Search: “kuwait”

Yesterday I dropped by the soon to open Four Seasons Hotel in Kuwait City for a quick tour. I hadn’t been there since back in September when the place was still mostly under construction so I was pretty excited to see how things turned out. My first impressions of the place is that its simply stunning and very tastefully done. It’s has a very contemporary look yet with some Arabic elements injected into the design. It’s going to be by far the best looking hotel in Kuwait.

Four Seasons will be soft launching in around 2 weeks time with the official opening at the beginning of September. From the five restaurants they have, the following three will open up during the soft launch:

Dai Forni – An Italian restaurant
Elements – A buffet restaurant
Al Sour – The lobby lounge

Sintoho the Pan-Asian restaurant and Al Bandar, the poolside lounge/restaurant will both open in September. The outdoor pool will also open in September while the indoor one will be open during the soft launch. Finally, the Aveda salon (for men and women) will also be opening up as part of the soft launch.

I took a few quick photos during my tour which you can check out below. Since I was also taking photos with my phone for my instagram story, I realized later that there were some shots I forgot to take with my regular camera. So check out the photos below and once you’re done head over to my instagram account @mark248am and check out my story there (from your phone). It should be up till around 3PM.

Four Seasons Kuwait is located in Kuwait City [Google Maps]

Update: As of August 14th the hotel has still not opened

I only first heard about Blaze Pizza last week when I read an article on Bleacher Report about how LeBron James was a part owner, and how the brand was off to fastest-ever start for food chain. Then a few days later, Blaze Pizza announced that they’ve partnered up with Alshaya to open locations in Africa and the Middle East.

What makes Blaze different from other pizza places is that it was modeled after the Chipotle concept with a made-to-order approach. Customers create their own pizza which then gets cook in a high-temperature open-flame oven in just 3 minutes.

According to the press release, first location should open up in 2018. [Link]

No idea how I managed to scrape together the list below, but here are some events taking place this weekend:

Thursday
The Divan Movie Night: Mon Oncle
Summer Film Series: AMY

Friday
Yoga at the Park (Vinyasa Flow)
The CYFR
Good Game: Magic The Gathering
Drum Circle!

Saturday
Guided Tour: Grand Mosque
54 Surya Namaskars
Yoga with the 3
Q8 Readers Book Club
Tango Class & Practica

If you’d like to share an event on the blog [Email Me]
For a full list of upcoming events click [Here]

Sometimes events get canceled or have details changed so always double check with the organizers.

The movies below are now showing at either Cinescape, Grand Cinemas or Sky Cinemas:

New This Week:
Be Afraid (4.7)
Cars 3 (7.2)
The Hunter’s Prayer (5.4)
War for the Planet of the Apes (8.5) ★

Other Movies Showing:
2:22 ♦
Despicable Me 3 (6.6)
Pirates of the Caribbean: Dead Men Tell No Tales (7.0)
Spider-Man: Homecoming (8.2)
The Mummy (5.8) ♦ ★

The movies below are also now showing at the Scientific Center IMAX theater:

A Beautiful Planet 3D (7.9)
Dream Big 3D (7.9)
Humpback Whales 3D (7.2)
Jean-Michel Cousteau’s Secret Ocean 3D (N/A)

Numbers in brackets refer to the IMDB rating at time of publishing.
★ is for movies I’m interested in. ♦ implies movie might contain censorship.

If you’re interested in coding electronics and are looking for Arduino or Respberry Pi kits, RTC Electronics in Hawalli have kits as well as a pretty decent selection of components to go along with them. I’ve posted about RTC on this blog before, they’re a large electronics supply store and they really have everything you could think of from transistors to equipments for events.

Their prices aren’t that cheap though, the Raspberry Pi3 kit costs KD32 (includes a case, hdmi cable, power adapter and SD card) while the Genuino starter kit costs around KD35. But like I mentioned, they also carry components like RGB color sensors, servo controllers, temperature and humidity sensors just to name a few and those wouldn’t be worth buying online, not unless you were shipping them with other stuff since they don’t cost much anyway.

If you’re interested in passing by RTC, here is their location on [Google Maps]

Update: Just found out you can also find Raspberry and Arduino kits locally [Here]

Major legal changes to the Kuwait Labor Law (6/2010) were issued today (July 9) and they’re to the benefit of employees. I have simplified the most important points and explained them below:

When can you apply for a holiday (paid leave)?
Previously: You can apply for leave after working for 9 months
Now: You can apply for leave after working for 6 months

How do you calculate the amount of leave days you have?
Previously: 6 days a week, even if Saturdays are not working days
Now: 5 days a week, employer can’t include weekends
The minimum amount of leave days a year by law is 30 days. With the new law if you take 30 days off that would amount to a total of 6 weeks since weekends can no longer be included in your leave.

Termination indemnity for Kuwaitis
Previously: When you quit your job the company would deduct the amount they paid towards your social security from your severance package
Now: Employer cannot deduct you social security payments from your severance package
Some companies are now issuing cheques for the previous employees with the amounts they had deducted

Kuwait is progressing noticeably and these new updates to the labor law are a great change.

For any legal inquiries, please email me on [email protected] and my team or I will get back to you within 24 hours.

Post by Fajer Ahmed – Legal Counsel
The legal opinions expressed in this post are those of the author Fajer. Opinions expressed by Mark or any other writer on mark248am1.wpenginepowered.com are those of the individual’s and in no way reflect Fajer’s opinion.

Photo by Mohammed AlSultan

The movies below are now showing at either Cinescape, Grand Cinemas or Sky Cinemas:

New This Week:
Science Fiction Volume One: The Osiris Child (6.5)
Spider-Man: Homecoming (8.2)
The Dinner (4.9)

Other Movies Showing:
2:22 ♦
Despicable Me 3 (6.6)
Pirates of the Caribbean: Dead Men Tell No Tales (7.0)
The Mummy (5.8) ♦ ★
Transformers: The Last Knight (5.4)

The movies below are also now showing at the Scientific Center IMAX theater:

A Beautiful Planet 3D (7.9)
Dream Big 3D (7.9)
Humpback Whales 3D (7.2)
Jean-Michel Cousteau’s Secret Ocean 3D (N/A)

Numbers in brackets refer to the IMDB rating at time of publishing.
★ is for movies I’m interested in. ♦ implies movie might contain censorship.

Someone posted an interesting query in the Kuwestions section, what is the oldest restaurant in Kuwait? One reader suggested Mais Alghanim which is possible since its been active since 1953, but I’m curious if there is anything older that is still around and active?

The two photos here were taken from the Mais Alghanim photo gallery [Here]

According to a recent article in The Telegraph, Kuwait is one of the top 20 fastest growing travel destinations in the world. The article doesn’t mention why or how that came to be, and I also couldn’t find their original source of data, so I don’t really have more more information other than the ranking. Kuwait was also the only Arab country to appear on the list which you can check out below:

The top 20 fastest growing travel destinations
1- Sierra Leone +310%
2- Nepal +39.7%
3- Iceland +39%
4- South Korea +30.3%
5- Moldova +28.6%
6- Chile +26%
7- Vietnam +24.6%
8- Japan +21.8%
9- Liechtenstein +21.7%
10- Kiribati +21.6%
11- Kuwait +20.7%
12- Madagascar +20%
13- Cyprus +19.8%
14- Georgia +19%
15- Turks & Caicos +17.5%
16- Cook Islands +17.1%
17- Slovakia +16.9%
18- Kenya +16.8%
19- Tanzania +15.6%
20- Indonesia +15.5%

For the full article click [Here]

Thanks Hind!

The movies below are now showing at either Cinescape, Grand Cinemas or Sky Cinemas:

New This Week:
2:22 ♦
Despicable Me 3 (6.6)
Overdrive (5.5)

Other Movies Showing:
Deep (5.1)
Mr Frog (N/A)
Pirates of the Caribbean: Dead Men Tell No Tales (7.0)
The Mummy (5.8) ♦ ★
Transformers: The Last Knight (5.4)

The movies below are also now showing at the Scientific Center IMAX theater:

New This Week:
Dream Big 3D (7.9)

Other Movies Showing:
A Beautiful Planet 3D (7.9)
Humpback Whales 3D (7.2)
Jean-Michel Cousteau’s Secret Ocean 3D (N/A)

Numbers in brackets refer to the IMDB rating at time of publishing.
★ is for movies I’m interested in. ♦ implies movie might contain censorship.

Jaber recounted an incident that took place in January 2017, while she was in Egypt training for her masters degree. She asked a close friend to take care of the cheetahs, but a fire broke out in the apartment and the fire brigade saw the wild felines and reported them to the police.

“I directly called somebody high-ranking at the police station of the district to replace the mention of ‘cheetah’ with ‘big cat’ on the complaint. It is necessary to act very quickly, so that the wasta works,” Jaber tells MEE.

Owning exotic animals is illegal in Kuwait yet these guys are parading them in this article for Middle East Eye and on their personal instagram accounts. Then to top it off they talk about how they have wasta to help them stay out of trouble and give examples of situations where their wasta helped them out. I really do hope because of this article they’ll all get arrested and their animals taken away from them. [Link]

The movies below are now showing or will be showing over Eid at either Cinescape, Grand Cinemas or Sky Cinemas:

During Eid:
Deep (5.1)
Mr Frog (N/A)
Pirates of the Caribbean: Dead Men Tell No Tales (7.0)
The Mummy (5.8) ♦ ★
Transformers: The Last Knight (5.4)

Movies Showing Now:
Alien: Covenant (7.0) ♦ ★
Diary of a Wimpy Kid: The Long Haul (3.3)
Don’t Breathe (8.3) ♦
Fast & Furious 8 (7.5)
Guardians of the Galaxy Vol. 2 (8.2) ♦ ★
Hacksaw Ridge (8.8) ★♦
King Arthur: Legend of the Sword (7.2)
The Boss Baby (6.5)
The Circle (7.5) ♦

The movies below are also now showing at the Scientific Center IMAX theater:

A Beautiful Planet 3D (7.9)
Flying Monsters 3D with David Attenborough (7.6)
Humpback Whales 3D (7.2)
Jean-Michel Cousteau’s Secret Ocean 3D (N/A)
Journey to Space 3D (6.5)
Kenya 3D: Animal Kingdom (6.0)
Mysteries of the Unseen World 3D (7.5)

Numbers in brackets refer to the IMDB rating at time of publishing.
★ is for movies I’m interested in. ♦ implies movie might contain censorship.

If you were hoping to watch Wonder Woman over Eid then you’re out of luck. I just got confirmation a few moments ago from Grand Cinemas that Wonder Woman has been banned in Kuwait. The reason given to me was because the lead actress Gal Gadot is Israeli.

Update: I’ve deleted all the comments and closed this post up to new comments. This post is just an announcement and I’m not interested in turning it into a political discussion.

Just digitized this video taken at the Kuwait Ice Skating Rink back in April of 1995. 1991-92 is when I frequented the ice skating rink mostly and back then the music was amazing with hits like Snap – I got the Power and Soul II Soul – Back to Life. Still, the video above should bring back memories and if you look closely you can even spot the arcades in the background.

Gatwa W Gahwa is a cat cafe thats soft launching this coming Saturday. They’re located in the basement of Galleria 2000 in Salmiya and they have around 10 cats which you can hang out and play with. The idea of a cat cafe isn’t new, I got to experience one around 5 years ago when I was in Japan, but this will be the first cat cafe in Kuwait and only the second in the region.

The price for spending time and playing with the cats is KD3.5 for half an hour or KD5 for an hour. They will be offering discounts for those who wish to stay longer and even a monthly membership for those who want to come in everyday. You’ll also be able to book the whole place for book readings or even cat yoga. I was there earlier today and the cats are super cute and really playful. I was pretty surprised at how beautiful some of the cats were, for some reason when I heard they were rescued cats I was expecting to find a cafe fill with street cats but instead all the cats I interacted with were so cute and fluffy.

They’re soft opening from this Saturday and their timings during Ramadan will be 12PM to 4PM and then 8PM to 12AM. After Ramadan their working hours will be 11AM to 10PM. They’ll also have an online reservation system up and running this weekend. For more information check out their instagram account @catcafeq8

PS: Remember Abdulai? He now works at the Cat Cafe!

Update: Their website and reservation system is now online [Here]