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Here’s a feel-good story. Yesterday around 10,000 employees of The Avenues got vaccinated against COVID-19. This was part of the second phase of the government’s field vaccination campaign, the first phase included cooperative societies, mosques, the banking sector, food manufacturers, cinemas, and others. 34,758 employees received vaccination during the first phase.

According to the MOH, they launched the second phase of the campaign in Avenues since it was the largest mall but in the upcoming days, the vaccine will be provided for workers in other commercial complexes around the country.

Over the weekend PACI updated the Kuwait Mobile ID app and added vaccination data to it. This means the vaccination data is now part of your Civil ID information alongside other important info like nationality, birth of date, and sponsor. Clicking on the vaccine status pops up a window revealing details on the first and second dose.

If you’re anti-vax this isn’t good news because it’s starting to look like vaccination will eventually be required for things like residency renewal, traveling, and maybe even accessing gyms or other indoor public spaces. So if you’ve been holding out on signing up for the vaccine you’re just delaying the inevitable.

Yesterday I uploaded some old photos of Family Bookshop to Flickr which I had taken back in 2011 before they closed down. I had always assumed that the Salmiya location of Family Bookshop was the first and only branch but turns out that wasn’t the case,

The Family Bookshop started off as bible shops around the region by the Danish Missionary Society with the one in Kuwait opening up in 1910. But in the 60s, as part of their literature mission they decided to build a new concept called the Family Bookshop Group (FBG) with the following objectives:

• To print the Gospel
• Encourage dialogue between Muslims and Christians
• Provide all Christian churches in the region with literature and auxiliary materials, provide society with quality literature and other books primarily in Arabic and English
• Seek the best possible cooperation with various Christian churches
• Develop a self-supporting organization by efficient leadership
• Offer education and encourage Arab Christians to become booksellers
• Develop cooperation between the bookshops and coordinate a future development

From what I could gather there were two Family Bookshops in Kuwait. One at the American Mission Hospital (now the Amricani Culture Center) which opened in 1969 and pictured at the very top of this post. Then there was a second branch located in Salmiya which also opened up in 1969 (pictured above).

I think it was Salmiya because in the photo above taken outside their 1969 location, the building in the background on the far right of the photo looks like the building in Salmiya which the Family Bookshop we know was located in. I believe the building they were in got demolished so they moved to the location across the street in 1971 (pictured below).

The Salmiya Family Bookshop which most of us know eventually closed down in February 2013 when they were evicted from their premises and the building demolished.

The store manager at that time who you might recognize if you were a regular was Jaswinder Singh. He joined Family Bookshop in 1979 as a part time accountant before eventually become the manager. He’s now retired and back in India, but his daughter runs the bookstore @little_bees_books

I managed to find a bunch of incredible photos of the Family Bookshop in Kuwait in the 60s on the University of Southern California library website. I’ve uploaded them all to Flickr and you can view them here.

Also if you want to check out photos of Family Bookshop Salmiya before they closed down, click here.

Update: This post was updated with more information and the closing down date was adjusted from 2012 to 2013.

A couple of days ago a new announcement was made that only vaccinated citizens can travel. Expats on the other hand (and they made this part very clear) are still banned from entering Kuwait. Keep in mind most citizens would most likely travel for leisure purposes while most expats would travel for family reasons. A lot haven’t seen their loved ones since the start of the pandemic, I haven’t seen my dad for two years but I know of people who haven’t seen their wives or kids for as much.

I’m fully vaccinated now with my two shots which is great. I have the immune app and I’m all green and on the Mosafar website, my vaccination circle is also fully green. Yet if I fly out of Kuwait I can’t come back in because I’m an expat?

I was annoyed but I had decided a couple of weeks ago that I wasn’t going to post about this stuff anymore. Citizens are equally upset by these bizarre decisions and they’re all being very vocal about it on all the social media channels. So I left it at that.

Then last night, my sister calls me from Lebanon and tells me my dad has fallen ill. He’s fully vaccinated so I don’t think it’s covid, but he’s old and frail so I don’t know. This morning I wake up to a message saying things have taken a turn for the worse and they had to admit him to the ER.

So now I have to make a choice.

• Fly out to Lebanon as soon as possible and get stuck outside Kuwait for months. I’d have to decide to leave my friends, my job, my blog, my life, (everything basically) and be uprooted for an indefinite amount of time.

• Or, stay in Kuwait and possibly never see my dad again.

This rule isn’t just unfair, it’s illogical and unrealistic and because of it, I’m unable to do the right thing which is to be with my dad and family, especially when I know I’m needed.

Note: I just want to add that I wasn’t planning on publishing this post. I originally wrote it as a way to vent and self-therapy. I don’t like sharing personal parts of my life so it feels very awkward putting this out there but I just felt that if this post somehow helps change the rule, even if it’s a very small chance, then it’s worth putting it out there. Thank you for your messages.

Update: My dad is doing a lot better now, thank you everyone again.

As you are probably aware by now, movie theaters will reopen again during eid after having been closed since the very start of the pandemic. Here is some information I was able to obtain regarding the opening and what the safety measures will be taken:

• Only vaccinated customers will be allowed into the cinemas. Your vaccination status will be verified using the Immune App. Only people with a green color bar behind their name will be allowed entry.

• Cinemas will operate with 50% occupancy

• 2m social distancing will be enforced

• Cinemas will be promoting online ticket and food sales to reduce the lines

• Cinemagoers will have their temperature checked at the entrance

Some more info:

• If you vaccinated outside of Kuwait, you will have the chance to upload your vaccination to the Immune App. This update will not be available for Eid.

• After taking your first vaccine shot the Immune App will not display a green color bar behind your name until 5 weeks have passed.

All the above has still not been finalized so there might be adjustments made.

A few days ago Mahmoud Alghanim, a pioneer in the local restaurant industry sadly passed away. Mahmoud was the creator of the popular pizza concept “Pizza Italia” as well as the Italian concept “Prego”. Considering the popularity of the concepts, there is oddly very little information on the brands online which is why I was always hoping to meet him so I could document his story and make it available to everyone.

From what I gather, Pizza Italia opened sometime in the mid-80s (1984?) and had at least 16 locations. They were open at least till 2005 since that’s when I took the photo above.

Prego, on the other hand, I found the CV of their executive chef “Luca Umberto Voncini” online so I have a bit more information. Based on his CV they opened their first location in Dalal Complex in Salmiya in 1993 and then closed it in 1995. This was the same location where their Pizza Italia branch was previously located. They had two other Prego locations, one in Mangaf and one in Kuwait City. Those opened up in 1996 and closed in 1997.

Both concepts were under the mother company “Arab Food Service Co.”

An accident in front of Pizza Italia Riqqa Coop branch in 1987.

I’ve started scouring the internet to try and find as many photos, commercials, and information related to the brands so I can put them all under one post. If you have ANYTHING related to both brands, a menu, a business card, anything no matter how insignificant you think it is please let me know.

Tidbit: The popular Pizza Italia commercial above was filmed in Salmiya, in the old souk on Salem Al Mubarak Street. It was directed by Nick Cate on a hand-cranked 16mm Bolex camera. The music was composed by an Egyptian composer called Mohammed Al Banna. The actor running in the commercial is a Lebanese actor but I don’t have his name.

Update: Managed to get some dates!

Pizza Italia opened in 1983 with its first store in Daiya. They ended up closing the whole brand in 2005.

Prego opened in 1993 with its first store in Salmiya, Rabih Building (now demolished), followed by another store on the Gulf Road in Sharq. Prego also closed down in 2005.

Last week I was looking for something on Google and ended up stumbling across an old picture of Salmiya which I hadn’t seen before. I started digging around looking for a higher resolution version and turned out I had actually posted the photo on my blog back in 2009 with a bunch of other old photos.

My memory is terrible and I’ve published over 12,000 posts so there is no way I can remember everything. I tried to find a higher resolution version of the photo online but everyone else had taken it off my blog so I couldn’t find one. So I decided to go through my emails to see if the source had originally sent me better quality scans. Turns out he had scanned the images in high res but because they were over 160MB he only sent me low res versions. I decided to randomly reply back to that person’s original email 12 years later asking if he still had the high res images. Turns out he did! He sent me a link to all the photos and I downloaded them and just put them up on Flickr and you can check them out here.

Anyway, I wanted to do a before and after comparison of Salmiya and you can view that in high res here. It’s impressive how many old buildings are still there but sadly they haven’t been maintained and are all in a state of disrepair. The whole neighborhood honestly is disastrously mishandled with no sidewalks or parking spots and loads of large open garbage bins that stink up the neighborhood. My neighborhood has so much potential and it’s sad I can’t do anything about it.

Thanks Khalid!

The photo above is a before and after photo of Sharq. It’s taken from a recent study by architect Khalid Alsafi highlighting the constant aggressive destruction of Kuwait’s heritage and cultural areas, only to then become abandoned empty desert spaces for decades.

If you want to see a higher resolution photo of the above click here.

Yesterday I came across this photo of the Hilton Hotel under construction back in the 60s. I hadn’t seen photos of it during construction before and what’s great about this one is that it also shows the construction of the Gulf Road. The Gulf Road used to be a sandy beach before the land was reclaimed and turned into the coastal road you see today.

Hilton Hotel originally opened in 1968 with the official opening taking place on February 15th, 1969. In 2003 the building was demolished because the structure was deemed unsafe.

via @mmmojil

Last year Corniche Club closed down after losing the right to operate the location and there were rumors that Alshaya tried to get the location for Equinox but lost out. But according to a contact it turns out that Arkan Real Estate which is part of the BNK Holding portfolio have taken over the location.

BNK have a number of consumer brands in their portfolio including Volvo, Vespa, Backburner, Gia and the Japanese restaurant Odachi. The popular gym Inspire will supposedly be taking over the club and I wouldn’t be surprised if BNK opened their other brands at the location like their coffee shop Backburner or maybe a Vespa showroom.

Update:According to Alshaya they never bid on the Corniche location just rebid on the PF Chang location. They won the rebid and PF Chang just reopened again this week.

Over the weekend the MOH launched an app called “Immune” which is a way for vaccinated people to view their vaccine certificate. They don’t mention where or when you would be required to use the app but it’s safe to assume it would most likely be used while traveling in and out of Kuwait. Also, cinemas are supposedly going to open after Eid but only for those who’ve been vaccinated, this app will probably be used to verify your vaccination status.

It’s a very simple app that does just one thing and you can download it for both iOS and Android devices.

Any person over 65 years of age in Kuwait can receive their COVID-19 vaccine directly and without having to book for an appointment, the health ministry announced. This includes both citizens and expatriates. Source.

This is pretty good news! If you know someone, either family members or maybe your baqala guy or barber that are over 65 and haven’t gotten vaccinated yet, let them know about this.

The Kuwait Society for Human Rights issued a statement a couple of days ago on the recent decision not to renew work permits for people over 60 years old. The statement was done with Google Translate and not edited so a lot of it doesn’t make sense, but the gist of it is there. One of their main arguments is that some people have lived all their lives in Kuwait with only a passport connecting them to a different place and so it would be inhumane to force them out especially since a lot come from countries that are unstable.

They also share their recommendations on what needs to be done including the need to abolish the kafala system which I’m hearing a lot of support for. I’m not sure how influential the society is in Kuwait maybe someone can let me know in the comments, but I feel like they lost an opportunity here to get support from international media outlets by not editing their Google Translated statement. Maybe someone could volunteer to edit it and send them an updated version.

If you can read Arabic then I’d recommend you check out their Arabic release here, if you don’t read Arabic then here is a link to their English statement.

Back in March my Garmin dash cam stopped working, I found out by mistake when trying to retrieve a video of an accident I thought I had captured only to find out my dash cam hadn’t been recording any footage for 2 years. I thought it was my dash cam that had failed but turned out it was the fault of my memory card. By then the local Garmin dealer had already seen my post and got in touch with me so they could send me their new Garmin Dash Cam 66W to replace my old one. Exciting!

I had my Garmin dashcam for 7 years and back when I had purchased it, the main selling point to me was how compact it was. But, compared to the new Garmin, my old one now looks HUGE (check the photo above). The size difference is enormous, not only because the dash cam itself is a lot smaller, but Garmin also redesigned the windshield mount making it much more compact. My new dash cam is so small it’s hidden behind my rear view mirror, I literally can’t see it when driving.

Another cool feature about the new Garmin that I love is the ability to connect to it with Wifi to adjust the settings, update the firmware and most importantly, view and download footage. Previously to view the footage I’d have to remove the memory card from my dash cam, take it home, connect it to my computer and then access the footage. When I’m done I then had to remember to take the memory card back down to my car the next time I leave my house which I obviously always forget to do. It was a hassle so I love how I can just connect to the camera from my phone directly. Without removing the memory card I can now connect to the Garmin, find the video I want, select which part of the video I want to download, and then download it to my phone. This is extremely practical, I really can’t emphasize how useful this feature is.

The two features above were really the most important for me, but there are a bunch of other features that other people might be interested in, for example, the Garmin has the ability to notify you of upcoming speed cameras. The 66W has GPS built-in and access to Garmin’s local database of speed camera locations so it can alert you if you’re getting close to one. The dash cam also has an extra-wide 180-degree field of view and records videos at 1440p. My previous dash cam had a 120-degree field of view and would record videos in 1080p but I never had an issue with the field of view or video resolution in my old camera. But, one thing I’m curious about with the new dashcam is how well it performs in the evening but due to our curfew I can’t test that out right now. During the day though, especially when the sky is blue, the footage is pretty sharp and clean and only starts to get noisy when the sun starts setting but that’s pretty normal.

Here are some other random features the cam has which I personally don’t care about:
– Forward collision warning
– Lane departure warning
– Voice control
– Travelapse
– Incident detection
– Go feature which notifies you when stopped traffic in front of you has started to move

As usual, I like to leave the negatives till the end and this camera has two. The first is the fact that it’s pretty slow transferring videos over wifi. It takes around 30 seconds to download 13 seconds of footage so you need to be veryyyy patient. The second downside is the price. The Garmin 66w costs KD75 which is right at the top end of the dashcam market. You do get a lot for that price and the build quality is miles apart from cheaper counterparts, but it’s still a lot of money especially when you can find decent ones at a third of the price.

Based on some recommendations from my readers I also ended up buying one of the most popular and cheapest dash cams from Amazon and I’ll be posting a review of that one soon. I’ll also do a comparison with this Garmin but I can tell you from now that once I got the Garmin I stopped using that other dash cam. The main reason was how cheap the other camera felt but also because of basic things like the user interface and the horrible LCD screen of the other one. But, if you’re interested in getting or checking out the Garmin dash cams, here is the link to the local dealer’s website.

If you live outside of Kuwait and were trying to access the blog over the past few days you might have noticed a Cloudflare page or a Captcha page before access the blog. That’s because my blog was under a DDoS attack and so I had to increase security to block the attack.

Last week I got the following email:

DDOSIng ur website

hello i am going to be your senpai today and treat you really well mark-chan.

so recently my whoremones are really high but not my pockets.

email me back for the amount to be paid.

buh-bye

I didn’t really think of it much, I definitely wasn’t going to pay the person and figured if they did manage to bring down the blog that it wouldn’t be an issue. If the blog went offline it would mean I wouldn’t have to post so it would be a mini-vacation of a sort. Over the next few days, my blog got hit with close to a billion requests!

For those of you who don’t know what a DDoS attack is, it’s when an attacker sends an overwhelming amount of traffic to a website which would then either slow down the site to a crawl or bring it down completely. My blog gets around 10,000 visitors a day give or take but just like that I started getting millions of visitors per hour. It was insane!

Luckily for me, all my blog traffic is routed through a service called CloudFlare. I actually did that a couple of months ago when some readers using STC were having difficulty accessing my blog, I figured that might solve the issue (it didn’t). But one of the benefits of CloudFlare is the ability to set up firewalls and extra security measures to block DDoS attacks. Over the next few days I watched CloudFlare spot and block attacks from all over the world, the numbers were just insane and impressive. In just a few days CloudFlare blocked nearly a billion requests, here are some numbers:

Total Requests: 774.65 Million
Total Requests Blocked: 638.32 Million
Total Bandwidth: 6.73 TB

Top Threat Countries:
United States 108,540,196
India 76,169,029
Indonesia 68,455,987
Ukraine 47,789,199
Mexico 40,210,543

If I had set up CloudFlare properly from the start it would have blocked all the threats but it took me a few hours to realize what was going on and set up all my firewalls.

One benefit from all of this is that it taught me how to use CloudFlare properly and now I’ve actually managed to completely block all spam from the blog. Over the past weekend, not one single spam comment made it to the blog and that’s because any traffic coming from countries like India, China, Russia etc.. will now go through a security check to make sure they’re not bots.

So anyway, if you had difficulty accessing the blog this past weekend now you know why.