Search: “sti”

This weekend might be the busiest yet with so much going on. My personal picks are the 1001 Inventions Exhibition, the KLL Yard Sale because I like yard sales, the Open Mic night, Qout Market and the Madeenah Tour. Photographers might be interested in the motocross KMX Race Day event taking place on Saturday since there will be a ton of photo ops. Check out the full list of events taking place this weekend below:

Thursday
Exhibition: Al-Seef
Exhibition: The Replacement by Mahmoud Obaidi
Exhibition: Van Leo – Master Cairo Portrait Photographer
1001 Inventions Exhibition
Al-Mubarakiya Festival
Kuwait Yacht Show 2015
Works of Art by the Indian Women’s Association
Rooftop Movie: Before Sunrise

Friday
1001 Inventions Exhibition
Al-Mubarakiya Festival
Kuwait Yacht Show 2015
Works of Art by the Indian Women’s Association
KLL Yard Sale
Open Mic at Bayt Lothan

Saturday
1001 Inventions Exhibition
Al-Mubarakiya Festival
Kuwait Yacht Show 2015
Qout Market
The Secret Garden Project
The North Face Challenge Race 2015
KMX Race Day
Workshop: Introduction to Figure Sculpting
Madeenah Tour: Bneid Al Gar
Rooftop Movie: The Imaginarium of Dr. Parnassus

If you’d like to share an event on the blog [Email Me]

Hungry Bunny is a popular burger franchise that used to be open back in Kuwait during the 80s pre Burger King and McDonalds days. When Al Homaizi got the Burger King franchise, they shutdown all the Hungry Bunny locations and killed the brand. But the original creator of Hungry Bunny ended up launching the brand in Saudi Arabia and then a few years ago brought the brand back to Kuwait. Al Homaizi Group sued them and it now seems Hungry Bunny has been told to stop using the bunny logo until a verdict is reached in the court case.

I passed by Hungry Bunny for a quick bite yesterday and the majority of the items had the Hungry Bunny logo without the bunny (like in the placemats pictured above). But, some items like the burger wrapper still had the bunny on them. According to the shop manager this is just a temporary issue and the bunny will be coming back soon. They’ve even removed the bunny from the shop signage as well so it’s a pretty awkward mess right now.

Update: Al Homaizi have commented with the following:

Dear Mark and Loyal Hungry Bunny Customers,

It is great to see Hungry Bunny still having that nostalgic feeling within Kuwait and we thank you for your post which we appreciate and are proud of as the founders of the Hungry Bunny brand.

With regards to your post, we would like to mention that Hungry Bunny was developed in 1982 by Al Homaizi Foodstuff Co. in Kuwait and is 100% Kuwaiti.

As the first local franchise in Kuwait, Hungry Bunny led the way and opened the doors to decades of innovative local concepts within Kuwait which we are very proud to see are still growing today.

The Hungry Bunny restaurants that launched in and outside of Kuwait following 1997 were not the original Hungry Bunny developed by Al Homaizi Foodstuff Co.

We would also like to take this opportunity to thank all of our loyal Hungry Bunny customers! We would love to hear more about your experiences and memories that you, your family and your friends had in the 80’s and 90’s at the much-loved Hungry Bunny.

Please share your memories with us by sending us an email to [email protected]

Best Wishes,

Al Homaizi Foodstuff Co.
Member of Kout Food Group, Kuwait

The last time I heard of PAWS was when John of K’S PATH posted about the cruelty investigation that took place there but now it seems an employee of PAWS has taken over the Facebook page and is calling out for help. The message above (plus a few others) were posted a couple of days back on the PAWS page and since then I’ve been getting a lot of emails asking me to post about it. The chairperson herself has been denying all the claims and has been asking people to visit the shelter to see for themselves. Whatever happens I just hope the sheltered animals come out of this ok. Check out all the messages on the PAWS Facebook page [Here]

Super busy weekend again but the biggest thing going on is the Kuwait Rising Music Festival which shouldn’t be missed. Other than that if you haven’t watched the movie The Americans, you should and you’re lucky because it’s playing this Saturday at the Cinemagic rooftop. Check out the full list of events below:

Thursday
Exhibition: Al-Seef
Exhibition: The Replacement by Mahmoud Obaidi
Exhibition: Van Leo – Master Cairo Portrait Photographer
InfoConnect 2015
Nuqat: Workshop with Karim Jabbari
Rooftop Movie: The Past

Friday
InfoConnect 2015
Nuqat: Workshop with Karim Jabbari
Musical: Poptastic
Book Club Meeting
Music Festival: Kuwait Rising
Concert: Prayaan
Extreme Powerboat Run

Saturday
InfoConnect 2015
Nuqat: Workshop with Karim Jabbari
Musical: Poptastic
Generation Z Winter Bazaar
Madeenah Tour: Baghdad Street Salmiya
Rooftop Movie: The Americans

If you’d like to share an event on the blog [Email Me]

Last week while heading to Masaha 13 I drove by a place that looked interesting. I didn’t know what they sold but it was evening and the place was nicely lit up so after having drinks with a friend at Masaha, I drove back to the place to find out what it was. Turned out it was a new flower shop that had opened around a month back called Orchidaceae. It’s definitely the coolest looking and trendiest flower shop I’ve ever been to with concrete floors and a black mesh ceiling. It was hard to leave without getting anything so I ended up picking up an Oncidium orchid for myself.

If you’re interested they’re located in Shuwaikh near the Bulthaup kitchens dealer. Here is their location on [Google Maps] and here is a link to their instagram @orchidaceaekw

Caliburger is a burger joint from South California and they’re officially opening up this Wednesday at Miral Complex. I’m going to sound like a broken record but I have no clue why people think it still makes sense to open more burger joints. Anyway for more information checkout their instagram account @caliburgerkw

My primary bank is NBK but due to various issues, mainly this one time when their ATM network was down and I wasn’t able to withdraw money before traveling, I decided to open a secondary bank account with Burgan Bank as a backup. I chose Burgan Bank primarily because they were located in the building adjacent to my apartment building and I liked how the branch looked like. As I found out recently though, turns out for traveling, Burgan Bank was the wrong bank to go with.

Last month while in Cape Town the owner of the bed & breakfast I was staying in asked me if I could pay him in cash since that way he wouldn’t have to pay the credit card transaction fee. So I went to an ATM to withdraw money using my Burgan Bank card. The ATM had a limit on how much I could withdraw at once so I had to withdraw the amount in two parts. After withdrawing the first half I tried to withdraw the second half and got an error. I then received a message on my phone from Burgan Bank saying my card had been declined and I needed to contact them. So I called Burgan Bank up using roaming and after getting a hold of an employee I was told that due to security reasons, Burgan Bank has placed a limit on South Africa and that I could only withdraw a maximum of KD25 a day. I went apeshit over the phone. I told the employee I’m on vacation and they have no right to limit my spending to just KD25. I told him KD25 wouldn’t be enough for me to spend per day and I also needed to pay for my accommodation now and I couldn’t because of this stupid limit. He told me he would put in a request to increase my spending limit temporarily. I was like I needed the limit lifted now so he put me on hold for a few minutes before letting me know my limit was lifted.

I came back to Kuwait and basically forgot about the whole incident until this past weekend while I was in Bahrain I ran into another issue. On the day I arrived to Bahrain I tried to use my Burgan Bank ATM card but it got declined. I thought it might have been something with the sellers machine and decided to use my NBK card for the purchase instead. I didn’t use my card for the rest of the trip since I was using my NBK credit card. When I landed in Kuwait Saturday night I headed to the Burgan Bank ATM machine at the airport to withdraw money to pay for parking but I got a declined error again and a message on my phone saying the bank declined my card and I should contact them. So I called Burgan Bank and ask their customer support why they’re declining my transactions and the employee told me it was due to security reasons. I was like what?! He was like when someone uses the ATM card in two different countries in the same day they automatically block my card and I need to call the bank to unblock it. I went apeshit again. I told the employee I had breakfast at the airport and then traveled to Bahrain and wanted to use my card there, are you telling me I am not allowed to do that? Are you saying that if I have breakfast at the airport I am not allowed to use my card again until 24 hours later after arriving to my destination? He was like it’s their policy. I was like I can’t be the only Burgan Bank customer that has complained about this. I was literally yelling at this point and asked him if Burgan Bank customers ever travel??? I told him this was the dumbest shit I’ve ever heard and that IF they were to block my card it should be when someone tries to withdraw a large amount like a KD1,000 or KD5,000 but not KD10! I told him I was fed up with them and that I hated being put in awkward situations because of them. I told him they have no right to keep blocking my card like that because they have no idea what situation I could be in while abroad and needed money but because of their incompetence I would end up being screwed. I told the employee to unblock my card and to put a note to never ever block it again. I told him even if five different people in five different countries try to withdraw money from my card at the same time to let them. Even if someone in Nigeria is trying to withdraw all the money on the card to let them. I just couldn’t handle it anymore, I hate being treated like a child by my bank. If they’re concerned about any transaction on my card they should call me and check on it like NBK does. But to block my card without warning is ridiculous.

So in the next few days when I have some free time I’m going to sadly be closing my account with Burgan Bank. I say sadly because I actually love the branch near my house and have had a pretty good experience with them. Even though both their app and online banking sucks I liked passing by their branch and their bank employees are actually really friendly. But their security policies have completely killed it for me. The whole point of opening an account with them was so that I have a backup system to use when I travel and the one thing I wanted them for they’ve failed in miserably. Now I need to find another bank instead so if anyone has any recommendations let me know below.

Update: Burgan Bank ended up calling me regarding my post and according to them they’ve reengineered some of the processes so that people don’t end up having these issues again. This is the email they sent me:

Dear Mark,

Thank you for raising your customer experience with us in regards to recent issues on your debit cards, firstly we regret the inconvenience caused to you. Due to the recent spate of frauds in card related transactions across the region each bank including ourselves had put in parameters in order to protect & safe guard our customers. Our endeavor has always been to protect our customers assets & ensure better customer experience.

We can reassure you that based on your experience and feedback we have relooked at our processes & reengineered them to ensure better customer experience and we will monitor and review the same on ongoing basis.

Regards,

A bunch of things to do this weekend but I’m not going to be in Kuwait. This means I’ll be missing the very interesting sounding A Tour with Taste: The Flavor of the Coastline that is going to be held on Friday. Check out the full list of events taking place this weekend below:

Thursday
Exhibition: Al-Seef
Exhibition: The Replacement by Mahmoud Obaidi
Exhibition: Van Leo – Master Cairo Portrait Photographer
Auto Moto 15 – The Kuwait Motor Show
Marina Market
Traditional Kuwaiti Food and Dishdasha Night & Book Presentation
Rooftop Movie: Insomnia

Friday
Auto Moto 15 – The Kuwait Motor Show
Marina Market
Street Fest
A Tour with Taste: The Flavor of the Coastline

Saturday
Auto Moto 15 – The Kuwait Motor Show
Marina Market
Street Fest
Guided Tour: Old Kuwait City
Rooftop Movie: Lars and The Real Girl

If you’d like to share an event on the blog [Email Me]

So my blog is coming up on its 10 year anniversary next month (February 19th) and I’ve been thinking of different ways of celebrating it. Here are some of my ideas so far:

– Hold a small private party and invite friends and blog contacts
– Hold a public meet up similar to the one I did back in 2006
– Get wasted and then drunk-post like I used to back in the old days
– Shutdown the blog permanently and move to Cape Town

Does anyone have better ideas? Here is the link to my first post on 248AM [Link]

Eight is a restaurant that is open across the street from Arraya Complex in Kuwait City. It opened up over a year ago but I never ate there because the design of the place looked so dark and gloomy. But, today while walking by it I noticed they’ve completely redecorated the place and it’s now so much more brighter and better looking. I still haven’t tried it out but I did quickly flip through the menu and I might end up going back for their sweet potato and brisket dish. For now I thought I’d just mention the facelift since it’s such a major improvement.

I’m a big fan of Qatar Airways for long haul flights and have used them previously to fly to New York, Tokyo and most recently Cape Town. So last week when Qatar Airways invited me to fly out to Qatar to check out their new plane, I jumped at the opportunity. I had never visited Qatar before (other than during transit) so I was as excited to check out the country as I was their new plane. Plus, I had some friends who I hadn’t seen since university that lived there and really wanted to see them as well.

I left Kuwait Tuesday night flying out first class but on one of their old planes which I’m not a fan of. I think they have six flights a day from Kuwait and I know at least one of those flights uses the much newer Boeing 787 Dreamliner which is a beautiful plane with a proper business class. As I mentioned in my previous post, the new Qatar airport is insane, probably one of the nicest airports I’ve been to and such a huge improvement over their older one. After landing and checking into the hotel I decided to head to Hakkasan for dinner at the beautiful St. Regis Hotel. Why don’t we have a hotel like that in Kuwait??? Anyway after somehow spending KD55 for an unimpressive dinner, I retreated back to my hotel for the night.

Wednesday morning I woke up early along with at least a hundred media people from all around the world and via shuttle busses we were all taken to the old Qatar airport for a press conference. Qatar Airways was the first airline in the world to receive the new A350 XWB plane which is why they made such a big deal about it. This is supposedly the last completely new plane that will be released for at least the next 10 years and so all eyes are on it. The actual press conference was pretty boring until the Qatar Airways CEO Akbar Al Baker started a Q&A session. God damn he’s impressive, not only does he know his airline inside out but personality wise he’s such a direct and blunt person. He was really inspiring and I was just sitting there thinking how I really need to be doing so much more with my life. After the Q&A was over we were invited to check out the new plane which was parked outside on the tarmac.

The A350 XWB is the successor to the A330 and the A340 (you’ve most likely flown on them before), it’s also Airbuses answer to the Boeing 787 Dreamliner. XWB stands for extra wide body and allows the airline to fit an extra seat in economy creating a 3-3-3 seating formation. Most of the new features of the plane are under the hood but the ones we will notice the most are the larger windows and the quieter engines. The plane is also supposed to be very comfortable for long trips due to a number of other features like low cabin pressure, pure air inflight and precision air management. The first thing I wanted to do once I got onto the plane though was to check out the economy seats. I mostly fly economy so I really wanted to get a feel for it on this plane. The economy seats on the Qatar Airways A350 are pretty comfortable, the leg room fantastic (I’m 6’1) and the media system super responsive and a considerable upgrade over the system I recently used on the Dreamliner which was already great. Once done with Economy I walked into the business class cabin which was very familiar since I had just flown business from Cape Town to Doha on the Dreamliner. The A350 business class cabin looked practically the same since the seats are provided to Qatar Airways by a third party and they use the same ones on their different planes. But, because the A350 has an extra wide body, the seat manufacturer is able to make the seats slightly wider. One thing I loved is the window shades in business class although like on the Dreamliner they don’t completely block the sunlight which can be irritating if you’re trying to reduce glare on your laptop screen or just want complete darkness.

[YouTube]

After checking out the plane I decided to head out and explore Doha and meet up with my friends. I ended up going to Katara Village and The Pearl both beautiful places. I also ended up having dinner at Opal by Gordon Ramsay which I also thought was unimpressive (they couldn’t even cook the burger right and the bun was crumbling like it was 2 days old). Generally I thought some parts of Doha looked like a mini Dubai like their downtown area and parts of their coastal roads but the other parts of Doha looked like Farwaniya. You have this huge contrast between the different parts of the city and it just makes things confusing since I kept flip flopping between liking and not liking Doha. They don’t even have highways so every trip no matter how short it was would take 30 minutes. On the plus side they have Uber which I used throughout my whole stay.

It was a pretty cool and quick trip. They’re going to be receiving new A350s every month and hopefully I’ll get to fly on one soon. For now though their first route is from Doha to Frankfurt and that’s not a route I’ll be taking anytime in the near future. Kuwait Airways recently announced that they’ve ordered 25 of these new planes as well but it’s probably going to be awhile before they start receiving them. Anyway if you want to find out more about the plane check out this [Link]

Last week I passed by Rice to Riches in Avenues to check the place out. It’s a New York based dessert place that serve a variety of flavored rice puddings. A friend of mine who is friends with the owner wanted me to try the place out and then write a positive review of it on the blog. Obviously that’s not how this blog works and I explained to him that I hadn’t even tried rice pudding before so I’m not sure I’ll even like it. And that’s actually what made me want to pass by the place. I get invited to a lot of places all the time but unless it’s something different, I’m not gonna find it interesting and so I’m honestly not going to go and try it out (sorry burger joints).

So Thursday after coming back from Qatar I headed to Avenues to see what Rice to Riches was all about. The owner and the operation manager were there so they ended up showing me around the place before taking me to their kitchen and showed me how their rice pudding was made. After the little tour they brought out I think like 12 different flavors and wanted me blind taste them. So I started going through the flavors one by one guessing the flavors while giving them feedback on what I thought. I wasn’t really sure how rice pudding was going to taste, I just imagined the rice I make at home mixed with chocolate and figured it would taste really gross. Luckily, it didn’t taste like rice at all. The rice pudding is served cold and the hazelnut flavor for example to me tasted like chocolate mousse and was my favorite flavor alongside the cheesecake flavor which was just as good. My least favorite flavor was the old fashioned which didn’t have any flavor added at all.

I wasn’t expecting to like rice pudding but I did (at least some of the flavors). If you’re calorie counting though you’re going to have to leave that at the door since this isn’t some frozen yogurt alternative. They have random humorous signs hanging proudly with messages like “Eat what you want, you’re already fat”, “Think with your stomach” or “If you want to look young and thin, hang out with old fat people”. Rice to Riches is officially opening on January 15th in Avenues Phase III on the top floor next to Elevation Burger. They’re going to be soft launching before that date so check their instagram to stay posted.

Earlier tonight I heard a rumor that Entertainment City was shutting down to get privatized and that Six Flags was going to take it over. A few moments ago I got confirmation from a source at Touristic Enterprises Company that the rumors regarding the privatization are true, Entertainment City is sadly going to be shutdown.

The whole park had fallen into disrepair over the years with many popular rides not working like the Water Log, Oasis Express (AKA the Death Train) and the observation tower. The only thing left really was our childhood memories and I have many of those since I’ve been frequenting the park ever since it opened back in 1984.

My source wasn’t able to confirm if Six Flags was actually taking over but it wouldn’t be too far fetched of an idea since last year they announced they were opening in Dubai. But then again, we neither have the tourists nor the popular number of the UAE so I can’t imagine it being feasible for them to open in Kuwait.

Image Source

Earlier tonight while in Doha I took an Uber cab and as I usually do I opened up a conversation with the driver. I love Uber so I’m always being nosy and asking the drivers questions about the service like how much interest Uber takes, how many hours they work and other Uber driver related questions.

Anyway we were talking about Uber in different countries in the region and he asked me about Uber in Kuwait and I told him we didn’t have it yet. He found that odd and asked me if I was sure. After convincing him that I was he told me two months back he picked up a women who told him she worked for Uber in Kuwait. I thought that was interesting. It would make sense if they did come to Kuwait since they’re already in Doha, Dubai, Abu Dhabi, Jeddah, Riyad, Manama and Beirut. Even though I have a car there are occasions where I’ve needed a cab and I just hated the fact that I need to negotiate with the drivers for a price because they didn’t want to turn their meters on.

I love this car, I’ve loved it ever since I first laid my eyes on it. Last year I took the F-Type roadster out for a day and my biggest issue with it other than the super tiny trunk was the fact it was a soft top convertible. I’m not a fan of soft tops so when Jaguar revealed the F-Type Coupe I knew this is the car I wanted to get.

The Jaguar F-Type Coupe is one of the best looking cars on the roads right now and in my opinion, it also has one of the hottest looking rear ends. The model Jaguar lent me was the V6 340hp although they had a 380hp version available to test drive as well (maybe I could take that for a spin next time Jaguar?). When I first picked up the car I wasn’t too sure about the color, but by the end of the day it had grown on me. It’s such a beautiful car that even the white looks great on it, actually white might be my favorite color on the Coupe.

The F-Type Coupe isn’t a big car, it doesn’t have any rear seats nor any kind of room behind the seats. It’s compact but never feels claustrophobic. I picked up the car in the morning and went about my day. I had a bunch of errands to run followed by lunch with a friend and like the F-Type roadster, this is a great everyday car. It’s easy to drive in traffic and the suspension is soft enough to handle bumpy old roads. The trunk in the Coupe is fairly large as well so if you want to drop a friend off at the airport you can, that was something I wasn’t able to do with the roadster due to the fact that trunk couldn’t fit a medium sized bag.

After lunch I drove up north to my favorite isolated road to take my photos. It’s a 50 minute drive each way so it gives me a lot of good quality time with the car. One thing this model I drove missed over the previous roadster I had taken out was the optional sport exhaust system. Although the car had an aggressive growl and popped a lot, I did miss having the optional exhaust switch which would kick the sound up a notch. Speaking of sounds, the sound system in the review car was also the standard 6-speaker one and not the 12-speaker Meridian system I had previously tried out in the roadster. It still sounded impressive, but just not as good as the Meridian.

One thing I really appreciated on the car this time around were the brakes. Based on the spec sheet I received, the Coupe I drove was fitted with the standard brakes but they were extremely responsive and very powerful. I’m by nature a late-braker but with the F-Type I became a very-late-braker because I had so much confidence in the brakes. Makes me wonder how much better the optional super performance braking system would be.

Like the F-Type roadster, one of the best things about the Coupe is the starting price. The Jaguar F-Type Coupe starts at just KD19,500 and the one I was driving with all the options sells for around KD24,000. If I didn’t know how much the F-Types cost I would have easily guessed over KD30,000 just by the looks alone. Is there anything I didn’t like in the car? Not really, I mean this is the car I was actually considering getting a few months ago when I was car shopping. It’s got great looks, incredible performance and just feels fantastic on the road.

If you’re interested in test driving the car yourself you can pass by the Jaguar dealer in Al-Rai (Al-Zayani) and check it out there.