Search: “sti”

Had the salmon dish above at the newly opened Café Coco at the Avenues. Although it was slightly overcooked it was still pretty good and it came with lots of veggies. It’s priced at KD7.5 but the quantity was larger than the salmon dish I previously posted about at THE One. Would definitely go back and have it again.

The Contemporary Art Platform has a couple of interesting exhibits taking place right now but the one I got to check out recently and found fascinating is “Scattered, Gathered”. Part of the “Scattered, Gathered” is the works of Syrian artist Issam Kourbaj who I was lucky enough to meet when I was visiting CAP. I thought his exhibit was really interesting because of the story behind it and the the result of it. Issam had been working on an architectural project in the city of Cambridge for a couple of years and as the project was about to move forward with construction it suddenly got canceled. That put Issam in a depression and he retreated to his apartment where he spent the next 10 months venting out his anger and frustration on twelve volumes of the 1890 Britannica encyclopedia. He superimposed his visual diaries onto 10,232 pages of the now they’re being displayed for the very first time at CAP.

The exhibition is running until February 8th and its worth checking out. For more information on the exhibit click [Here]

A couple of days back I passed by the Kuwait National Museum for a little bit of exploration. Last week some friends of mine were given a tour of the two buildings that were still vacant and in shambles since the 1990 invasion and I really wanted to go check it out for myself. I’ve always been curious to see whats inside so I headed there on Thursday to take a look.

The museum is made up of four main buildings with two being occupied and two vacant. One of the vacant ones had under construction hoardings all around but the other building didn’t and the door was open so I just walked in. I took some photos which you can check out above, the black and white ones are from the first building I walked to while the colored ones are from the second building. There was nothing really to see since it looks like they’re finally renovating the building but at least I got to satisfy my curiosity.

If anyone knows where I can get some photos of the museum taken right after the invasion let me know. Also if anyone can get me access to the abandoned Al-Salam Palace then please email me.

@mark248am as of 1st January the UFC has decided leave OSN and we are very disappointed at their decision.

— OSN (@osn) January 21, 2014

This absolutely sucks. I used to love recording live UFC event and then waking up early morning to watch them. It’s the only reason I still had my OSN subscription. Instead, OSN are now getting Bellator which no one wants to watch while the UFC has moved to Abu Dhabi Sports.

Four new restaurants have opened up next to each other on Blajat Street, JJ’s Burgers, Sandawicha, Meywa and Abou Jassem. Have’t tried any of them but I do like the wooden looking (dont’ think its real wood) exterior facade of the restaurants. Makes the whole thing look a lot more interesting.

It frustrates me when I hear stories of cops impounding cars because of a small stickers on the rear window but then I see scenes like the one above where a cop completely ignored a much more dangerous situation. The ATV above obviously isn’t street legal hence the lack of a license plate or any indicator lights but if that wasn’t enough the rider was texting on his phone when the cop just drove past him like nothing was wrong.

This story has been making rounds all over the internet the past few days but the actual discovery was made back in 2008. A shark species thought to be extinct was found dead at the Souk Sharq Fish Market. More interestingly though, flipping through the photos in the article, I had no idea shark fishing was so prevalent in the region. [Link]

[YouTube]

Shark of Kuwait has setup a YouTube channel and has started uploading all his videos. If you don’t know who Shark of Kuwait check this old post of mine. To check out his YouTube channel click [Here]

While flipping through some old files I found this old article from Kuwait Times about blogging in Kuwait. It’s from 2004 and back then I had stopped posting on qhate.com and instead moved to moblogging photos (kinda like instagram). Back then the blogging community was really tiny, it’s crazy how things have changed since then. Check out the article [Here]

Note: The link to Qhate in the article is wrong, it should be https://qhate.com

Turns out the new movie The Wolf of Wall Street was completely butchered for the Gulf the region. It seems the movie distributor censored the movie before sending it out to movie theaters across the GCC where local censorship also cut scenes from the movie. The original movie is 180 minutes long while in UAE its 135 minutes, in Qatar 134 minutes and in Kuwait 130 minutes long. Kinda reminds me of the story of how when Basic Instinct came out in Kuwait it was a short film.

Thanks aaa

Facile in a new local web service that just launched. The service allows you to upload a document so they can print, bind and then deliver them to you. Kinda like an online version of Kinkos. They’re still in beta so if you have any comments let them know. It’s a simple idea and it’s not food related, check them out [Here]

The event section on the blog has gotten a makeover. I’m trying to make it much easier to find out about events and the section is still a work in progress. I’m planning to add the ability to find events by category as well as adding a full month view.

There are a lot of events taking place all the time so I’m posting all of the ones I find in the events section and only posting the ones I think are interesting here on the main blog page. So let me know your feedback, check it out [Here]

Note: I took the photo above at the Fired but Unexploded exhibit

The GulfRun 9 car show is going to take place this weekend at 360 Mall featuring a ton of super cars including the new Corvette C7 Stingray which I have yet to see from up close. The cars will be on display for two days, Friday the 10th and Saturday 11th from 10AM to 10PM so make sure you pass by and check them out. Below is the full list of cars that will be on display at 360 Mall.

I was searching for random stuff on eBay when I spotted a bunch of different sellers selling old postcards of Kuwait. I saved the most interesting ones to share below. Notice how much greener Kuwait was back in the old days? Also you might notice some of the postcards feature the Kuwait Towers while still under construction. The postcard I decided to highlight above is of “The Yachting Club”. [eBay Link]

There are two images of the back of the postcards with writings. I don’t know what language they’re in (my guess Bulgarian and Italian?) but if anyone can translate them to English that would be fantastic. Also what happened to all the seagulls??

Update: A friend noted the seagulls might have been super imposed on that shot. Looking at it closely I can’t seem to find any shadows of the seagulls so that’s probably the case.

Below is this months schedule for Cinemagics rooftop movie nights. If you’ve never been to them before, they’re held twice a week, every Thursday and Saturday on top of the building that has Xcite in old Salmiya. A couple of the movies from this month were supposed to show last month but got canceled so they’re showing again this month. Check out all the movies and their timings below:

Thursday, January 9th 2014 at 7:30PM
REPO MAN
Considered one of the more unique Science Fiction films, and a standout essential film of the 80’s, as well as being ranked #7 on the top 50 cult films of all time, Repo Man follows a Punk Rocker who after getting fired from his job as a clerk, becomes a repo man and is jolted into a new lifestyle that he quickly begins to enjoy. All that is flipped on its head when he meets a girl who tells him of a 64 Malibu that contains four dead aliens and that there’s $20,000 for the man that can repossess it.

Saturday, January 11th 2014 at 7:30PM
CACHE
Winner of Best Director at the Cannes Film Festival, Cache comes from the mind of visionary filmmaker Michael Hanneke (whose Amour won him universal acclaim at the 2012 Academy Awards). This film, starring Juliet Binoche follows a married couple who are terrorized by a series of surveillance videotapes left on their front porch.

Thursday, January 16th 2014 at 7:30PM
SURPRISE FILM OF THE MONTH
Every month we’ll be playing a surprise film, where you won’t know what you’re watching until just a minute before the film begins. One thing is for sure, every month the surprise film will be either my favourite film of the list, or the most unique in one way or the other. This month’s film was won and was nominated for over 30 awards worldwide including the Oscars, Golden Globes, Independent Spirit Awards, and the Baftas. A unique, hilarious, bizarre, and poetic little film.

Saturday, January 18th 2014 at 7:30PM
PIETA
Winner of the Golden Lion (Best Film) at the Venice Film Festival, Kang-do is a heartless man who has no living family members and whose job is to threaten debtors to repay his clients, the loan sharks who demand a 10x return on a one month loan. To recover the interest, the debtors would sign an insurance for handicap, and Kang-do would injure the debtors brutally to file the claim. One day he receives a visit from a strange, middle-aged woman claiming she is his long-lost mother. Over the following weeks, the woman stubbornly follows him and he continues to do his job. But he is slowly moved and changed by the motherly love expressed from this woman.

Thursday, January 23rd 2014 at 7:30PM
TALK TO HER
Winner of over 27 awards worldwide, mostly for Best Film or Best Foreign Film, Talk to her is considered by many fans of the legendary Pedro Almodovar to be his best film. Two men meet by chance at a private clinic, each looking after a woman in a coma. Marco’s girlfriend Lydia was a bullfighter who was mauled, and Benigno looks after a young ballet student. The lives of the four characters flow in all directions, past, present, and future, taking them to an unsuspected destiny.

Saturday, January 25th 2014 at 7:30PM
OFFSIDE
Winner of the Silver Bear at the Berlin Film Festival, and carrying a 97% score on review aggregator Rotten Tomatoes, Offside follows a group of girls who try to sneak into a football stadium to watch a World Cup qualifying match. Female fans are not allowed to enter football stadiums in Iran on the grounds that there will be a high risk of violence or verbal abuse against them. The film was shot in Iran during a real live match, but its screening was banned there.

Thursday, January 30th 2014 at 7:30PM
TOUKI BOUKI (Martin Scorsese’s World Cinema Project)
Every month, we’ll be playing a film from the World Cinema Project. Established by Martin Scorsese in 2007, the World Cinema Project expands the horizons of moviegoers everywhere. The mission of the WCP is to preserve and present marginalized and infrequently screened films from regions generally ill equipped to preserve their own cinema history. This month’s film is Touki Bouki. With a stunning mix of the surreal and the naturalistic, Djibril Diop Mambéty paints a vivid, fractured portrait of Senegal in the early 1970s. With a stunning mix of the surreal and the naturalistic, Djibril Diop Mambéty paints a vivid, fractured portrait of Senegal in the early 1970s. In this French New Wave–influenced fantasy-drama, two young lovers long to leave Dakar for the glamour and comforts of France, but their escape plan is beset by complications both concrete and mystical. Characterized by dazzling imagery and music, the alternately manic and meditative Touki bouki is widely considered one of the most important African films ever made.

Cinemagic is organizing these events as part of its efforts to contribute to the development of an internationally competitive Kuwaiti audio-visual production industry, partly by bringing the filmmakers and audiences together and by increasing the public’s interest in – and appreciation for – the art of film-making. Cinemagic movies are screened in the old Salmiya, on the rooftop of Xcite and LG [Map]. There is no entrance fee. Here is a link to their Facebook group [Link]