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I had a hard time starting this post because I couldn’t find the right words to describe Royce Gracie. He is the first ever UFC champion dating back to 1993. He’s also the younger brother of UFC co-founder Rorion Gracie. Back then there were no weight classes in the UFC so you had big and heavy fighters against smaller and skinnier ones and Royce Gracie proved to everyone that size didn’t always determine the outcome of a fight. You can view his fights on [YouTube] and you can read more about him [Here]

The reason I am posting this is because Royce Gracie is coming to Kuwait for a 3 day seminar on the aspects and fundamentals of Gracie Jiu Jits. Royce himself will be teaching and participating in the sessions. Students will also get to roll with Royce, take pictures and sign autographs. I asked if people with no martial arts experience (like me) could participate and turns out we can. After the first day, students will be split into two groups (beginners & advanced) and both will be under Royce’s instruction and supervision.

The seminar will be a 3 day event, 3 hours a day, and will cost KD100. Here are some more details:

Abdulmohsen Al Babtain’s Mixed Martial Arts SideKick Academy are proud to present UFC legend Royce Gracie to celebrate the pending launch of the academy Gracie will be conducting a 3 day seminar on the aspects & fundementals of Gracie Jiu Jitsu. Learn from the man who started it all.

Location: Al-Arabi Sporting Club, Basketball Arena
Date: January 21st, 22nd & 23rd, 2010

To reserve your place in the seminar or have any queries regarding the event contact the following :

Telephone: 94006344/66488858

Email: [email protected]

Here is a link to their website. [Link]

Yes the burger challenge is still on, I didn’t forget about it I just took a little break. There are a lot of new places that opened up since the last time I reviewed a burger and I will start visiting them one by one soon. First from this new bunch is Napket. Although they’ve been open for awhile they just recently introduced a new menu which includes among other things, burgers.

I had three burgers to choose from, Napket Signature, The Western and Mushroom & Swiss. I decided to go with the Signature burger which has roasted tomatoes, caramelized onions and cheddar cheese. The burger comes with french fries on the side but since I don’t have fried food anymore I asked for alternatives and ended up going with roasted potatoes instead.

The burger took a while to come and once it did it looked overcooked and charred. I was hungry and really looking forward to a good burger but, the forecast wasn’t looking good. Luckily I was wrong. I took my first bite into the burger and got completely surprised. It wasn’t burnt, it wasn’t dry, it was delicious. The beef patty was the perfect thickness and there was this sauce that was slightly spicy but added a lot of flavor to the burger. The caramelized onions were also a great addition, I’ve really started enjoying them in my burgers and in this case they added a very nice touch of sweetness that went strangely very well with the spicy sauce. It would have been perfect except for one major flaw… the roasted tomatoes. They were just too juicy for the burger, so juicy that the bottom bun had become extremely soggy and the whole burger was dripping. It was easily the messiest burger I’ve had since the start of this challenge and I’ve mentioned it before how much I hate messy burgers.

The burger cost KD3.500 which is fairly decent for a dish at Napket especially since it also comes with roasted potatoes (or fries) and a small portion of green stuff (I think they call it salad). The final score is a 3.5 out of 5. Everything was great except for the sogginess and mess that came with it. I told the waiter about the problem and he said he would pass my feedback on to the chef so hopefully it will get fixed. Next time I am going with the Mushroom & Swiss instead.

Napket is located in Avenues
The cost of the Napket Signature Burger was KD3.500

Here are the burger places I’ve reviewed so far:
Applebee’s
Bredz
Burger Boutique
Fuddruckers
Hashi
Gaucho Gril
Gourmet Burger Kitchen
Johnny Rockets
Munch
Papa John’s Burgers
Prime & Toast
Ruby Tuesday
Slider Station
Sheraton Hotel
Smoke House
The Burger Hub
The Butcher Shop
The Little Oven
Wimpy

Back in October there was a press release in the papers by a company which stated that they were opening Fatburger in Kuwait. Today there was another press release by another company stating that they are also opening Fatburger in Kuwait. So what gives?

Well this is what I found out. A local company got the Fatburger franchise rights 2 years back for Kuwait but never opened up a store. So, Fatburger decided to take the franchise rights from them and pass it to another local company. Fatburger will now be finally opening in Kuwait before June.

I am still holding my breath for Arby’s and Wendy’s.

Update: Turns out yesterday’s press release was actually placed in the newspaper by Fatburger North America themselves to clarify that there is a new Fatburger owner in Kuwait.

The 2010 Quality of Life Index is out and Kuwait ranked 106 which is up nearly 30 spots since 2006. Jordan is the only Arab country ahead coming in at 104 while UAE is 141 and Lebanon 113. The highest ranking goes to France followed by Australia and then Switzerland. Here is the link to the full list. [Link]

Thanks Farid!

The only Quiznos branch in Kuwait shut down. It seems the franchise owner wasn’t interested in the brand anymore. I thought it had a lot of potential but oh well, at least I still have Charley’s and Subway to fall back onto.

Today I passed by Fantasy World that just opened up at Avenues. The place is pretty big and I found a lot of interesting random stuff. Two of my favorites are below:

Around two weeks back I was checking out this 3D webcam online and I found it at Fantasy World. They’re selling it for KD25 which is the exact same price as Amazon.

I also found this very strange aquarium called Easy Hatch. You fill it up with water and eggs hatch and you get colorful tropical fish and shrimp. That’s real fish and shrimp not toys. Weird stuff. Its selling for like KD8.

*I just updated this post with another dog that went missing yesterday*

I got this from a reader, if anyone spots the dog please call them:

This is Papsy (Breed:German Spitz with a red and black harness). My parents were strolling with her by Marina Mall today 8 and were attacked by two big without a leash-on dogs. My mom fell (fractured her right arm) and let loose her leash by mistake. The two dogs chased and scared Papsy away. My parents have been searching for her frantically all day by Marina Mall area. There are still there. Please help us find her. if you have any information, please call us on 99575828 or 25632613.

I got the following email today:

Our dog is lost in Jabriya. His name is Snowy and he is a Maltese male around 5 yrs old. He had no leash on him when he escaped from our house accidently. Please contact me on the following numbers 99871650 or 66695462. I’m offering a KD150 reward to anyone that finds him.

Update: Snowy was found.

I’ve been wanting to pass by Poshcafe at the 360 Mall for sometime now since the place looked trendy and interesting and today I finally did for lunch. They don’t have a large menu but they do mix it up with variety like salads, soups, pastas, burgers, sandwiches and desserts. Their burgers are actually sliders made with Angus beef and I was really tempted to try it but decided instead to start with a Mushroom & Gruyère soup followed by a healthy Posh Club sandwich. Nat had a salad as usual.

The mushroom soup came first and it looked good but although the soup looked like it contained herbs, I couldn’t taste them and the whole thing turned out to be a bit bland. It wasn’t bad but I think it just tasted very average. The Posh Club which is their club sandwich was served once I had finished my soup. Presentation wise it looked really good and when I took my first bite I tasted something that seemed interesting. They use a “special” sauce with their club sandwich which I think is similar to the tahina sauce you get with meat shawermas. Although it tasted interesting at first by the third sandwich I realized the sauce was too heavy and turned what was supposed to be a light lunch into a heavy one and I didn’t like that since I might as well have gone with the sliders.

For the final score I am going to give them a 3.5 out of 5. I really liked the style of the place, the waitress was very friendly and they have a huge selection of desserts (which I didn’t try) that looked really good. My only issue is with the food I ordered, both of which I wouldn’t have again because they were just so average. Price wise they’re decent but maybe a bit on the high side with some items. Nat thought her salad was expensive since for the same price she could have had the salad bar at Le Notre. I thought the soup could have been a bit cheaper but the club sandwich was priced just right. The next time I go back I would probably try their slider and have a dessert instead of a starter.

Small mixed salad: KD2.750
Mushroom & Gruyère: KD2.450
Posh Club: KD2.750
Here is their [Menu]

Are they ever going to fix the mistakes on the Kuwait Airport website? The mistakes were highlighted back in 2007 when they launched the new site and its been nearly 3 years and the same mistakes are still there. [Link]

So I’ve been pushing DHL EasyShop a lot recently as a replacement to Aramex’s Shop&Ship but now it looks like I am going to start pushing Aramex again.

I received an email earlier today from a reader telling me about how DHL has new calculations for the weight. So I called them up and spent 20 minutes trying to understand how to calculate my shipping weight and honestly I still don’t know exactly how it works. The DHL employee told me its simple mathematics, I told him the last thing I want to do with my life is start plugging in formulas and make calculations to try and figure out how much my shipping cost will be. Here is what I understood:

If you get a package that weighs 2KG but it comes in a big box that gives you a volumetric weight of 8KG then you do the following:

8 – 2 = 6
6 > 5 = charged based on volumetric weight

So the formula looks something like

v: volumetric weight
w: actual weight

v – w = x
if x > 5 then you will be charged based on volumetric wieght
if x < 5 then you will be charged on actual weight Lets try it again. I have a shipment that is 6KG but the volumetric weight is 10kG the answer is? 10 - 6 = 4 4 < 5 so I pay based on actual weight The biggest problem is you can't figure out what the volumetric weight (v) of your package is until it arrives to your DHL mailbox which means you can't estimate the shipping cost. Seriously who at DHL came up with this smart idea? They had a chance here to gain customers that were pissed off with Aramex and now with this new change I think other customers like me will move back to Aramex. Update: I just passed by the Kuwait City DHL branch to pick up my package. What can I say, its hard not to like them. They’ve increased the amount of staff at that branch to 2 which is a good move since 1 guy wasn’t enough and I paid the regular shipping fee for my package which was based on actual weight since it was 2.5KG. I guess I will keep using DHL for everything under 5KG. I will use Aramex for items that are over 5KG but under 13KG and I will use MyUS for items 13KG and up. Life is complicated like that.

[YouTube]

Before I left on vacation I got an email telling me about how beautifully lit Ahmadi is at night because of the KOC 75th anniversary. I didn’t have time to pass by and now that I am back I still haven’t been able to pass by (I’m too lazy and Ahmadi is far) but I found some videos on YouTube that show some of the light decorations. According to a friend the lights are still up so if you want to pass by you probably should hurry up before they taken them down.

[YouTube]

And here is one more [YouTube]

For the first time ever the Concours d’Elegance is going to be held in Kuwait this month. I honestly never heard about Concours d’Elegance before today but after doing some research it turns out to be a pretty important and prestigious event. Here is some information which I took from the official event website:

What is the Concours d’Elegance?
Concours is a French word meaning competition. The concept of Concours originates in 17th C. France when aristocrats used to choose their best horse carriages to parade around parks of Paris during the summer week ends and holidays. Later these traditions changed to automobiles from the 20th C. Concours today have strict regulations and cars are inspected by qualified judges. Trophy winners are carefully chosen.

Kuwait Concours d’Elegance Highlight
The first Kuwait Concours d’Elegance set to take place on January 2010 will highlight the great passion for automobiles that the country has had ever since the 1910’s decade when the first car, a Belgium-made Minerva, arrived on its shores. In fact, the year 2010 marks the 100th anniversary since the first car entered Kuwait thanks to Sheik Mubarak bin Sabah Al Sabah (1896-1915).

Date
January 20th to 23rd 2010
10:00AM – 10:00PM

Location
Marina Mall interior, Marina Crescent and Marina Lawn.

It should be a very cool event and its taking place right next to my house so I will definitely be passing by. The designer of the Nissan GTR will also be at this event, Shirō Nakamura who is the Senior VP of Nissan and Infiniti.

For more information here are some links:
Concours d’Elegance – Kuwait
Concours d’Elegance on Wikipedia

Thanks Rita!

According to this list Kuwait has a extremely low unemployment figure of 2.2% which is one of lowest unemployment rates in the world. The issue is the figure was last updated in 2004. UAE has an unemployment rate of 12.7% but I think that’s actually low. Thing is I don’t think these numbers for the GCC are accurate because if you don’t have a job here you can’t stay if I am not mistaken. Other interesting numbers, Zimbabwe has the highest unemployment rate which is 90%. Iraq has an unemployment rate of 18% but 83% of the woman in Iraq are unemployed. Thats probably related to the security situation there. Qatar has the third lowest unemployment rate with just 0.6% and in Andorra everyone is employed because they have a 0% unemployment rate. Here is the full list [Link]

Fereej took the time and effort to round up the top blogs in Kuwait based on Alexa’s rankings. I decided to take his list and one by one get all the actual rankings of the blogs and put together a Top 20 blog rank list. Now there are actually two lists that differ slightly. The first list is the Top 20 Kuwait Blogs in Kuwait. The second list is the Top 20 Kuwait Blogs in the World. Whats popular in Kuwait doesn’t necessarily make it popular outside of Kuwait and its interesting to see the differences. Here are the lists:

Top 20 Kuwait Blogs in Kuwait
1- mark248am1.wpenginepowered.com 260
2- ilSul6ana.com 1,000
3- KuwaitStay.com 1,126
4- Frankom.com 1,379
5- ma6goog.com 1,403
6- Buzberry.com 1,799
7- 360Dewan.com 1,804
8- freejsaud.blogspot.com 1,894
9- SomeContrast.com 2,042
10- 4thRingRoad.com 2,926
11- P0ach.com 3,752
12- 3grbgr.blogspot.com 3,760
13- BlushBerry.net 4,035
14- kuwaitpaperdump.com 4,011
15- confashionsfromkuwait.com 4,878
16- Q8BlackMarket.com 5,764
17- blog3amty.blogspot.com 6,349
18- loft965.com 6,670
19- HiKuwait.com 6,751
20- couchavenue.com 7,574
21- catism.org 7,814
22- Qortuba.org 8,029
23- YearOfTeddy.com 8,859

Top 20 Kuwait Blogs in the World
1- mark248am1.wpenginepowered.com 68,092
2- loft965.com 212,939
3- zDistrict.com 247,540
4- Frankom.com 351,00
5- ilSul6ana.com 373,252
6- SomeContrast.com 569,120
7- 4thRingRoad.com 588,836
8- kuwaitpaperdump.com 596,987
9- Buzberry.com 606,637
10- ansam518.wordpress.com 636,523
11- 360Dewan.com 656,446
12- ma6goog.com 689,286
13- BlushBerry.net 765,799
14- Uptill1.com 874,165
15- freejsaud.blogspot.com 956,647
16- P0ach.com 1,109,988
17- MeBlogging.com 1,224,863
18- catism.org 1,394,504
19- Rayboy.org 1,494,994
20- couchavenue.com 1,505,123
21- Blog37.net 1,512,128
22- 3grbgr.blogspot.com 1,569,294

Update: I updated the list with a blog called Catism that wasn’t there before. The previous #20’s got pushed off the list and are now crossed out. Every time a new blog gets added a blog will get pushed off the list.

Note: If your blog is not listed above, check your blogs rating in Alexa and if it turns out your blog should be in the top 20 email me or comment below so I can update the list. [Alexa]

I really like the old buildings in Kuwait and its very sad to see them crumble. So when I found out about this exhibition by Architect Deema Abdullah Al-Ghunaim I thought it was really interesting since it involved two things I liked, photography and old buildings:

|Tæ’boõq| طابوق
This exhibition is a starting study to trace architectural conceptions in Kuwait through series of screens photographed around Qebla, Merqab, Dasman, Hawalli and Jeleeb Shyoukh. The buildings studied are standing from 1960s as time sensors of placement, displacement and improvisation.

Time
From January 5th to January 7th 2010
January 5th from 7pm till 9pm
January 6th from 9am till 4pm and from 7pm till 9pm
January 7th from 9am till 4pm only

Place
The Sultan Gallery
Sabhan, southern entrance, Sadeer Co., block 8, street 105, building no 168
Telephone: 24714325/26 ext 110
Here is a map [Link]

You can find out more by visiting Deema’s blog where she also has scans of the invitation [Link]

via ProjektCyan