Search: “kuwait”

This has to be the most bizarre story to come out so far this year. I first heard about it a couple of days ago but then yesterday Associated Press published the story and so got picked up by the international media.

An Egyptian expat posted a video on TikTok during the dust storm last week complaining about the weather. That video caused him to get arrested and legal action will be taken against him. Arrested over a video complaining about the dust storm!

I just watched the video and can’t figure out what in it would cause him to get arrested. There isn’t anything in the video that should get him in trouble, the worst thing the guy said is that it was a shitty morning. I’m not gonna embed the video here because I don’t know anymore what can get someone arrested or deported, but here is a link to it, it’s still up on his TikTok account @ahmed_krombo. The guy seems like a chill dude based on his tiktok videos so whats going on? Why all this drama? I’m so confused.

I found this old aerial photo of Kuwait taken in 1960 but I can’t figure out where that area is today. There are some major clues to help, the school on the bottom, the mosque across the street and what looks like another school behind the mosque.

All three structures should still be standing today but I couldn’t find a similar combo on Google Maps. If you’re bored and looking for something to kill time with today, help me find the location! Here is a link to the super high res copy of the image.

Update: With the help of a reader it looks like we might have found the location and it seems to be Farwaniya. Here is the link to the mosque on Google Maps and I’ve taken a screenshot of the map and rotated it to match the direction of the original photop=. I also highlighted all the similar areas that existed in the original photo and that still exist today. The old huts/shacks in the background of the original image look to be what today is Ishbilia and Jleeb Al-Shuyoukh.

Image Source

Yesterday I read a story about a guy who drove his 1982 Mitsubishi Galant from Kuwait to Delhi, India during the 1990 invasion. The family still owns the car today and the son is now trying to restore it. If that wasn’t interesting enough, there is a similar story of another guy who drove his 1984 Mitsubishi Galant from Kuwait but to Kerala, India, and also still has his car today. Both cars seem to be the same color and they both might have been in the same convoy of cars that left Kuwait to India by road during the escape.

The journey from Kuwait to India took around 110 days and involved driving through Iraq, Turkey, Iran, Afghanistan, and Pakistan before finally reaching India.

You can read the story on the 1982 Galant journey here.
You can read the story on the 1984 Galant journey here.

The 1984 Galant and the owner Mathunny Mathew seem to have gotten more coverage online. There is a video interview with the owner on YouTube but it’s in Malayalam so I couldn’t watch it. But, there is another very cool video on YouTube where the Petrolhead Motor Garage guys attempt to start the car. It’s not in English but there is very little talking, it’s mostly them taking apart the engine to try and start the car which is a total rust bucket. It’s a chill video and I’ve embedded it above.

I love stories like this so if you know of anymore, let me know!

Thanks Fahad

I have Snapchat on my phone but I barely ever use it. In fact, I realized the other day that whenever I do use Snapchat it’s for checking out fires. Snapchat has this cool feature that allows you to look at a map of Kuwait and then click on an area to see Snaps taken there. So want to check out the parties on Kubbar on the weekend? Just click on Kubbar, want to see if the Marina Mall to Scientific Center walkway is busy? Click on any part of that walkway. It’s a great feature I wish Instagram had. Firefighters tend to use Snapchat a lot, even during an active fire so whenever there is a big fire somewhere, I just find the location on Snapchat and then check out all the videos they’ve taken.

On Saturday morning for example as I was heading towards Avenues when I noticed a large plume of smoke coming from Shuwaikh. The first thing I did when I parked was to check out Snaps from that area. I ended up finding videos taken by Snapchat users of what looked like a warehouse that caught fire, but the firefighters had still not arrived by then. So I checked back again later in the day by then there were a whole bunch of videos taken by the firefighters that ranged from videos of their colleagues working on putting out the fire, to videos of them during rest breaks. One firefighter even filmed a petty cool and creepy-looking walkthrough of the warehouse after the fire had been put out that had a very Silent Hill vibe because he was walking around in complete darkness which just the flashlight lighting up different spots.

So if like me you like watching behind-the-scenes footage of fires, I guess kinda like a firefighters mini reality show, next time you see a large plume of smoke in the distance or hear about a large fire that took place, just open up Snapchat.

A few years ago I scanned and uploaded a Kuwait TV Guide issue from back in 1989. Back then we didn’t have satellite channels just regular UHF and VHF stations with the English one being KTV2. If the weather was humid, we used to get Saudi Channel 2 and Dubai Channel 33 sometimes but we mostly survived on KTV2 and video rentals.

But after the 1990 invasion, we started to get access to satellite television. I remember we had around 8 satellite channels with the main English one being Star Plus. A few weeks ago I found a 1994 and 1995 copy of the TV Guide and I decided I’d scan the 1994 one. It’s got the KTV2 guide as well as Star Plus, Prime Sports, Zee TV, Star TV Music and the CNN and BBC guide. I also added a bonus Showbiz ad that was in the Arabic section.

If you want to flip through the PDF or download it then click here.

This is a follow-up post to one from last year where I posted about how PayPal started allowing users in Kuwait to withdraw money. I got an error back then when trying to withdraw and so did a lot of people, but yesterday I had some money on my PayPal and decided to try and withdraw it and it worked!

It was also pretty instant, less than a minute after requesting the refund with PayPal I started getting messages from my bank NBK saying that a refund is being processed and then a minute later got confirmation that the amount was in my account.

So if you’ve previously tried withdrawing money from PayPal and it didn’t work, try now.

Over the weekend the government announced that starting June 27th, only those who’ve been vaccinated will be able to dine at restaurants, visit large malls, go to the gym or visit the hair salon. Obviously, the reason behind this decision is to push people to get vaccinated, but many expat residents have signed up to get vaccinated since December and have yet to get an appointment. I think so at least because I still get comments on older posts of people complaining they registered in December or January and have still not gotten an appointment.

Seems pretty unfair so here is a quick poll to get a rough idea of how long people have been waiting for their appointment:

[poll id=”17″]

Found some old photos of Video Club in Salmiya I had taken back in 2011 before it closed down. Cassettes were being sold for 500fils and CD’s for 1KD.

At this point the store had shrunk to half the size and I don’t think the video rental upstairs still was around then.

My favorite coffee shop used to be the % Arabica location in downtown Kuwait City, the one across from Crystal Tower. It was their first location, it was small and it used to be really cozy. Since that location closed down I’ve been waiting for them to open a new one on that street and they’ve finally gotten a spot and it’s right next to my office, like literally one building away. They’ve taken a pretty large location, a whole ground floor of a tower a couple of buildings down from where Ora is located so I’m pretty excited. Here is the location on Google Maps, they’ve just put the hoarding up so I’d assume they would need 6-12 months to open.

I was going through some of my old bookmarks and found an article I had saved years ago on the backstory of how Elevation Burger came to be in Kuwait. It was written by Ali Ashkanani, one of the local owners of Elevation and it gives an interesting behind the scenes look into the opening of the brand in Kuwait. It’s worth reading and it’s not too long so check it out here.

Yesterday night the air quality around Kuwait was measuring 999 which is the maximum the reading can display. Anything between 150-200 is deemed as unhealthy which hazardous is usually anything between 300-500. We’re definitely way past just hazardous at this point. I think the previous highest I’ve ever seen was 358!

On the flip side, the weather wasn’t as hot yesterday and so I was able to take my Alfa out on the Gulf Road and not be bothered by the heat!

A friend of mine is looking to get a digital camera so I suggested they check out Fujifilm. Before the pandemic, there was a Fujifilm store down the street from my place inside another store called Fisher that belonged to Boushahri Group (the Fuji dealers). I think Fisher was a brand that Boushahri had back in the 70s and they decided to revive it again since I’ve come across Fisher ads while flipping through really old newspapers. Anyway since the pandemic started the Fisher store has been closed and I think permanently.

The good news is that Fujifilm now has its own dedicated store located inside Boulevard Mall. The store has been open for around two months and they carry most if not all the Fujifilm cameras and lenses. All the cameras are also on display and you can play around with them and try them out which is great. I think we spent around half an hour yesterday trying the different cameras and we didn’t feel any pressure to buy something or to stop which was great.

If you want to check out Fujifilm cameras, the store is located in Boulevard Mall in Salmiya, on the top floor near Sultan Center. Their Instagram account is also @fujifilm_kuwait

I used to purchase my US Apple store and iTunes digital cards from Xcite but someone a few months ago left a comment on my blog letting me know I could actually purchase them from Amazon. I assumed that would be the cheapest option since Amazon is selling the $100 gift card for $100, with no extra fees or commission which I assumed Xcite or any other store locally would be adding.

But, Redditor noooris did a bit of math and turns out if you purchase the $100 gift card from Xcite for 29.750 KD, you’re actually only paying $98.94 for it once converted to US Dollars. On the other hand, it cost me 31.072 KD to purchase the $100 gift card from Amazon after converting the amount to Dinars.

So if like me you routinely purchase Apple cards to top off your US Apple Store account, Xcite is the cheapest option I’m aware of for purchasing $100 cards. Here is the Xcite Link

Update: Xcite have now increased the price of the $100 card to KD31. So it’s back to ordering from Amazon again.

Decathlon, the French sporting goods retailer opened their second store in Kuwait at The Avenues Phase I. They’re the third sports shop to open in that very location, GoSports was the first followed by Lillywhites and both ended up closing down. But, Decathlon are doing things a bit differently since they were able to take over some shops on the main side and open up a main entrance there. They now have two entrances, one off to the side where GoSports and Lillywhites had their entrances, and a second new main entrance in the front. This could make a world of a difference to them trafficwise.

The store itself is pretty huge, not as big as their Marina Mall location but I didn’t notice anything that was missing. All the main sections are there just a bit smaller than the Marina location. For some more photos you can check out their post on Instagram here

Q8 Books, the popular used books store has a long history of moving. The original store was located in Kuwait City (pictured below) before later moving to Bayt Lothan. When Bayt Lothan got shut down they moved the bookstore to Dar Al Athar. Then last year during the pandemic the bookstore moved temporarily to another location in a tower overlooking Souq Sharq. Now for the fifth time, the store is moving again and it’s heading back to the city. The new location will be in Dasman Complex and I got a sneak peek last week and I think this might be the best version of Q8 Books yet, or maybe second best since the Bayt Lothan store was pretty epic.

I can’t share much more about the new location or plans yet but they’re opening up really soon and once they do I’ll share more info. For now, you can stay up to date by following them on Instagram @q8bookstore

The original Q8 Books location in Kuwait City.