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In May 1960, an international competition was held for the architectural project for this state museum to be located in the cultural district of the 1952 Master Plan. The rules of the competition organized the museum into four thematic areas: “Land of Kuwait”, which illustrated the natural geography of Kuwait; “Man of Kuwait”, which focused on the traditional Kuwaiti vernacular language; and “Kuwait of Today and Tomorrow”, which showed Kuwaiti technological advances. In addition, there was a section for temporary exhibitions.

The winner of the competition was the project of Michel Écochard, author of the Museum of Antioch and the Cité horizontale in Casablanca. Michel Écochard was also a follower of modern premises, and an important member of ATBAT-Afrique, a subsidiary group of CIAM. Écochard organized the museum into four brick buildings with a concrete roof. This allowed the visitors to choose the order of their visit to the contents of the museum. The buildings were connected by raised corridors, and a planetarium completed the whole. [Source]

AGI Architects published a very interesting article on the history of Kuwait National Museum. Sadly, the article doesn’t mention anything about the current plan, just that in 2014 it was decided to reactivate the National Museum. When I drove by the museum this past weekend, the exterior renovations look mostly done. But, I’m curious on what the current plan is and when are they expecting it to be completed. So if you have any information on this, please share it in the comments.

Around ten days back I asked if anyone had tried the Zain Beam internet service and a few of you responded with high praise for the service. Zain also read my post and got in touch with me with an offer to try the service for a month, so I jumped on the opportunity and yesterday they installed Beam at my place.

The installation process is supposed to be fairly simple, they install an antenna on your balcony or the roof of your building, and then run an ethernet cable to your apartment where they hook it up to an LTE modem. In my case the installation process was slightly more complicated and took around an hour and a half because they were having trouble finding a strong signal. My building which back in the 90s was the tallest in the neighborhood is now surrounded by much taller buildings and so it was difficult to find a good signal. Thankfully, just as I was about to give up hope, they found a spot on my roof with ample signal and then ran the ethernet cable from it down to my apartment.

First impression? It’s fast! I asked for the 20Mbps connection and I’m getting around 30Mbps which is similar to what other people are reporting. What’s also great is my upload speed is between 10-20Mbps.

This right now is the fastest connection I’ve ever had at home and it feels strange because I’m so not used to having a fast and stable connection at home. YouTube videos play instantly as well as HBO, Amazon, Hulu and Netflix. The video quality from the streaming services also looks to have improved because of my now faster connection. I also managed to update all the apps on my two ipads plus two macs really quickly. I know all this sounds very normal, but you have to keep in mind, my connection for the past year or so has been terrible and I now finally feel like I have fast internet like a normal person.

For those of you who are gonna leave a comment saying I should get LTE or B Wireless or whatever, those services might be great where you are, but not where I am. I’ve had B Wireless for the past 7 years but you need a direct line of sight to their tower for it to work properly. A few months ago I lost what little line of sight I had which is why I had to look for a B Wireless alternative. Regular internet services from telecoms also doesn’t work properly where I live. Zain Bolt which can easily hit 60-70Mbps at the office barely gets 12Mbps at my place and spends most of the time hovering at around 5Mbps. So I understand you might have super fast mobile or fiber optics internet at your place, at mine it’s a different story.

Its too soon to tell if the Zain Beam speed will remain consistent, but I’m optimistic since Zain are limiting the amount of Beams they install per area. A friend of mine also told me these antennas can be upgraded in the future to work with 5G, so Zain could potentially end up providing much faster internet than their current two options (20Mbps or 40Mbps). Personally, if the connection continues like this for a the next few days I’m not even going to wait for my one month trial period to finish, I’m going to sign up right away.

The cost of the service is KD25 a month for 20Mbps, and KD40 for 40Mbps. With both options you need to commit to 24 months which is a tough pill to swallow. But with no better option, I’m willing to commit. If you guys have any questions about Zain Beam or want me to try anything let me know in the comments below.

Just over a week ago Deliveroo went live and since then I’ve only managed to use them once. Not because I had a bad experience or anything, my food actually got delivered ahead of time. But the reason I’ve used them only once is because only one of the restaurants I frequently order from are on Deliveroo while the rest are still only Carriage.

But, I have been hearing a lot of good stuff about them, mostly about how their customer service is so great. I think Carriage’s biggest weakness is their customer service which is why Deliveroo might be focusing so much on it. People have been getting Deliveroo credit for late orders, some people have gotten hand written apology notes and I personally had a good experience when I posted the photo above of one of their drivers looking super dope and asked for the jacket. They actually sent me one the next day and it’s actually a very cool jacket.

So what has your experience been like?

The Abdullah Al-Salem Cultural Centre (ASCC) opened nearly a year ago and since then I’ve visited it nearly a dozen times. It’s right down the street from my place and so it’s really convenient for me to drop by whenever I want. One of the things I was concerned about when the museums first opened up was how it would hold up to the abuse.

Well I’ve got good news, all six museums are still pretty much intact. I passed by on Thursday and went through all the exhibits and I could count the number of exhibits that were out-of-order on my hand. Not only that but since my last visit a few months ago, new cafes have opened up and a couple of new exhibits were added.

Best part about the museum is that there rarely is anyone ever there. For example I passed by Thursday evening and there were barely any people which is great if you don’t like crowds.

If you haven’t been to the museums yet then I’d highly recommend you do so, it’s just a cool place to walk around and chill with loads of outdoor spaces to explore as well as the actual museums themselves. For more information click [Here]

Now that Zain’s Beam internet service has been out for a few months I’m wondering if any of my readers have tried it. I’ve been using B Wirless (Wimd) for the past 6 years but recently I’ve been having a lot of issues and barely getting 10Mbps. It’s not B Wireless’s fault, it’s just there is now a new building blocking the line of sight needed between my building and the B Wirless tower, so my connection is no longer stable.

I’ve considered getting an LTE connection from one of the telecoms but with the testing I’ve done, the speed can vary from as low as 2Mbps up to around 12Mbps. My only other alternative is Beam, but I haven’t heard of anyone using it. So if you have Beam installed, let us know what you think of it.

I wish my review for this car could be just a 😳 because really that’s all I need to describe it. The Ferrari 812 Superfast is the ultimate Ferrari you can buy excluding the limited edition models, and it was the only Ferrari model left from their current lineup that I hadn’t driven yet. It lies on top of the Ferrari foodchain with an engine that is considered to be the most powerful naturally aspirated engine on a production car ever made. It has 789hp which is freakin’ insane!

I can’t emphasize enough how batshit crazy this car is when the roads are dry but I picked it up when it had just started raining. A 789hp rear wheel drive car in the rain in my hands could have turned into something messy really quick. Thankfully, the rain didn’t last long and I survived to tell the tale. And you know what’s bizarre? The 812 is meant to be a daily driver! I have no idea who needs 800 horsepower on a racetrack let alone to drive to the office or the supermarket, but I love it! It’s overkill of course but you kinda have to be nowadays to stick out next to the likes of the McLaren 720s and the Lamborghini Aventador.

But, what I liked about the 812 is that Ferrari allows you to choose the character you play in the car. Are you going to be the successful CEO driving like a normal adult on the way to an important meeting? Or are you going to be a complete moron with the car and try to kill yourself? I’m the second option for sure but the important thing here is you have the choice. Although it has nearly 800hp, if you want to drive the 812 like a normal human being you can absolutely do that. In normal driving conditions, the car engine and exhaust sound are fairly subdued, and with the windows rolled up you can barely hear the outside world. Add to that the ride quality is also incredibly good even when driving over our pothole-ridden roads. I swear I kept forgetting I was in a supercar because of how good the ride quality was. If there is just one thing I wished my Lotus had from this Ferrari, it wouldn’t be the power or the beautiful interior, it would just be the suspension. I keep mentioning this in all my Ferrari reviews but it’s unreal how good the ride quality is on their cars.

So yeah, the Ferrari can be “normal”, in the same way Bruce Banner is also a normal guy.

As soon as you downshift a few gears and step on the gas, things change incredibly fast. I’ve never been so scared to put my foot down as much as I was in the 812. Clearly, the name Superfast was given to the car after one of their test drivers took the car out for the first time because that’s exactly how I’d describe it. Once you step on it the car suddenly starts screaming like an F1 car right as the shift-lights on the steering wheel start lighting up like a Christmas tree. I don’t think I was able to keep my foot down for longer than 3 seconds at any point during the 2 days I had the car.

It’s a monster underneath but so civil on the outside. It has a pretty large trunk and all the amenities of a luxury car like front and rear cameras, a dual-zone climate system, fully adjustable electric seats, an incredible sound system and lots of soft luxurious leather everywhere. But it’s a crazy freakin’ monster.

The car I drove had a retail price of around KD130,000 which makes it one of the most expensive Ferraris you can buy at the dealership. I was thinking to myself if it was worth it or not, as in if I had the money and was in the market for a Ferrari would I get the 812 Superfast? And the answer to that is no, my heart still belongs to the Ferrari GTC4Lusso. For a bit less than the price of an 812 Superfast, the GTC4Lusso for me is a more practical daily car with rear seats that also fold down like in a hatchback. But then again, this is such a first world problem to have trying to decide between the two. I actually just checked the Ferrari pre-owned cars list and the the 812 I borrowed is listed for sale at KD115,000. So if you want to check it out or at least check out more photos of the car then click [Here]

At Qout Market this weekend, the local ice cream brand Moo Milk Bar had a very creative kiosk that resembled a sketch. It proved to be really popular with Instagrammers with lots of people taking photos of the kiosk and posting it on their accounts. But, word started spreading around that the creative kiosk idea was actually a copy of the work by the artist Joshua Vides. People started leaving comments that they had stolen the idea and Moo Milk Bar started deleting those comments.

Then yesterday, Moo Milk Bar posted that their kiosk was in fact a homage to Joshua Vides and not a copy. Thats clearly still causing controversy because it opens a lot of doors. Is it ok to copy something as long as you call it a homage? Some people think it is, others think it isn’t and I can understand the arguments for both sides, but I’m curious to what you think?

Here are more pictures to Moo Milk Bars kiosk [Link]
Here is a link to more of Joshua Vides work [Link]

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As many of you know I’ve been working on a blog redesign for sometime now. I don’t mind change, but I also like routine and when I’m used to a website being a certain way I don’t like it when they suddenly change things. With the redesign I tried to keep most of the things in the same place and just simplify the design a bit. I also had two issues I wanted to improve with the redesign:

1- I wanted the images and videos to be displayed larger on the blog
2- I wanted a mobile friendly version of the blog

I got the first issue sorted, with the redesign both the images and videos would now be embedded in a larger size. I did that by basically killing the middle column of the blog and integrating it into the sidebar.

What I haven’t been able to sort out is the mobile friendly version of the blog. My current theme can be adapted to become mobile friendly with a click of a button, and so can the new theme. But my issue isn’t with that, the problem I have is the fact there doesn’t seem to be a way to have the advertisement banners show while in the mobile friendly version of the blog. The banners are my only source of revenue for the blog and so have to be on the blog at all times. Right now if I turn on the mobile version of the blog, the banners get shoved down to the bottom of the page and that’s not good.

If anyone has any idea how to sort this out let me know, or if anyone has an idea on a different income model for the blog that doesn’t rely on banners also let me know. I’m open to suggestions.

If you want to give me your opinion on the new redesign, check out a live preview of the new design [Here]

Below is this weekends list of events. As usual, if I missed anything, let me know.

Thursday
GulfRun Car Show
Exhibition: RE_USE
Al Hamra Coffee Festival
AMG Mozart Requiem
KRCS Charity Gala Concert

Friday
GulfRun Car Show
Exhibition: RE_USE
Red Bull Car Park Drift
The Cypher Effect
The Soundtracks Show

Saturday
GulfRun Car Show
Exhibition: RE_USE
Workshop: Introduction to Ceramics
Guided Tour: The Red Fort
Qout Market

If you’d like to share an event on the blog [Email Me]
For a full list of upcoming events click [Here]

Sometimes events get canceled or have details changed so always double-check with the organizers.

Galaxy Juice, the local psychedelic indie band (and one of my favorite local bands) just released their latest EP, ‘Pantagonia’. Galaxy Juices’ style is influenced by the likes of Pink Floyd, Tame Impala, The Flaming Lips, Animal Collective and Radiohead but with an additional distinctive Middle Eastern touch. They describe their latest EP as being futuristic, weird and shimmering, and a pulsating and bright blast of Psychedelic Pop.

I’m listening to ‘Pantagonia’ right now and really liking it, it’s super chill, check it out [Here]

Not really a reliable source but the local super cars account @super_cars posted the image above stating that we will soon be getting small car plates.

Not sure if many people are aware of this but a lot of super cars don’t have room for a license plate in front of the car. So super car owners end up putting their plates inside the car over the dash or somehow finding a place to stick the plates on the front bumper making the car look ugly.

Small plates are available for situations like this in some other countries like Dubai (pictured above) so it is believable we could also be getting them soon as well.

You’d think the most stressful part of reviewing a Ferrari would be the part where I take a Ferrari out that isn’t mine, on roads which are in terrible condition, surrounded by people who can’t drive yet are all too busy on their phones and then try and bring the car back to the dealer in one piece. Instead, what really stresses me out is trying to find a place to shoot the cars. It’s so hard finding a nice clean backdrop for a shoot which I haven’t abused already like my favorite strip of road in the desert or the rooftop across from Mayar Complex. I can’t keep taking pictures in the same spot so I don’t take out as many cars out as I’d like. With Ferraris, it’s even more difficult since instead of having the car for the weekend like with most brands, I have to instead pick up the car early morning and then drop it off in the evening before they close. Sounds like a first world problem but when car dealers lend me a car, they’re hoping to get nice photos taken in return and I want to keep getting nice cars so I need to keep taking nice shots. With the Ferrari F12, this was the first time I was allowed to keep the car overnight so I decided to try something new.

The Ferrari F12 Berlinetta I picked up is part of the Ferrari pre-owned collection. It’s a 2016 model and had done around 6,500km when I picked it up. It’s the model the preceded the new Ferrari 812 SuperFast which I’m hoping to pick up sometime this week. The F12 has a 6.3L V12 engine producing 730HP making it the fourth most powerful Ferrari road car produced to date. That sounds crazy except then you find out that the F12 is actually meant to be a daily driver and you’re like wtf?! It’s got an insane amount of power, too much power for our fairly short and unexciting roads, but it also has all the comforts and luxury features you’d find on a high-end luxury car plus a large trunk in case you need to drop a friend off to the airport or pick up a few items from IKEA. It’s really why I had my eye on the car a couple of years ago.

At one point before getting my Lotus I was actually checking out the F12’s in the secondhand market. I really wanted the 4 seater Ferrari FF since it would have been the perfect daily driver, but since there weren’t any used ones for sale I started looking at F12’s since they were also meant to be great daily drivers. For the short time I had the F12 last week, I did find it very comfortable and pretty quiet when the windows rolled up. Yup quiet, the exhaust sound on the F12 sounds fairly normal when driving around like a normal human being and the cars sound proofing really helps isolate you from all the sounds outside the car. It’s really only once you lower the windows and get aggressive with your driving does it start sounding like the fourth most powerful Ferrari road car ever produced. I always like that good and evil side to cars, it makes the car more bareable to live with over the long run. Another thing I really loved about the F12 is the minimal interior and the fact you can’t see the stereo. The stereo is usually one of the first things in a car that quickly gets outdated, by integrating the sound system into the main car interface which is in the drivers dashboard next to the large RPM dial, there isn’t anything anymore to get dated. Even the car’s interface graphics have been kept to a minimal I presume to keep the car looking good for a very long time. I think it works.

Since I was able to keep the F12 overnight, I decided I wanted to try some light painting for my photo. To light paint a car you need to take it to a fairly dark area, then take the photo with a very long shutter speed while you paint the car with a light source, in my case a flashlight. What this allows you to do is keep the location around the car dark and moody, but get your car nicely lit. I ended up driving around close to midnight looking for an interesting parking lot to shoot the car before settling on the spot above. I think the shot came out pretty good for my first try at light painting. I actually think I could have light painted the top of the car slightly more but I only noticed that later once I got home and it was too late to do anything about it. If you want you can check out the photo of the car normally exposed without any light painting, click [Here]

After spending time with the F12 I can’t wait to take out the Ferrari 812. Actually while writing this post I realized I really want to take out the Ferrari FF and I think they have one or two pre-owned ones available so I might ask Ferrari if I could do that. For now, if you’re interested in checking out their pre-owned collection, you can do so online by visiting the Al-Zayani website [Here]

An incredibly packed weekend with lots of things happening. Hopefully I managed to add everything but in case I missed an event, let me know!

Thursday
The Kuwait Motor Show
Exhibition: RE_USE
Staging Emotions at Al Shaheed Park
Stitching Palestine – Embroidery Through the Ages
SpongeBob Celebrates 20th Anniversary at Al Kout Mall
Luxury Bazaar
White Expo Night Market
Global Game Jam 2019
The 965 Fashion Outlet
Electronic Gaming & Comic Festival
Carnival Festival

Friday
The Kuwait Motor Show
Exhibition: RE_USE
Stitching Palestine – Embroidery Through the Ages
SpongeBob Celebrates 20th Anniversary at Al Kout Mall
Luxury Bazaar
Global Game Jam 2019
The 965 Fashion Outlet
Alsouq Market
Garden Rendezvous
Concert: Chamber Philharmonic Orchestra
Electronic Gaming & Comic Festival
Carnival Festival
Crossfit Games – Flare Fitness Festival 2019

Saturday
The Kuwait Motor Show
Exhibition: RE_USE
SpongeBob Celebrates 20th Anniversary at Al Kout Mall
Luxury Bazaar
Global Game Jam 2019
The 965 Fashion Outlet
Vinyl Destination
CAP Movie Night: The Story of Qiu Ju
Electronic Gaming & Comic Festival
Carnival Festival
Hindrance Race – Flare Fitness Festival 2019
Crossfit Games – Flare Fitness Festival 2019

If you’d like to share an event on the blog [Email Me]
For a full list of upcoming events click [Here]

Sometimes events get canceled or have details changed so always double-check with the organizers.

Photo by Nelson Garrido

Since we’re on the subject of cars, exactly a year ago I picked up my 380 Cup from the dealership and since then I’ve done around 10,000KM on the car including four track days in Bahrain. Because Lotus isn’t very popular in Kuwait (or anywhere else really), I decided I’d do a writeup, a sort of a long term review of the car and the local dealership.

As some of you know I had another Lotus before this one. That one kept giving me random problems, but this Lotus has been pretty good so far. I’ve really only had two issues and both were minor:

– Front access panel would loosen up at high speed
– Hazard light button would get stuck sometimes

Both those issues were fixed easily under warranty. Speaking of which, my car’s warranty expires today since it’s just a 1-year warranty. This is the only Lotus I am aware of that has a 1-year warranty, I think the rest have 2 or 3 years but because mine is a special edition with only 60 built, it has just a 1-year. That really sucks but Lotus have the option to extend the warranty for another year for a fee. I’m currently waiting to hear from them how much that fee is, hopefully, it won’t be much.

I actually just got the car back from Bahrain this Sunday. I had kept the car in Bahrain for a bit more than 6 weeks so I could take part in open track days on the Bahrain International Circuit while saving money on having to keep shipping the car back and forth. I got three track days done and just brought back the car to Kuwait so I can get the oil changed and 10,000KM service done. My Lotus did not miss our horrible broken roads that’s for sure.

On the track, the car has been great. I pretty much drive it hard non-stop through the whole session and don’t run into any overheating issues or even brake pedal fade. After four track days, the brake pads are also still full and even the Michelin Cup 2 tires not that worn. Having a lightweight car definitely saves you a lot in consumables. On normal roads, day to day driving I find the car super fun to drive. My car is the European spec, not the GCC spec so it doesn’t have the secondary AC unit behind the seats which my previous Lotus had. I used to find that AC freezing cold 10 months out of the year and it was super annoying because you couldn’t turn off the secondary AC unit. With this Lotus, for 2 months of the year I drive it mostly at night, but then the rest of the year the AC is more than enough. I actually didn’t really face any major cooling issues during the summer, the AC cooled the car enough but I also always parked it in shaded parking. I’d imagine the car would take a long time to cool down if you parked it in the sun, but really I don’t miss the dual AC system of the GCC spec cars. If you’re wondering what the advantage of a Euro spec car is, basically because you have space behind the seats you can install a 4-way seat belt harness and bar. You can’t do that on GCC spec cars since that gap behind the seats is taken with the secondary AC unit.

Moneywise I haven’t really spent that much on the car. I paid around KD200 for the harness bar and 4-way seatbelt, I bought a new racing helmet and gloves, but that’s really it. Oh and I changed the oil back in December before sending the car to Bahrain and it cost me KD60 at the dealership. That isn’t too bad, double what I pay for my FJ, but also like a fifth of the cost of a Lamborghini oil change. So it’s reasonable in that sense. But I do have an issue with the dealer’s prices on parts. New brake pads at the dealer costs KD358, but the same OEM pads can be ordered online for KD100 and KD200 would get you some serious racing pads. I’m not to concerned about the price of the pads since I can just order them online when the time comes. But what I am concerned about is larger pieces like body panels. I’m worried if I crash on the race track how much the body panels and carbon fiber parts are going to cost and I’m too afraid to ask. I don’t think it’s the fault of the local dealer since the local dealer gets everything through Dubai. I think Lotus Dubai are the reason to blame on the high cost of parts.

Generally, though I’m really satisfied with Alghanim who are the local dealer’s. Everyone is just extremely friendly and helpful from the mechanics to the showroom manager up to the aftersales manager. I also love the fact that I’ve got the mechanics on Whatsapp and I just message them before I head over, it makes the service feel very personalized. My only gripes with the dealership are minor, the first being the fact I hate passing by the dealership and seeing dirty and dusty Lotuses parked outside. That cheapens the brand and there is no reason not to keep them nice and clean especially since they’re the test drive cars. The second issue I have is with their instagram account, it’s not very active, the stories they post are lame and their phones camera lens is always dirty. Again I feel it cheapens the brand. Not only that but whoever is running their instagram account doesn’t know their cars well and I’ve had to leave a comment more than once correcting them. Not only that but I setup an account for my car a few months ago (@380cup) and I get more likes and engagement than the dealers instagram account, so they’re clearly doing something wrong. I should probably work out some sort of deal with them where they hand over the account to me to manage in return I get like free service or something.

In the end, I’m really really happy with the car and I’m so glad I traded in my older Exige for this one. I still look back at the car after parking it and I still get excited every morning knowing I’ll be driving the Lotus to work. If you’re looking for a sports car you can track, I’d highly recommend the Lotus and the local Lotus dealership.

A friend just let me know that Al Bisher, the company that recently lost the Mercedes dealership has signed an agreement with Tesla to bring them to Kuwait. Tesla will be taking over the old Mercedes locations and garage which should make life easier on the Tesla customers who imported their cars to Kuwait.

The reason Tesla took so long to come to Kuwait is because of ownership rights. Tesla doesn’t franchise the brand but it seems they’ve worked out some sort of deal with Al Bisher that solves that. I’m curious to see if they’ll set up charging stations around the country. Exciting!

Note: Keep in mind the above information is just a rumor for now, I am still waiting for confirmation on the above from another source.

Thanks K

Update: The information turned out not to be true, Al Bisher isn’t bringing Tesla to Kuwait.

Update2: Looks like it’s going to be Alghanim, not Al Bisher that is bringing Tesla to Kuwait. The hiring ad below was just shared by an Alghanim HR employee on LinkedIn.