Charged is a local company that sells electric car charging stations for commercial and home use. They popped up on my Instagram feed last week and then spotted one of their charging stations at the Mishref Coop this weekend while picking up pastries from Caesars. Then randomly, yesterday someone on Reddit linked to their website where they’ve compiled a list of charging stations around Kuwait. I noticed they had a bunch of places missing so it gave me the idea to put together a more comprehensive list which I’ve shared here:
Abudllah Al Salem Cultural Center
Al-Hamra Tower
Arraya Tower
Environment Public Authority
KFH Auto Showroom
Jaber Al-Ahmad Cultural Centre
Mishrif Coop
Kuwait Institute for Scientific Research KISR
Porsche Dealership
Public Authority for Applied Education and Training
Sabah Al Salem Univerisity City
Shaheed Park
Society of Engineers RFID
The Avenues
West Misrif Coop
X-Cite – Al-Rai
If you’re aware of a charging station that isn’t listed above, let me know.
Big Ramy who started training at Oxygen Gym back in 2010 has become the new Mr. Olympia 2020 Champion. It’s such an incredible feat, basically, the equivalent of winning Miss Universe or the UEFA Championship, but in the bodybuilding world. When Arnold Schwarzenegger was bodybuilding his goal was to become the greatest bodybuilder in the world, that meant becoming Mr. Olympia. He eventually won it 7 times.
A few years ago I posted about how Kuwait was the new bodybuilding mecca of the World and Big Ramy just proved this to be true.
I was just thinking a couple of days ago on different people who started in Kuwait and gained worldwide success, the two people that came into my mind were @pinot and @nouriflayhan since I know them, but Big Ramy is now another local success story.
At the start of the pandemic, I shut down the events section since everything obviously stopped. But, a few things are starting to pop up and I’m going to start posting about them here and once things really take off, only then reopen the events section again. For now here are a few things taking place this weekend:
Looks like Nike is planning to open a much larger store at The Avenues since new construction boards went up under their current store with their branding on it. They recently opened a huge location at the new 360 Mall extension and I’m guessing this new larger location at The Avenues is a reaction to Adidas taking over the Cafe Coco spot right next door.
The reason I’m posting about this is that I find it fascinating how some areas in malls thrive while others are super dead. This alleyway where Nike is planning to open is one of those dead zones so I’m curious to see if a new large Nike store would drive traffic there. I’m gonna be pessimistic and say I don’t think they’ll be able to drive traffic into that alleyway.
Since my Arabic Cartoons from the 80s list did so well I wanted to put together a thorough 80s English Cartoons list. The whole weekend whenever I remembered any cartoon I wrote it down but it still feels like I’ve missed some. But the search did remind me of two very important TV channels growing up. Before satellite TV we only had access to Kuwait TV channels (KTV1 – Arabic, and KTV2 – English) but sometimes when the weather was humid we would pick up Saudi Channel 2 (English) and Dubai Channel 33 (also English).
Anyway here are some of the most memorable cartoons I used to watch in the 80s, if I’ve missed out anything let me know.
Is Netflix about to add a ton of old 80s Arabic cartoons? I hope so because they recently added one of my favorite childhood cartoons, Flona (فلونة). Currently, the only way to watch old cartoons from the 80s is on YouTube and a lot of the episodes are missing and it’s not really practical to binge-watch a series there. If Netflix is gonna start adding these cartoons then I’m suddenly going to have so much content to watch. Here are some of the Arabic cartoons I’d like to see on Netflix (please feel free to mention any Arabic cartoon I missed):
My shawerma life needs a bit of an upgrading. Anytime I feel like having shawerma I tend to hit up the old school place Jeita which is down the street from me or Shawerma Shakir and that’s about it. I passed by another old time favorite recently, Bader Al Badoor but the shawerma was pretty dry and unexciting unlike I remember it so I don’t think I’d go back there. But, yesterday I tried a place on Restaurant Street called One Cut (pictured above) based on a recommendation by @thetravelingapron and it was pretty great. Made me realize I’m probably missing out on so many new shawerma places that have popped up over the years.
So I’m curious, what are your favorite shawerma places right now? Might revive my old Shawerma Review series again (circa 2007) if there are enough places I should check out.
The new extension of Al Shaheed Park is currently under construction and will include a variety of new activities including:
Mountains playground
Maze garden
Outdoor skate and BMX park
Outdoor parkour and sky trail
Karting
Extreme sports building
Ice skating rink and snow park
Indoor Skydiving
The renderings in this post show the new ice skating rink, the indoor karting track and snow park. Our landmark ice skating rink was demolished earlier this year to make way for the new generic ice skating rink, and Discovery Mall is also meant to be demolished next, although nobody is gonna miss that. Check out my previous post on the new extension here.
Back in September I posted about the Kärcher OC 3 portable pressure washer and how great it was. I had purchased it for KD43 from Ace but later found out it was actually mispriced and should have been sold for KD68 (which is too expensive).
But now Xcite is selling the same pressure washer for just KD33. That’s even cheaper than how much I paid!
So if you were interested in the washer but couldn’t find one or thought it was too expensive before, here is the link on Xcite.
• Pioneer and leader in hybrid electric technology, Toyota has crossed the symbolic milestone of 15 million hybrid vehicles sold since the 1997 launch of the iconic Prius, the first full hybrid mass-produced car
• Toyota’s hybrid electric technology has reduced CO2 emissions by more than 120 million tonnes worldwide
In January 2020, Toyota passed the milestone of more than 15 million hybrid electric vehicles (HEV) sales worldwide since the Prius was first launched in 1997.
Toyota’s decision to develop hybrid electric vehicles started over 25 years ago when Takeshi Uchiyamada led a team to develop a car for the 21st century, one which would reduce greenhouse gas emissions and other harmful pollutants. The first-generation Prius was launched in 1997 around the time of the Kyoto Protocol signing, which gave new momentum to the environmental movement.
Today, 15 million hybrid sales later, Toyota has made a significant contribution to the environment as its hybrid electric technology has reduced CO2 emissions by more than 120 million tonnes worldwide to date compared to sales of equivalent petrol vehicles. The company’s original vision has allowed Toyota to be the leader in meeting increasingly stringent emissions regulations around the world.
Across this period, Toyota has seen demand for its hybrid electric vehicles soar as the company has combined this innovative technology with emotional design enabled by the roll-out of its TNGA global platforms. Beyond the current 4th generation hybrid system, Toyota is continuing to refine its hybrid technology to achieve even lower emissions and ever-better fuel efficiency. Today, hybrid electric vehicles are affordable, accessible and convenient for customers in the Middle East.
Hybrid naturally leads to BEV and FCEV
While Toyota believes that HEVs are an essential part of the future overall mix of electrified vehicles, two decades of electrification experience also feed into the company’s multi-powertrain strategy. The company provides and will continue to provide various types of electrified vehicles to reduce emissions based on regulations, market infrastructure and ultimately customer demand. Toyota does not see a one ‘winner takes all’ scenario but a future where the different electrified technologies, including hybrids and plug-ins (PHEV), fuel cell (FCEV) and battery electric (BEV) vehicles, all play a part.
As a result of its long hybrid electric vehicle experience, the company has deep transferable expertise in the core electrification technologies which are common across all form of electrified powertrains, putting them in pole position for an electrified future. Over two decades of continuous development of electric motors, batteries and power control units has taught Toyota how to manage and reuse energy efficiently, providing a range of electrified options for customers through HEVs, PHEVs, BEVs and FCEVs.
In Kuwait since launching the Prius HEV model in February 2016, Mohamed Naser Al Sayer & Sons has launched 6 popular Toyota HEV models including the recently launched Toyota C-HR Cross-over and Highlander SUV.
I don’t remember how I first found out about the Ahmadi Desert Motoring Club (ADMC), or how I came about a picture of their car badge, but when I first saw it I knew I needed to have one. It’s such a great looking badge with the cute desert mouse and beautiful colors, I ended up spending over a year looking for one to purchase and wasn’t able to find a single one for sale, anywhere and for any price! I got in touch with random people whose parents might have been part of the club, I checked small private sllers, large auction sites, I checked with car badge collectors, and nobody either had one or wanted to sell one. Finally, back in September, one went on sale on eBay, and not just any, but one that was in pristine, 10/10 condition. It looked like it had never been installed on a car before and all the enamel was still intact and vibrant. I put a ridiculous maximum bid number since I knew I’d most likely not come across another one ever that was so clean, eventually, I ended up winning the bid for a lot less than I expected, around KD75.
Now that I had the badge I found it very frustrating that I couldn’t dig up any info on the club, there wasn’t anything online except for a single photo from an ADMC Alitalia Darts event dating back to 1964 and that was it. So I got in touch with a friend at KOC and asked him if he could check their archives for any photos or articles on the club and he struck gold.
Turns out KOC had some photos related to the motoring club but they were still negatives which hadn’t been scanned. So they dug them out of their archive and scanned them so I could share them on the blog. These images haven’t been seen by anyone for over 65 years! They also shared some articles relating to the club from the old KOC newsletter called “The Kuwaiti”. The Kuwaiti was a weekly newsletter and he flipped through the 1954 and 1955 archive of the newsletter and sent me some photos of ones relating to the club and motoring in general. Some really interesting stuff.
I’ve decided to share everything in two ways. Firstly I uploaded all the photos and articles to a Flickr album. If you prefer viewing things that way click here.
I’ve also created a PDF file of all the articles and if you prefer viewing the articles that way then click here to download the PDF
For the scanned images I have all of them embedded in high resolution below. The blog will resize them automatically to fit the width of my page, but if you save the images, you can view them in higher resolution on your phone or computer. Check those out by clicking more below.
Finally, I’d like to thank Kuwait Oil Company for digging these photos out and scanning them for me. Now people looking for info on the club will be able to find some kind of information online.
There is an interesting conversation currently on Reddit regarding companies who either reduced salaries because of the pandemic, or who missed or aren’t paying the salaries. Not sure how many of my readers are going through this issue but if you are and want to file a complaint you can do so by contacting the Public Authority of Manpower:
If you missed out on pre-ordering the PlayStation 5, Xcite now has them back in stock (as of this post at 8:30AM). Only the KD166.900 optical drive version is available, the digital version is sold out. If you want to order one, here is the Link
This is such a heartbreaking thing to wake up to, the colorful and beautiful wall mural by the artist Jad El Khoury has been destroyed. The artwork titled “Single Man” was commissioned back in 2016 on the side of the National Council for Culture, Arts and Letters. Jad left Lebanon and came to work in Kuwait and the artwork represented a single person trying to fit into a new chaotic environment. The project was sponsored by Jedareyat, a local volunteer group that scours the city and crowdsources for dead walls and artists who can transform them into picture-worthy landmarks.
I think I’m finding this extremely sad because of what the idea of destroying an artwork like this means. If the National Council for Culture, Arts and Letters doesn’t appreciate art, then who does? Actions like this and the destruction of important landmarks like the Ice Skating Rink make me feel like we’re moving backward and not forward which is really worrying me. I want to express more of my feelings but I also don’t want to get deported so I will just keep it all bottled up inside instead.
