Search: “kuwait”

Yesterday, Kuwaiti athlete Fehaid Al Deehani won gold at the Olympics coming first in the men’s double trap shooting event. Sadly since Kuwait is banned from the Olympics, Fehaid won the medal as an independent athlete competing under International Olympic Committee flag, an achievement by itself since no other independent athlete has ever won gold before. No Kuwaiti flag was raised and the Kuwaiti anthem wasn’t played during the medal ceremony.

Kuwait has competed in 12 Olympics since Mexico City in 1968, winning 3 medals in total, 2 bronze and 1 gold with all 3 won by Fehaid.

Yesterday I finally got to pass by and check out the Sheikh Jaber Al-Ahmad Cultural Center. Those of you who’ve been following the blog for awhile will remember I was the first to break the story on the cultural centre back in May 2014 after my visit to Al Salam Palace. Yesterday was the first time back since then and damn what a difference two years makes.

Firstly the project is basically done. I mean it was done a couple of months ago but they pushed the launch till Q4 of this year so they’re now using the extra time to make sure everything is close to perfect once it’s finally open. I visited all four of the buildings and I’m now even more excited about the cultural centre than I ever was. The whole project is so beautifully designed with each building having a different style interior than the other. I am not sharing a lot of photos in this post because most of the rooms were getting a final coat of paint so everything was covered in plastic and there was lots of scaffolding everywhere. That includes all the theaters but I already shared some great shots last week so you’re not missing out on anything.

Behind the 4 buildings is a super super long and large corridor that stretches from one corner of the project to the other. One side of the corridor is connected to the indoor parking while the other side connects to the buildings. This means in the summer you can go from your car to the theaters or library without having to walk much under the sun or in the heat. The whole exterior structure is extremely photogenic and I’m very interested to see what photographers will manage to do with the place. Inside the ceilings are very high with lots of large spaces and hallways. I can already visualize large crowds of people gathered waiting to enter a theater or after a show is done, just socializing in these large spaces.

The fact that this project was completed in just two years is insane. I have no idea how they did it, probably by throwing lots of money at it but whatever their formula was, they need to apply it to the new airport. Below are the photos I’m sharing for now, once most of the work is done I’ll pass by again and reshoot. If you have any questions you could ask me and I’ll try to answer it with the best of my knowledge.

When I originally purchase my Datsun 240z, it had an old cassette player and just two crappy speakers in the rear, one of which didn’t work. I was happy with the cassette player since I still had some tapes but because one of the speakers wasn’t working, I went and bought a pair of cheap ones. A week or two after that my cassette player stop working, and I think the speakers I got had something to do with that. I tried finding another cassette player on eBay but either they weren’t old enough (to match the car’s era) or they were just ridiculously overpriced. So I decided to just do a complete overhaul of the car stereo since I was spending so much time driving the car anyway.

I had two objectives, the first was that whatever I decided to do, it shouldn’t mess with the look of the car. The second objective was that I didn’t want to spend an exuberant amount since I already did that with my FJ. So I limited my budget but still tried to get a decent sound. So after a bit of research I went with the following:

• Pioneer MVHX560BT Digital Media Receiver KD30
• 240z Front Speaker Panels (the 240z only had speakers in rear) KD28
• Rockford P1650 6.5-Inch 2-Way Full Range Speaker KD16
• Rockford Fosgate Punch P152 5-Inch Full Range Coaxial Speakers KD17
• Alpine KTP-445U 4-channel Power Pack Amplifier KD35
• Kenwood KSC-SW11 Compact Powered Enclosed Subwoofer KD42

The Pioneer head unit was perfect since it wasn’t very expensive, had bluetooth and was around half the size of regular units which meant I could hide it in my glove box. That way I could keep the old cassette player visible keeping with the car’s era, but behind the scenes I would have a much newer system running the show. Now when I turn the car on, the head unit automatically connects to my phone via bluetooth and I then can control the music and volume all from my phone without ever needing to open my glove box.

For the speakers I went with Rockford Fosgate because they were affordable and had gotten a lot of praise, plus there was a bit of nostalgia involved since I installed Rockford Fosgate components in my car back in university. For the amp I went with the Alpine model because it was small enough to hide under and behind the dashboard while still being powerful enough to run the speakers. Finally I got a tiny Kenwood subwoofer that fit perfectly behind the passenger seat and away from sight.

The result? The music sounds so much better now obviously but the interior still looks the same so you can’t really tell there is a powerful sound system in the car. I didn’t install the stuff myself, instead I went to my favorite car audio guys Zaharat Al Naseem. It took maybe an hour for the whole install and they did a great job of hiding all the wiring.

For those of you interested I’m starting a build page for my 240z where I will document everything I’ve done and will be doing to it. You can access that [Here]. Also again for those interested, I have a build page for my FJ, its around 4 pages long and I’ve been updating it since 2010, you can find that [Here]

Looks like the local Ford dealership battle is over. According to a news article in the Arab Times,”Ford Motor Company has terminated its dealership agreement with Arabian Motors Group WLL for the Ford and Lincoln brands in Kuwait effective July 27.”

Alghanim Auto also recently opened their new Ford showroom in Shuwaikh although I have yet to pass by it. If anyone from Ford is reading this, I call shotgun on the Ford Focus RS test drive!

Even though the MOI website looks like it was designed by a high school student back in 1998, it still gets updated every so often with new features. The latest feature added to the website is the ability for tourists visiting Kuwait to apply for a visa online (eVisa). There is a very short list on the website of nationalities that can use this service, but those nationalities should find this service useful since it will speed up the entry process. Here is the direct link to the eVisa page [Link]

Looks pretty incredible, can’t wait to check it out myself.

Thanks Love_my_kuwait

Not sure when they started but iHop in Jabriya is now open 24 hours a day. Previously they were just open from 7AM to midnight. I’ve updated the Breakfast Places in Kuwait list accordingly.

The Memorial Museum at Al Shaheed Park opened a couple of days ago on the anniversary of the 1990 Kuwait invasion. The exhibit space is really beautiful as you can see in the photos and features interactive displays. The opening hours are from 9AM to 9PM but I’d highly recommend you don’t go during the day in the summer.

The museum is located on the far end of the park, opposite where the parking is located. I wanted to visit the museum during the day time so I could have daylight in my shots and so passed by around 3:30. There was literally no shade from the parking to the museum and by the time I got to the exhibit I felt like I had just crossed the Sahara. If anyone in Al Shaheed Park is reading this, you guys need to have some sort of shuttle service from the parking to the museum or at least plant trees that would shade the walk path.

I love this, a lot. The car is from Kuwait and I’m guessing its probably the same group of guys who do the yearly Jahra to Europe trip. If anyone knows them please put me in touch. I’d love to join them on their next trip and document the whole experience. I’ve got my Datsun, just need to plaster some cheesy stickers on it and it will be ready. [YouTube]

In case you’ve missed the posts from the previous years, here are some links:

No Speak English – Kuwait to Paris 2015
Donuts in the Alps
From Jahra to London

The height of the society-wide insanity occurred when eight speculators, known as “the Cavaliers,” floated a total of $55 billion in postdated checks, seemingly in an attempt to corner the market. The most prolific check writer among the Cavaliers was Jassim al-Mutawa, a Passport Office employee in his early-twenties, who managed to pass off $14 billion all by himself. Sloppy accounting on the part of his brother and partner, Najeeb al-Mutawa, caused Jassim to become a staggering $3.4 billion overdrawn.

A really fascinating article on Souk Al-Manakh in the early 80s. The numbers quoted in the article are insane! I had always been curious about what happened and how it all happened so I thoroughly enjoyed reading this. [Link]

Also, here are some photos of the Souk Al-Manakh building taken in the early 80s via the MIT Libraries.

Thanks faahqueimmanutjawb

The Wataniya Airways twitter account which had been dormant for 3 years suddenly came back to life with the tweet below stating they’re coming back.

عائدون انشاالله…

— الخطوط الوطنية (@WataniyaAirways) August 2, 2016

I also got an email from a Wataniya Airways representative stating that they’re targeting to come back between December and January depending on certain circumstances.

For those of you who weren’t around at the time, Wataniya Airways was a premium local airline that launched back in 2009. Compared to Kuwait Airways at that time, they had newer planes and they flew out of the Sheikh Saad terminal which was (and still is) much nicer than the main terminal. In 2011 they shutdown due to financial reasons.

I’ve got a personal attachment to Wataniya Airways since I had worked with them on their advertising from pre-launch till shutdown, so I’m really interested to see how this will pan out.

Kuwait is to increase the prices of gasoline by as much as 73 percent from September, showing how the oil price slump is affecting the energy-rich Gulf state’s finances.

…

Kuwait’s cabinet said on Monday that the price for the ultra gasoline grade would rise to 165 fils a litre, from 95 currently, the super grade to 105 from 65 and premium grade to 85 from 60, state news agency KUNA reported. [Source]

Ouch, thats a pretty steep hike.

According to a friend of mine, he was driving down the 2nd Ring Road a couple of nights ago and got stopped at a traffic light. There was a cop walking amongst the cars looking for violators or potential violators and because my friend was on the phone, the cop told him to park on the right hand side where some cops were handing out violations. Since my friend had just recently renewed his car registration, the registration paperwork was with his driver. So what was supposed to be a ticket for talking on the phone while driving turned into a car impoundment. So they loaded up his car onto a trailer with a bunch of other cars, all standard stuff so far but here is where things get interesting.

So my friend calls his mum to come pick him up. When his mum arrives the cop saw that his mum had come to pick him up so he called my friend over and told him to go to the trailer and pay the driver KD10. The trailer guy will then drive down the street away from the main road and dismount his car for him. And it wasn’t just my friend, there were 5 other guys who were told to go pay the trailer guy KD10 to have him dismount their cars down the street from the checkpoint.

If you were going to let the guys off the hook why not just dismount the cars right there? Why dismount them down some side street away from the main road? And then on top of that why do they have to pay the driver KD10? The whole thing sounded a bit shady to me so I wanted to post about it and hear some opinions on this.

Image from Arab Times

Last year Alghanim Industries acquired the rights to develop Wendy’s restaurants across the Middle East and it looks like their flagship store in Kuwait is going to be located in Salmiya on Plajat Street. They’ve taken over the site of a defunct food complex and I’m assuming they’re going to be knocking it down and building a large Wendy’s in its place. No idea on when they’re expected to open but I’d guess sometime end of the year or early next year.

via Frankom

“Masane’a Al-Najaah” which translates to Success Factories in English is a locally produced 33 episode reality TV series that follows 27 young successful Kuwaiti entrepreneurs and their projects. The show is in Arabic without any English subtitles so non-Arabic speakers aren’t going to understand anything. But, on the plus side the series is available online to watch for free. Below are the first 3 episodes, for some reason after the 3rd episode they started splitting the videos up into four 15 minute parts which not only makes it difficult to watch but also to difficult to find and link to.

Episode 1
Episode 2
Episode 3

Update: Here is a YouTube playlist with all the episodes [Link]

Thanks Lightbug