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Today was such a blast! We got to Marina Waves around 9AM in the morning and first thing we had to do was move our plane to the proper location which was the front of the line. One team ahead of us had withdrawn from the event so we became team #3 instead of #4.

Our friends started to come one by one until our station resembled a large diwaniya then judges started passing by to judge and ask questions about our plane. Every time a judge would see our plane they would get this shocked look on their faces but they all had sense of humors and cracked jokes with us. They all agreed though that our plane was the most comfortable one to sit in, kinda like a lazy boy version of a plane. Later that we found out one of the teams had a large helium canister which we quickly took advantage of. We kept filling balloons with helium and passing them around to everyone to inhale, that cracked everyone up for a while.

Finally around 2PM they started the event and we were the third plane to jump off. We were dressed as traditional Kuwaiti fisherman which didn’t make sense at all but its not like anything else did. Every team had to play a song and have a dance before they pushed the plane off the ramp and our song was Sabo7a. I think that and our dance which was also traditional Kuwaiti cracked up people the most. For me I think the dancing was the worst part, I hadn’t danced the traditional Kuwaiti dance since I was like 10 years old in school so I was just a mess but who cared it was still fun. The rest of the team, Khalid, Bader and Marzouq were naturals though as you can see in the video at the end of this post.

Once we were done with the dance we got behind the plane and Bader who was our pilot got into it and we started to push. We pushed as hard and fast as we could and just before the end we let go and stood and watched. All I saw was our plane fly out a few meters and then slam hard into the water with Bader lying on his back and this look of horror and pain on his face. It was priceless! It was then our turn to jump in, we didn’t have to but we wanted to. The only reason we participated in Flugtag was to have some fun and jumping in was the last thing we had to do.

When you look down from the edge the water looks really far but I thought about that for just a second before I just went ahead and jumped in. For some reason I decided to land on my ass so I landed pretty hard and it was kinda painful but not as bad as landing on your back which Khalid and Bader did. The water was amazing and it was just an incredible rush jumping off after such a long and amazing day. I could hear the crowds cheering and laughing and I could also hear Bader, Khalid and Marzouq all laughing. We then got on the jet skis that came to rescue us to take us back to shore, me and Khalid got on behind this one guy and just as he was taking off the whole jet ski flipped on its side and we landed on an adjacent jet ski which was pretty hilarious at the time I don’t know why.

When we got back to the shore we met up with the other teams and they congratulated us and we shared with them our experience. After that we just packed up and left since we were all wet and tired.

I have to say all the other teams we met and interacted with were also a lot of fun. Majority of the guys there were there just like us to have a lot of fun. If you actually saw the planes at the event you can tell most didn’t care about winning, everyone just wanted to enjoy the day and crash land with style. From the teams, to the Red Bull staff and even the judges, everyone was very positive, super friendly and a lot of fun. I would definitely want to participate again next year maybe even with an updated plane although I love ours the way it is. After this event I actually suggested we convert our plane to a raft and just join the yearly raft race with it.

The pictures above were taken by Nicole except for the picture of goatse (we had spray painted it at the rear of our plane), that was taken by me. The video below was shot by Nat. Special thanks to Hashem (he doesn’t have a blog so I could link to) for helping us out by being our ground crew and helium supplier.

Kuwait’s Red Bull Flugtag 2007 from Mark on Vimeo.

So we signed up for the Red Bull thing; Bader got a box and stuck some aluminum too it.. I think we have a song too. We have spent more time playing Halo and harassing Red Bull girls to do anything else.

And Remember, Magic is the Natural Energy Drink.
– k.thekuwaiti

This Friday at 1:30PM my team will be participating in the Red Bull Flugtag. We are called Imperial27 (more details here) and we will be the 4th team flying off the ramp. We put the final touches a while ago on the plane which were our sponsors logos. We got four sponsors which are Hungry Bunny, Kids ‘R’ Us, Pizza Italia and Like Cola. We are going to have a blast!

Yes I like shawermas and it seems a lot of people know that because before I left to London around a million people recommended I should try the shawermas at Ranoush. Ranoush Juice is part of the Maroush group of restaurants which are extremely popular in London and the place was located near my hotel on Edgware Road so I decided to go ahead and try it.

Good shawerma in London? I found that hard to believe and I would never have believed it had I not tried it for myself. I’ve been reviewing shawermas for a while now and its always difficult to describe the taste of a shawerma, its not easy to explain why one tastes better than the other or why it tastes worse. It’s mostly because its not one single thing alone that makes a difference, its a balance of a variety of things and this was the case with the shawermas at Ranoush. There wasn’t anything particular I could single out about their shawerma which made it special but it was. Maybe it was because I hadn’t had a shawerma for a week, I don’t know but it just felt really good having it. It felt comfortable and so perfectly balanced. The garlic wasn’t too strong but wasn’t too weak, the chicken was great and the cleanliness of the place was top notch.

Price sadly was out of this world for a shawerma, 3.25 Pounds which is around KD1.900! It completely blew away the previous record of 750 fils for the Villa Fayrouz Express shawerma but luckily for Ranoush it’s in London and KD1.900 for a shawerma is a great deal in a city where KD5 burgers are practically the norm. This is why for the final score it gets a 4.5 out of 5.

While in London I kept spotting this really cool retro looking car. At first I thought it was a classic British car but when I found a parked one and was able to get closer it turned out to be a Nissan Figaro. When I got back to the hotel room I did a quick google search and it turned out the Figaro’s were produced in the early 90’s and have a small cult following. I am not usually a fan of retro looking cars but I can’t help but not love this one, it just looks really funky. I found a place online that sells excellent condition versions for prices ranging from 3000 to 4000 Kuwaiti Dinars. [Link]

I just found an article by mistake on the Kuwait Times website on the demise of the orange taxi’s. Although I’ve never used them before I’ve always been intrigued by them. According to the article though they might not be around for much longer, with no help from the government and a lot more competition, the orange taxi’s are quickly losing ground to buses and jawal taxis. [Link]

Picture by mahooya

Just got back from London today morning and I think I need a vacation. Thanks to Nibaq, k.thekuwaiti and Z District for guest writing on the blog while I was away. Everything should get back to normal from tomorrow.

We decided to pass by the London Zoo today since its in Camden Town close to where we wanted to do some shopping. The zoo is larger than the Kuwait Zoo (duh) but much smaller than the San Diego Zoo. They have an incredible gorilla exhibit surprisingly with around 3 gorillas. The zoo looks like it was built in a forest, the whole area around the zoo is a huge green park with hills and trees and the inside of the zoo is the same. The zoo is actually split in two with a canal passing through, you need to cross a bridge to get to the other side, very cool. There are a couple of more pictures if you click on continue.

In my Hummingbird Bakery post I was told to try out Ben’s Cookies in Covent Garden so first thing I did today was try some for breakfast. They sell cookies by weight not piece. I had one milk chocolate and one double chocolate cookie and they came out to KD1.250 which is around 600 fils a cookie. Not bad considering they were pretty big and Starbucks in Kuwait sell their crappy ones for nearly the same price. I ate both cookies and found the double chocolate a bit too heavy but the milk chocolate one which is basically a chocolate chunk cookie was delicious. It was perfectly balanced, not too sweet, very light and crunchy on the outside while soft on the inside. I loved it. (Posted from my Nokia e61i)

We left Paris today and got back to London but not without going on one hell of a ride.

We got to the Eurostar train station in Paris around 5PM which was around an hour before our train was set to leave. When we got to the automatic check in the machine rejected our tickets. I couldn’t understand why until an employee there arrived to help us and explained to us the problem. Our train had left over an hour earlier!

I am not one to make a lot of mistakes, I am usually the extremely reliable guy who plays it really safe and always tries to arrive earlier than the recommended time. Somehow, for some fucked up reason, I read our London arrival time as our Paris departure time. I can’t understand how that happened, looking at my non refundable non exchangeable ticket now I can’t imagine how I mixed up the departure and arrival times. Its right up on my list of dumbest things I have done in my life. We had missed our train out of Paris and that was just the beginning of our adventure.

There was another train leaving to London in around 2 hours so we headed to the really long cue queue to buy tickets and waited. While in line I tried calling NBK on 801801 to try and move money onto my credit card. I didn’t know how much I had left on the card and I didn’t know how much the tickets would cost so I figured I would play it safe and move some more money onto my visa. I spent 15 minutes trying to call Kuwait without any luck when suddenly I got through and got a hold of the NBK operator and explained to her that I wanted to move money onto my card. After 10 minutes of trying the NBK operator told me there was a problem with the NBK automated system and I should call back in 15 minutes.

We got up to the ticket counter and we asked for 2 one way tickets out of Paris. The employee told us we could get on the next train, price was 236 Euros per person which amounted to a total of 472 for the two of us. That was more than DOUBLE what I had paid for 3 weeks ago for our two way tickets! We didn’t have any other option so we asked for the tickets but when we tried paying for them both my credit card and Nat’s got rejected. Our cards were maxed out, it just wasn’t our luck.

Now you are probably thinking why didn’t I just withdraw money from an ATM machine and pay for the tickets with cash? Well the problem is when I travel I don’t keep a lot of money in my ATM card account so that just in case I get mugged at an ATM machine I can only withdraw a certain amount of money (I watch a lot of movies). It’s never been a problem before because I always use my credit card for my purchases and if I needed more money than whats available on my ATM card I just transfer more onto it.

So here was the situation, my Macbook had no battery and I didn’t have the charger so I couldn’t connect to a wifi network at the train station. There was also no Internet cafe at the station but even if there was I didn’t want to access my bank account from a public computer. I couldn’t get a hold of NBK, the answering machine never came on it just kept ringing and no one was picking up. Since I couldn’t connect to my NBK account I couldn’t use my credit card and I couldn’t withdraw any money so I was pretty much fucked.

I decided to call my sister and have her log into my NBK account and transfer money, problem was she wasn’t at home and the line kept breaking up. I then started calling my friends one by one to see if they were near an Internet connection including Bader, Marzouq and Khalid but no one was near a computer. It was just freaking frustrating. I had the money to buy the fucking tickets to get the hell out of Paris but I just couldn’t get that money onto my ATM or credit card! Time was running out by now and I needed to buy the tickets.

We decided to leave the station and head out around town looking for a place to get Internet access. After around 30 minutes of exploring and asking people we finally found an Internet cafe. I asked the guy if I could connect with my macbook but he told me it wouldn’t be possible. I looked at his computers, they had Windows XP on it… I had no clue if there were any trojans or softwares that would read and store my bank account info and passwords on the machines but I didn’t have an option, I was desperate and I just needed Internet. In literally 2 minutes I had logged into my bank account, transferred money onto my ATM and credit card and was out of the cafe. Thats all I needed, 2 fucking minutes of Internet to change the direction of my life.

We ran back to the train station with 45 minutes to spare but now we were back in the cue queue to buy tickets. 30 minutes later we purchased the tickets. The employee told us something about how our seats would be pull down seats but we didn’t care we just wanted to get on the train. We checked in, passed through passport and security check which luckily was empty and ran towards our train. If we had just been 1 minute late we would have missed the train again.

When we finally got on the train and the doors shut and we started moving, it was just the most amazing feeling of relief. Our fold down seats were these tiny seats located between the carriage cars (pictures above). They weren’t really that bad, it was kinda cozy sitting in between the carriage cars alone.

I can’t believe how an average day turned into such a mess. First thing I did when I got to my hotel room here in London was log on to the internet and change my NBK online banking password. Also when I get back to Kuwait I am going to take out another credit card and keep it aside just in case of emergencies like today. Finally Nat is going to be taking care of our traveling from now on, I am losing it!

Optimus Designs is a an entrepreneurial architecture company which is established by three young Kuwaiti architects. Last year they had an event called Funkyture where they displayed and sold furniture that they designed and manufactured themselves. They have some really creative original designs with a taste of their own. It was a very successful event last year and it is being repeated this year, I really recommend everyone to go check it out if you want to see something different. They can even design some furniture for you if you have something specific in mind. They have done houses and offices, interior design and architectural design. Take a look at the link for pictures of their previous event.

Date:
27 Oct – 6pm
28 Oct to Nov 1 – 10 am to 1pm & 5 pm to 10 pm

Location:
Qadsiya
Block1
Bader Street
House 11

Link: Optimus Designs

I watched The Kingdom yesterday at what has to be the worst movie theater here in London. Seriously what theater actually leaves the lights on during a movie? The movie itself was pretty decent but now that I watched it I am really surprised it was banned in Kuwait. Watching the movie you can tell that the producers tried their best not to make Muslims look bad and the Saudi police actually were heroes in this movie so why was it banned?

On paper it doesn’t take much to open a store in Kuwait, the business process is comprised of the following: get money, get franchise, get location. The same store you visited a few years back on your summer vacation to an Arab hotspot (London, California, DC) has now shown up in your neighborhood avenue. In the past ten years, most Kuwaitis have grown accustomed to the growth of shopping malls and their associated brand names. The Midases of Kuwait who do come up with their own names are merely an amalgamation of other brands.

So what is one to do if the franchises (or combination of them under a local name) do not carry the products you are looking for?
You make it yourself.

Well, that is what one company recently did with Baroue… The concept was realized by Fahed Al-Mutawa after a bout of frustration finding items for his then newborn. After realizing the need for a child superstore; the idea behind Baroue was hatched, and it came to life through MS (Mutawa/Sayer) Retail (Restaurateurs in previous ventures).

What differs Baroue from any other children’s’ store?

Baroue has gone beyond the cookie-cutter approach of reselling items and retaining franchises; They have created a complete brand/franchise from zero. Their design studio (clothes) is based in London, their factories are in India and their head office is home sweet home, Kuwait.

Their first store is the third largest at the Avenues and carries everything from clothes and toys to a huge dragon that is a playpen in itself. And they have plans of expanding to other countries shortly.

For those who have had the theme song playing endlessly in their head (Baroue, Baroue, Baroue) .. You can blame Yuri Mrakdi, who originally came onboard as a Marketing director (and later sang the song). For the techies, you can track your children (RFID armbands) playing in the dragon through the kiosks scattered around the store.

Since I will be going on vacation for around 8 days I have invited k.thekuwaiti, Marzouq and Nibaq to be guest writers while I am away.
This should be fun!

I passed by McDonald’s today for a quick bite to eat and noticed they had spring rolls on the menu. I hadn’t had McDonald’s since before ramadan so I don’t know how long they’ve been serving them but I decided to give it a shot.

It’s very rare for a fast food place like McDonald’s, KFC, Hardees or Burger King to introduce an appetizer and have it succeed. The only successful appetizer I can think of is the popcorn chicken at KFC. With that in mind and with the fact that chinese food is the last thing I would think of finding at McDonald’s, I proceeded to order my spring rolls with caution.

I know this might sound crazy, I know that my taste buds can be screwy sometimes and I know the Chinese are going to hate me for saying this but… the spring rolls at McDonald’s weren’t bad at all. In fact they were pretty good. I’ve tried nearly everything that McDonald’s in Kuwait ever introduced to their menu and this is why I know to always expect the unexpected with them. When they introduced their Mushroom and Swiss burger I expected it to be the best burger they’ve ever created and it turned out to be the worst burger ever.

The spring rolls comes with a sweet chili sauce which is actually a big part of the reason the spring rolls are good. The price is also good, 550fils for 6 pieces. In the end, these spring rolls are not the best spring rolls in the world. They are not even close to being the best spring rolls in Kuwait but compared to what other fast food places are offering like the crappy Hot Rods at KFC or the overpriced cheese sticks at Burger King, these spring rolls are the best appetizers being offered at the moment and best value for money. I give them a 3.5 out of 5.