Search: “kuwait”

Every now and then I invite different people to write on the blog and last week I asked John Peaveler if he’d be interested to share stories regarding animals and wildlife in Kuwait. John is the managing director of Kuwait Society for the Protection of Animals and Their Habitat (K’S PATH) whom I’ve posted about a number of times before and a groups work I highly support. He’s already got his first post up which you can check below.

[Vimeo]

Working for K’S PATH can be a bit of a roller coaster. I have days when I absolutely love my job, and days I could really live without. One of the worst scenes we regularly encounter is that of neglected horses. I use the word neglected, because they are rarely abandoned until survival is almost impossible. Instead, they are kept, often without shade, food or water for most of the day. They are denied adequate if any veterinary care, and their condition gets worse day by day until the inevitable end finally arrives. The ‘lucky’ horses die where they live. In the worst cases, someone makes a prognosis of hopelessness, and the animal is left in the desert to die without any possible chance of survival; a practice referred to as ‘turning it’s fate over to God.’ With a small sanctuary full of donkeys and horses, and monthly expenses pushing 700KD, K’S PATH has few options to accommodate new horses. The obvious solution is to prevent the animal from being neglected in the first place. We try talking to the owner as politely as we possibly can.

The result is invariably the same: ‘you can’t tell me what to do with my horse.’ And they are right. Their ownership under Kuwait law is absolute, and it would take a brave legal team with no more prominent case to enact Kuwait’s limited cruelty laws. So we do our best. We give them water, and we buy them what food we can afford to give, because we’ve learned over time that when you can’t fix a problem, you can only do all you can, then move on to the next animal.

What do we need to solve this problem?
1. Legal help, in the form of an enforcement and prosecutorial team.
2. A properly sized, equipped, staffed, and funded sanctuary.
3. Education. This we do. Our message? Compassion and kindness.

You can find an equine success story [Here]

Post by John Peaveler
Managing Director
Kuwait Society for the Protection of Animals and Their Habitat

This should be an interesting photography exhibit.

A group exhibition featuring a series of photographs taken by 15 participants of the CAP photography workshop. Led by two members of the Rawiya Collective, Laura Boushnak & Tamara Abdul Hadi, the workshop took place last May in the Mubarakiyah Souq for a duration of two days. It’s main focus was on the old souq, the vendors, the visitors and the stories that can be found in this local public market.

Date: October 10th to 17th, 2012
Location: CAP (Contemporary Art Platform)

The Taj Arabia complex would be much bigger than the original monument to love and include a 300-room hotel, shops and commercial buildings, developer Arun Mehra said.[Source]

Too slow Dubai, we already beat you to it.

I love magazines ever since I can remember. As a kid in the 80s I had a huge ass collection of Smash Hits and I currently have a huge ass collection of WIRED (dating back to 1994 I think). When I first signed up to Shop & Ship back in 2001 I think I signed up to at least 20 magazines.

Slowly slowly though I stopped renewing a lot of them once the iPad got released. I just downloaded and subscribed to all the magazines using Zinio and just left one physical magazine subscription and that was WIRED. But, I’ve just canceled that as well.

With the Kindle and Zinio App on the iPad it really doesn’t make sense to buy print versions of the magazines anymore. Other than the cost of magazines in Kuwait being a lot more than the US and since the cost of shipping magazines from the States has increased over time I finally decided to go completely digital. I’ve always wanted a large bookstore to open here in Kuwait but I think I’ve finally realized now it’s just too late.

If you don’t know what Zinio is check out my previous post on it [Here]

My friend who was attending a conference in Doha today snapped the picture above. The photo on the bottom right in that presentation is the one below which I shot back in 2005 at the Kuwait Airport. It’s by far the most popular photo I’ve ever taken since it been making its away around the world popping up in different places as an epic fail photo.

Thanks Alex

IKEA are blaming their Saudi franchisee for this botch up. [Link]

Update: Kuwait’s catalogue still contains women

A friend just messaged me telling me an apartment building collapsed in Salmiya near the corner of the Fahaheel Expressway and the 4th Ring Road. Lots of cops and firefighters on the scene.

I don’t have any pictures or information right now other than the above. Hopefully it was an abandoned building and no one was hurt.

Update: One of my readers with more information shared the following

I passed by around 8:30PM, 3 hours after the incident took place and I couldn’t see any fire trucks or police cars on the scene. I did spot the building though which is located right behind Texas Chicken on the 4th Ring Road in Salmiya.

Update2: I added the photo above which was taken by Namastey Kuwait. More photos on their Facebook page [Here]

On Tuesday, the Ministry ordered the ISPs to cut prices by at least 40 percent, slashing the price of an annual subscription for a 1 megabyte per second (mbp) connection to 48 Kuwaiti dinars ($170), while 8 mbps will now cost 200 dinars.
That means Kuwait is considerably cheaper than other Gulf countries; in Bahrain, for example, Batelco charges 120 dinars ($320) annually for a 1 mbp line and 360 dinars for 8 mbps.

But that will do little to improve fixed broadband take-up, said Qualitynet’s Kooheji, with Kuwait’s penetration of about 5.5 percent half that of the United Arab Emirates.

“We receive lots of calls from customers who want to upgrade and take the maximum speed for the price available, but they cannot do so,” said Kooheji. “The government should put more effort into improving the telecom infrastructure rather than cutting prices.”

…

Kooheji said only about 15 percent of fixed broadband connections in the country used fibre, with the remainder on copper lines.

If it wasn’t for WiMD I’d still be stuck on a 2Mbps DSL connection with a 256kb uplink. Yet I’d still be one of the lucky ones since at least I have a phone line. Check out the news article on [Yahoo]

Last night I was dropping some stuff to the dry cleaners in Al Khalid Complex in Salmiya when I noticed Lorenzo had opened there (near Fresh). The place was empty so I went in and asked them if I could take some photos and they were ok with that. They opened last month and the place looks pretty good for the size and location. The restaurant isn’t very big but there is semi private seating in the back which I Liked. (Pictured above)

If you don’t know where Al Khalid Complex is here is a link to it on Google Maps. It’s where My Toy used to be located back in the 80s. [Link]

Around a two weeks back Nat wanted us to go wakeboarding so I did a bit of research and found a group called Q8 Balance. For a fixed hourly rate they provide you with the gear, wakeboards and most importantly a boat. I ended up booking an hour for Nat and I this past Thursday but I ended up going alone since she got caught up with some work.

Balance do all their wakeboarding in Sabah Al-Ahmad Sea City down south since the water over there in the channels is very still. I hadn’t been there before just seen the Discovery Channel documentary on it but now that I’ve been there I’m definitely going back in the middle of the week to swim and chill out on the sand. It’s like virgin beaches all around with no trash and extremely clean water. I loved the place.

Balance sent me a map to the location of where they will be waiting for me. It took around 50 minutes from Salmiya to that location without any traffic. It’s pretty far. Once I got to the beach they picked me up and started explaining to me how everything will work since I hadn’t wakeboarded before (I’m not a sea person). They were very friendly and explained everything very clearly. I strapped on the gear and jumped in the water and the session began. Honestly for the first 15 minutes I didn’t think I’d ever be able to wakeboard since I kept falling down and drinking so much sea water. It was horrible but then gradually my body got used to it and I was finally able to stand and wakeboard. It’s really harder than it looks.

The guys were super friendly and helpful and I really had a lot of fun. The only downside really is the price. It’s KD35 an hour which isn’t so bad if you split it up between two or three people but since I did it alone it was a big chunk to pay. They’re also pretty popular so you’ve got to book ahead of time which means no spontaneous outings, you need to book a week or more in advance in most cases. I was actually considering not posting about them since I didn’t want to end up having trouble finding an empty time slot with them. If you’re interested in wakeboarding with Q8 Balance you can visit their website [Here] or their Facebook page [Here]

Early on in the year I posted the picture above of a tshirt I bought from my friend TataBotata. Back then they weren’t on sale yet since his website wasn’t up and running but yesterday I found out the site is now ready. The Luke Ana Abouk tshirt along with some of his other creative creations are now being sold [Here]

A friend of mine picked up his new Subaru BRZ around a week ago and asked me if I’d be interested in taking it out for a spin. Since it’s one of the hottest cars right now along with the Toyota 86 I really wanted to try it out. The Subaru BRZ and Toyota 86 were developed jointly by Toyota and Subaru. The 86 refers to the original Toyota Corolla AE86 which has a very large cult following all over the world.

There are currently two BRZ’s in Kuwait, an automatic and a manual gear version. My friend has the manual one and since I hadn’t driven stick shift since 1996 I was looking forward to it. Embarrassingly, I spent the first half hour getting the hang of the stick shift with my friend sitting next to me while we drove around his neighborhood. I was so bad that he got car sick and told me to drop him back home and bring the car back whenever I was done. Things got better after that since I had less pressure and once I hit the highways it was smooth sailing.

The car is pretty compact and cozy. The interior is simple and very plasticky which is fine except for the fact the BRZ in Kuwait comes with a really cheap looking 90s style CD player radio unit which would be the first thing I’d personally throw out of the car. Everything else I could live with but the stereo is just too retro for my taste. The AC is great and the very simple LED screen in the dash shows the outside temperature as well as what gear number you’re in. It’s all very basic but that’s really how the car should be.

The car is a rear wheel drive but the steering has a lot of feel to it. It’s very precise and probably my favorite part in the car. It’s not a powerful or really fast car by any means but if you’re a fan of the car you already know that. Handling wise the car is supposed to be great but I wasn’t really able to explore that since I didn’t speed nor did I take the car to any track. But the car did feel light and very agile.

The BRZ costs around KD8,500 but is currently very difficult to get a hold of one. The dealer is getting just one more BRZ from now till the end of the year and I think it’s already sold. It’s a pretty fun car that’s affordable and like the Toyota 86 will probably end up selling like hot cakes.

[YouTube]

The GulfRun team are putting together their second 26 Hours Karting Endurance Race which will be held this December. Last years event was a huge hit and you could watch some of the highlights in the video above. If you’re interested to register here is some information:

Event: GulfRun Karting Endurance Race – 2012 (24 Hours)
Date: 14th December 2012
People per team: Minimum 4 / Maximum 12
Registration deadline: 31st of October.
Location: Kuwait International Fairgrounds
Package Includes: Go Kart, pit garage, mechanics and fuel

To register call Pro-vision on 65778598

There’s a youth rugby club in Kuwait under the name of Saracens Kuwait. They’ve been around for a few years and were previously known as the Nomads. There are different divisions of different ages ranging from under 8’s and under 19’s, for both boys and girls. They play competitively around the Middle East and this year, the under 19’s division has a chance to tour in England and South Africa. However, the under 19’s division is currently in need of more people to join in order to make an official team.

If you are interested in joining then you can come to the Hassan Abul Sports Center in Dasma on Friday from 8:30am to 10:30am. Participants do not need to know how to play rugby in order to join.

The first 3 weeks of practice are free and if the participants are interested in joining the club, then they will have to pay 50KD for the year and will receive everything they need.

Saracens has a website but it is a little outdated, you can check it out [Here]

If you have any question you can contact Aziz on [email protected]

Although not very popular in Kuwait, rugby has been played here since way back in the 1940’s. Check out some old photos [Here]