Search: “salmiya”

A few days ago I posted about how Salem Al Mubarak Street is finally turning into a pedestrian only street. One of the negatives I highlighted was the fact they had chopped down some of the old trees that have been there for nearly 50 years. I was upset about it, but when I asked the engineer behind the project if they were removing the old trees, he responded saying “only some”. So I assumed they had chopped down the trees that they didn’t need and all the ones left were the ones they were keeping. Well last night I noticed they had removed nearly all the remaining trees. Using Google Maps I counted 28 trees that were originally planted on that street and there are now only 3 left. That means 25 trees in total were removed! One of the remaining trees currently has a chainsaw parked under it so it might not even be there anymore by the time this post gets published. I’ve marked all the removed trees with x’s in the above picture and the ones remaining with circles.

How is 3 trees out of 28 considered “only some”? Why are they removing the trees anyway? If they were building an airport runway I could understand but they’re not so why? Some of the trees were fairly large and it would have been pretty cute to have small cafes underneath with seating areas around them. The trees were large enough to provide shade, they didn’t need any watering because they were well rooted and the trees were also homes to a lot of birds.

But you know what? I don’t care anymore.

Last night I got so upset about the whole situation I emotionally booked two trips for the next two weekends. Why am I getting so worked up about all of this? It’s not my country, I don’t own the street nor were the trees mine. Why am I even surprised about all of this? Based on the renderings the engineer shared I should have known no good was going to come out of this. When you demolish historical buildings in your renderings and replace them with fancy shiny malls, it says a lot about the thinking process. Chopping historical trees isn’t only a Kuwait thing either, it happens everywhere. In Lebanon for example a politician cut down part of an ancient cedar forrest so he could setup an outdoor venue for his son’s wedding. I mean like wtf? If shit is gonna happen its gonna happen and there is nothing I can do to stop it.

So starting today I’m hopefully emotionally disconnecting myself from Salmiya. I no longer want to be mayor. If anyone wants to take over the responsibility of giving a fuck, they’ve only started construction work on half of old Salmiya. They haven’t started on the other half yet (pictured above) and based on Google Maps there are approximately 38 trees there. Good luck trying to save them.

The second Five Guys location in Kuwait is going to open in Salmiya on Salem Mubarek Street, opposite Galleria 2000 [Map]. This means that strip of street will now have the following burger places:

BGR The Burger Joint
Fat Burger
Five Guys
Johnny Rockets
Shake Shack
Smash Burger
Steak & Shake

The only franchise thats missing on that street now is Elevation Burger.

Last year Alghanim Industries acquired the rights to develop Wendy’s restaurants across the Middle East and it looks like their flagship store in Kuwait is going to be located in Salmiya on Plajat Street. They’ve taken over the site of a defunct food complex and I’m assuming they’re going to be knocking it down and building a large Wendy’s in its place. No idea on when they’re expected to open but I’d guess sometime end of the year or early next year.

via Frankom

Burger Boutique are opening their second location in The View Tower, the same building as Marks & Spencer and Whole Foods. I only noticed it a couple of days back and according to them they’ll be opening in around a months time. Burger Boutique was what set the trend for locally created burger joints and their only other location is in Arraya Complex in the city. There is a Burger Boutique Black in Murooj as well but that it their more upscale version of the brand and has a different menu. If you don’t know where The View Tower is, here it is on [Google Maps]

Yesterday afternoon I dropped my Datsun to Omid’s Garage in Shuwaikh to have a few things worked on, mostly installing an AC system as well as replacing all the car’s bushings among other things. After dropping the car off I walked to the main road to find a cab and then not sure what got into my head but I tweeted that maybe I should just walk home since I was already in gym gear. I wasn’t planning to go to the gym, but since my car didn’t have AC and I was expecting the weather to be warm, I figured I would wear my gym gear since I wouldn’t mind sweating in it. I opened up google maps just to get an idea if it was actually doable and it gave an estimated time of around 2 hours and 44 minutes. It was around 6PM then and I was invited to an Audemars Piguet event at 7PM, but other than that didn’t really have any plans for the evening. So I was like fuck it, I’ll ditch the event and walk home. A friend on twitter replied to me saying it would take me three hours, I replied back that I would make it in 2 and a half and so the challenge was on.

I left the garage at 6:06PM with just a small bottle of water, my wallet, my keys and my phone. The garage is located in the Shuwaikh Industrial area which is the area across from Al Rai and on the other side of highway 60. I started walking towards Canada Dry street cuz I decided I’d take the 3rd Ring Road down towards the Gulf Road and then take the 35 towards Salmiya. Although Canada Dry Street takes just a few seconds to get from the start to the end by car, it took me 20 minutes to walk. I thought that was just too slow of a pace so when I was done from Canada Dry and crossed into Khaldia where I spotted a walking/running track, I decided I would try to run back home. Although I was in my gym gear I didn’t have running shoes on, I had my crossfit ones (Nike Metcon 1) which barely have any padding and are terrible for running. But I’d figure I’d give it a shot since walking was just going to be too slow for me.

I hadn’t really gone running in over two years and I’ve barely been doing any cardio but I just wanted to get home in under 2 and a half hours. I had already run out of water but luckily kept finding public water fountains to keep refilling my bottle (I didn’t get sick!). By the time I got to road 35 in Hawally, I realized there was a big chance I could make it home in under 2 hours so I pressed on. Mentally I was strong but physically I was just starting to break down. Half way down the stretch of the 35 my right foot and right knee were in pain. I wasn’t out of breath even though I was tired but my legs were just not prepared for this. By the time I got to the end of the 35 and crossed into Maidan Hawalli I could barely run and I knew I wouldn’t be able to get home in under 2 hours. It was demoralizing but then I just went back to my original plan of trying to get there in under 2 and a half hours. I tried to run but by the time I got to Salmiya I was limping, my right leg was in so much pain. But once I saw my building I somehow managed to sprint the last 20 meters or so. I ended up making it home in 2 hours and 14 minutes. A total distance of 14KM. Kinda disappointing since I ran a 10K once in 57 minutes, but I did train for that. On the other hand I did get a better time compared to when I walked home from my work in Kuwait City.

I still don’t know why I decided to do that yesterday, this morning I can barely walk up and down stairs due to how sore my legs are. The weather was great yesterday which might have been what pushed me but in any case I did it and I’ve got a few observations I want to highlight.

Kuwait isn’t really a pedestrian friendly place but I was pretty surprised at how the route I took was fairly pedestrian friendly. From the start of the 3rd Ring Road till highway 40 there are proper walking/running paths all along the main road. The only issue is the fact these paths aren’t connected to other paths in adjacent areas. Meaning to cross from Khaldiya to Adailiya wasn’t easy. Not only aren’t the walking/running paths connected, but the normal sidewalks aren’t even connected. In some areas I had to walk over greenery or climb over barriers, and then when there were paths like the one pictured above, they led to the middle of the road instead of the other sidewalk. Each area is isolated from the adjacent ones which is pretty annoying. Then once you pass the 40th into Hawalli, the paths start disappearing. By the time I got to Salmiya I was basically running in the streets trying to avoid cars. Such a contrast to how my run started, even the public water fountains disappeared after the 40.

Still, I was expecting it to be a lot more difficult to make it back to Salmiya on foot so I was actually impressed by the experience. I just wish Kuwait was more pedestrian or bike friendly, I’m sure there are a lot of people who wouldn’t mind walking to places if the weather was good.

Responding to complaints filed by citizens living in block 12 in Salmiya concerning being surrounded by ‘bachelors,’ the municipality recently launched a campaign in the area, giving bachelors three-day eviction ultimatums before disconnecting electricity as instructed by municipality director Ahmad Al-Manfouhi.

Head of the inspection team Ritadh Al-Rabee’ said that the team distributed 20 warning notices to house inhabited by bachelors and said that electricity would be disconnected and owners would be fined. He added that once the ultimatum is over, the municipality teams would be escorted by a police force to evict residents. “The law will be equally applied to everyone without any wasta,” he stressed, noting that if any officials intervene, their names and positions would be reported to the municipality director. [Source]

This doesn’t make any sense at all plus is really unfair and then to top it off they’re giving them just 3 days to move out? WTF?

Last April I managed to sneak in and get some photos of the Boulevard while it was still under construction but on Thursday I was given an official tour of the project along with some new information.

A couple of months back I posted that Boulevard in Salmiya was going to be opening up in 3 months time but that is no longer the case. Originally the plan was to open the park on National Day and the rest of the project (the mall and outdoor restaurants) would open by the end of the year. Now though the plan is to have the whole project open up at the same time around Q3 or Q4 of 2016.

While touring the mall I managed to find a list of all the stores that are currently due to open at Boulevard and I’ve listed them all down below. Some interesting ones to note are Sears, Sultan Center and Jarir Bookstore. Oh and the old school Iranian restaurant Baba Taher is planning to open there as well.

Check out the full list of stores below.

Back in 2011 the Salmiya municipality dug up the middle sidewalk in the old souq where I live. The trees originally were surrounded by a small square dirt patch but someone in the municipality decided to enlarge that patch more than double the size and then merge all the trees with one large dirt pit. When I had spoken to one of the employees who was digging up the street back then he told me the plan was to plant the sidewalk like on the Gulf Road. I obviously knew that wasn’t going to happen since we have a major garbage situation that wasn’t getting solved so I had doubts they were planning to “beautify” Salmiya with greenery. But, a few of my readers thought I was being pessimistic and were all for a greener Salmiya.

Well just an update 5+ years later, nobody has planted shit and the dirt pit is still a dirt pit.

As you can see from the picture above, the garbage situation in the sand pit behind my house still hasn’t been sorted (it’s been years of me complaining). I’m not sure why it’s so difficult to just add more bins.

But the reason I’m posting about this today is because I wanted to see if you guys could spot something. The picture below was taken this morning after the garbage trucks came. Notice anything?

Yeah the garbage trucks cleaned the garbage on the ground but didn’t empty the trash bins. Back in August I posted a timelapse of the garbage being cleaned up and the trucks were leaving one of the bins full while emptying the other three. Turned out that one of the bins belonged to the previous company that had the garbage contract and the new company, not to cause an issue with the previous company was leaving their garbage bins alone. Really stupid shit but now I have no idea whats going on because all four bins aren’t being emptied and the already terrible garbage situation has become worse.

I just want them to add more bins, clearly the bins in the area aren’t enough since I’ve been talking about this issue for years now. I don’t know, am I asking for too much here?

And for those of you who are going to argue back by bringing Lebanon into this, yes yes Lebanon is a big garbage dump, I know that. But, I think of Kuwait more highly and would rather compare it to the likes of Calagary, Canada’s oil capital instead of Lebanon.

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.

I was dining at Köşebaşı in The Cube when on my way out I noticed Slice was opening up outside. I frequent Slice in the city quite often since they’re my favorite Doner kebab place. I always order the carb free Slice box which is basically sliced beef in a box with yogurt sauce. Good food and now conveniently located close to my house.

Lulu Hypermarket opened up their Salmiya location this weekend and I passed by last night to check it out. I have to say, opening up Lulu in the new Al Salam Mall had to be the worst idea in the world and I’ll tell you why.

The Lulu in Qurain has a parking lot the size of 6 football fields and it’s always packed. Same with the Lulu in Al Rai which has parking in front, on the side and a super huge parking lot in the back the size of 4 football fields. Their Salmiya location has a parking lot that is too tiny for the mall itself to begin with yet alone a mall with Lulu in it. The whole are around the mall is now jam packed with cars parked in every conceivable spot be it in the middle of the main road or on top of sidewalks. The traffic around the mall has also increased considerably and there are now traffic jams where there rarely used to be any cars before. The ridiculous part is there used to be a multistory parking lot behind the mall but for some reason they decided to demolish it.

The other issue is the amount of people who want to shop at this Lulu. When I went yesterday you literally couldn’t shop. I was without a trolley walking around and I had difficulty maneuvering through the crowd. If you did decide to do some shopping then you were met with the longest supermarket cashier queue I had ever seen (check the picture above).

I’m not sure if its currently super packed because they just opened but I hope thats the case. I think its probably always going to be super packed because it’s the closest Lulu for everyone living in the heavily populated areas of Jabriya, Hawalli, Salmiya and Salwa. As it is right now though it’s just insane.

A few days ago I found out Lu&Lu is opening up down the street from my house in the basement of the new AlSalam Mall. This will be their 5th location in Kuwait and this one will be walking distance from my house making it super convenient for me. For everybody else good luck finding parking. [Map]

I’m still on vacation and will get back to blogging next week but I was flipping through some old photos when I found the photos below of The Family Bookshop before they closed down.

It really pisses me off how they demolished the whole block of buildings three years ago taking away a lot of great stores as well as the street’s life from the area. Until this day there’s nothing to show for it except a large big hole in the ground.

They even closed off the sidewalk and parking spots adjacent to the construction site.

The mall that was supposed to be built in that place pictured above (here’s a video as well) was supposed to be completed this year but as you can see below, construction hasn’t even started.

Last week when I got a hold of the really old Cinescape movie theaters I also got a hold of pictures of the old Cinema Salmiya before it got demolished. That’s the second movie theater I had ever been to (Octupussy at a dodgy cinema in Lebanon was my first) and I remember the movie I had watched was Steven Seagal’s “Under Siege“. I also remember the video store outside the theater where I picked up “Who Framed Roger Rabbit” from. Good days.