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Last night I passed by Khan el-Khalili. I had briefly passed by it on my first day but figured it was worth a second visit. I honestly found Khan el-Khalili boring but it got more interesting the further I walked away from it. I walked through Khan el-Khalili and into another larger market and then crossed over a pedestrian bridge into another market until I got to the old opera. The walk reminded me of Oxford Street since it was long, packed with people and there was lots to see. I took a ton of pictures, below are 10 I like. Click on continue below to see them.

I had lunch at Abou Shakra today and so far its the best place I’ve eaten at since I’ve arrived to Egypt (not including the burger I had at Four Seasons).

The place is very clean, the presentation of the food is really great and the prices are pretty cheap. I had the mushroom soup since it was recommended by a reader and surprisingly I liked it a lot. For my main course I had the Abou Shakra kofta and although it wasn’t fantastic it was pretty decent, much much better than the one I had at Al-Rifai.

If you’re in Egypt next time this is a restaurant I would recommend.

So since I’ve been in Egypt I’ve been extremely disappointed with the food. First day I had Maison Thomas Pizza which was supposed to be the best pizza place in Egypt and it turned out to be very normal. Then I had Lucille’s burger which again was supposed to be the best burger in Cairo and it turned out to be average too.

So last night after work I decided to go all out. I wanted to have Kebab (or kofta whatever they call it here). I was told the best in Cairo was this very local place called Al-Rifai so we took our driver and headed there. We got there around 11PM and it was pretty packed but they quickly cleaned a table for us (with a tissue). When I saw the meat outside and the guy putting it on the skewers I could have puked right there on the spot and the smell of the meat wasn’t helping either. In the end out of 4 of us I was the only one who decided to risk it and eat.

The kofta wasn’t impressive at all. It didn’t have any flavor and I really have no clue why its really popular here. I couldn’t believe I risked food poisoning for something so disappointing. Now I don’t think I am interested in trying anything new, might just stick to fast food which is what I enjoy anyway.

GulfRun is starting off this week with the Carwash and Sticker at Al-Falah Carwash on Wednesday and the GulfRun Carshow (Marina Mall Crescent) on Thursday and Friday. Next week the cars head off the Bahrain International Circuit for GulfRun4.

GulfRun Blog:

GulfRun is going to be taking over Marina mall this weekend from Thursday at 5pm until Friday at 10pm, before they head to Bahrain International Circuit for the GulfRun4.

In addition to having the participating race cars on show; Title Sponsor Al-Fahad Travel and Tourism and Gold Sponsor Magic – Natural Energy Drink- will be having their booths present along several exhibitor booths at Marina crescent. They will be showing off everything from Modified cars (Kromozone), Mitsubishi Evo-X and Eclipse(Al-Mulla), Ford (Arabian Motors Group), KTM/Ducati /BMW Motorcycles (TriStar Motorcycles) and even Tamiya Toy cars (My Toy).

List of participating cars [here]
Schedule of events [here] and [here]

Posted by K.

I am having a hard time believing the hotel I am staying in is the second best hotel in Cairo and that its a 5 star. When you first come in the lobby is pretty big and has a luxurious look but as soon as you step into the rooms its as if you’re stepping into another hotel. The rooms are pretty outdated, old, boring, and not very clean. I would give it a 3 star or 4 star tops. I guess the coolest thing about the hotel is the fact that it was in the news a few months back because of the no alcohol policy they activated.

Anyway supposedly Adel Imam comes to the hotel often so I am hoping to catch a glimpse of him before I leave. If you’re coming to Egypt what I am hearing is Four Seasons and Sofitel are the best hotels to stay in. If you are going to stay at the Grand Hyatt then ask for rooms that end with 44 or 45. Best view and the rooms feel cozier.

Speaking of Four Seasons, I had their burger here at the Giza hotel. It wasn’t as good as the amazing one I had in Four Seasons Jordan but still pretty good.

I am now trying to organize a list of things to do here based on everyone’s comments. I am having a hard time organizing the list since there are tons of places that were mentioned. So far I’ve just been to Khan Khalil, the two Four Season hotels and McDonalds which by the way isn’t that good like some people mentioned. The Quarter Pounder here looks like a mutated home made burger and wasn’t that great.

Update: One thing I forgot to mention is the pollution here. Its really really bad. There is like smoke in the air the whole time, like a fog!

Update2: In case my post gave the impression I am not enjoying Egypt that’s not true. I am actually liking it here because of the wackiness and the fact that EVERYONE has a sense of humor!

In short, STAY AWAY! I am a huge Wasabi fan but the one in the Avenues sucks big time. I passed by them today for the first time for lunch and out of the three dishes I ordered I had problems with two of them.

First I ordered the salmon and avocado salad for starters, it took what seemed like an eternity to arrive and when it finally did it turned out they had forgotten to add the avocado. After having that mess sorted out turns out the salad dressing is different than the one used in their main city branch or at least tasted different. I also had ordered the exotic roll but it tasted like crap so I didn’t eat it. If all that wasn’t bad enough I had to listen to what had to be the noisiest kitchen door in the world which squeaked like a haunted house every time someone went in our out of the kitchen.

For your Wasabi cravings stick to the main city branch, I know I will.

Picture by iDip

I am nearly done redecorating my house so I’ve started looking for accessories including paintings. Like everything else in my life I am looking for them online since I highly doubt I could find anything interesting here. One painter that’s recently grabbed my attention is Scot Listfield. He mostly paints astronauts, the future and even Star Wars characters like in the painting above which by the way is amazing but already sold! I emailed him asking about the price of two other paintings I found interesting, one is called McDonald’s the other Intelligent Design. If you notice both have something to do with burgers! Anyway check out his work he has some pretty cool paintings if you’re into this stuff. [Link]

I just bought a new plasma over the weekend for a really good deal. LG just reduced their plasma prices a few days ago and they’re the best I have seen. I purchased the 42″ PG20 model (contrast ration 25,000:1) for only KD275 while the 50″ version is selling for KD445. I am not a big fan of LG but my dad purchased one awhile back and when he found a problem with it (used to turn on by itself in the middle of the night) their customer service was extremely good and they swapped the TV for him with a new one no questions asked.

The Acer Aspire One laptop deal is back at Alghanim Electronics. After running out of stock on the low end Aspire One (512MB RAM, 8GB HD) the machines are back in stock and are selling for KD79. I saw two colors on display, white and a blue. Just to give you an idea on how good this deal is, the same laptop with the same specs is going for KD88 on Amazon without tax.

Just to add to this I noticed Alghanim have now started selling Alpine and Rockford Fosgate car sound systems. I wish they had started selling them a few months back when I had to purchase all my items from online.

I just found this incredible book about Kuwait dating back to 1975. It has a ton of great pictures which I will scan every now and then and post over here. The caption under the picture above reads:

Kuwait also enjoys some of the more sophisticated pleasures of the West, and even the Far West. Here, for example, is a drive-in cinema in the open air not far from the city. In order to enable you to watch a film in comfort without moving from your seat, two large “pumps” introduce into your car the sound track of the film being shown and the air-conditioning which is essential at the height of the summer. All you have to do is to watch.

It sucks that no one has invented the time machine yet!

According to Alhamour.com; Bassam Al-Ghanim has submitted his official resignation as the Chairman of the Gulf Bank. Gulf Bank still has not announced his replacement, but they expect it to be someone from the Al-Ghanim family. This is a result of the Gulf Bank Shipwreck; which has resulted in a total loss of US$ 1.2bn (KD 313 mm), an amount that represents 70% of Gulf Bank’s Tier 1 & 2 Equity.

Update: Kutayba Al-Ghanim is the new Chairman of Gulf Bank.

Posted by K.

I decided to stop by and check out some of the Gulf Bank branches yesterday; there was a long queue at every location. Customers almost caused a riot trying to withdraw their money. Gulf Bank were limiting the amount a person could withdraw, but the customers still managed to withdraw over 4 million KWD in cash from the bank!

The aftermath of this issue is going to result in some major overhauls at the Gulf Bank. For an explanation of what happened to Gulf Bank check out the article Gulf Bank of Kuwait Shipwrecked.

Posted by K.

The Kuwait Stock Exchange, the second largest in the Arab world tumbled at opening today. I don’t know what that will mean for us regular folks (more price increases at McDonalds?) but there are currently investors outside the stock exchange demonstrating. The 4th Ring Road blog are dramatically calling this the “KSE Bloodbath” and are currently tracking things and posting pictures of the demonstration, here is their [Link]

I am lazy, super lazy and there is no way I am going to drive all the way to a gym and work out there for an hour or two when I could be home watching my favorite shows on television. Thats why I decided the only way I would consider working out is if I brought the gym to me.

I went to every place in Kuwait which I knew of that sold home gyms and here is what I found:

Go Sport
They have a handful of treadmills, found a very decent Pro-Form treadmill for KD215. They also carried Weider and Vectra brands of multi-gyms. They only had two small Weider’s gyms with the exact same features, one for KD74 and the other for KD115. What I was interested in was the Vectra gym. Vectra make some of the best home gyms in the world but they are expensive. The Vectra gym they had on display costs KD1,300. Overall I thought their prices were pretty decent specially considering the fact that they’re located in the Avenues.

Sears
Loads of treadmills (Pro-Form and other brands). They had a good selection of multi-gyms (mostly Weider brand) but all of them except for one worked using resistance instead of weights. The only one that worked with weights was the Nordictrack 360. It looked cool but after watching the demonstration video I realized it was just too complicated to work. I also felt their prices were pretty expensive.

Ace Hardware
Not much selection there. I think they had only two treadmills which were over priced and they had like three multi-gyms made by an unknown Chinese brand and the prices were also expensive.

Nasser Sports
I heard they had a building next to their Avenues branch that was dedicated to home gyms so I was expecting to find the holy grail… I didn’t. They had a bunch of treadmills, nothing that stuck out and they had a few multi-gyms of some unknown cheap brand. I didn’t find anything interesting.

Sports Corner
They’re located in the old Salmiya where Boushahri used to be. I found the best collection of Treadmills there, they carry around three different brands but in the end I went with a Reebok Series 3 treadmill. They had a 20% discount promo going on but I was able to haggle and get a 25% discount which brought the price down to KD285. They only had one multi-gym which was of some unknown brand, looked pretty flimsy and was already sold out.

Sportsman
They have two branches, one next to the old Video Club in Salmiya opposite Zahra Complex while the other is across the street in the building where Hald Rock Cafe used to be next to NBK. They had maybe three treadmills and I found them all too expensive. No multi-gym.

Wataniya Mall
I found two stores in this small mall which is also located in Salmiya but opposite NBK and Eureka. If you go down to the basement there is a store on right corner and one on the left. The one on the right caters mostly to gyms and not homes. The cheapest multi-gym they had was for like 4000KD or something. They also are the dealers for Everlast and CCM brands. The store on the left side had maybe two treadmills, one multi gym and a few other items. They carry the Carl Lewis brand you need to definitely haggle with them. The same Carl Lewis boxing bag available at Go Sport for KD90 they were selling for KD150. I managed to bring them down to KD100 and probably could have brought them down to KD90 to match Go Sport. Same with the home gym, they had it for KD150 and I brought them down to KD100. I was actually going to get it until I spotted the gym I really wanted at Sultan Center.

Sultan Center
I first went to the Sultan Center in Al-Rai and really didn’t find anything there. I don’t remember seeing a treadmill and they had one multi-gym that was in terrible condition from the brand Body Sculpt or something. Then by chance I was at the Souk Sharq branch when I spotted the Weider 4870 (pictured at the top of this post). It was pretty full featured and I right away knew this was the gym I wanted. I asked a salesman there how much the price was and he told me 300KD which is less than I had expected. A couple of days later I went back to buy the gym and I noticed they had a price tag of 230KD stuck on the gym which was even better! I quickly purchased it and they are now actually installing it for me while I am writing this post.

So, in case anyone is looking for a multi-gym my recommendation is to hit Go Sport unless you want the gym I got which is only available at Sultan Center. For treadmills I think the Reebok’s were really good value for money and they’re available at Sports Corner who had a very nice collection and their prices are negotiable. The Pro-Form treadmill at Go Sport for KD215 is also a really good value.

Alain Robert (Spiderman) who is famous for climbing famous skyscrapers around the world was in Beirut last week. He climbed the famous Phoenicia Hotel but the whole thing was too commercialized. He had permission from the hotel and the whole event was staged as a publicity stunt for Gillette. Not as interesting as his other climbs, very disappointing. [YouTube]

Arab Times printed an article in today’s paper on Latina Mina’s drunk deejaying the other night and the whole article was just all quotes from the post on my blog and all its commentators. Its cool that blogs are actually being taken seriously but they should have actually mentioned 2:48AM instead of calling it just “a blog”. I guess they should have also written an article instead of just taking quotes from everyone and sticking them together. Here is the link to the article on Arab Times and if it doesn’t open up for some reason I’ve saved a pdf version which you can download below. Maybe I should just call them “a newspaper” from now on.

Link to article
PDF version

Update: Latina Mina has fled the country. Here is the latest article on this from “a newspaper”. [PDF version]

Update2: According to someone working at 99.7, any employee at the station who asks for a recording of the session will get fired on the spot. The ministry really does not want the recording to make its way online.