Search: “maki”

Yesterday I asked if Kuwait Airways were flying their new planes to London and it turns out they are. One of my readers put me in contact with a friend of his who recently flew to London with Kuwait Airways and he sent me a few pictures. At first I was really impressed thinking I was looking at pictures of the Kuwait Airways business class but then I found out this in fact was the Kuwait Airways first class and my excitement dropped. But I was only looking at pictures so I decided to ask the reader about his experience flying Kuwait Airways and this is what he had to say:

Considering Kuwait Airways history with appalling planes, these are brand new and clean. You can see that the staff are glad and proud to serve you because of the state of the plane. They’re more lively now and very friendly. The touch-screen is huge and has a 3-D map of the trip. The movies are not old, I can say that much. The food, I feel, has always been good but the variety now is vast and tasty. The bathrooms are clean as well. The seat is very spacious and you can slide it down all the way to make it into a bed (Not completely flat, maybe 150-160 degrees).

I haven’t traveled first class on KA for a long time but since they got the new planes, I felt like I needed to experience it again. It is worth it but obviously nothing compared to Qatar Airways and Emirates. KA have a long way to go but they’re on the right track IF they can keep the planes clean and up to standard because I feel like they won’t be able to keep them like that. It was first class and they send you a chauffeur to pick you up and drive you to the airport and vice versa. Its all included in the ticket. Very fancy Mercedes. Qatar Airways have their own lounge in Heathrow, I was granted access to Gulf Air lounge, which isnt bad but Qatar Airways and Emirates is much better because of the benefits. For example, if you book first class on Qatar Airways, you can ship your car with you for free. Furthermore, in business class on Qatar Airways, you flatten the seat completely and they give you a comfy bed to put over your seat and the lounge is amazing.

Oh yeah! Theres no wifi on the plane! Once there will be, it won’t be for free on KA. In Emirates first class, you can take a shower on the plane and the bathrooms are quite large for an airplane. On either Emirates or Qatar first class, the chef can cook you anything you like.

According to the same reader the business class seats on that flight were just over-sized economy seats with larger screens.

I flew economy with Kuwait Airways a few months back to Lebanon and had a positive experience. They’re now my second airline of choice when flying to Beirut and the only reason they’re not the first is because MEA flies over Syria making the trip an hour shorter as well as the fact they serve alcohol.

If you want to view a larger version of the first class images above here are the links:
[Image 1] [Image 2] [Image 3]

Thanks David and Khalid

Kuwait occupies the 64th and last place of the overall ranking, particularly due to its low score in the Ease of Settling In Index. In fact, 53% of respondents are unhappy with the general friendliness of local residents. The opportunities to find new friends also leave a lot to be desired for one-third of respondents.

Unfortunately, the situation is similarly grim when it comes to the overall quality of life. Many expats are not satisfied with the available leisure options, while others see their personal happiness suffering. Only for the Job Security and Language subcategories does the country receive some decent results, making it to 26th and 25th place, respectively.

InterNations, the networking group for expats yesterday released the results of its latest annual survey. The organization asked expats in a bunch of countries a wide range of questions about their life and impressions of their adopted country and the results were charted. Kuwait came last which we could sit here and debate all day but what was surprising was the fact that Saudi Arabia was ranked as a better destination. How the hell is that even possible?? [Link]

Thanks James

I would like to thank Mark again for giving me the opportunity to write here, and I know I don’t write as often as I should, but I thought it was very important to share with you what has been taking place behind the scenes of the blog.

I get a lot of emails on a daily basis from people who find my posts while searching for help online. The majority of the emails I get are from expats being mistreated in Kuwait, from CEO’s to blue-collar workers, they all seems to have issues but the worst off are the domestic workers. With that said, there is also a lot of humanitarian work and compassionate people in Kuwait and that in itself makes me very proud to be Kuwaiti.

I want to share with you a story of a domestic worker in Kuwait, how she came here, what happened and how she escaped. Most importantly though, I want to share what we can learn from her experience and how we can make Kuwait a better place.

The lovely woman is from an African country and I will give her the name Malika to respect her privacy. She wanted to move to the Arab world for better opportunity, so she started applying for jobs online. A few weeks later she got offered a job position to work as a supervisor and was promised a lucrative salary of 800 USD – 1,200 USD.

Her agent told her that she would meet her boss at the airport but when she arrived to Kuwait she was shocked to hear she was going to work as a maid.

“We were all taken to a room once we arrived at the Kuwait airport, many girls from many countries, some from Philippines, some from Nepal and many other Asian countries. Young girls even, some as young as 16 or 17, some thinking they were going to work as beauticians, but from my experience we were all there to work as maids”.

The girls waited in the room for hours at end, without water, food or any money, as their possessions were taken away. A woman then came and took them to an office where each girl had to wait for her employer to come and pick them up. Malika’s employer came and picked her up from the office and as soon as she got in the car with her new family, they asked her “Do you have a phone on you? You’re not allowed to have a phone, if you need to call someone, you need permission and you need to use the house phone”. So Malika quickly hid her phone on her.

She describes the house as being busy with a big family of 7 kids living there, she was shocked to see the situation as her agent had told her that she was going to be a supervising maid at the house and only be working from 7am-4pm, she described to me her feelings;

“The first night I couldn’t sleep, because I was crying and crying, I had a phone but no SIM card or money, so I used the phone to search the internet (wifi). I was so depressed working all day, from cooking to cleaning, the work was so much”

She told her employer that she wanted to leave, her employer responded to Malika that if she wanted to leave she had to pay 700 KD. So after some online searching she found her countries embassy’s number that was located in another GCC country. She used a VOIP app to contact them, they didn’t help her though, so she kept on searching online.

She kept fainting at work because the workload was inhumane, and her employer did not bother to take her to the hospital but instead took her to the agency and said that she wanted her money back. She accused Malika of being weak and lazy because she was fainting. The agency ended up beating her. But by going to the agency she found out that her sister and her sister’s friend had come to Kuwait as well, they were told that they would each work here as a nanny and as a waitress.

She was then taken back home by the employer, and she kept searching online for help when she found one of my posts on Marks blog’s. She said “I found out that I have rights and that I can leave. So I sent an email and I was so happy when I got an email back.” When I received her email, I assessed the situation and realized that the best person to help her would be Bibi Nasser Al Sabah from the Social Work Society of Kuwait, who have been aiding many workers in Kuwait over the past few years and I must say are making a huge difference in the lives of many here.

Bibi told Malika about her rights as an employee in Kuwait as well as the rights of her sister and her sisters friend who she was able to get in touch with. Bibi also told her there was a shelter available for them so all three ended up running away from their houses to the shelter. When they arrived to the shelter, Malika was searched and her possessions were taken away except for her clothes (thanks to Malika, the policy has now changed and the ladies at the shelter are allowed to keep their possessions). On Fridays, calls are allowed to be made from the shelter for 1 KD. One of the ladies at the shelter managed to sneak in her phone, Bibi transferred 20 KD for them and the ladies started contacting Bibi till she got them tickets and passports to get back home. They were there for around a month except for her sister who had to stay longer because she had a case against her that turned out to be fake accusations.

Malika says that being in Kuwait was one of the worst experiences in her life, she says that she has domestic workers at home and she treats them with respect and she would never treat anyone like this. She also told me something important;

“I don’t want to judge Arabs, even though I kept hearing mean stories at the shelter from the girls. I can’t judge because Bibi is Arab, so is Fajer, and so was the driver that helped me from the shelter to the airport. They were all so nice.”

Malika was lucky that she spoke fluent English, had internet access and was tech savvy that she was able to reach us at the blog. She is also a very smart lady that understands that issues need to be spoken about. Because of Malika the Social Work Society of Kuwait were able to help 24 other women at the shelter who Malika put us in touch with. I hope that we can learn from her experience and realize that yes there are really corrupt people in Kuwait but there are also a lot of passionate people like Bibi. We bring these topics up because we want to see change and I am positive that one day, Kuwait will be a better place.

Feel free to email me [email protected] with any legal questions. I do not have the capacity to answer everyone for free (but I try), and I am happy to annanounce that I am currently working with a great team and therefore we are able to reply back to all emails with a reasonable time frame.

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.

Kuwait has suspended home delivery licences in a bid to reduce traffic in the crammed capital.

The Interior Ministry is preparing to regulate home delivery services because it requires too many vehicles to be on the roads, Kuwait Times said. [Source]

Here’s one more last funny article for the day but this time I’m also gonna share my friends rant below (who’s Kuwaiti by the way for those of you who want to tell him to get the fuck out).

Yes, Kuwait, keep chipping away at our quality of life instead of doing anything serious to remedy the dire situation of our roads.

Metro? Let’s keep delaying that indefinitely… Because, you know, talking about it since the 1970s has brought us that much closer to realizing it.

Public transportation reforms? Forget that, bus drivers seem to drive with contempt and face it, who would want to ride one of those dilapidated deathtraps?

New highways? With an average completion time of seven years for a stretch of a few short kilometers and haphazardly-marked diversions, you might as well do nothing at all.

License regulation? Please, with rampant nepotism and string-pulling guaranteeing that every untrained moron with a pulse gets one, I don’t believe shit. Just take it all out on the expats the way you normally do, government.

Funny as it is, I’m dreading going back to Kuwait almost purely because of the road situation. People seem to actively disregard the rules and do things their own way because they know that our hilariously inept police force isn’t going to do jack about it except pass unimplemented law after unimplemented law, we have over 1.5 million cars on a road network with a carrying capacity of around seven hundred thousand vehicles, round-the-clock traffic ensures that what should be a ten-minute trip takes at least an hour, there’s no emission control or any form of environmental regulation and my chances of being killed because of someone else’s idiocy are exacerbated to the nth degree.

For a country with the potential and resources to make something absolutely incredible of itself, it’s moments like this that make me want to facepalm until my face bleeds.

– Khaled

Update: According to the news article on the Ministry of Commerce website, the ban is temporary and only because the MOI are currently overburdened with requests [Source]. So it looks like Kuwait Times are making shit up. Also it looks like Arabian Business is now making shit up because their source (Kuwait Times) never mentioned anything about traffic being the reason for the ban.

According to the blog Kuwaiti Trailmix, Kuwait recently subsidized gluten-free products making it the first Arab Muslim country to do so in the Middle East. Kuwait Flour Mills have started selling wheat-free products for reasonable prices including:

Hamburger Buns: 690 fils
Vanilla cupcakes: 390 fils
Hot dog rolls: 590 fils
Loaf of Bread “Toast”: 700 fils

Check out the full post [Here]

A redditor shared a scan from an article in The Economist dating back to 1965 on the alcohol prohibition in Kuwait. I typed out the article since the scan wasn’t clear and have decided to share it below:

———————————————————–

International Report – The Economist – February 6, 1965

Kuwait
Bootleggers’ Boom
From a correspondent in Kuwait

Drink has had an odd history in Kuwait and its latest episode, resulting in total prohibition, has been characteristically idiosyncratic. In 1961, when the British political agency was demoted into an embassy, one of its traditional functions – the dispensing of alcohol to non-Moslems – was handed over to the British firm of Gray Mackenzie. With it went the job of issuing drink-permits, allotted according to socio-economic status on the presentation of the right religious credentials.

This neat division of the population, into Kuwaitis who did not drink and foreigners who did, was obviously too pastoral to last. Kuwaitis grew rich, travelled abroad, and learnt forbidden tastes. Since alcohol, like water, finds its own level, it tended to leak across the religious barrier to the richer Kuwaitis. Poorly paid Indian and Lebanese clerks could easily be induced to hand over their ration to Kuwaitis with money. Smuggling from neighboring countries (Iraq produces both beer and arak) was no difficult and made up for any short-fall in the supply. With good whiskey at £1 a bottle, Kuwait was a drinker’s paradise; the fall was sudden and uncomfortable.

In November the Mejlis passed an amendment to the penal code under which sentences of up to 10 years’ imprisonment can be imposed for the import, manufacture or sale of alcohol. Existing stocks may be discreetly consumed (an earlier proposal would have banned this too) but there will be no more. Two conflicting passions converged to bring this amendment about: moral indignation and commercial jealousy. People now find it hard to remember which came first.

The mortal indignation was understandable though, as is often the case, naive about the value of prohibition as a solution. Drink had become a social problem. Alcoholism among Kuwaitis was growing; accidents from drunken driving were increasing and, worst of all, drink was reaching the young. A decision-making scandal (suppressed at the time) was a case of drunkenness in a secondary school.

Meanwhile the fact that drink had grown into a business worth £500,000 – rumor put it even higher – had not escaped the attention of Kuwait merchants who began to agitate against Gray Mackenzie’s monopoly. Their resentment was rational in a free economy, but they overlooked the fact that Gray Mackenzie handled drink precisely because Moslems were not supposed to.

Horrified at the thought of drink being sold freely at every street corner, the moralists acted. A Moslems revivalist group called the League of Social Reform organized a monster petition. Sermons were preached in all the mosques. Pressure was brought upon the members of the Mejlis. Caught in the coils of its own morality, Kuwait’s establishment was helpless. Known drinkers were the most zealous to pay their tribute to virtue, and the crowning irony was when, in the final open session, the only deputy to vote against the amendment was teetotaller.

Prohibition could certainly never have happened without parliament. But Kuwait is now a mercantile democracy and the voice of both souk and mosque is stronger in the two-year-old Mejlis than they would have been in the ruler’s antechamber, where the urbane tones of oil company representatives carry more weight. The government is now committed to carry out prohibition but no one feels that its heart is in it.

It will take some time before stocks are exhausted, though whiskey has already gone up to about £15 a bottle – and is still rising. But the effect on clubs and social life is lethal, and Kuwaitis who employ foreigners are afraid that they will now have to dangle even juicier carrots. The economic consequences of boredom are impossible to assess, but one of Kuwait’s main problems is to keep its population at home and grow roots. Prohibition will probably do nothing to help.

A weightier argument against prohibition is that its social problems are likely to prove worse than those of drink. Already 30 people have died from methyl alcohol poisoning and another 55 are in hospital. Ea de cologne, cough syrups and surgical spirit have gained a new, sinister importance. The weekend traffic on the Basrah road has quadrupled. Smuggling, racketeering, corruption, substitute addictions are other unpleasant consequences which a paternalistic and progressive government cannot ignore.

There is currently a major garbage crisis in Lebanon and it made me think about the one I have in my backyard here in Kuwait. I’ve got this landfill behind my building which has been a garbage dump for years. I’ve posted about it a bunch of times (check this for example from 2010) and the issue hasn’t gotten sorted yet. I mean it gets sorted when I post about it, but then a week later it goes back to garbage overflowing everywhere. I took the picture above at 4PM, that’s just the garbage accumulated since morning, imagine how much garbage there will be by the end of the night!

So what do I need to do to get this shit solved? Do I have to post a picture on the blog everyday of the garbage dump and hope that the international embarrassment it will bring to Kuwait will get someone to act on it? Should I set up a live video stream of the dump and have it displayed in my blogs sidebar? Seriously I’m open to suggestions (don’t tell me to move or GTFO). Thankfully there is the Deera app but it gets annoying having to report this issue every single day.

The bigger issue is this has become the norm in Kuwait. It’s normal to see garbage on the floor everywhere or dumpsters overflowing. I miss the old anti littering campaigns from the 80s. They should bring those back.

The brutally honest review below was making its way around whatsapp earlier today:

Review by Mark Stableford (Kuwait) 10th July 2015
This has to be one of the worst, most confusing and incompetent airports on the planet. Departing, there is not one single check-in hall, but four – each at completely different ends and corners of the airport. You can only get into two of them from the outside, while the other two are burrowed deep inside where you would not expect them, each of them again at different ends of the airport. It is completely confusing and time consuming to find where to check in, involving walking in and out the building (bearing in mind its 50c outside) and across large distances through what looks like a refugee camp. It takes many visits and missed flights to eventually get some idea of the layout and check in process. If you do manage to check in, you then have to encounter a myriad of incompetent, slow and lazy barriers from security through immigration. If your boarding pass is printed on a piece of paper instead of cardboard, you will be sent back to do your check-in all over again.

On arriving in the country you can spend hours trying to get through immigration along with teaming masses of other poor souls (South East Asian migrant labour) with people running between queues as one is closed whilst her majesty there takes a phone call, wanders off to the toilet, or just simply closes up her booth having lost interest. You can end up at the back end of a queue again many times doing this. The airport completely lacks any signage or common sense. Asking for help or information is a pointless waste of time. Nobody knows, or nobody cares (unless you are lucky enough to find an Indian or Philippino member of staff), but then they are almost always completely powerless to help. Its also filthy.

Unfortunately it sums up almost Kuwait infrastructure and management. What a contrast to places like Doha, Dubai and Abu Dhabi. Worst of all, this was not too many decades ago the most advanced and progressive country in the region. What a absolute shame. 0/10 is all this miserable horror of an place deserves. Unfortunately the minimum one can give is 1/10.

The average score for the airport is a 2/10. We need the new airport now more than ever. [Source]

Winner: GIA
I remember when I moved back to Kuwait after university. People were getting rather health crazy, doing Atkin’s diet and going paleo, freaking out about salt and trans fats and the like.

But in Kuwait, Burger King had unveiled the “Mozza Double Whopper”; two patties of beef with a patty of mozzarella cheese in between. My friends at the gahwa were ordering shish taouk because they wanted to eat grilled chicken instead of fried, but it would come smothered in garlic may and wrapped in buri (friend bread).

Things have changed since. People are jumping on boxes and waving ropes and swinging cannonballs with handles. Maybe GIA is the response to Kuwait’s recent health craze. A healthy place that doesn’t takes like cardboard dog food. It’s the perfect place for a quick healthy substantial lunch or the inevitable compromise your obnoxiously indecisive friends will agree on for dinner. It probably singlehandedly revitalised Al Khalid square. Not that success in Kuwait is a measure of quality, but they had to expand within the first year they opened. We usually over-order for the next day when we get it. Great dining, take-away, or delivery.

Runner up: Street
Street opened up to much fanfare. They have a limited number of seats and limited items on the menu. Rather than having an encyclopedia of mediocrity, they’ve focused and refined their menu. That shows that the chef, Faisal Al Nashmi has confidence in his menu. Respect. There’s nothing I hate more than a place with something for one. The surrounding chaos of garbage and parked cars disappears beneath you as you walk up the staircase to be confronted by a small, glass-enclosed, art space. Go there. Get some buns before they become the next big thing in Kuwait to be ruined by the scale economics!

Winner: GIA
GIA is one of those places you hope people would copy instead of opening another burger place. Although I completely hate the fact they reheat their food in the microwave, if you stick to their salads or their sandwiches which they freshly make then you can’t go wrong. What they’ve been able to accomplish over the past year is just extraordinary, not only have they made healthy food a fad, but they’ve single handedly transformed the dead complex they’re located in, to a trendy place where markets are being held. The fact I know what quinoa is and the reason I started liking quinoa was because of GIA and I think it’s the same for a lot of people.

Runner up: Healthy Feast
The way I describe Healthy Feast to friends is the kind of food GIA should have started making after they expanded. After having the same quinoa salads over and over I just can’t have it anymore without wanting to puke. So Healthy Feast was a breath of fresh air, great healthy food that is freshly prepared and doesn’t involve quinoa (unless you want it to). I’m now usually there at least once a week.

This is going to be a long one.
Winner: LITERALLY NO ONE WINS. LITERALLY.

I watched Van Helsing a few years ago. It’s a shitty movie with Hugh Jackman and Kate Beckinsale. Early in the movie, Van Helsing goes to Kate Beckinsale’s village, only to be attacked by 3 sexy flying vampire women. Because the flying sexy vampires are sexy, anytime there was a closeup of one of them, the frames were cut. The Flying Sexies would just die off one at a time. I remember this because at one point, the last remaining Sexie was outside flying around and screaming then suddenly CUTCUTCUT she’s inside already turned to ash around a crossbow bolt to her now visible chest. The editing was so jarring that I literally felt sick, like being in strobe lights for too long. I got up and walked out of the Cinema in Kuwait for the last time.

So why do we censor such things but not violence? Think about this, if a movie showed a woman getting her arm taken off, not a problem. Shirt taken off, problem. A horde of zombies grab someone and bite their goddamn face off, no problem. Someone kisses their wife for good luck before embarking on some death-defying last-ditch effort against all odds. That’s a fucking problem. “Tsk. Why are you kissing? Ha? Who told you to kiss? Tsk. Shino hatha? There’s a camera here and we can all see you. Tsk. Respect yourselves.”

They also censor blasphemy. When the bad guy says, “I will be a god” or something like that, I know it’s wrong. He’s an asshole. What do you expect? That’s why we’re all paying money. To sit here silently in the dark and watch someone kick his ass. Why do I need that part of his asshole behaviour to be kept from me? Doesn’t context matter?

Whether they censor a brief kiss from the movie or cut a movie into spastic chaos, it doesn’t matter to me. The result is the same; I am ripped away from the movie and put into a movie theatre sitting next to the sonofabitch friend that convinced me to give this shit another chance. (You lied to me Mohi, you lied right to my face.)

So now people are reduced to looking up the running time of the film from the cinema companies here and comparing them with the actual running time of the film to see how much of the movie is cut. Some friends of mine went to watch Rush Hour 2 or 3. It was literally an hour long. Allegedly, films are watched by a panel of men. The men have a button each. They press the button when something is worth censoring. It doesn’t take a consensus, just one to be offended. The process is then repeated through a panel of women. Allegedly. But I believe it just because of how ridiculous it sounds.

Now think about this, and this is what drives me to rage, a group of people, that have never met you, watch something uncut, on your behalf, to mark the things that you would not be able to handle, and remove them from your experience. We are treated as children. Undeveloped enough to be able to comprehend reality from film. The whole thing is institutionally condescending. And honestly, what’s the point of censoring movies when everyone has OSN at home and the internet everywhere else they go? At this point is it little more than a empty gesture of righteousness?

TL;DR
I won’t go to the cinemas here or anywhere films are censored. Even if it’s just a kiss. Even if it’s a kids movie. Because they censored the lion king. The Lion King.

Runner up: Cinemagics
I was the man with the plan behind the Game of Thrones private cinema night that Mark wrote about. I loved that place. What a fun night. And is there anything more enjoyable than watching a movie on a rooftop in Old Salmiya on a cool winter night? Fantastic movies and beautiful viewing areas, I can’t recommend Cinemagics enough. If you’ve never experienced it, do yourselves a favour and check them out.

Winner:Cinemagics
I’ve been posting about the Cinemagics rooftop movies for years now and every year they keep making it better. This year for example they replaced the previously uncomfortable chairs with super comfy air sofas. They also added a live food station and their movie choices are also unmatched. Best part is you can watch their movies for free and thats because Cinemagics is trying to contribute to the development of an internationally competitive Kuwaiti audio-visual production industry, partly by bringing the filmmakers and audiences together and by increasing the public’s interest in – and appreciation for – the art of film-making. And to top it all off, they’re located down the street from where I live. An easy winner here.

Runner up: Cinescape 360 Mall
I have to agree with Nima regarding the censorship issue, I stopped watching movies for a long time in Kuwait because I got pissed off after going to watch The Simpsons and realizing it was censored. But I’ve recently started going back to the movies again but now I make sure whatever I watch isn’t censored, or at least minor censorship, like I wouldn’t mind one kissing scene being chopped. That said, the movie theater I frequent the most, or should I say the only theater I actually go to now is the Cinescape one at 360 Mall. Its aesthetically pleasing and their IMAX 3D theater is the best one in Kuwait from what I’m aware of (let me know if there is a better one cuz I’d love to check it out). Note to Cinescape, just buy cinescape.com already, it’s what I always type before realizing I need to go to kncc.com instead.

Vetrina is a new app that was launched just over a week ago and it’s basically a Kuwait instagram shop directory. Since there are a ton of instagram accounts selling products in Kuwait, it makes it difficult to find what you’re looking for especially since there is no proper search feature built into instagram (People shouldn’t really be selling stuff on instagram anyway, they should have an online store but that’s another subject for another day). What Vetrina does is take all these instagram shops and organizes them in categories making it easy to find what you want. It’s pretty cool but one annoying aspect is that none of the products I looked at had their prices listed, instead it just said “Ask For Price”. That automatically kills the impulse buy factor for me.

The app just launched so I’m sure the price issue will probably be resolved further down the line. The app is available for iPhone and Android devices and you can check out their website for more details [Link]

In a move that will make privacy advocates cringe, Kuwait passed a law yesterday making DNA tests mandatory for all residents. According to the AFP, people who refuse testing will face a year in prison and a hefty fine.

The draconian law will establish a comprehensive database of all residents in Kuwait, presumably making it easier for law enforcement to track down criminals after the fact. The country’s 1.3 million citizens and 2.9 million foreign residents will all be affected. Roughly $400 million has been set aside to implement the national DNA database program.

Many countries, including England, Sweden and the United States, routinely store the DNA of convicted criminals. Kuwait’s program would be the first such mandatory DNA test for every resident of a given country, regardless of criminal history. [Gizmodo]

Not sure how I feel about this. Don’t think I’m allowed to have feelings on this anyway, it’s compulsory so if I don’t like it I’ll have to GTFO or else I’ll have to spend a year in jail.

Last week after posting my review on the Lexus IS 350 I got a phone call from VW regarding the Golf since I had left a comment about how they don’t want me to drive their cars. Awhile back I had sent them a couple of emails requesting to test drive the car but no one had ever gotten back to me. Actually one person did the first time I sent an email and they told me they didn’t have the car available for a test drive, but they’d call me back once they did. The second email just never got through due it turns out to a technical glitch from their side. The marketing manager was fairly apologetic about that and told me they had a Golf GTI ready and that I could pass by and pick it up anytime I wanted to. So an hour later I was leaving the VW dealership in a hot red hatch for the weekend.

I have a personal connection with the Golf. My granddad in Lebanon had the original Golf MKI which my family used to use during our summer holidays. It was a great car, compact and really reliable. The car I believe was a 1977 model but stayed in the family up until the late 90s. When I moved to Lebanon for university my first car was also a Golf, the MKIII. It was the car I learned to drive on and in the two years I had it, I managed to get 14 flat tires (stupid potholes) and 7 accidents. Sounds bad but it’s because of the Golf I’m a much better driver today. The car then moved on to my sister who continued the tradition of carelessly driving into giant potholes as well as hitting other cars. Sadly though, she still sucks at driving today. The Golf took a lot of abuse before we finally sold it. I still miss the car and wish I still had it but it’s probably in a better place now. Since then the Golf has gone through four facelifts and the current model is the Golf MKVII.

So yeah I love Golfs and I was in love with the current model even before driving it. And now after spending the weekend with the car I’m seriously contemplating getting one. I tend to do this with every car I test drive which isn’t healthy obviously, I even did it with the Ferrari 458 Spider and the McLaren. You can just imagine the conversation I had in my head trying to convince myself how it’s possible the 458 could replace my FJ Cruiser as my daily driver. Most of the time though the itch wears off a few days later and I start looking for another car to test drive. This time, I’m not sure if the feeling is going to go away.

The new Golf GTI is just a blast to drive. The seating position is fantastic, the handling is ridiculous and it just takes a few minutes to feel super confident driving it. I was also driving like a douche, cutting people off and trying to squeeze between cars. Its how I used to drive my own Golf and I guess I was just reliving the old days. Because of the extremely accurate handling, Golfs are known to be great for “inbetweens” which is the art of trying to squeeze yourself between two cars by creating a new lane between them. Luckily, no sideview mirrors were lost in the making of this review. Seriously though the car is so much fun to drive and the more powerful Golf R is supposed to be even more fun which is insane.

One thing that surprised the hell out of me was the car’s AC. I wouldn’t usually mention the AC in a review but this past weekend the weather was really hot and the car spent a lot of time parked in the sun yet the AC was so powerful it would give Toyota a run for their money. On the other hand I found the sound system disappointing with really boomy bass, a small claustrophobic screen and no navigation. For those of you who’re interested in the back seats, there’s pretty good legroom and like all Golf’s the rear seats fold down turning the already large trunk into an IKEA friendly one.

There are two Golf’s available to purchase in Kuwait, the Golf GTI and the Golf R (they don’t get standard non GTI or R Golfs). The Golf GTI in Kuwait comes fully loaded with features such as the performance package, auto parking, rearview camera and sunroof and costs KD10,600. If I was getting the GTI I would custom order it (which is possible) and not have the auto parking option (because I can park myself) and instead get the upgraded sound system with navigation. The Golf R is the most powerful version of the Golf with more horsepower than the GTI, an all wheel drive system, upgraded sound system with navigation and leather seats. But the Golf R also costs KD14,800.

I’m having a real hard time trying to decide if I’d be willing to swap my FJ for the Golf. I’ve already been researching Golf bike mounts and roof bars that can hold wakeboards. But, I’ve also kinda gotten used to being able to drive over anything and on anything so thats going to be something hard to let go of. If you’re interested in test driving the Golf or if you’re looking for more information, then check out the dealers website [Here]

Starting October, GCC expats will no longer be able to get a visa on arrival to the UAE. Instead, GCC expats are required to apply for a visa online before the trip. The idea behind this is do reduce long queues for on-site visa applications and payment at the airport. They’ve already started the online service and a friend of mine just applied for his visa online and the total amount he had to pay was AED230 (around KD19).

Although the graphic above has been making its way around whatsapp, according to online news sources [1,2] it’s not accurate. Applying for an online visa became possible starting May 15th but visitors will continue to be able to get visas on arrival until October. You can apply for visas online at [ednrd.ae]

Thanks Fahad

Last week was a pretty eventful one for me and it all started Monday morning when I headed to Khiran for my wakeboard session. I spent the first half of the session doing jumps and the second half learning to ride switch. Just before the session was over I figured I would perform some more jumps and thats when I messed up. I got a bit over confident and rushed into a jump and ended up taking off wrong and then landing nose first into the water. The board immediately sank into the water and then snapped back out again aggressively which is when I felt an instant pain in my ankle area. Right away I knew I was hurt and so I took off the board and swam back to the boat before heading back to shore. When I got to shore I picked up my board and gear and started walking towards my car. I could barely put any weight on my left leg without feeling pain but I kept heading towards the car since I just wanted to get home. While leaving Khiran I found a bakala van so I pulled up and bought a bag of ice which I then used to ice my ankle while driving back home. It was around an hour drive to get home and a painful one. By the time I got home my ankle has swollen up to the size of a large mango I googled sprained ankles online and how to treat them and started following instructions. I didn’t think it was too bad, figured I might need 2 weeks or so to get all better.

A few hours later I decided to head to a doctor. While reading about ankle sprains online I realized there were three levels of sprains and my symptoms didn’t really fit under any one of them. So I visited a doctor so I could find out exactly how badly sprained my ankle was. I headed to International Clinic and saw and orthopedic doctor there. He made me move my ankle a few directions and it didn’t seem like I had any muscle problems. So he told me just to be safe we should do an x-ray. I had an x-ray done and when I got back to his room he was like I have some bad news, you’ve got a fracture. I was like whaaaaaattttt?? He was like not only do you have a fracture but you need surgery, we need to insert two screws to connect the dislodged bone back to your ankle. I was in complete shock and became sad and depressed. Right away in my head I was thinking that means no more wakeboarding, it means no more gym and it means I wouldn’t be able to go snowboarding in Sweden the following week. I just imagined myself sitting on the couch for a month pigging out on junk food and gaining like a zillion kilos. I told him I needed to get a second opinion and he completely understood that. We wrapped my leg in a half cast and I headed home.

I was sad and upset for like an hour before my mood and feelings about the whole thing completely changed. I basically had a little chat with myself in my head. I asked myself what do I prefer? No extreme sports but also no injuries, or would I rather have fun and enjoy life but every now and then get injured? I obviously prefer the later and right away my mind started working trying to solve various issues. How will I go grocery shopping? Simple I’ll order my groceries from Saveco since they deliver. How will I shower? How will I do my laundry? How can I make breakfast? One by one I found answers and solutions to all my questions. I didn’t want my fractured ankle to change anything in my life. I figured I can even continue to go to the gym but I would just weight-lift while seated or lying on my back. I accepted my injury and started feeling so much better about the whole thing, I started looking at the injury like a cool scar and I was kinda proud of it.

The next day I headed to Seef Hospital for a second opinion. I saw the doctor there and he told me the exact same thing, I needed surgery and two screws. I tried to schedule the surgery for the same day but we ended up scheduling it for the next day 8AM. I didn’t want to wait, I just wanted to get it done with and start the recovery process. I asked about the brand of screws I was going to get inserted. I figured if they’re going to be in me I wanted the best screws available. He told me I was going to get two titanium Stryker screws which were some of the best, I tried googling reviews funnily but obviously didn’t find any. I noticed the color of the screw online was purple and was going to ask him if I could choose the color I wanted but decided that might be a bit too anal of me.

Wednesday morning at 6AM I checked into my room at Seef Hospital. I had such a beautiful view but really wasn’t in the mood to appreciate it at that moment. I never had a surgery before, this was going to be my first one and I was going to get two screws drilled into me. I was quiet and emotionless. Whenever I am in a situation where I should be scared I instead feel nothing, no fear or anything, I just become quiet and didn’t care that I was having a surgery in an hour. Anyway to cut it short, I ended up having the surgery and it went well. I spent the morning falling in and out of consciousness because I was so sleepy. I wasn’t in pain and I ended up checking out later in the evening around 8PM. I hadn’t told my friends or anyone about the surgery, I just wanted to go through it alone and I found the whole process very therapeutic.

I’m now moving about normally although very slowly because I’m using crutches. Crutches by the way are such a workout, I was worried at first that I was going to end up turning into a couch potato but because the crutches are such a workout, I’m actually feeling fit. I’ve customized my crutches with stickers to try and make them look less medical. I’m still eating healthy, I just cheated with my last meal before surgery by having a burger but since the surgery I haven’t cheated at all. I’m taking a break from my gym this week but will hopefully start going back next Saturday. The doctor told me I can start putting some weight on my ankle starting from next week so thats good news. The most difficult thing I’ve been dealing with is making my bed every morning, it’s such a slow process using crutches but I’m getting it done. I’ve also been doing laundry, ironing and the dishes all while standing on one leg. My right leg is definitely going to bulk up over the next few weeks,

One thing I’ve noticed is I hate the way some strangers look at me with pity because I’m on crutches. It really bothers me because I don’t want anybodies pity, I’m doing just fine and I can take care of myself. I noticed Sultan Center Shaab have a wheel chair and a motorized scooter at the entrance for those who need it. It’s an extremely nice gesture but there is no way I would use them. I don’t want to feel helpless or weak so I would rather exhaust myself hopping around with crutches then take a wheelchair or scooter. I noticed whatever I do, I try not to show any weakness, even when I went to the hospital for my surgery I went and stayed in my gym gear. When I’m hopping around with crutches… I always have a smile on my face. The psychology behind all this has been entertaining.

I’m finding this whole experience with my ankle and crutches to be so educational and interesting. I am so not bothered by my fracture at all anymore, in fact what it’s done is slowed my life down, something which I needed to do anyway. I have been feeling so much more relaxed and less stressed since I hurt my ankle last week. I’m also having fun solving all these puzzles of trying to do stuff with crutches and one leg. The doctor said I can remove my cast after 5 weeks and then I can then start my rehab. I think time is going to fly by pretty quickly.