon in Sabah Al Salem. The indoor skydiving place is called Ozone and is part of a larger complex that will house a huge indoor climbing center, a crossfit gym and a spinning studio.

The project is still under construction but they’ve already finished installing the windtunnel and looking at the photos and videos they’ve also been playing around with it.

The climbing wall also looks pretty huge as you can see below. The only thing that sucks about this project is that it will be located in the already heavily congested Sabah Al Salem area.

If you want to follow Ozone, their Instagram account is @o3_kw and here is the location on Google Maps.

Thanks LovelyKuwait

The other day I was walking in old Salmiya and noticed they had removed another tree, the 26th one on the street. And yes, I’ve been keeping count. Previously, 25 large trees had been removed when they turned the street into a pedestrian-only one and I posted about that here.

It was bound to happen since whoever worked on the project decided it was a good idea to bring the road right next to the tree and I guess the low-hanging branches might have been causing an issue with traffic so they removed the tree. I still don’t understand why they couldn’t have kept all the trees and integrated them into the street like the tree in the picture above?

There is still a line of trees left which I’m expecting to be removed any day now, I should probably take pictures from now so I could post before and after photos once they remove them.

A few days ago a very interesting episode of the Darknet Diaries podcast was released discussing the “service disruption” that Gulf Bank had back in 2019 in which they supposedly lost $9 million. Back then, a local cyber security consultant, Mohammed Aldoub (@Voulnet) discovered evidence that led him o speculate that Gulf Bank might have been hacked similarly to how some other banks around the world at the time that were getting hacked through the SWIFT system. Gulf Bank denied they had been hacked and although Mohammed never mentioned Gulf Bank in his tweets, they ended up suing him and taking him to court. Mohammed eventually won the case last year but only after it cost him a lot of money and time.

The podcast episode is fairly short at around 30 minutes and is pretty interesting. I listened to it on Spotify but you could also listen to it on the Darknet Diaries website. The interview starts 5 minutes into the podcast.

If you found this story interesting, the cyber security website Cyberscoop published an article on the subject last year titled “Trial & Error in Kuwait“. The article has a bit more details and is also fascinating to read so check it out.

Ascend is a rock climbing club that has been fairly active in Kuwait for a few years, and a couple of months ago they opened up a climbing wall. Their plan is to eventually open a climbing center but for now they came together as a community and built this wall at their headquarters.

The climbing wall is outdoors and opens to the public every Sunday, Tuesday and Thursday. A single session costs 5KD, 10 sessions for 30KD, and 20 sessions are for 40KD. It’s not a very large wall but it’s a great start considering there isn’t really another good alternative. The only climbing mall we had was at Marina Waves but that closed down years ago.

If you want to find out more or are interested in trying climbing out, check them out on Instagram @ascend.kw

If you haven’t been to Monoprix yet you’re missing out on a lot including their Water Bar. The Water Bar is their selection of premium water and it’s similar to how Dean & Deluca had a nice premium waters section when they first opened that looked like a vodka section. But, what makes Monoprix different is how expensive some of the bottles are with their most expensive one costing 40KD for a bottle of “handcrafted water” called Bling H2O which was voted the best tasting water in the world.

I’m not about to drop 40KD on a bottle to find out how good the water tastes but I might get a less fancy 5KD water the next time I get invited to dinner at a friend’s place. It could be the Kuwait equivalent of bringing a bottle of wine. Although, since we are on the subject of alcohol, Monoprix does carry a good selection of non-alcoholic wines, Champagnes, and even whisky.

AAB World, everyone’s favorite photography and videography store is expanding! When I first started buying from AAB World they had a small kiosk-like store in the basement of Shamiya Coop (it’s still there) and what made them special back then is how specialized they were. They carried different camera brands and also brought in some of the best photography accessories so they quickly became really popular.

In 2014 they opened their Symphony Mall location a few years later they doubled their size by taking over the shop next door. Now it looks like they’re going to more than quadruple their size by moving to the old DXL space right across from them. I love how they’ve grown over the years and I still continue to get all my camera gear from them even though I don’t shoot as much as I used to.

Yesterday the Ministry of Commerce issued guidelines to differentiate between a regular rainbow and LGBTQ+ flags with the hashtag ‘participate in censorship.’ At first, I was like is this the most pressing issue they have right now? But then a friend pointed out they might have done this because people were probably flooding them with complaints about LGBTQ+ flags being sold in Kuwait when in reality, they’re just products with regular rainbows.

How to Tell a Good Rainbow from a Bad Rainbow:
🌈 = Rainbow and has 7 colors = Good Rainbow
🏳️‍🌈 = LGBTQ+ flag and has 6 colors = Bad Rainbow

World Music Day (or Fête de la Musique) is an annual music celebration that takes place on June 21st and is celebrated worldwide. In Kuwait, it’s going to take place on June 22nd and will feature regional acts from UAE alongside some of our local musicians and artists.

The event will be taking place at Yarmouk Culture Center from 6PM to 9PM and tickets are KD12. If you want to go then you can get tickets from this Link

Not sure how many of you have experienced the Assima parking lot but it might be the worst mall parking in Kuwait right now. It doesn’t help that the building is located on a super congested street, but I also think it has to do with how you get in and out of the parking as well. Even when there isn’t traffic, navigating the parking lot is tedious with a lack of proper signage, too many aggressive speed bumps and a layout that’s very confusing. At night the situation is made worse with the higher footfall, last week a friend of mine was stuck for over an hour just trying to get out of the parking lot and that seems to be a normal occurrence.

Supposedly this past weekend the mall was going to try something new to help reduce the parking issues but I’ve already given up attempting to even go there at night. When a friend called me asking for tips on where to park I told them to park across the street in the KIPCO parking lot and walk over, they called me later that evening when after leaving Assima telling me how ingenious that idea was because the Assima parking was so packed and chaotic.

Every now and then I get comments under old recycling posts or emails asking me who they can contact to pick up stuff for recycling. It’s usually paper waste or old electronics that they want to recycle because they care about the environment. Well, I finally have an answer to that question now.

Enviroserve is a recycling facility in Kuwait that originally started off focusing on e-waste. I posted about them a few years ago but since that post they’ve grown to offer full recycling services and last year they introduced it to individuals and companies.

Enviroserve now recycles the following:
– Electronics
– Paper and Cardboard
– Plastics

Their pick-up rates are pretty decent. If you want a one-time pick up its 5KD, if you want a weekly pick up it’s 10KD a month, and if you want a monthly pickup it’s 48KD a year.

To find out more or to book a pick up, click here.

One thing a lot of people like to do in the summer is head to one of the islands off the shore of Kuwait and chill there for a day. If you don’t have a boat or yacht that wasn’t so easy to do before but now there are a lot of different ways of finding one to rent.

The easiest way to get a boat is probably using the app WAVES. I just counted 36 yachts available for rent in the app with prices starting from 25KD. The starting prices listed are a bit misleading since most yachts have a minimum hours you need to rent. If you’re planning a trip to Kubbar for example, expect to pay 200KD and upwards for the trip. There are smaller boats for cheaper, but they won’t be as fast or comfortable. The WAVES app is fairly easy to navigate and book with and most importantly, you don’t need to create an account if you just want to browse.

To check out the WAVES app, click here.

Alternatively, if you don’t want to use the WAVES app and prefer contacting the yacht owners directly, there are a lot of different Instagram accounts that offer boats and yachts for rent. Here are some of them:

7 Oceans Yacht Rental
Adventure Icon
Aloha Beach Boat Rental
Aquarium Boat Rental
Deverano Kayak Rental
Jigging and Fishing Cruises
Luxury Yacht Rental
Maria Luxury Yacht Rental
Neom Yacht Rental
Queen Nina Boat Rental
Sanpedro Fishing and Sea Trips
Sea Adventures Q8
Soud Yacht Rental
Summer Winter Trips
Uber Marine

I’m sure there are more accounts I’ve missed so if you know of any more let me know in the comments. Also if you’ve tried any of them and had a good or bad experience, let us also know in the comments.

Basic Beach is a cool new and local sustainable brand with designs inspired and influenced by the oceans and its creatures. All their waterwear is made out of recycled material while their packaging is made of plants that decompose after a short period of time and can be used as compost.

Their first collection includes rashguards, swim shorts, surfsuits and fun t-shirts designed by local Kuwaiti artist @notnorrah. Their stuff isn’t too crazy expensive so if you want to shop their collection, they’re on Instagram @shop.basicbeach and their website is basic-beach.com

Yesterday Monoprix finally opened in Assima Mall so I passed by briefly today to check it out and wow. I’m not sure what I was expecting, but definitely not what I saw. Monoprix is easily the nicest looking supermarket in Kuwait right now. Like completely blows everything else out of the water.

Everything from the veggies section to the fish section looks incredible and its definitely going to be my new goto supermarket.

They have a shop and go service as well where you can shop for groceries and then have them deliver it to you later. While browsing the shelves I found a lot of brands I hadn’t seen anywhere else so it’s not just the same products in a nicer environment.

On the other hand, there aren’t any self check out stations which sucks. If you want to pass by check it out, they’re open daily from 9AM till midnight.

One of the biggest complaints about the National Library is that it is only open during the day and only on weekdays when everyone is at work. But, starting this Tuesday, June 14th, the National Library will now open in the evenings from 4PM to 9PM, but only on Tuesdays.

I love the library so I hope this new influx of traffic won’t be an issue. There are a lot of important books and archives there with very little monitoring by staff or security. I’ve spent so much time there alone flipping through books and newspapers without seeing anyone so I’m personally worried some people will take advantage and steal books or rip pages out of the newspapers.

If you didn’t know about the library or want to know what’s there, check out my previous post here.

Best Electronics carry a few high-end sound systems but they’re only located in their flagship store in Shuwaikh. I’ve previously brushed on this briefly during my home sound system upgrade post but decided it was worth highlighting again since BEST recently moved their Shuwaikh store to a newer location and in the process, expanded their sound system section.

Here are some of the brands they carry at this one specific location:

Anthem
Denon
Definitive Technology
Earthquake Sound
Gallo Acoustics
Paradigm
Technics

You won’t find these items on their website or in any of their other locations. The new BEST store is located right next to their old location and is huge. The premium sound system section is located in the back corner on the ground floor and they even have a small theater room in which they demonstrate different screen projectors and speakers.

If you want to check any of the brands above out, here is the location of this store on Google Maps.