I used to purchase my US Apple store and iTunes digital cards from Xcite but someone a few months ago left a comment on my blog letting me know I could actually purchase them from Amazon. I assumed that would be the cheapest option since Amazon is selling the $100 gift card for $100, with no extra fees or commission which I assumed Xcite or any other store locally would be adding.
But, Redditor noooris did a bit of math and turns out if you purchase the $100 gift card from Xcite for 29.750 KD, you’re actually only paying $98.94 for it once converted to US Dollars. On the other hand, it cost me 31.072 KD to purchase the $100 gift card from Amazon after converting the amount to Dinars.
So if like me you routinely purchase Apple cards to top off your US Apple Store account, Xcite is the cheapest option I’m aware of for purchasing $100 cards. Here is the Xcite Link
Update: Xcite have now increased the price of the $100 card to KD31. So it’s back to ordering from Amazon again.
Decathlon, the French sporting goods retailer opened their second store in Kuwait at The Avenues Phase I. They’re the third sports shop to open in that very location, GoSports was the first followed by Lillywhites and both ended up closing down. But, Decathlon are doing things a bit differently since they were able to take over some shops on the main side and open up a main entrance there. They now have two entrances, one off to the side where GoSports and Lillywhites had their entrances, and a second new main entrance in the front. This could make a world of a difference to them trafficwise.
The store itself is pretty huge, not as big as their Marina Mall location but I didn’t notice anything that was missing. All the main sections are there just a bit smaller than the Marina location. For some more photos you can check out their post on Instagram here
A few years ago, I posted about digitizing your old videos using a video capture device that plugs into your computer. It’s a great way to convert all tapes, but the downside is you needed the actual tape player. If you just had videotapes but no means of playing them then the capture device was pretty much useless. This was my dilemma, I had an old Betamax tape of a school ski trip and no means to play it. I considered buying a Betamax player but the cheapest I found was 50KD and so wasn’t going to be worth it for just one video.
Someone ages ago told me Al-Nazaer converted videos but since all their stores closed down years ago I couldn’t just visit them and ask them about it. So last week while feeling nostalgic I decided to call their head office in Subhan and ask about it. Turns out they have a small media academy in Hawalli that was still functional, and that’s where their digital conversion studio was located.
I headed straight to the studio with my Betamax tape and headed to their conversion studio. I asked if they could convert Betamax tapes and they said yes and took my tape and played it on their screen so we could check and see if it was working. A few seconds later my 11-year-old self popped up on the screen.
It was the first time I had ever seen myself as a kid in the 80s on video and it felt SO WEIRD!
During the 1990 invasion, we took most of our family videos to Lebanon and stored them away in our family home without any means to watch them. So no one in my family has watched any of our family videos that were filmed in the 80s for 30+ years. Since I had no idea what was on this video and since I had never seen myself on video as a kid, it felt like I was watching a video of myself in another dimension. That’s the best way I could describe it in words, it was a very strange feeling.
But anyway, back to the subject of converting videos, Al Nazaer can convert any video format to digital. So camcorder videos like Hi8 or miniDV, VHS tapes and Betamax tapes are all no issues. The cost of converting depends on the kind of tapes you have and how many you want to convert. They charged me KD10 to convert a single Betamax tape and I got the footage on a DVD as well as a digital file. The more tapes you have the better price. Their studio is located on the first floor of the building across the street from Muhallab Mall. Their phone number is 1888900 and here is their location on Google Maps.
Back in 2014, a German documentary on used tires aired and Kuwait was featured prominently in it due to having the world’s largest used tires mountain. Recently the documentary made its way to YouTube and in English with no region lock and I just watched it now. Although a few years old I think the documentary is still worth watching although some things have changed since then.
Since the documentary aired I believe at least two tire recycling facilities have been set up including Green Rubber Recycling whom I posted about last year.
When I visited the tires graveyard back in 2012, the tires were all piled together in one large pile (pictured above). Due to safety issues and the continuous number of fires that take place there, the tires are now compartmentalized into smaller piles so that if a fire breaks out it’s contained in one area. Fires happen so frequently that it even shows on Google Maps.
While watching the documentary above just be aware that the info is not up to date. YouTube
Good Game, the popular tabletop gaming store is finally allowed to have in-game play at their store again. The only provision is that you need to be vaccinated to do so. If you are vaccinated then you will need to show your green vaccinated status on the Immune app to play or participate in any events at the store.
It’s hard to tell from these videos if the vaccination drives were only for mall employees or open to the public but whatever the criteria was, it looks like it was total chaos.
There was also a video that showed a police officer aggressively shoving and hitting people waiting in line to get vaccinated. After the video went viral the MOI quickly released a statement saying they’ve summoned the involved officer for questioning and that it was an individual act and in no way reflects the police department’s mission which is to serve and protect the community.
Has anyone else noticed how active and reactionary the MOI Instagram account has become? Whenever there is an incident that goes viral they’re always on top of it. From all the government accounts I think the MOI and Traffic Department are my two favorites.
Last week I found this old 80s KDD advert and one thing that struck me about it was the sheer amount of flavors that don’t exist anymore. And, on top of all the missing flavors, turns out KDD had push-up ice cream (back row, right of the Rockets)which I don’t ever recall. Also if you’re wondering about the blue and green colored ice cream sticks in the back, the green is coconut flavored but the blue I’m not sure. You’ll also notice two Columbia flavors, turns out they’re both similar except one doesn’t have the ice cream center.
A lot of people who registered in December have been leaving comments that they still haven’t gotten their vaccine appointment. One reader just left the comment below that might be helpful and worth giving a shot:
All expats that I know who registered in December did not get vaccinated. I think there is a problem with the December data.
151 will not help you, go to the counter in Mishrif and tell them that you registered in December and still did not get vaccinated. They will redo your registration and with in 72 hours you will get an SMS.
Between 1895 and 1909, Russel Hamilton an English petty officer made various voyages from Egypt to Japan stopping along the way. One stop was Kuwait where he took these two black and white photographs with captions on the back.
The caption on top reads:
Shiek of Koweit and followers. Note that some have covered faces, fearing evil eye of camera.
The caption below reads:
Taken during bombardment of Koweit. Somali outrage led by the “mad mullah” – Sheiks Pallace Koweit
If you’d like to see these photos in hi-res, click here.
Yesterday I uploaded some old photos of Family Bookshop to Flickr which I had taken back in 2011 before they closed down. I had always assumed that the Salmiya location of Family Bookshop was the first and only branch but turns out that wasn’t the case,
The Family Bookshop started off as bible shops around the region by the Danish Missionary Society with the one in Kuwait opening up in 1910. But in the 60s, as part of their literature mission they decided to build a new concept called the Family Bookshop Group (FBG) with the following objectives:
To print the Gospel
Encourage dialogue between Muslims and Christians
Provide all Christian churches in the region with literature and auxiliary materials, provide society with quality literature and other books primarily in Arabic and English
Seek the best possible cooperation with various Christian churches
Develop a self-supporting organization by efficient leadership
Offer education and encourage Arab Christians to become booksellers
Develop cooperation between the bookshops and coordinate a future development
From what I could gather there were two Family Bookshops in Kuwait. One at the American Mission Hospital (now the Amricani Culture Center) which opened in 1969 and pictured at the very top of this post. Then there was a second branch located in Salmiya which also opened up in 1969 (pictured above).
I think it was Salmiya because in the photo above taken outside their 1969 location, the building in the background on the far right of the photo looks like the building in Salmiya which the Family Bookshop we know was located in. I believe the building they were in got demolished so they moved to the location across the street in 1971 (pictured below).
The Salmiya Family Bookshop which most of us know eventually closed down in February 2013 when they were evicted from their premises and the building demolished.
The store manager at that time who you might recognize if you were a regular was Jaswinder Singh. He joined Family Bookshop in 1979 as a part time accountant before eventually become the manager. He’s now retired and back in India, but his daughter runs the bookstore @little_bees_books
Last week I was looking for something on Google and ended up stumbling across an old picture of Salmiya which I hadn’t seen before. I started digging around looking for a higher resolution version and turned out I had actually posted the photo on my blog back in 2009 with a bunch of other old photos.
My memory is terrible and I’ve published over 12,000 posts so there is no way I can remember everything. I tried to find a higher resolution version of the photo online but everyone else had taken it off my blog so I couldn’t find one. So I decided to go through my emails to see if the source had originally sent me better quality scans. Turns out he had scanned the images in high res but because they were over 160MB he only sent me low res versions. I decided to randomly reply back to that person’s original email 12 years later asking if he still had the high res images. Turns out he did! He sent me a link to all the photos and I downloaded them and just put them up on Flickr and you can check them out here.
Anyway, I wanted to do a before and after comparison of Salmiya and you can view that in high res here. It’s impressive how many old buildings are still there but sadly they haven’t been maintained and are all in a state of disrepair. The whole neighborhood honestly is disastrously mishandled with no sidewalks or parking spots and loads of large open garbage bins that stink up the neighborhood. My neighborhood has so much potential and it’s sad I can’t do anything about it.
Back in March my Garmin dash cam stopped working, I found out by mistake when trying to retrieve a video of an accident I thought I had captured only to find out my dash cam hadn’t been recording any footage for 2 years. I thought it was my dash cam that had failed but turned out it was the fault of my memory card. By then the local Garmin dealer had already seen my post and got in touch with me so they could send me their new Garmin Dash Cam 66W to replace my old one. Exciting!
I had my Garmin dashcam for 7 years and back when I had purchased it, the main selling point to me was how compact it was. But, compared to the new Garmin, my old one now looks HUGE (check the photo above). The size difference is enormous, not only because the dash cam itself is a lot smaller, but Garmin also redesigned the windshield mount making it much more compact. My new dash cam is so small it’s hidden behind my rear view mirror, I literally can’t see it when driving.
Another cool feature about the new Garmin that I love is the ability to connect to it with Wifi to adjust the settings, update the firmware and most importantly, view and download footage. Previously to view the footage I’d have to remove the memory card from my dash cam, take it home, connect it to my computer and then access the footage. When I’m done I then had to remember to take the memory card back down to my car the next time I leave my house which I obviously always forget to do. It was a hassle so I love how I can just connect to the camera from my phone directly. Without removing the memory card I can now connect to the Garmin, find the video I want, select which part of the video I want to download, and then download it to my phone. This is extremely practical, I really can’t emphasize how useful this feature is.
The two features above were really the most important for me, but there are a bunch of other features that other people might be interested in, for example, the Garmin has the ability to notify you of upcoming speed cameras. The 66W has GPS built-in and access to Garmin’s local database of speed camera locations so it can alert you if you’re getting close to one. The dash cam also has an extra-wide 180-degree field of view and records videos at 1440p. My previous dash cam had a 120-degree field of view and would record videos in 1080p but I never had an issue with the field of view or video resolution in my old camera. But, one thing I’m curious about with the new dashcam is how well it performs in the evening but due to our curfew I can’t test that out right now. During the day though, especially when the sky is blue, the footage is pretty sharp and clean and only starts to get noisy when the sun starts setting but that’s pretty normal.
Here are some other random features the cam has which I personally don’t care about:
– Forward collision warning
– Lane departure warning
– Voice control
– Travelapse
– Incident detection
– Go feature which notifies you when stopped traffic in front of you has started to move
As usual, I like to leave the negatives till the end and this camera has two. The first is the fact that it’s pretty slow transferring videos over wifi. It takes around 30 seconds to download 13 seconds of footage so you need to be veryyyy patient. The second downside is the price. The Garmin 66w costs KD75 which is right at the top end of the dashcam market. You do get a lot for that price and the build quality is miles apart from cheaper counterparts, but it’s still a lot of money especially when you can find decent ones at a third of the price.
Based on some recommendations from my readers I also ended up buying one of the most popular and cheapest dash cams from Amazon and I’ll be posting a review of that one soon. I’ll also do a comparison with this Garmin but I can tell you from now that once I got the Garmin I stopped using that other dash cam. The main reason was how cheap the other camera felt but also because of basic things like the user interface and the horrible LCD screen of the other one. But, if you’re interested in getting or checking out the Garmin dash cams, here is the link to the local dealer’s website.
I remember a time when people were complaining about the lack of bookshops in Kuwait, well things have changed drastically. Below is a list of all the English bookshops I’m aware of in Kuwait. If I missed any let me know in the comments.
The video above is the most detailed tour of the new airport Terminal 2 so far. It was shot earlier this month and the engineer in the video takes us through all the different important areas of the airport showing the current status. According to the video the terminal is meant to be completed in August 2022 which I find hard to believe based on the progress shown. But, they do mention that although the airport construction is going at full force, due to covid some of their suppliers aren’t working at 100% and so that might end up causing delays.
In any case, right now I miss traveling so much that I don’t mind our old airport, so they can take their time with T2 as long as we get to fly out again soon from any of our airports. To stay posted on the progress of the airport you can follow @t2.engineers on instagram.
Around a week before they closed restaurants in Kuwait for dine-in, 360 Mall opened up their foodhall. A foodhall is similar to a food court except instead of fast-food restaurants they’re more upscale or artisan. I passed by to check the space out and I thought it looked great with a good variety of places to eat at including some brand new places.
Even with dine-in closed it’s still worth passing by it and picking up food to go. The new foodhall is located at the end of the new 360 Mall extension near Ikea and Nike.
Here is a list of all the places open inside the new foodhall, hopefully I didn’t miss anything:
