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I’m in California for the next two weeks on vacation so my posting timings will be a bit different from usual. The last time I went on holiday was last September and it was just a week in Bulgaria so I’m really looking forward to this break.

News tips are appreciated a lot more than usual when I’m on holiday so if you have anything interesting for me to share on this blog, send it in!

Kuwait City 1987. Vintage store front.

Mark Lowey (AbuJack), a construction project management professional and an amateur photographer lived in Kuwait between 1985 and 1988. The past few months he’s been scanning and posting some of the pictures he took during his time in Kuwait (and KSA) on his twitter account. I’ve taken a few of his photos along with the captions and shared them here but you can check out more photos on his twitter account @molowey

High technology in 1987?

A man and his dog, Mangaf Beach, Kuwait in 1988.

Shopping in Fahaheel, 1988.

Jack bin Mark and neighbor friends in Mangaf, Kuwait, 1988. (One cool kid has a sling-shot.)

Toshiba power plant at Mina Al-Zoor in southern Kuwait. Under construction in 1985; nearly completed in 1987.

Kids-R-Us, Kuwait City in 1985.

Interpol released a list of the 24 most wanted Britons in the world and a reader recognized one of them as the child sex offender who previously taught in Kuwait. Paul Meekin whom I posted about back in 2014 was teaching Social Studies at one of the local American schools before he quit and left Kuwait. He was later suspected of using forged documents to teach here and it looks like he still hasn’t been caught.

You can check out all 24 wanted criminals by clicking [Here]

Thanks UCF

Yesterday I dropped by the soon to open Four Seasons Hotel in Kuwait City for a quick tour. I hadn’t been there since back in September when the place was still mostly under construction so I was pretty excited to see how things turned out. My first impressions of the place is that its simply stunning and very tastefully done. It’s has a very contemporary look yet with some Arabic elements injected into the design. It’s going to be by far the best looking hotel in Kuwait.

Four Seasons will be soft launching in around 2 weeks time with the official opening at the beginning of September. From the five restaurants they have, the following three will open up during the soft launch:

Dai Forni – An Italian restaurant
Elements – A buffet restaurant
Al Sour – The lobby lounge

Sintoho the Pan-Asian restaurant and Al Bandar, the poolside lounge/restaurant will both open in September. The outdoor pool will also open in September while the indoor one will be open during the soft launch. Finally, the Aveda salon (for men and women) will also be opening up as part of the soft launch.

I took a few quick photos during my tour which you can check out below. Since I was also taking photos with my phone for my instagram story, I realized later that there were some shots I forgot to take with my regular camera. So check out the photos below and once you’re done head over to my instagram account @mark248am and check out my story there (from your phone). It should be up till around 3PM.

Four Seasons Kuwait is located in Kuwait City [Google Maps]

Update: As of August 14th the hotel has still not opened

I doubt anyone still watches KTV, but if for some very odd reason you feel like watching it, the Ministry of Information has live streams available on their website. All in all there are 8 KTV channels available to stream and you can check them all out [Here]

Movies get censored in Kuwait, thats a fact and no matter how much we complain about it there isn’t anything that can be done. Knowing and accepting movies get censored, how can movie theaters improve the experience for movie goers? One reader proposed an idea recently in the comments and it got me thinking, why haven’t local movie theaters implemented his idea yet?

The reader (Ally) suggested that local movie theaters should start declaring if a movie has been censored or not, and if it has been, then they should declare the duration that was cut and what was cut. So for example:

00:02:45 Censored

Censored content includes:
Reglious themes and/or imagery
Nudity
Sexuality

Right now with my weekly movies list, I check the films content advisory on IMDB, and if I read that there is nudity or scenes of sexuality, I mark the movie on the list that it might contain censorship. But this isn’t accurate and a lot of times movies I marked as not containing censorship ended up being censored. The most accurate way right now to tell if a movie is censored or not is to ask someone who has already watched it, but that isn’t practical obviously.

So Cinescape and Grand Cinemas, if you’re reading this, start being transparent with us, let us know if a movie is censored or not.

I wasn’t planning on posting about the DJI Spark until I got to use it on my upcoming trip, but because of the amount of interest I got on it from my instagram story and twitter over the weekend, I decided I’d at least post my first impression. First full disclosure, DJI released the Spark last month and when I saw Xcite had a preorder page for it, I got in touch with them and asked them if they could send me one over to review. They couldn’t get me a Spark from their first shipment since it quickly sold out, but Thursday they got in touch with me to let me know they secured me a drone from their second shipment and I passed by and picked it up.

The DJI Spark is tiny, like super tiny. Its around the same size as my iPhone 6 and it weighs just 300 grams. But don’t let the size fool you, this isn’t an indoor drone and it’s packed with advanced features of its older brothers. I’m not going to go into too many details since there are a ton of YouTube videos that do that, but I will highlight some things in this post which I think are cool.

There are three ways to control the Spark, either with your phone, with the optional remote, or using hand gestures. The last one is a bit of a gimmick but it works and it can be useful.

Hand Gestures
The Spark has a sensor at the front that will recognize your face and then detect your hand gestures which you can use to control the drone. You wave goodbye at the drone and it will fly up and hover away from you. You want it to snap a photo of you? Just give it the correct gesture and it will take your photo. This is pretty cool because it keeps things simple for those who don’t want more out of the drone other than snapping selfies. You can watch the video above of how this works.

Using Your Phone
The Spark doesn’t come with a remote control, instead you can download an app onto your phone and use it to control the drone using wifi. This means you don’t have to carry a remote around which keeps the Spark portable. The only downside is that the Spark’s flight height is limited to 50 meters and the flight range to just 100m when using the phone due to the wifi’s limited range. The top speed is also limited to 20km/h.

Remote Control
The first thing I did after picking up the Spark was buy the optional remote control. Personally I can’t use virtual control sticks in apps, maybe I’m old fashioned but I like physical buttons and joysticks. The second reason I wanted to get the remote control was because it increases the flight height from 50m to 500m and the flight range from 100m up to 2KM. That’s a HUGE increase. With the remote control you can also put the drone into sport mode which increases the top speed to 50kmh. Really impressive specs for something so freakin tiny. I still can’t believe how high it can fly.

I spent the weekend playing around with the Spark and as a complete drone newbie, I did find the experience overwhelming at first but that’s probably because I didn’t read any instructions and just winged it. Friday morning I woke up early and headed to my favorite open area in the desert to take some photos. There was an overcast so my photos were coming out very flat and dull, but I did manage to take one photo which I added to my instagram story. Saturday morning I decided to take the drone near Scientific Center and fly it there, that was a pretty scary experience because when I told the drone to come home and land, I freaked out because I got worried it would decide to land in the sea. It did’t thankfully and instead came back down to it’s original launching point. That same afternoon I wanted to see if I could fly the drone from my hand and then have it land back in my hand when I was done, all without having to leave my car. It worked! Because the drone is so tiny you could use your palm as a launch and landing pad.

If you’re a beginner like me, the drone has a bunch of automated and smart flying modes that will make your videos look professionally shot including:

Active Track: You highlight the subject you want the Spark to follow and it will follow it
Tripod: Keeps the drone stable and slow allowing you to film cinematic shots
Rocket: Starts filming you from eye level and then flies straight up while still focusing on you
Dronie: Starts filming you from eye level and then angles out and away from you while still keeping you in focus
Circle: The Spark films you while rotating around you
Helix: Rocket + Circle combined

Battery life is my only issue with the Spark so far. The total flight time is just 16 minutes which isn’t a lot especially if you factor in the time it will take you to get to the height you want, position your drone and also the amount of time the drone needs to fly back down to you. You’re definitely gonna need more batteries and I already ordered 2 from Amazon and they’ll be waiting for me in L.A. when I get there end of the week.

Overall I love this little thing. It kinda feels like having an invisible photographer friend with you everywhere you go. When I went out to the desert to take some photos, I tried the active tracking feature and had the Spark follow my car around shooting video of it while I was driving. In the winter when I go snowboarding I could have the Spark follow me shooting video of me face planting all the way down the slope. It’s tiny and light enough to take everywhere with you which is why I’m looking forward to using it on my trip.

If you’re interested in the DJI Spark, Xcite are selling them for KD169. Here is the [Link]

Savour is a new food sector accelerator that just launched based out of Kuwait. Their aim is to help food entrepreneurs and food startups bring their products and services to market at super speed. Think of it like Shark Tank but locally and for food related businesses.

Savour partners with early stage companies from any part of the food supply chain, including: farming, ag-tech, food distribution, retail, wellness, consumer-packaged goods, food-related apps, and green/clean tech. Savour can help you reach your potential.

The way it works is say you’ve got an interesting food related business at the moment, like a small hole in the wall Vietnamese restaurant, or a hydroponics growing system, or even an app that calculates tips. And this business is new and doing relatively well but you have no idea how to grow, or what options are available to you.You apply for the Savour accelerator program and if they think your idea is interesting with potential to grow, they’ll take you onboard, accelerate your concept, focus on your main points, connect you with all the right people, give you access to their network and to funding so they can help take your business to the next level.

The main Savour team is composed of 3 members but there are also 22 mentors for the program including the likes of Basil AlSalem, Mohammed Jaffar and Essa Behbehani. The 8-week program is free and is open to Kuwaitis and non-Kuwaitis alike including those residing outside of Kuwait.

Savour is holding a Q&A this coming Wednesday, July 12 at Richard’s Coffee Bar at 7PM. So if you have a food related startup and are looking for more information on this accelerator program, drop by their Q&A. You can also visit their website and apply to the accelerator since the application process is currently open until July 22nd. Here is the link to their [Website]

“The Unmissing Part” is a short 2 minute film by Kuwaiti film maker Ahmad Alkhudari. The film won a total of 11 awards at various film festivals around the world last year which is pretty impressive so check it out.

Thanks Ghadeer!

My mum moved to Kuwait back in 1968 to work as a personal trainer at a local gym (yup, she was an OG PT) before joining Kuwait Airways as a flight attendant. My dad on the other hand moved to Kuwait in 1972 and worked as a self employed interior designer. They eventually met, got married, had kids and continued to live here until last week, when my parents moved out of their apartment and left Kuwait for good.

People always ask me if I have any plans on leaving. The thing is, eventually, all expats have to leave Kuwait.

Even though my parents were living in Kuwait for nearly 50 years, they had as much rights and benefits as someone who just moved to Kuwait last week. They still needed a sponsor, they still needed to renew their papers every year and they couldn’t own any property.

I was thinking how depressing that must be, living and working in a country for nearly 50 years and still have to put up with so much bureaucracy. Not only that, but they moved to Kuwait when it was expat friendly, and then watched it over the years turn into a country that dislikes its expat population (not all of you), thats difficult to take in as well. If you can’t get permanent residency or own property after living all your life in a country that doesn’t want you here in the first place, how can you retire in it?

I’ve already been in Kuwait for 38 years and I call it my home, but the reality is, no matter how long I’ll be here for, Kuwait can sadly never be my home and eventually, I’ll have to leave as well.

Someone posted an interesting query in the Kuwestions section, what is the oldest restaurant in Kuwait? One reader suggested Mais Alghanim which is possible since its been active since 1953, but I’m curious if there is anything older that is still around and active?

The two photos here were taken from the Mais Alghanim photo gallery [Here]

The Assima mall and tower which is currently under construction in Kuwait City (across from KIPCO Tower) caught fire earlier today. The fire started in the afternoon and by the time I passed by in the evening, the whole site was engulfed in flames. Solo Pizza, Sola Taco’s and A’s Chicken were forced to close down since their shops are located right behind the construction site.

So if you were wondering what all that smoke coming from the city was, now you know.

Update: Below are some epic photos taken earlier tonight by a reader. Thanks Ricardo!

Update2: According to KUNA, the fire started around 3:30PM and it took 180 firemen to put it out. [Link]

Update3: Now that the fire is out the damage to the site looks to be pretty extensive. According to a reader, the shoring around the site is completely burned and the “shores” are collapsing. Before you start digging to create a hole for construction, you first have to stabilize the sides so they won’t collapse. That process is called shoring. The shoring is composed of steel beams with wooden planks between them [Like this] that hold up the sand walls. The wooden planks are now mostly burnt and the sand walls are collapsing into the site as you can see in the picture above. Thanks Dragos!

I’ve had my Lotus Exige now for nearly three months and during this time I had a bunch of things done to the car in terms of upgrades and improvements. This post is mostly for people trying to google info on the Lotus, so if you’re not into cars in general, just skip this post. Before I get into the specifics of what I’ve done to the car, I do want to highlight one aspect of owning a Lotus that I wasn’t expecting, the amazing community.

The Lotus Community
The Lotus community has been pretty great so far, from the local dealership to online forums and even the main Lotus factory. Everyone is just so friendly and helpful. Like I’ve already mentioned in my previous posts on the car, the local dealer Alghanim has been incredible, I’ve got the brand manager whom I whatsapp whenever I need anything and is now more like a friend then a brand manager, I also have the same Lotus technician I deal with every time I’m at the garage whom I’m on a first name basis, so the whole experience feels very personalized. I’m also in contact with the only other Exige owner in Kuwait at the moment and we’re planning to meet up soon for a photoshoot. I want to see what he’s done to the car and show him what I’ve done. There is another Exige arriving any day now and its going to a guy who’s connected to my circle of friends as well and then there is another Exige arriving by the end of summer that will belong to a close friend. So we’re going to have a pretty great little Exige community popping up here in Kuwait soon.

But its not only in Kuwait where I’ve been having a great experience with Lotus people. When I first got the car I contacted Lotus in the UK regarding some questions I had with the AC, a guy called Tony who is their ‘Technical & Training’ guy responded to me within a few hours. When I emailed him some feedback regarding the AC system, he forwarded my email to their electrical and HVAC department so they could check it out. They actually care about their customers and since we are a small community take all feedback into consideration. A couple of days ago I had another question which I emailed him and again within a few hours he got back to me. Someone at the Lotus factory is replying to my emails in a few hours, I mean I don’t reply that fast to people who email my blog, it’s really impressive how personal the whole experience feels.

The people in the forums are also amazing. Since I got the car I’ve been an active user in The Lotus Forums and I’ve been trying to contribute to the community as much as I can [eg 1, 2, 3 and 4]. Since there are only a few hundred Exige (V6) owners around the world, there really isn’t much documentation and reviews online on various accessories and upgrades you can perform on the car. So whatever I’ve been doing, I’ve been documenting and sharing with the community.

The Upgrades
So like I mentioned at the start of this post, I went through a first round of different upgrades for the car, below is a list of what I’ve done so far.

Sound System
The first thing I did as soon as I got the car was upgrade the sound system. The car had four cheap-ass speakers and a very basic single-DIN car stereo that didn’t even have bluetooth. So I decided to upgrade the car with the following setup:

Alpine CDE-HD149BT Receiver
Alpine KTP-445A Amp
Focal 100AC Access Series Speakers (Front)
Focal 130AC Access Series Speakers (Rear)

The whole setup looks stock with the amp also hidden in the dashboard so you wouldn’t really be able to tell I changed anything. But sound wise its a huge improvement over the stock sound system and it didn’t really cost me much for basically what is top of the line stuff.

Carbon Fiber Covers for the Engine Bay
This was strictly a cosmetic and practicality upgrade. You can see the Lotus engine through the glass boot and since we have a lot of dust in Kuwait, I have to clean the engine bay every so often so that it looks presentable under the glass. I kept having trouble dusting one of the large plastic covers in the engine bay because it had a rough texture. So I ordered a pair of glossy carbon fiber covers from Komo-tec in Germany, and now the engine is sandwiched between two shiny carbon fiber pieces. If you want to see how the engine bay looked like before, click [Here]

2Bular Exhaust System
This was the biggest upgrade I did to the car, I swapped out the stock exhaust for one by 2Bular. There are three popular exhaust brands for the Lotus, 2Bular, Komo-tec and Larini, all three cost the same so in the end it came down to aesthetics and sound signature. 2Bular won on both those counts for me. The 2Bular exhausts are hand built by a guy called Jim Valentine in Aberdeen and he just does Lotus exhausts and nothing else. It took around a month from when I placed an order, had him build it and then get it shipped and delivered to my door here in Kuwait. Last year he had a backlog of orders and so was taking months to deliver the exhausts to customers which is why I was grateful it just took a month in my case. I had the exhaust installed at a local garage called Gemballa and I’m currently in the processes of breaking it in. It sounds really angry so far, but like the stock exhaust its also valved which means I can have it quiet when I want it quiet, and loud when I want it loud.

Soft Top
This is the last thing I got but won’t be using it till fall when the weather cools down. During the cold months I’ll be removing the hard top roof on the car and replacing it with the soft top. It will make taking off and putting on the roof a lot easier plus it rolls up and fits in the trunk, something I couldn’t do with the hard top. New at the local dealer the soft top costs KD900, but I found a used one on the German eBay for KD400 shipped to Kuwait. I decided it was too good a deal to pass and just bought it and will now store it till winter.

Whats Next?
Nothing, I think I’m done for now. I’m considering getting a small sub for the sound system, but because of the size of the car, it’s gonna be a bit of a headache to install and hide which is why I haven’t pulled the trigger on it yet. Other than that though I think I’m done with all the upgrades. I fucking love this car and I’m so glad I’ve got a friend getting one because we basically spend the whole time now sharing Exige videos and talking about the cars. It’s so much fun.

Back in November, local creative firm Beattie + Dane launched a campaign for Al Munayes Tea called ‘Bou Salem’. It was a hilarious campaign where they created a fake candidate for the parliamentary elections and it ended up going viral pretty much overnight.

Well yesterday, Beattie + Dane won Bronze at the Cannes Lions festival for that campaign. Cannes Lions is to advertising what the Oscars are to movies, its the most coveted and well respected festival in the entire advertising and creative communications industry. Being shortlisted for a Lion is a huge accomplishment by itself, yet alone winning an actual award.

My favorite commercial from the ‘Bou Salem’ series is the one below where he day dreams while drinking his tea, but you should really watch the case study video on top first which explains the campaign and is in English.

‘Flat’ is a new real estate app that just recently launched and unlike most new real estate projects, this one is starting off with a large selection of ads, over 1,500 at the time of this post.

Visually the app is decent looking but I found navigating through the listings a bit inefficient since at any one point you can only see two listings at a time while scrolling. One cool feature I did like though was the ability to find apartments available around you. Say you’re in an area you like, you can just launch the app and click on the “Nearby” option and the app will find apartments available in your vicinity.

Flat is free and available for both iOS and Android devices and you can download them using the following links: [Apple iOS] [Android]

You can also visit their website [Here]