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A reader commented under one of my posts that one of my favorite shawerma places in Kuwait, Badar Al Badoor changed their name to Bazar Al Bazoor. According to the reader, when it came to renewing their license their sponsor wanted them to pay KD10,000 just for the name “Badar Al Badoor”. They told him no way and decided to change the name. Everything is still the same except the place is now called Bazar Al Bazoor. It sounds really funny now but in Arabic if you remove the dots over the letter “za” you get Badar Al Badoor again.

I really hate how trees are not given enough importance in Kuwait. Everywhere else in the world the planting and growing of trees is encouraged but here in Kuwait we cut them down, dig them out or landscape the hell out of them until they look “cute”. Yesterday a friend of mine living in Salwa told me about how the authorities came into Salwa and started destroying trees planted on government property. I thought that was very sad until I saw some pictures a forum user posted and now I’m furious!

I’ve seen the same thing happen near my place in Salmiya. There was a parking lot that had planted trees on the pavement around the lot and the authorities came and cut the trees and left. The square sand boxes where the trees used to be are still there just without the trees. Whats so bad about planting trees on government property? Why can’t the trees be left alone?

Thanks Ramez for the pictures!

Verity Cridland who I posted about before here has been uploading some more old photos of Kuwait from the early 60’s. One of the pictures that grabbed my attention was the one above of a car flipped over which I found interesting since it could very well be the oldest picture of a car accident in Kuwait. Here is a link to the picture [Link]

Thanks Verity!

The other day I posted about a new place called SmokeHouse, well their website just came online today and you can check out their full menu there. I don’t think I’ve ever tried smoked food so I am interested in trying it out. This is from their About Us section:

The ‘Smoke House’ is Kuwait’s first restaurant specializing in American southern style BBQ. We offer a premium selection of hickory Smoked and Barbequed meats all served with our signature ‘Smokehouse’ sauces. We use our own secret rubs and marinades and then slow cook our meats to bring you the best tasting smoked BBQ around. We also provide authentic southern style sides and delicious desserts. Whether you dine in, have your food delivered or request our catering services we guarantee you’ll be back for more.

The site sadly doesn’t include pictures of the place but it does have a map with directions. Will try them out this weekend and then post a review of their burger. [Link]

I was checking out Nemo’s blog when I found her post on a cafe located in Omneya complex in Salmiya called Book Cafe.

This is the description taken from the Book Cafe facebook page:

A quiet place
Provides you with Taekwondo, physical and mental relaxation
To think deeply, to read a book, to discuss a draft
My place is the beginning to achieve a place for you in the world
Start here

Judging by the pictures the place looks cool (color matches my blog) and the idea seems interesting but not too sure about the location. Nat also brought up a good point that usually when you want to read a book its more comfortable to read it while sitting on a sofa not a dinning room table. So bean bags or cozy sofas might be more suitable…

You can check out more pictures on Nemo’s blog [Here]
Here is the link to the Book Cafe’s facebook page [Link]

Picture taken by Nemo

I am leaving to the airport in a bit. Going to fly out to Madrid for some work and should be back Saturday. I am taking both my Nikon FE and my Sony W300 cameras. My posting habits should be normal although they will now be either late in the evening Madrid time or early in the morning. I don’t know what to expect in Spain, everything I thought was Spanish I realized was Mexican which means no Jarabe Tapatío for me!

I don’t know whats up with me and photography lately. Just purchased another camera, this time a Konica Auto S3 from the late 70’s. I found one in mint condition on eBay and it cost me around KD60. Its got a very fast and sharp 38mm f/1.7 lens and I think it one of the best looking compact rangefinders ever. Speaking of film, Ashraf and Boushahri both don’t carry any decent film and neither do they sell slide film. Kodak no longer even processes slide film while Boushahri luckily still does. This means I’ve got to buy my favorite film (Fuji Velvia 50) from Amazon or wherever I travel to.

I love watches so when the owner of Q8 Chrono emailed me the link to his site I quickly went to check it out. It’s kinda like Q8car.com except for watches or at least thats the kind of site I hope it turns into. The site lists a lot of new watches and also around 20 used watches (which is my favorite section). There is a pretty decent used watches market in Kuwait but all the stores that sell them are scattered around Kuwait. Having them all online on one site would be pretty practical. The site is still being worked on and the owner still has many things he wants to implement but for now you can check the site by going to Q8chrono.com

I hope the used section gets updated often and there should be a way of contacting the site if I want to sell a watch or maybe an automated form? I also just realized the used watches section is 2 pages long, you need to click on older entries at the bottom to get to the second page. Not very practical, he should ditch wordpress and set up a proper e-commerce site.

Update: Ok found the contact information, it was on the main page but there should be a link to the contact info on every page.

A group in Kuwait called BLD have started posting videos of their graffiti escapades. So far they’ve posted only one video titled “Kuwait Graffiti #1” and there is a second video on the way soon. I personally prefer more colorful graffiti which hopefully their second video will contain. [YouTube]

After taking the picture of “The Almond Tree” with my Sony W300 I decided I wanted to invest in a macro lens for my Nikon D70 and D90. A macro lens would allow me to shoot subjects from extremely close distances. I started looking for a cheap macro lens because it isn’t something I do a lot of (macro photography) so I didn’t want to spend too much money on it. After a bit of research I found the Sigma 50mm f2.8 Macro lens. At $255 it wasn’t very cheap but got great reviews and the lens was very sharp.

But as I said, $255 wasn’t cheap and on eBay used ones were still around $150, cheaper but I still wasn’t convinced. Then I found out about “reversing adapter rings” (pictured above). Turns out there is a ring which you fasten to the front of your lens, and that ring allows you to connect the lens to your camera in reverse. When you connect your lens in reverse to your camera you get to shoot in macro. Sounds strange I know, and connecting your lens to your camera the wrong way round is sure to raise some eyebrows but I bought the ring and it works!

Below in the first shot you can see the bushes outside my office building. I took that picture with my 50mm lens at the closest distance I could get before the lens stopped focusing.

In the second picture I shot using the same lens just mounted in reverse using the adapter ring. It’s much more closer and it’s still using the same lens!

I don’t know whats the Canon version of this ring but the Nikon one is called BR-2A. I got mine from Amazon.co.uk for KD10. There is a ring on Amazon.com but it doesn’t mention if its the BR-2A although it looks like it and its selling for KD5.

So if you are looking for an affordable way to get into macro photography this is the way to go. The adapter rings works on both my 28mm and 50mm prime lenses.

Update: Another advantage of this ring is you don’t need to carry another heavy macro lens with you, you just carry this ring.

A reader yesterday emailed me a link to a website of a Kuwaiti illustrator called Ahmed Al-Refaie. I checked out his work and was blown away so I emailed Ahmed and asking him if he could tell us a bit about himself and his illustrations and this is what he had to say:

Currently, Im about to graduate from Kuwait University “English Literature”. I don’t like it, but certain circumstances forced me to since there was no Graphic Design in KU. My name is Ahmed Al-Refaie (22) (Kuwaiti, although that does not matter, an artist is an artist no matter the origin ), my art is called vector art. I’m self-taught, never attended any art related classes. When I was 10, I started sketching, beginning of high-school I began graphic design, but this current style you see all around my website started in early 2006. Usually my art was varied in style and that is what I think of as a corrupted aspect of an artist. So I made and refined my own style. My website does not include my old works. For more technical details, I use a mouse, keyboard and Photoshop CS3 ( I always get the question “do you use a tablet?” ), just a good ol’ Apple mighty mouse. I was a bit into 3D using 3D Max but quickly lost interest as there are many giants in that field, its just not for me. That said, my work is completely raw, no pictures, filters, I do however reference body gestures (sometimes) but the image used is removed and I recreate the whole thing.

I think the guy is extremely talented and I think its about time KU setup a design department. There are a lot of talented young people and it would be sad to see them all taking random majors like English Literature or cooking just because they don’t have design.

Here is a link to his deviantART gallery [Link]
Here is a link to his personal website [Link]

I recently decided that whenever I travel I want to take a 35mm film camera with me instead of a digital camera. I realized when I have a limited amount of pictures I can take (36 per roll) I tend to take only the shots I really want and not just everything I see. With digital cameras I come back from my trips with hundreds of photos and I spend a lot of time deleting random junk because instead of spending more time taking 1 shot I use that time to take 5 shots of the same thing.

So I decided to stick with film instead of digital. When I went to Munich last year I took my 30 year old Nikon FE and came back with a lot of cool vintage looking shots. [Check here] Thats why I started looking for a new film camera, one that has personality which is something very important for me.

I started first by checking out the Nikon F3, then the Nikon F4, then the Yashica Electro 35 GSN, then the Canon QL17 GIII, then the Konica S2, followed by the Konica S3 until I finally landed on the Voigtlander Bessa R3A which is pictured in this post. Its one of the best looking camera I have ever seen. Its extremely well built and to some people its one of the best rangefinder cameras ever made right behind the Zeiss Ikon. I found one on eBay second hand that came with the fastest 40mm lens ever made, a Voigtlander 40/1.4 Nokton. Bidding was ending at 4:50AM so I set my alarm to 4:40AM and went to bed at 10PM. The maximum I wanted to pay was $500 since brand new the camera and lens were selling for $940. Sadly I didn’t win the bid. Even though I ended up increasing my budget to $600 the auction ended at $606 and the other person bidding looked like he could have taken it even further.

Now I need to decide what to do but I just wanted to share this camera with everyone now that the auction is over. Its such a beautiful camera!

K5 has an interesting post about this cool little store he found called Nawader Al Kuwait. The place has a huge collection of vintage Arabic vinyl records and also vintage radios and record players. The place also has other random items, personally I am interested in the painting of the musicians above so I might pass by tonight to check the place out. You can see more pictures and information about the place on K5’s blog [Here]

I got home after work to find a bunch of retards fighting under my building. I parked my car in the basement and walked up to the ground floor to find around 20 teenagers (16-18 year olds) shouting, screaming and shoving each other around. I watched them for like 5 minutes and then decided to go upstairs and watch them from my balcony. A lot of fights erupt next to my building because there is a billiard place in the building next door that attracts a lot of the wrong crowd. There is also a prostitution ring that operates in that same building but they only open for business like once a week and its a pretty tightly run ship with high end customers so they never cause any problems (I should post about them one day). The billiard place on the other hand just attracts all these trashy kids that want to fight for the dumbest reasons.

While watching the fight from my balcony I heard what sounded like one guy yelling at who I thought was one of the Bangladeshi janitors in my building so I went back downstairs to make sure no one did anything to the workers. Turns out the workers were inside the building away from harms way but the fight outside had turned really violent with guys holding cutters and some guys bleeding. I live in a shopping mall in the old Salmiya street and these guys were basically fighting in the backside, then moving inside the mall and then back out to the front of the building onto the main Salmiya street. It was ridiculous! So I asked the landlord if he had called the cops and he told me yeah when the fight had first started but no one had come yet.

20 minutes later and the cops still hadn’t showed up. Actually the fight dispersed and everyone ended up going their separate ways and the cops never showed up. I went back up to my apartment while the janitors started to clean up the blood stains. Unbelievable.

She’s mine… she’s mine; Fisticuffs in row over ‘veiled’ wives

KUWAIT CITY, Feb 25: Jahra securitymen on Wednesday apprehended a Kuwaiti and an unidentified man for engaging in a fistfight at a shopping complex in the area. According to security sources, the Kuwaiti and his wife — a veiled woman — went inside the shopping complex on Wednesday. They were later separated as they went from one shop to the other then the Kuwaiti noticed another veiled woman, who was standing near an unidentified man. Thinking she is his wife, the Kuwaiti called the woman, but the man standing beside her suddenly went berserk, claiming the woman is his wife.

A heated argument between the two men escalated in a fistfight and they used some items in the commercial complex to hit each other. The security officers in the complex and some passersby interfered and tried to calm both men. After receiving information about the incident, Jahra securitymen rushed to the complex and referred the men to North Jahra Police Station for interrogation.

By Mezyed Al-Saeedi
Special to the Arab Times

Thanks Nibaq!