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Last week I posted about the short film ‘Contaminated’ that was written and directed by Moe Al-Saeed, the guy behind the Happy Kuwait video. ‘Contaminated’ was officially selected to be part of the upcoming Miami Fashion Film Festival and Moe just uploaded the trailer for the film which you can check out below.
CONTAMINATED: A Fashion Film Trailer 2014 from Mohammad Al-Saeed on Vimeo.
Post by Amy Freeman
So I spent the last week in Korea as I was part of a team that made it to the Crossfit Games Asia Regionals. It was a fantastic experience to be a part of something as huge as that and to top it of, my very good friend ended up winning 1st place in the female individual category.
As some of you might know, Crossfit is a mix of disciplines and to be good at it, you have to be the strongest, the fittest and the fastest at many different exercises including, conditioning work, olympic lifting and gymnastics.
While I watched my friend enter the second to last event, she looked very calm and you could tell that she had a strategy in mind. So there I was thinking man this is insane, not only does she have to be the best at everything but she also has to think about her strategy and not get caught up in everything else that is going on around her. Plus, this was day 3 of the competition and her body was nailed, more than nailed her body was totally broken. Now that’s an athlete.
Long story short she won that event and went on to take out 1st place overall.
As I reflected on the 3 days of watching these world-class athletes, especially my friend who I had watched prepare for this day, I gave myself a metaphorical kick up the ass and I have been taking the inspiration from watching these amazing people into my workouts and my approach to training in general.
You know what its like when you have been training for a while and you workout most days and you try to keep yourself honest but you let a few things slide every now and then? Maybe not sticking to your rest time, maybe changing an exercise that you don’t like for one you do like or maybe doing 6 sets of sprints instead of 8, the list goes on and it doesn’t make you a bad person but sometimes you have to be honest with yourself when this is happening and go get inspired so that you can set some goals and achieve some greatness.
For me last week I got inspired and since then you bet my workouts are the toughest they have been in a few months. I’m lifting with purpose in EVERY set, my tempo is on point in EVERY set, my technique is flawless in EVERY set, today was so hot outside but I ran anyway and the biggest one for me; doing the exercises I absolutely suck at. I might be able to bench 80kg, but my body weight, gymnastics and ring work sucks ass and that embarrasses me.
When you get inspired, you’re able to clearly pin point what is important to you and the next step is then to set goals, create a plan and achieve what you want. Sometimes internal motivation is enough but sometimes you may need the support of a friend, trainer or coach and that’s ok. You just have to figure out what you want, what you need and then create a plan.
When setting goals make them SMART:
SPECIFIC – Make sure you know exactly what your goal is in every last detail. For example. I want to Deadlift 2 x body weight for 1 rep.
MEASUREABLE – You need a way to measure your progress, like body fat or maybe a one repetition maximum.
ATTAINABLE – You should put steps in place such as mini goals that all help towards achieving the big goal. This could be like making sure you prepare food every Saturday afternoon for the following week so you don’t get hungry and fall off the wagon. Minimize risk!
REALISTIC – Make sure you seek expert advice so you know your goal is achievable for you. For example, if getting strong is your goal, talk to a trainer about a realistic goal for you. If fatloss is your goal then going from 100kg and 30% bodyfat to 60kg and 16% bodyfat in a month isn’t realistic, so seek expert advice if you are unsure.
TIMELY – Set a specific date for your goal and stick to it. Don’t make it ‘sometime in August’. Make it the 20th August, for example.
Happy Training Kuwait.
Post by Amy Freeman, a Strength and Conditioning Coach from New Zealand and currently a Personal Trainer at Inspire Pure Fitness in Kuwait.
“CONTAMINATED” is a short film that was written and directed by the Kuwaiti film maker Moe Al-Saeed and a couple of days back he got word that it was officially selected to be part of the upcoming Miami Fashion Film Festival. Moe is the guy behind some great locally produced videos including my two favorites the Happy Kuwait video and BirdTalk: Dance.
He’s is still working on a trailer for “CONTAMINATED” but for now I was able to get the film synopsis:
God Shiva starts the tandav cosmic dance of death to wake the “children” up. She gives them beauty and power. The children blossom and as they reach their crescendo they get contaminated. Their time is up and Shiva destroys what she has once created.
Sounds pretty strange and interesting so can’t wait to see it.
I have no idea whats going on with the emergency lane situation in Kuwait but there seriously seems to be some major confusion. The other day an article in the Arab Times said the following:
Jail, 3-Mth Vehicle Seizure For Emergency Lane Violators
Director of Public Relations and Moral Guidance Department and Acting Director of Security Media Department, Brigadier Adel Al-Hashash has announced the activation of a traffic law which punishes motorists who use the emergency lanes, reports Al-Shahed daily.Al-Hashash explained those who drive in the emergency lanes will be detained at police stations for between 24 and 48 hours and the Al-Anba daily added their vehicles will be impounded for three months. He denied motorists were allowed to use the emergency lanes because of traffic congestion. He added, the Interior Ministry’s media department had earlier issued a statement in this regard. He said the law was activated on May 19 and the security authorities will implement this law in its strict sense.[Source]
First of all it seems no one gives a crap about that new law because over the weekend during heavy traffic on the Fahaheel Expressway not only were people using both the left and right emergency lanes, they were using it even when there was a police car in front of them (pictured above). No one was afraid of getting stopped, fined or punished. But then again, I’ve seen people run red lights in front of cops with no reaction from the cops so don’t know why I was surprised by this.
If that wasn’t bad enough, today there is another article in the Arab Times but this one contradicts the statement I highlighted in bold and italics in the article above. I’ve copy pasted this new article below:
Move To Reduce Congestion
Ministry of Interior has permitted the use of safety lanes on certain roads at specific times to reduce congestion.In a statement, the ministry indicated roads specified for this purpose include King Faisal Expressway from the Sixth Ring Road, King Abdul-Aziz Road from the Sixth Ring Road to First Ring Road, and Al- Maghrib Highway from King Fahad Road to the First Ring Road.
The permitted timings are 6:00am-9:00am and 12:30pm-3:30pm, noting the times specified are the busiest in the country because Kuwaiti and non-Kuwaiti employees and students leave and return from the schools, institutes and universities during the period.
The statement added the decision was based on directives from the Interior Minister and Acting Minister of Awqaf Sheikh Mohammad Al-Khaled Al-Sabah and the Undersecretary Lieutenant General Suleiman Fahad Al-Fahad.
The road users can only use the safety lanes during the specific period and at specified locations to follow regulations, reiterating the lane is originally for ambulances, fire engines, police cars and civil defense but other vehicles can use it now, as instructed, and the speed limit is 45 km/h. [Source]
So a few days after one person issues a statement saying that no one is allowed to use the emergency lane not even during rush hour, another person releases another statement contradicting the the first person. Talk about lack of communication and confusion on this subject.
Sarah is a 17-year-old girl who’s currently a senior at The American School of Kuwait. Her graphic design teacher enrolled her into the Adobe Youth Voices Awards and out of all the entries submitted, Sarah’s poster (pictured above) was chosen to be one of the 20 finalists which is an incredible achievement. There are a bunch of prize categories and one of them is an Audience Award where the student with the most votes wins a prize. If Sarah wins the Audience Award she will get $500 to donate to her favorite charity as well as a one year membership to Adobe’s Creative Cloud. So if you want to help Sarah win, visit this [Link]
Note: No signup is necessary to vote
Sultan Center are now selling heart-shaped watermelons for a ridiculous price of KD99 each. According to Sultan, only 120 pieces of these heart shaped watermelons exist and 40 were sent to Russia, 40 to Japan and 40 made it to Kuwait. I have no idea who would pay KD99 for a watermelon but they seem to think there are 40 people in Kuwait who would.
Thanks Abeer
Yesterday the Central Bank of Kuwait introduced the new banknotes at a press event and now the presentation that was shared at that event is available online for everyone to watch. The presentation is in Arabic and talks about the reasons why the new banknotes were introduced, the images that were chosen for each banknote and the new security features amongst other things. The new banknotes will be officially launched next month on June 29th. Check out the full presentation below.
[YouTube]
When it comes to companies that offer a US forwarding mailbox there are two companies I’ve been using over the past few years, Shop & Ship and Borderlinx. I don’t have a favorite since each has an advantage over the other, I use Shop & Ship for my non-rush shipments because they’re affordable but slow and I use Borderlinx for shipments I need fast (but they’re also a lot more expensive).
How much faster is Borderlinx? Around four times as fast based on my recent shipments. I had a package that shipped out from the US on Friday and I picked it up in Kuwait on Sunday. In comparison with Shop & Ship, the quickest I’ve received a package recently was 6 days but in most cases it takes a week to ten days.
If you’re looking for speed and money is not an object, Borderlinx is fast.
The popular Egyptian restaurant Abou El Sid is opening soon in Kuwait right outside The Green Island entrance. I haven’t been to Abou El Sid before but I just checked their website and the interiors of the restaurants in Egypt look authentic yet chic so I’m hoping they carry that design over here as well. Even the music sounds very cool (based on whats playing on their website). No clue to the exact opening date though, will update this post once I find out. [Link]
Update: Even though it still says opening soon outside it turns out its actually open already. They’re currently opening from 5PM to 11:30PM and the official opening will be on June 1st.
Sounds like fun if you’re into pizzas and not on a diet. Only a few days left to register. [Link]
via Life in Kuwait
I’m not a big fan of the new Central Bank of Kuwait tower (pictured above) thats being constructed across the street from Souk Sharq and after seeing the video below of how it will be lit up, I dislike it even more. The building looks really out of place with its surroundings and is just a huge ugly concrete block from the back.
[YouTube]
Thanks Ammar
TJC Films is back and he just uploaded his latest video shot last night at the Visual Therapy Montana Colors Pop-Up Shop event that was held at Artspace. This is what TJC had to say about the video:
Visual Therapy’s Shahad put on a show last night at Artspace here in Kuwait to demonstrate how great the MTN Spray Paints are. It was pretty amazing to watch Kuwait Street Artists Nizzy show how the different MTN paints and nozzles could be used to create sharp lines or shading to give pieces a 3 dimensional feel. It is nice to see artists and those who support them starting to gain more notoriety here in Kuwait and companies like Visual Therapy carrying the stuff they need to create their best possible work like Montana colors.
Music: Go Yama BMOYAMA (Go yama Lake flip from adventure time)
Check out the video of the event below.
[YouTube]
My thanks to the businesses below for advertising on the blog this month, make sure you check them out.
DKNY – The Beat of New York [Link]
SEVENFRIDAY – Show me, don’t tell me [Link]
Elevation Burger – Elevating Kuwait’s food, one organically delicious burger at a time [Link]
Beidoun – Luxury shopping at your doorstep [Link]
IO Centers – Fully furnished and serviced offices [Link]
American Tourister – Hurry up! SALE on American Tourister travel bags [Link]
KNES – Kuwait National English School the best value in excellent education [Link]
The Rental Company – Event furnishings and party supplies [Link]
AbiDoc – Need a Doctor? Search, Learn, and Book Appointments with AbiDoc [Link]
Dent Xpress – Kuwait’s premier paintless dent repair facility since 2005. [Link]
Post by Patrick
I’ve been wanting to try out Urban Cafe ever since I found their Instagram account which has a lot of good looking photos of the food they serve. I finally passed by earlier in the week to try it out and had a fairly pleasant experience. I went in the evening with a friend and the place was fairly packed. The weather was pleasant so there weren’t any places to sit outside and so we ended up inside. Sitting inside wasn’t a bad thing because the place is bright and seating is comfortable although I did find the music to be a bit too loud.
We ended up ordering the Baked Portobello and the Quinoa Salad for starters and the Wild Mushroom & Truffle Pizza and Basil Pesto Fusilli for our main course. What I found disappointing about the menu itself was that there aren’t many choices if you don’t want a sandwich. The Quinoa Salad arrived first and I thought it was okay. I found it weird that they mixed in large pieces of lettuce since this made the salad slightly awkward to eat but I did think the addition of rocca leaves was a nice touch. The Baked Portobello which comes stuffed with mozzarella cheese and mushroom was pretty good and flavorful and once we were done with the starters the pizza and pasta both arrived around the same time. The pizza looked and smelled really good and it tasted similar to the mushroom pizza at OFK which I also like. On the other-hand the pesto fusilli was a bit too creamy and a little boring. There was an option to add grilled chicken to it, so maybe that would have made some difference.
After we were done with our main course we decided to try out the bread pudding with Nutella for dessert. It took long for the bread pudding to come out and when I finally asked for it, it was obvious they had forgotten that we ordered any dessert. The waiters were pretty apologetic about it and the bread pudding got to our table pretty quick after that. I didn’t think the bread pudding was that good, and I’m a big fan of Nutella. There was just too much Nutella and it ended up feeling too heavy on the stomach. On the other hand, my friend really enjoyed it and said they would order it again. Urban Cafe isn’t short on desserts though and they had quite a few cakes on display besides the various dessert items available in the menu.
Even though I wasn’t a big fan of the pasta or the dessert I would be interested in trying the other items on the menu like the Barbequed Beef Brisket and their breakfast which they serve until 2PM. I found their prices to be pretty reasonable, the mushroom & truffle pizza was KD3 while the pesto fusilli was KD2.500. One thing that might be an issue is parking. When I went in the evening I was able to find a spot behind the cafe in a small sandlot, but I would imagine that during the day time it might be difficult to find parking in the area. If you’re interested in Urban Cafe they’re located in Sharq, you can find their location on Google Maps.
Post by Patrick
