Search: “kuwait”

A recently graduated high school student decided to start a campaign to raise awareness on mental health issues and to try and put an end to the discrimination and “mark of shame” associated with mental illness here in Kuwait. The student set up a website with a ton of information on the different types of mental illnesses as well as information on how you can help. So please show your support by visiting the website [Here]

The North Korean airline, Air Koryo now flies in and out of Kuwait once a week. Supposedly this new route was opened to cater to the increase of North Korean workers coming to Kuwait which makes sense since North Korea isn’t really a blossoming touristic destination. What’s also interesting is this route is the first nonstop link between North Korea and Middle East. Make sure you visit the Air Kroyo website since it’s as outdated as their plane above. [Link]

Thanks Aws

I just found out that Alshaya are currently in negotiations to bring The Hummingbird Bakery to the region. The Hummingbird Bakery is based in London and they have the best Chocolate Devils Food Cake in the world. It’s an incredible place and I use their cookbook to make some amazing cookies and apple pies.

If you haven’t heard about The Hummingbird Bakery before, here is a link to their website [Link]

Note: Someone NEEDS to bring Ben’s Cookies to Kuwait. They already have a few branches in Saudi and they’re now opening up in Dubai as well. What about us over here??

UFC legend and hall of famer Royce Gracie is going to be back in Kuwait next week for another Jiu-Jitsu seminar. He’s going to be holding two sessions this time around, one for beginners and one for advanced. Both will be held at the Sidekick Academy next to Tilal Complex.

Beginners
Date: June 14th, 2011
Time: 6 to 9PM
Location: Sidekick Academy

Advanced
Date: June 15th, 2011
Time: 6 to 9PM
Location: Sidekick Academy

Price is KD35 for the session. For more details their number is 99975562. Here is a link to the Sidekick Academy Facebook page [Link]

There’s a cool little pizza place in Lebanon called Margherita thats open in the Gemmayze street. It turns out they’re opening up in Kuwait before the end of the year. I recently posted a review of Margherita on my other Lebanese blog [Here] but in summary, it’s not as good as Solo pizza but it should give all the other pizza places in Kuwait a run for their money.

Margherita is most likely going to open at the Arabella projects in Al Bedaa. I like pizza nearly as much as burgers so I think it’s great that new pizza places are opening.

The Hoppin’ John String Band, a Bluegrass group, will be in Kuwait as part of a U.S. Embassy sponsored visit and they’ll be conducting public performances in several locations. All public performances will open to the public and free of charge. No tickets or seat reservations will be required. Here are the details:

The U.S. Embassy Kuwait In cooperation with the National Council for Culture, Arts & Letters presents: The Hoppin’ John String Band

Date: June 15, 2011
Time: 7:15pm to 8:30pm
Location: National Council for Culture, Arts, and Letters’ Al-Dasma Theatre Mishref Theater (next to the Mishref Cooperative)

Date: June 16, 2011
Time: 9:00am to 10:00am
Location: Live on Sabah Al-Watan (Al-Watan Television)

Date: June 16, 2011
Time: 8:30pm to 9:30pm
Location: The Higher Institute for Musical Arts

Date: June 18, 2011
Time: 6:00pm to 7:00pm
Location: Live on Raykum Shabab (Al-Rai Television)

Date: June 19, 2011
Time: 7:15pm to 8:30pm
Location: The Al-Babtain Central Library for Arabic Poetry

Here is a link to the U.S. Embassy Kuwait Facebook page [Link]

Update: June 15th location was changed

On my way to work I spotted some banners on the road advertising “KarimKTV @ YouTube”. I didn’t think much of it but decided to check it out on YouTube and after watching one of his videos I’m wondering what the consequences will be to his campaign. It’s a successful one that’s for sure since twitter has been buzzing all morning with people talking about the banners. I thought the banners were placed just around Salmiya but it seems they were placed all around Kuwait.

Picture by Abdullah

On Thursday two engineers from Mada came over and handed me a router so I could review and after using it over the weekend here are my findings. I’ll start the post with the speedtest results since I know that’s what everyone has been waiting for. I used speedtest.net for the testing and although I was originally planning to test using the servers in London, New York and LA, I ended up running into issues with the New York and LA server and so decided to add two more locations which are New Jersey and San Francisco.

I don’t know why the NY and LA servers were giving me such terrible numbers but I think it had to do more with the server than my connection since the connection worked perfectly again with their neighboring cities. The location of the WiMAX router does effect the speed of your connection. For example I live in Salmiya block 9 and according to a Mada engineer, Salmiya is one of their most focused areas so the speeds I’m getting are probably the fastest you can get. When I tried the Mada router at my office in Kuwait City, I was getting on average around 2.8Mbps tops. The engineer told me it had to do with the location (Kuwait City), the fact my office is on the 21st floor (connection starts dropping after the 15th) and the fact the windows were double glazed (bounces signals). A reader called Kevin tried Mada in Mangaf block 1 and his download speed was around 6.5Mbps. So location does make a big difference on the speed. I don’t play many games online but my brother who lives next door and leeches my connection does. He spent the weekend playing on his Xbox online and according to him he didn’t notice any difference going from DSL to WiMAX.

Setting up and connecting the router was a very simple process. You just plug in the power cord, wait a minute and that’s it. You can then either connect to the router via one of the two ethernet ports on the device or by wifi. I did face a minor problem when I wanted to log into the device so I could change the wifi password as well as setup other options. Underneath the device you have two sets of login information. One is supposed to be the default wifi password the other I assumed to connect to the device to change the settings but it wouldn’t work. It was around 11PM and I wasn’t sure if there would be anyone at Mada support to help but I called them up and someone answered right away and gave me the default username and password which was just “user”. I liked the fact that I didn’t have to go through a dozen menus on the phone just to get to someone from support and I liked the fact that I didn’t have to wait on hold either. This probably has to do with the fact that the service is still new and so not many people have subscribed with them yet.

Which brings me to the future. The Mada WiMAX service currently has no download cap for the next 3 months, after that they are still not sure what the download cap will be but they’re saying it will be at least 20GB and that they will be offering a package for people who consume more. 20GB a month means around 600MB a day which is too little and makes the device really useless. 600MB a day is suitable for users who just use their internet to check email, maybe visit a few websites and also watch a video or two on YouTube. Those kind of users aren’t heavy internet users and for them if it’s a 1MB connection or 10 it wouldn’t make a difference. The real people who can use and fully take advantage of Mada’s WiMAX speed are users like me who spend all their time online surfing through a ton of websites, watching a million YouTube videos while iTunes is busy in the background downloading all the latest TV shows and Movies, the Playstation and Xbox downloading game demos and the server downloading torrents. For me it makes a huge difference if the connection is 1MB or 10.

Which brings me to a potential future issue. The connection is really great right now but that’s because the service is only a few days old, how will it be a month from now or even a year from now? I am not sure. Mada has been around for awhile now catering for the commercial industry so that gives me a bit of confidence in them. But still, 20KD for 10MB is going to attract a lot of people specially with all the problems people have with the ISP’s introducing download caps. Personally I am going to take it day by day and right now the Mada WiMAX internet connection is the fastest connection I’ve ever had. I’ve already disconnected my DSL modem at home and replaced it with WiMAX, that’s how much I’m loving this connection.

Mada currently have a booth setup at Marina Mall right outside the Mac store Digits and they also have a booth at Mohallab. It’s KD20 a month and if you sign up for 3 months it’s KD60 but you get the router for free. Here is a link to their website [Link]

Remember when back in February there were rumors floating around that internet providers would start implementing download limits? Back then I spoke to Qualitynet support and was assured that “I could relax and download the whole Internet if I wanted to and I would be fine”. Then, two weeks ago when they added the fine print on their DSL page saying “Terms and Condition & Fair Usage Policy Apply” I called them up again. Support told me this was just a temporary issue because of a cable cut.

But now it seems they’ve changed their stance on this sensitive subject. I just called them up and they told me that even though they still haven’t received an official letter from management with details on what the limits are going to be, we should expect that there will be a limit in place soon.

Unconfirmed user reports have placed the limits as the following:

– 2MB DSL users will have 2.8GB daily limit, 19GB weekly limit or 85GB monthly. Once you surpass your limit your connection speed will drop to 512KB.

– 4MB DSL subscribers, one subscriber says Qualitynet told him they will be limited to 139GB a month while another said Qualitynet told him it’s 85GB as well.

Not sure what to say about this, I find this a bit depressing. Please Qualitynet don’t cap our bandwidth!

Note: ALL ISP’s in Kuwait will be applying caps, it’s not just Qualitynet.

Update: According to a reader in the forum KEMS will start watching for bandwidth abusers starting tomorrow. They won’t be setting a cap but if they notice a user abusing their bandwidth then those users would have a cap applied. The reader couldn’t get an exact figure from the KEMS support guy on what counts as abuse.

Update2: I just got an email telling me about a NEW internet provider called Mada. They are offering WiMax, 10Mbps in Salmiya area (I guess might be higher or lower other areas), NO DOWNLOAD CAP and it’s KD60 for 3 months. They have a booth at Marina Mall. I was there last night actually and saw the booth but didn’t know what it was. This is their website [Link]

Cocoa Room is officially launching tomorrow with a breakfast menu and p0ach managed to get a sneak peek. He’s got tons of pictures and everything just looks incredible. Check out his post [Here]

As I mentioned they will be starting with breakfast now for a few weeks and later introduce the full menu which will include some mouth watering items. I can’t wait!

Note: Cocoa Room is located right next to Slider Station

Ruby’s is one of my favorite places to eat and I noticed they’ve added new items on their menu and also increased their prices slightly. They now have 4 salads, 4 sandwiches, 4 pasta and 4 burgers. They’ve also added some breakfast items as well. I took a picture of the front of the menu which you can see [Here]

In case you missed my original post on Ruby’s here is the [Link]

Note: Ruby’s is NOT Ruby Tuesday.

Update: Here is their full menu as PDF [Link]

Patrick from Projekt Cyan was at the movies in 360 Mall yesterday when he noticed a section Cinescape had setup with information and visuals from the start of Cinescape (previously called KNCC) around 50 years ago till today. They had old ticket stubs, a logo history and even some old 3D glasses that they used to give out (although if my memory serves me correct the 3D glasses I got when I watched JAWS had black and white stripes all over.) The pictures are pretty bad quality since they were taken by phone but it should give you a rough idea of what’s on display.

In case you previously missed it, here are two links with pictures of old KNCC theaters:
The Original Al Hamra Cinema
Old Cinemas in Kuwait

My previous post on the KPTC double decker buses reminded of some pictures I had taken awhile back. I was at junkyards when I spotted a bunch of old KPTC double decker buses parked together in miserable condition. It looked very sad just surrounded by junk and filled with junk. Below are some pictures I had taken on that trip.

All the shops that are located under the streets adjacent to Safat Square have now been closed down. The shops used to sell random items from counterfeit perfumes with funny names to cheap toys and clothes. I always thought the shops didn’t fit very nicely with the location and it looks like they’ve now been closed down as part of the renovation process Safat Square will be undergoing.

Safat Square is actually surrounded by fences at the moment which I thought were set up because the construction work was going to begin but turns out the fences are there because of the demonstrations that have been taking place.

Two Atlanteans for export to Kuwait at Northern Counties, Pemberton. 9 May 1983. [original]

Found these two pictures of the old KPTC double decker busses. Turns out they were built by the Northern Counties Motor and Engineering Company in England. The picture above is of the buses before they were shipped to Kuwait while the picture below is of the buses unpainted being taken for a test drive to make sure they’re working fine.

Turning into Enfield Street, Pemberton, heading for Northern Counties, a unpainted Leyland Atlantean for Kuwait. 28 April 1983. [original]