Search: “kuwait”

VIVA today announced that they’ve rebranded to STC in Kuwait. This was expected to happen after the Saudi Telecom Company purchased a majority stake in Viva back in 2016.

Over the past few months, I’ve been obsessed with the TV series Forged in Fire in which bladesmiths compete on the series to win $10,000 and earn the title of Forged in Fire champion. So when I found out there was a local bladesmith I decided to get in touch with him to find out his story.

Fahad Alsayer goes by the handle @theblademaker on instagram and has been making knives for just over a year. He started making knives for fun before realizing there were people who would be interested in buying his creations. He actually hadn’t thought of selling them until one day while low on cash, he got a phone bill message on his phone. He hadn’t started working at that time and was trying to figure out how to pay his bill when he decided he’d try and sell one of his knives. After managing to sell it, he paid his phone bill and reinvested the remaining amount back into his hobby. Eventually, it became a source of income with local chefs and knife collectors getting in touch with him for one-off creations. He’s even shipped his knives to customers abroad.

I passed by Fahad’s workshop last week, a room in his family home which he converted into his workspace. It’s a pretty cool setup with a knife kiln on one side of the room for heat-treating the metals, and sanders and a sharpening station on the other. Fahad doesn’t forge his metals but instead purchases them in sheets online which he then either shapes manually with a sander, or cuts out using a laser cutter. Due to the cost of the materials as well as the time and skill it takes to create a knife, Fahad’s knives cost KD90 and up, depending on the size of the knife, amount of work it took and kind of metal used. Some of his customers include @chefkb and @foodninja whom he created custom knives for. Fahad isn’t the only knifemaker in Kuwait, according to him there are others albeit a small group but they tend to meet once a week to talk knives and help each other out.

If you’re interested in purchasing a knife or checking out Fahad’s work then make sure you check out his instagram @theblademaker

Review written by Tarek J

Last Tuesday I was invited to the VOX Kuwait premier for the new Jumanji film, The Next Level. Not my typical cup of tea, but I remember being pleasantly surprised at the last film when I took my son to watch it a couple of years ago. So when I got the invite, I called my son up and told him to get ready, and he was ecstatic. That’s the real value of these films, they aren’t true cinema, but they are the kind of kid friendly adventure films that I used to watch in the 90’s. Not to say this is another nostalgia driven film, it’s it’s own modern tale but it reminds me of 90s films because of its spirit.

VOX blew it out the park this time. The red carpet was replaced with a shifting landscape inspired from the film (starting with walking on a draw bridge, to a sandy desert floor, to a snowy landscape (ok tiny foam balls but it looked the part). Once we got into the theater, we had a local drum circle give it their all drumming away and getting the audience involved, it was more exciting than expected.

If you’re a fan of the last Jumanji, you will be a fan of this one. It’s that simple. The Next Level finds new ways to play with its formula, most cleverly by switching which characters takes on once back in the game, which allows us to see a different sides of the cast. One of the criticism from the last film was that the in-game characters didn’t act like the humans they came from but just acted like themselves (Kevin Hart was just Kevin Hart in shorts). This time around they all play against type, with Dwayne Johnson playing an elderly demented Danny Devito, and Kevin Hart playing a slow soft talking sophisticated intellectual (see what I mean?).

In terms of censorship, it’s a family film so really nothing to worry about except the occasional kiss that’s cut, but the plot remains intact.

This is pure popcorn cinema. It’s funny, well directed, with some exciting action sequences and occasionally well executed gags. Again this isn’t anything to write home about, but with films like this you gotta judge on a curve and keep in mind what the movie is trying to do. Take your kids, take your nephews and nieces, or if you enjoy a good easy unironic time at the cinema, take yourselves and enjoy it. God knows we can use more fun in movies, and at the very least, Jumanji The Next Level delivers on that.

I’ve been driving my Alfa on a daily basis since the weather got cooler a couple of months back. I think I’ve put around 3,000KM mileage on it so far and since it’s a slow post week, I figured I’d post an update on it. I’ve been driving the car like it was meant to be driven 50 years ago when it was built. I’m not really taking it easy on it since it’s a car and really has just one job. And as expected, some parts have started failing on me but I knew that would happen and wanted it to happen so I can swap them with newer parts. Whoever restored the car originally tried to keep as much of the original parts as possible, and I can understand that, but end of the day that’s ok if you’re planning to drive the car once a week but it’s not going to work when daily driving. Here is what’s broken down so far with me which I’ve had to replace:

– Fan belt
– Radiator cap
– Starter motor
– Alternator
– Battery
– Distributor rotor arm

I actually drive around with spare parts in my trunk and my tool kit because “just in case” and yesterday that just in case moment happened. I was leaving Sultan Center at night and the car wouldn’t start. I had a full tank of gas, my starter was fine but the engine wasn’t turning on. I had a theory it might be from the distributor which sends electricity to the spark plugs which ignite the engine and I luckily had a new rotor arm for it in the trunk. After watching a short clip on YouTube on how to change the rotor arm, a few minutes later the car was running fine again.

There really are only so many things that can go wrong in the car since it’s such a basic setup. No fancy electronics, not even a radio, no powered steering or windows, ABS brakes or anything fancy like that. I think right now I’ve basically changed everything that needed or can be changed.

The car is getting a lot of attention which I was expecting since there isn’t another one like it in Kuwait, or at least there isn’t another one being driven on the roads. I’ve had people honk at me and give me a thumbs up, I’ve had people wanting to take photos with it and a bunch of people asking me if it was for sale. Really other than this one blog reader in a new G-Class that nearly ramed into me just to let me know how much he hates my blog, it’s been a very good experience.

I guess the only negative thing about the car is the lack of a radio. At first I liked the idea of not having one, but there is only so much alone time I can spend with my thoughts, plus I’m wayyy behind on all my podcasts and music. I’ve thought about driving around with earphones on but I tried it and it felt weird so I’m now looking into a way of installing a completely hidden sound system under my dashboard so not to mess with the cars interior aestetics.

So overall its been a great experience so far. Car is comfortable enough to drive daily even on our pothole ridden roads which is why I barely drive my two other cars anymore. I hope winter lasts long this year just so I can drive it as much as possible before I have to put it away for the summer.

With all the sneaker craze that’s been happening in Kuwait over the past couple of years this was bound to eventually happen. A local business called VOGULARITY is now offering insurance for your sneakers.

They don’t have much information up other than the fact that the insurance includes up to 100% cashback, and full cleaning service. They also don’t have their prices listed since it will vary from sneaker to sneaker. But I guess if you have an expensive pair of sneakers and want to insure it, these guys are probably your only option in Kuwait.

For more info here is the link.

Last year I posted about Alan Villiers, an Australian adventurer who came to Kuwait in the 1930s. Alan documented his experience with words and pictures and eventually published the book “Sons of Sindbad” as well as “Sons of Sindbad: The Photographs”.

Last week the Australian Embassy in collaboration with Dar Al-Athar Al-Islammiyah opened up a photo and film exhibition titled ‘Alan Villiers & the Sons of Sindbad: An Australian in 1930s Kuwait’. They even brought in Alan Villiers son to the opening and I ended up getting my 1st edition Sons of Sindbad book signed by him.

If you enjoy my posts on old Kuwait then you’re gonna really like this exhibition. There are a ton of great photos of Kuwait in the 1930s on display as well as videos. The exhibition is at the Amricani Cultural Center and is free of charge. For more info on the exhibition, click here.

A couple of weeks back I posted about how you could now renew your driving license online. To test it out for the blog I decided to renew my long expired motorbike license and the whole process ended up taking less than 5 minutes. The only thing left was to pick up my driving license from any of the machines located around Kuwait and I decided to pick mine up from Avenues. Well, things didn’t go smoothly for me.

So here is what happened. I went to the machine to print my new motorbike license, I put my Civil ID in, I logged into my account and then the machine asked me to insert my driving license. When I insert my motorbike license it rejects it saying it was expired, when I insert my driving license it accepts it and then pulls up an image of my just renewed motorbike license and asks me if I want to print that. But, if I choose to print it then the machine would keep my driving license which I need and print out my new motorbike license instead. The machine should be taking my old motorbike license and printing out a new one but for some reason it wants me to trade my driving license for a motorbike one.

The support guy at the machines told me he hadn’t come across this issue before and didn’t know how to solve it and that I should head to muroor 3aseema (Kuwait City traffic department) to try and solve my issue. But since I only wanted to renew my motorbike license so I could post about my experience on the blog, I’m obviously not gonna go through that hassle.

Even though I ran into trouble with this whole renewal thing I do think under normal circumstances this process works really well and smoothly. If you’ve managed to get your license renewed and printed let us know about your experience in the comments below.

When I was in Dubai a couple of weekends ago I got a Wizr t-shirt printed for me and a friend similar to the one Keith Wells had back in the 70s (the author of Wizr). I got it done at Virgin Megastore in Dubai Mall and it only took a few minutes to print each t-shirt. It was like an inkjet printer for t-shirts and the quality of the print was pretty incredible.

Has anyone seen anything similar in Kuwait? The printer kind is called a “Direct-to-Garment Printer” but the only ones I’ve seen in Kuwait use heat transfer with an end result that isn’t so great. With direct-to-garment printing, the t-shirt ends up looking like it was printed in a fashion production line.

If you don’t know what the Wizr is, click here.

EDO used to be my favorite Japanese restaurant in Kuwait back when they were open in Shaab (pictured above). The space was cozy, the food was great and there really wasn’t much competition back then. But, when they closed their Shaab location and moved to the Sahara Country Club I stopped going because it was just too far and I really didn’t like the space anymore, it was just too open and it lost all it’s coziness.

Photo by @mohamadchehimi

But, last month EDO closed down their Sahara location and the rumor I’ve heard is that they will be moving to Al-Khaled Complex in Salmiya. That’s where GIA is located right now and where the Italian restaurant Vigonovo used to be. I passed by Al-Khaled Complex last week and looks like there is a lot of renovation going on so hopefully this rumor is true.

If it is true then I think Al-Khaled Complex is a much better location for EDO. Until they reopen, if you miss EDO they’re still delivering on Talabat.

For those of you reading my blog while living in the U.S. and missing Kuwait, you can now order KDD milk from Amazon.com and have it delivered to your doorstep. The three flavors available are banana, chocolate and strawberry and you can purchase them as a 6-pack or large box of 18 packs. They’re not cheap though, a 180ml x 18 pack is being sold for KD9 while if you were in Kuwait you could pick up the larger 250ml x 24 pack for KD3.6. But if you’re in the U.S. then you don’t really have a lot of options.

KDD ice cream and juices are disappointingly not available on Amazon. I know if I lived abroad I’d miss KDD ice cream the most but I guess exporting it to the U.S. would be a lot more complicated than shipping milk.

Here are the Amazon links if you’re interested:

KDD Banana Milk 6-pack
KDD Banana Milk 18-pack
KDD Chocolate Milk 6-pack
KDD Chocolate Milk 18-pack
KDD Strawberry Milk 6-pack
KDD Strawberry Milk 18-pack

via Reddit

Last night Kuwait Motor Town opened up registration for an open track experience for this coming Saturday. As of this post there are still slots available so if you’re interested in participating with your car, you need to book like right now.

Here is the link.

Previously I used to renew my driving license once every 10 years since that’s how long they used to be valid for but ever since the government changed it to match the residency period, it’s become the worst thing in the world to do. Trying to get your driving license renewed in Kuwait is a terrible experience because the traffic department just wasn’t prepared to handle the vast amount of people. The lines at the traffic department would be incredibly long and there was no guarantee if you waited in line you’d get your license renewed since they would limit the number of renewals per day. That meant you’d have to go multiple times and it was just incredibly stressful.

This year I used a company called Khadamat Express to renew my driving license and it was a really good experience. They charged me KD10 to do the license renewal for me and another KD10 to pick up my paperwork and old license and then deliver the new one to me when done. The process took around 2 days and it was worth every penny.

But, according to the MOI, you can now renew your driving license online and then pick it up from machines around Kuwait including one that’s in Avenues. Oddly though, I can’t seem to find the link to online renewals anywhere on their website so maybe someone uploaded the video a few days early. In any case, once this is live it’s going to make the renewal process so much easier! If you can find the renewal link please share it in the comments below so I can add it here.

Update: To renew your license you need to click this link and login using your MOI mobile app username and password or register if you don’t have an account.

Update2: Umm wtf, this seems too good to be true. I just renewed my motorbike license in under 5 minutes via the link above and the only document they asked for was a digital copy of my civil ID. After paying the 5KD renewal fee it told me I could go to any kiosk and print out my new license. This is crazy good!! Not only that but it actually gave me a digital copy of my new license right on the spot!

Like Chili’s, McDonalds and a lot of the restaurants on the Gulf Road, Corniche Club also lost the bid for their location earlier this year and now have to move out. Originally the rumors were that Alshaya won the location and were going to turn it into Equinox but that rumor didn’t turn out to be true.

On the other hand, the latest rumor I’ve been hearing is that Corniche Club will now be moving to Arabella instead. I’ve known for some time now that Arabella was repositioning itself and I had also heard rumors that it was turning into a hotel, so it would make a lot of sense if it turns out Corniche is taking it over. Sadly, that whole strip is already too congested with Palms and Radisson Blu right next door so I’m not really excited about this.

After closing for renovations for what seemed like an eternity, Barba reopened again a couple of weeks back and I think the place looks amazing, maybe even the nicest looking in Kuwait just because the space is unique being that it’s located inside a warehouse. Before Barba closed for renovation and expansion, the place hosted some very cool events so I’m hoping with the winter season just getting started they’ll be hosting some cool events again soon.

If you’re looking for a casual place to have a good pizza or burger then check them out, the Solo Pizza guy is one of the partners so you know the pizza is going to be great. Here is their location on Google Maps and you can follow them on Instagram @barba.casa

Nuqat is one of my favourite conferences that takes place in Kuwait and this year will mark their 10 year anniversary which they will celebrate over 10 days with activities including talks, workshops, exhibitions, and entertainment. Over the 10 years Nuqat has evolved and developed to become one of the largest creative conferences in the region and most of their activities are free to atend. Actually, all of their activities from talks to musical events are free to attend with only the workshops that require a registration fee.

This year’s Nuqat conference is titled “State of the Elastic Mind: New Mindset for Old Barriers” and will be taking place from November 20 to 29 at various venues around Kuwait. All the talks will be held from the 21st to 23rd at the Amricani Cultural Centre with the workshops, exhibitions and various music events being held in different places all over Kuwait.

There is A LOT going on and I spent the good part of the morning uploading all the workshops and cultural events to the events page and you can check those out here.

If you’re interested in attending a talk then you could check all the different talks talking place here.

Nuqat 2015

You don’t have to attend every single talk and I tend to pop in and out during the day just to watch a specific talk I’m interested in. It’s an informative and educational conference while also being a great event to network and socialize in. If you haven’t been to Nuqat before then I highly recommend you do.

To register for Nuqat (it’s free) just click here.