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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.

A few months back I noticed a new sports store was opening up in place of where Boushari was located in Salmiya. I was pretty excited because I thought it was a new franchise opening but then I found out it was just Sport Corner and I lost interest. Sports Corner was already open further down the street near Thuraya Complex and I didn’t like the place so I wasn’t expecting this new one to be better. I even got invited to the launch of the new store but I wasn’t interested.

Tonight though I decided to go in and it was pretty impressive. The store is 4 floors and although I don’t think the floor space is as big as GoSport, its still pretty packed with stuff especially in the basement. The ground floor is dedicated to Adidas, the second floor to Reebok, the third floor is Champions and the basement is packed with weight lifting, exercise equipment, bikes, punching bags, rackets and just a ton of stuff. The place is worth a visit if anything just so you know whats available in Kuwait in terms of sporting gear. GoSport still caters to a wider range of sports while I would say Sports Corner has a larger variety of weight lifting and exercise equipment.

The Kuwait Flour Mills started producing a new type of burger bun. Or at least I think its new since I never spotted it before and its still not listed on their website. The new bun is similar to the buns used at places like Burger Boutique and Johnny Rockets and doesn’t come with sesame seeds on the top. By the way you have to check out the Kuwait Flour Mills website, its really strange. They have an online shop which doesn’t seem to work, they have a section called “Attractive Corner” and they have a weird flash intro. On the bright side, its cool they have a site. [Link]

A few months ago I posted a video of two Kuwaiti sisters (twins) with amazing voices singing the US national athem. Well I got an email a few days ago with some new info. The two sisters Sharifa and Aishya Al-Zaabi now go by the name Odyssey. Seems they are now signed up with Young Hustle Records which are based in Texas. They have four songs available online which you can listen to by following the instructions below:

1) Go to www.soundclick.com/younghustlerecords
2) Click on the music tab on the right side
3) Look for the following songs; “Love Is Gone”, “I (Don’t Know)”, “Dance For You” and “Love Is”

If you click on the video tab you can also find some videos of them performing live, I’ve attached one of their videos to this post.

update: Seems they are NOT yet signed up with Young Hustle Records, they are just friends with the label.

Last month while coming back from London my favorite pair of traveling earphones, my Shure E2’s stopped working properly. They lasted me for three years and I guess it was time I got a new pair. Following that trip I tried flying with another pair of headphones but they just weren’t the same. My AKG 81’s were too big and bulky while my PX100’s barely isolate any sound. I needed to get another pair of in-earphones and after a lot of research I decided to go with the Ultimate Ears Super.fi 5 Pro (really long name).

Why and what are in-earphones?
Unlike the regular earphones that come with the iPod, in-earphones actually go into your ear canal, they don’t just sit on the outside. Some people find it strange and uncomfortable having something placed inside the ear but I never had that problem. If you want to know how they feel just take two fingers and place one in each ear. First thing you will notice is how they isolate sound and thats one of my favorite things about in-earphones. It makes them perfect for traveling since they block out the plane engine noise and anything else inside the plane. With music playing loudly you could have someone standing in front of you and screaming at the top of their lungs and you wouldn’t hear them.

The reason I went with the Super.fi’s and not another model is mostly because of the price to performance ratio. I didn’t want to pay over $200 for my earphones and I didn’t want something under $100. In my price range the Super.fi’s had the best performance according to numerous reviews online. In fact it sometimes even outperformed more expensive models.

USWS delivered my Super.fi’s two days ago and the first thing I noticed when I took them out of the box were how much lighter and smaller they were compared to my older Shures. When I put them on I also noticed they fit a lot better into my ear compared to the Shures and since they were lighter after a few minutes it felt like they weren’t there. I was really impressed at the build quality and the snug fit and I still hadn’t experimented with the other rubber sleeve sizes included in the pack or my usual favorite foam ones. Sound wise I also noticed a big difference. The Super.fi’s ran louder than my Shures at the same volume and they also sounded a lot more clearer. My old Shures had a single driver for every ear which handled the lows, mids and highs all alone. The Super.fi’s on the other hand have dual drivers for every ear, one to handle the lows and one to handle the mids and highs. The much more expensive Triple.fi 10 have three drivers for every ear, one for every range.

So far I am really impressed with the Super.fi’s. I only listened to them for a few minutes but it was instantly obvious how much better they performed compared to my Shures. Currently I am burning in my Super.fi’s, they’ve been playing music non stop for around 48 hours and they still have another 48 to go before they are ready to start using.

What is burning in?
You know how when you buy new jeans or shoes they are not very comfortable the first few times you wear them? Then the more you wear them the more comfortable they get? Well the same with earphones/headphones. When you first buy them they are stiff and over time the diaphragms loosens up. Since I don’t want to wait a weeks for them to loosen up I just plug them to my stereo and leave them running for nearly 100 hours. You can find more info [Here]

Anyway, once I get back from London later this month I will post a full review on the Super.fi’s. I got my black ones from Amazon for $169, they also come in red, white and clear. [Amazon]

Last night was the launch for the movie theater at Avenues which I think its the largest one in Kuwait. According to their press release there are 11 theaters in total including 2 VIP theaters. The ticket for the VIP theater costs KD6, has only 22 seats, personal service and electric lazy boys with built in massagers. Although the theater launched last night, it will officially open to the public on the first day of Eid. Ahmad Helmi will be there also for the premier of his new movie but I’ve never heard of him so I don’t know if thats a big deal or not.

Also I was reading yesterday on Hilaliya’s blog that the movie The Kingdom is banned from playing in Kuwait. I hope that doesn’t turn out to be true because I was looking forward to watching it.

A friend of mine asked me if I could post this job vacancy ad:

We are looking for two persons to join our retail operation (he or
she) for the following positions:

APR Development Coordinator
To coordinate and communicate with Apple Middle East & Europe on the apple center development and implementation, a lot of reading on guidelines and implementing them, doing some casual marketing, follow-up with me on the latest development, training the apple centers employees on the latest technologies form apple and marketing techniques .. etc.

Designer
To design and create in house flyers, brochures, booklets, merchandising .. etc for our apple center operation. Helping in the design of our web page.

Marketing Executive
To help in the marketing of Apple products in Kuwait and coordinate Apple special events.

If interested send an email to [email protected]