Search: “salmiya”

This is going to be one of my venting posts on Salmiya. The sidewalks situation on Salem Mubarek Street in Salmiya is a horrible mess. It’s a very pedestrian heavy strip, and probably gets the most amount of foot traffic compared to any other strip in Kuwait, yet the sidewalks are miserable.

There are a number of issues with the sidewalks in Salmiya including:
– lack of wheelchair or stroller friendly sidewalks
– building construction occupying the whole sidewalk
– large bushes taking up the whole sidewalk (pictured above)
– sidewalks that have deteriorated
– sidewalks that were opened up for work but never put back together right

Yesterday I spotted the woman in the photo above with her two kids having to get off the sidewalk and walk in the street because of a large bush. Recently I’ve also been noticing a man in an electric wheelchair roaming around Salmiya occupying the same road as the cars. It’s a total mess but of course nobody cares.

/end rant

The popular breakfast spot The Early Bird is expanding with two new locations. The first (pictured above) is going to be located in Central Plaza Salmiya, the same mall that houses International Optics and Costa Coffee.

The second new location and the one I’m interested in is going to be in Crystal Tower in Kuwait City. It’s the same tower as my gym and right across the street from Arabica Coffee.

No idea when they’re opening up.

If you’re looking to go out to sea with a bunch of friends and don’t own a yacht then this may be of interest to you. Silsan is a marina company that has a bunch of yachts available for rent. Their prices start from KD15 an hour and can go up to as much as KD85 an hour depending on the size and kind of yacht. They also have different departure points like Salmiya and Khiran. These prices are per hour, per boat and not per person. So its KD15 if you’re 2 people or 8 people as long as the number doesn’t exceed the yachts maximum carrying capacity. These prices also includes the crew.

To check out what yachts are available to rent click this [Link]
To book a yacht you can call them up on 25650674

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]

A few years ago I posted about my favorite place to print digital photos, Boushahri off of Baghdad Street in Salmiya. Since that post two things have happened, first they merged or got bought out (not sure which) by their old competitor Ashkanani who used to be located across the street from them. The second thing that happened is they changed locations.

Saturday night I passed by their old Baghdad Street location to print some photos and found them closed. So I passed by yesterday morning and they were still closed. I just figured their Ramadan timings were weird and I was missing them. Then by chance last night, I was walking over from my apartment building to the ATM machine in the building next door when I came across their new location. I recognized all the employees before I noticed the sign outside and walked in. Turns out they had just moved to the new location this past Saturday.

Ashkanani can print your digital photos in various sizes, I usually print them in 10×15 and it costs 150fils per photo. For film lovers they also sell 35mm film in their store and they can also develop any size of film including 35mm and 120mm (as long as its color film).

So if you’re looking for a place to develop your photos, here is their location on [Google Maps]. If you’re driving there then I would recommend you park in the lot next to McDonalds across the street.

Update: Found a cheaper and quicker place to develop film. Click here for more info.

Yesterday I mentioned I found an old copy of a Kuwait TV Guide from 1989, what I failed to mention is that I bought it from an antique shop. I thought I had posted about these antique shops before, but when I searched through my blog, I couldn’t find anything about them. There is a basement in old Salmiya near Marina Mall filled with shops that sell antiques.

I passed by there last week since I needed to pick up a few items to use as props for a clients photoshoot, and thats when I got the old TV guide and a few other things. The shop I was in actually had a whole bunch of old TV guides along with a whole lot of old magazines and newspapers (even books) from the 50s and 60s all the way up to the 90s. I ended up buying a few things, a copy of “Majala Al Kuwait” from 1975, two 8-track tapes, the old TV guide and most importantly, a 7-inch vinyl record for the song “Haydoo – Our Camel, Lovely Camel”. If you aren’t familiar with the history of this song, I posted about it back in 2006 and its still an interesting read today. Here is the [Post]

Off of my head I think there are around 8 shops located in that basement all of which sell old memorabilia. There is one store that specializes in old records and another in old coins and rare bank notes, but most sell stuff you grew up with as a kid. In between all this randomness you’ll also find some super odd things like Nazi memorabilia.

The opening hours of the shops are pretty random since from my experience the owners are rarely there. But the building caretaker has the keys and will let you in if the shops are closed. If you find something you like he can take a photo and whatsapp it to the owner to get you a price but it also makes haggling more difficult. If you’re interested in checking these places out, the shops are located in the basement of a corner building near Marina Mall. The ground floor has shops that sell hair products but the basement is all antique stores. Here is the location on [Google Maps]

A few days ago I posted about the app Q8 Grand Limo which I promoted as an alternative for Uber and Careem. That same night they sent out an SMS with a 248AM coupon code which would offer people 20% off on their trips. It kinda pissed me off since they sent it without contacting me first, nor did they even ask me if it was OK to use my brand. Nobody from Q8 Grand Limo had spoken to me at all so when I got the SMS myself, I was surprised and pissed. So I decided I wasn’t going to write about them ever again.

Then this morning I decided to try them out and had such a great experience I decided that even though I’m pissed off at them, they were so good that it would be a shame not to write about my experience.

I had to pass by the Lotus garage and pick up my car today so I pre-booked a ride for 9:30AM. I ended up waking up earlier than expected so canceled my pre-booking and reordered a cab to come right away. The time estimate given was 15 minutes and I could track the cab on his way over to my house via the app. Once the cab arrived, like with Uber, I got a notification letting me know he was here and I headed down to find a sparkling clean black Chrysler with dark tinted windows and a tan leather interior. The driver even came out to open the door for me and he was dressed in black pants, a white shirt, a black vest and a tie. First impression, it felt very fancy.

The driver had my location already plugged into Google Maps and we headed towards Rai using Google’s recommended fastest route. Once we got to my destination, he asked me how I wanted to pay and I said Knet, so he pulled out the Knet machine and I paid. The trip should have cost KD3 which is a steal for the experience, but I ended up using the coupon code “248AM” which they had spammed people with and I ended up paying just KD2.4. Thats from Salmiya to Al Rai. Very cool. It’s actually kinda of a relief that we finally have a decent cab offering. Next week I have to drop my car off again to ProTech to get window tinting and I’ll definitely be using them again.

So all is forgiven and I’m not that pissed off at them anymore. If you want to take advantage of the promo code, you need to enter 248AM in the promo code space while booking the cab. The expiry date for the code is end of the year but they’ve limited the number of times the code can be used to 1,000. So until the code is used a thousand times (by everyone not just you), then we will be able to get 20% off our rides. Thats a really good deal.

Update: OK, Q8 Grand Limo called me up now to explain the confusion. The promo code is just meant for me, it will only work with my phone number so you guys won’t be able to use it. I told them they should have called me an explained what it was before sending me the SMS without and that I already posted about it on the blog. So the person I spoke to said they’ll work on an updated promo code for my readers and send it to me when it’s ready to share.

Since it looks like Uber isn’t coming to Kuwait anytime soon and Careem stopped operating in Kuwait as well, here is an alternative app you could use for now, Q8 Grand Limo. I haven’t used them yet but a friend of mine speaks extremely highly of them. They work similar to Uber as in you load up the app and request a cab to your location, but it also has a similar feature to Careem in which you could pre-book a cab for a specific time. So say you need a cab at 4AM in the morning for a early flight, you can pre-book the cab.

Price wise it seems to be cheaper than Careem but more expensive than regular cabs. The app gave me a fare estimate of 2.250-3.750 from Kuwait City to Salmiya. I’ll be using them soon and when I do I’ll post an update. The app is available for both Apple phones and Android phones. For links to download them as well as more information you can check out their website www.q8grandlimo.com

No idea if this is a legit 7-Eleven or not, but its popping up in Salmiya on Salem Mubarek Street. I’m guessing its the real deal since the logo doesn’t look altered, usually copy shops alter the logo because they think they could escape copyright infringement that way. There is even an instagram account as well called @7eleven_q8 that says coming soon, although there is no way to tell if they’re connected.

Thanks Hussain

Yesterday I got my driving license renewed for the first time in like a decade. Previously they’d renew the license for 10 years but now its year by year which is super annoying but whatever, there isn’t anything I can do about it. What I wanted to write about was the required documents you need to renew your license, and the process you have to go through at the traffic department since the information on e.gov.kw is inaccurate. This way if anyone is googling information, they’ll hopefully end up on this page. So lets begin.

Required Documents:
– Civil ID Copy
– Passport Copy (photo page and visa page)
– Work Permit Copy
– Your Company’s Notarized Signatures (e3timad tawkee3)
– Two Personal Photos, Blue Background 6×4
– Your Expired License

Once you have all your documents head to the traffic department near you, I live in Salmiya so I headed to the traffic department in Jabriya. As an expat I can only renew my license in the afternoon starting from 4PM. Get there early. On arrival first thing you need to do is go to the typists who are usually located near the main entrance. Tell them you want to renew your license and hand them all your paperwork. They’ll type out the correct form with your details and then staple all the documents together. They’ll charge KD1 for this process not including making copies of any documents. You could ask them what you have to do next and they’ll point you in that direction.

The next step is to hand your paper over to the license renewal desk (it’s marked) and in my case was located inside the main hall of the traffic department. Make sure you don’t have any fines, if you do they’ll make you go settle them first. If you don’t have any fines they’ll print out a paper for you stating that. The next step is to get your documents signed by the officer in charge. The officer wasn’t at his desk when I went so they told me to go to another officer outside the main hall sitting at the front desk. When I went there I swear there was a queue with around 100 people in it. I couldn’t see the end of the line kind of queue and I’m not exaggerating. While standing there in shock and regretting not bringing my Nintendo Switch with me, I spotted an officer nearby so I went up to him just to make sure this was the line I had to stand in. So I went up to him and in English asked him where I should get this signed. He told me he doesn’t speak English, then I pointed at the document and he said go stand in that line. So I pointed to the line and was like this line?? He then asked me if I had my old license with me, and I showed him, then he asked to see a few other documents which I showed him. He then told me to get a KD1 stamp which I did. He stuck the stamp on my form, took all the documents, went behind the desk and had the officer there sign my document. That was super nice of him and I got to avoid standing in line for an hour. So good luck with this step.

Once you have the documents signed you head over to the driving license renewal desk again and hand them the papers. You’ll now have to sit and wait for your name to be called out. If your license is already expired then they’ll call your name out and tell you to go pay a KD5 fine. This fine will only pop-up at this stage, you can’t get it paid before the process. Once you pay the fine you come back and give your papers again. After a short while they’ll call your name again and send you to a room to get your photo taken. Once you get it taken you’ll have to wait for your license to get printed.

When I was there yesterday they were having technical issues with the license printing machine so I had to wait two hours to get my license printed. The employees actually stayed late after their working hours to make sure everybody got their license printed including the main officer. They were pretty apologetic about the delay. Thankfully there was a Formula 1 race taking place last night, and so I got to watch it live on my phone while I waited which wasn’t too bad.

So there you have it, this is what you need to do to renew your license.

Just Bee is a local honey business that provides raw and local Kuwaiti honey. You might have come across them at Qout Market but what a lot of people don’t know is they are promoters of urban beekeeping and that they have a beehive installation service. Just Bee don’t have their own beehive location, all their honey that is sold is produced from beehive hosting. This past season for example, their honey was harvested from 8 different locations that includes people’s homes, chalets and farms (Salmiya, Khaitan, Sharq, Qurtuba, Messila, Abu Al Hasania, Nuwaiseeb and Wafra).

At Just Bee we promote Urban Beekeeping and our vision is to be able to provide our community with honey from every area in Kuwait, to do that we need to team up, and we do that by allowing locals to host beehives for us.

So how does it work?
The first thing they do is come over to your home and do a site consultation. The beekeeper needs to asses the space, check how suitable it is or not for the bees, and recommend needed shelter for the bees to protect them from the cold in the winter and the heat in the summer. They usually ask the host to let them set up a minimum of 6 hives so that it’s worth their time and effort.

All the work is on them, they handle the installation and all the costs involved with the hives. They also supervise the hives by visiting them as much as every two weeks. By the end of the season, they harvest the honey and give you 10% of the honey that has been produced as a barter for the space that you have given them to set up the hives.

The honey is then branded with the name of the Area, making their honey literally come from the homes of the people.

Kuwait produced these beautiful and varying colors of honey! In order from the left: Abdili, Nuwaiseeb, Sharq, Zahra, Egaila & Mishref

How many times do they harvest honey?
There are 2 seasons of harvest during the year:

– June/July where they harvest the Multifloral Honey, usually light in color and crystalizes within a month or so. Varies colorfully from one area to another.

– December where they harvest the better known Sidr Honey from the Ziziphus/Sidr tree that produces the Knarr, Jujube fruit. It is much darker and remains liquid if not, a lot of other floral sources are mixed in when the bees are gathering nectar to produce the honey.

Depending on the season, each beehive can produce between 3KG to 5KG of honey.

I love this idea a lot and if I had a home with a garden I would have definitely hosted some hives. If you on the other hand live in a home or have a chalet or farm and love honey, then get in touch with Just Bee and host a hive. Their instagram account is @justbeekw and their website is justbeekw.co

It’s hard to write this post without expressing my emotions which are mostly composed of anger and lot of frustration, but I’ll try my best to be as neutral and professional as possible. Yesterday when I went to take photos of the bike sharing station near Marina Waves, I was caught off guard by what has to be the dumbest fucking decision ever an idea with good intentions, but poor execution.

Who thought it would be a great fucking idea to plaster bright orange garbage bins at eye level every 10 fucking meters on the side facing the sea???!. Now I am aware of the garbage situation in Kuwait and specifically Salmiya, I’ve written about it a number of times on the blog before, but I do believe this idea could have been executed better. I guess people have been throwing garbage on the floor so someone (I’m assuming at the municipality) decided to add more garbage bins all across the beautiful scenic path near Marina Waves. The issue is, the garbage bins are bright fucking orange, raised up to eye level, and most importantly, they’re placed every 10 meters on the side of the path that is closest to the sea.

The pathway is popular because the view there is spectacular. It’s a popular location for photos and its one of the most beautiful aspects of Kuwait along with the whole Gulf Road. So why ruin this amazing view by sticking bright fucking orange bins so high up on ugly poles? Why couldn’t they add more bins, but ones that blended in with the environment better instead of sticking out like a sore thumb? For the benefit of the doubt, lets assume they had a very limited budget to work with, and these cheap plastic bins were the only ones that fit into their budget. Why couldn’t they place them on the other side of the path so that the sea view isn’t blocked by hundreds of these floating orange bins? Whoever is behind this I am guessing was behind a similar stupid idea in Salmiya a few years ago where they plastered yellow bins every 10 meters on the side of Salem Mubarek Street. That idea failed because it was fucking stupid not well thought out, and these orange ideas aren’t a good solution either.

Also, do people who litter do so because the garbage bin is to far, or do they litter because they don’t know any better and just don’t care? My guess is the later, the below is taken from the City of Chicago website:

Why Do People Litter?
People litter because they do not feel responsible for public areas like streets and parks. The more they litter, the more it becomes a habit, and the worse the community looks. People usually litter outside their own neighborhood where their trash becomes someone else’s problem.

I highly doubt these garbage bins are going to stop people from littering, what we need is probably an awareness campaign that educates the public on why they shouldn’t litter, followed by strict enforcement of the littering law (which I believe we have).

BYKY, the bike sharing service in the Middle East (also part of the largest international bike sharing network Nextbike) recently installed a bike station near Marina Waves in Salmiya. Bike sharing is a service where bicycles are made available to rent by people for a short period of time, and in cities with a lot of stations, you could use the bikes to ride from one area to another and then park them at the station nearest to you. From what I can tell, in Kuwait we currently have just this one station and it’s clearly placed there to be used for fun and not as a means of transportation.

The first BYKY Station in Kuwait is located near the Salwa Sabah Al-Ahmad Hall [Map] which makes it practical to pick up a bike and ride it down the scenic path to Scientific Center and back.

The price to use the bikes is as follows:
KD1.5 – 30 Minutes
KD2 – 1 Hour
KD2.5 – 2 Hours
KD3 – 3 Hours
KD3.5 – 4 Hours
KD4 – 5 Hours
KD6 – 24 Hours

If you don’t lock the bike when you bring it back to the station, then there is an additional charge of KD1.5. If you don’t return the bike to the station and instead say leave it next to Scientific Center, then there is an additional charge of KD6 for ever 10km you’re away from the station. Payment is made by credit card or Knet.

I’ve reached out to BYKY to find out if they’ll be adding more stations in Kuwait, once they get back to me I’ll update this post.

Update: According to a reader there is a second BYKY Station next to Scientific Center.

Some of you might have already heard about this but for those of you who haven’t, a proposal was put forward to transform Salem Al Mubarak street in old Salmiya (where I live basically) to a pedestrian only street with brand new futuristic looking buildings.

As someone who’s lived on this very street for 30+ years, and as someone who truly loves and experiences this street every single day, I can with full confidence say… none of this is ever gonna materialize.

There is a higher chance that Kuwait will beat UAE to building the first city on Mars, than there is for old Salmiya to transform into this wonderland.

I’m not being pessimistic, I’m just being realistic.

The street is in shambles and the municipality doesn’t care, nobody cares and these renderings to me are a joke, they’re making a mockery of the current situation. It’s like some rich kid passing through some poor village in Africa and decides to stop to take a selfie with some street kids pretending to be helping them out for his instagram account before driving off in his convoy to a luxury resort.

It’s insulting.

There is no way on earth the transformation project will ever happen without demolishing the whole area, kicking out all the low income expats and then rebuilding the street from the ground up, the main street AND all the back streets as well. The metro project? That’s gonna happen. The railway project? That’s gonna happen. Kuwait building a city on Mars? That’s gonna happen. But this Salmiya project, it’s never gonna happen.

If you want to see more renderings on this concept as well as get more information, check out this thread I started on [SkyScraperCity]

As you’re probably aware by now, cops are resorting to remove the license plates of illegally parked cars in an effort to stop the habit. A reader last week left a comment under one of my old posts detailing the process involved in getting back the plates and I’ve went ahead and summarized it into bullets points below:

– Cops took his car plates after he illegally parked in old Salmiya

– They left a ticket and a sticker on the windshield with information on which traffic station to go to

– After waiting for a few days he went to the traffic station in Jabriya where he presented them with his traffic ticket and paid a fine of KD20. He then had to get a signature from the supervisor and after that was told to come back the next day

– Next day he headed back to Jabriya where they told him to go to the Salmiya traffic station instead

– After getting to the Salmiya traffic station he had to get another signature from the supervisor there

– After getting the signature he then had to go to another room where an officer gave him back his plates and asked him to sign a document stating he received his car plates

– You don’t get your screws back so you need to pass by a hardware store before you head back to your car with your plates to screw them back on

The process seems like such a hassle I hope I never get my plates taken. Not that I park illegally anyway, but in Salmiya there are some parking spot you might think are legal but are most likely illegal (Exhibit A).

Thanks RJP