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This story broke out over the weekend and it’s been picking up A LOT of media traction internationally. Local Instagram celebrity @sondos_aq recently went on a rant on the new local regulations requiring a weekly day off for Filipino domestic workers. You can watch her rant in the video above. To summarize, she thinks its ridiculous that domestic workers have to get a day off every week and that she doesn’t believe domestic workers should be able to keep their passports. Pretty racial comments and the worst part is, she has over 2.3 million followers.

Last month the Instagram celebrity 3bodka was caught abusing his dog, and now we have another influencer posting racial comments. Looking at how this is blowing up I wouldn’t be surprised if local authorities decide to create new laws or regulations to prevent situations like this from occurring again.

If you want to read more about this incident, check out the articles on CNN, Independent and Buzzfeed amongst other.

I really hope the picture above isn’t really in Kuwait. Fake grass I kinda get but this is just silly.

Thanks Musaed

Update: It’s Saudi!

If you’ve been wondering what that new building in Shuwaikh was for…

They’ve got the same mistake on their website as well [Here]

Update: The link doesn’t work anymore and the company issued an apology to the Attorney General which you can read [Here]

I went to this exhibition last year and I’m heading there again this year. There will be handicraft, embroidery, artwork, books, jewelry, and food for sale. Here is a bit more information on the Palestinian Culture Center:

The Palestinian Culture Center aims to support needy families and preserve the rich and vibrant culture of Palestine. It does this by encouraging ladies to continue a beautiful handicraft, embroidery, which has been in Palestine for hundreds of years and ensuring that the tradition is carried on to the younger generation.

The Center has been in operation since the early 1970’s in Kuwait and then moved to Jordan after 1990. Today, the PCC, has over 450 women from the Palestinian refugee camps in Jordan working on these beautiful pieces. For these women, the payment they receive is a great support for their families. The PCC also aims at supporting education and helps various schools and education programs in Palestine as well as needy families.

As a charity organization we use a simple rule in all our pricing. Thirty-three percent of the sale cost of an item is given to the woman that produces the work, thirty-three percent goes towards covering the cost of the item, and the remaining amount is distributed to schools, orphanages and needy families mostly in Palestine.

For more information on this event including location and timings, click [Here]

While in LA I picked up a Google Home Mini and a pair of Amazon Echo Dots. They’re voice-controlled devices which I’ve now placed around my apartment so I could write up a comparison review for the blog. A few days in and I’ve already started developing an opinion on them but I wanted to know if there was anything specific you guys wanted me to try or if there was anything you wanted to find out in regards to both these devices. Traffic updates for Kuwait work with the Google Home device for example but doesn’t work on the Echo.

Cinescape is putting together an Oscars film festival next week where you’ll be able to binge watch 10 award-winning films that include:

· The Shape of Water
· Coco
· I, Tonya
· Phantom Thread
· Three Billboards Outside Ebbing, Missouri
· Loving Vincent
· The Insult
· Get Out
· Darkest Hour
· The Post

The film festival is taking place from March 11 to March 14th at Cinescape Laila Gallery in Salmiya. The ticket cost for this festival is KD10 (that will get you access to watch all the films). For more information and the film schedule, click [Here]

If you missed ComicCon last weekend because you were out of town, there is another comic festival taking place this weekend called ComFest. Last year ComFest turned out to be a fan favorite especially with cosplayers and its expected to be the same this year.

This year The Hound from Game of Thrones will be a guest at ComFest amongst other celebs who are mostly video game related. Entrance is KD5 and you can get a bit more details by clicking [Here]

The video on top is from last years ComFest.

Festivity is a local website that helps you plan your event by connecting you with different suppliers. Say you’re planning a birthday party or a gathering and need valet, food, music, a photo booth, balloons, and a trampoline. Instead of scouring the net or hiring an event company, you can find everything you need yourself on Festivity. For example, they have 5 different photo booth suppliers with prices ranging from KD180 to KD350. So you just select what you want and pay for it.

If you’re thinking of planning an event and need suppliers, then check Festivity out by clicking [Here]

Update: Festivity emailed me to let me know my readers can get a KD10 discount by using the code “248AM” during checkout.

Over the weekend I watched Sting live at the cultural center, it was my first time watching an event at JACC so I wanted to share my experience.

Firstly, I think its pretty cool that we’re finally getting proper concerts here in Kuwait. Although I’m not a huge Sting fan, I do like concerts and being able to watch an artist perform locally instead of me having to be on vacation in some other country is such a great feeling. I really hope this Sting concert turned out to be successful and profitable so that they’ll continue to bring more artists in.

But, I’m not so sure how good a venue JACC is for concerts like Sting. Although it’s a beautiful space, it just felt very formal and stiff for a concert, at least for one like Sting. A concert like Sting should have taken place outdoors, on the beach (like Dubai’s Sandance) or in a large park, like Al Shaheed. The only concert I’ve ever been to which had a similar formal mood to it was Bob Dylan at the Royal Albert Hall, but that was Bob Dylan.. at the Royal Albert Hall!

The second issue I had was with the fact that photos were not allowed to be taken during the event. From 50+ concerts I’ve been to in my life, not once were photos not allowed to be taken. Only one time, and one time only when watching The Lumineers perform, the lead singer requested the audience to politely put their phones away during one song so they could enjoy it. And that’s it. So it was super odd that JACC didn’t allow photos to be taken at this event. The bigger issue is actually how they tried to prevent people from taking photos. If you happened to take your phone out, maybe to take a photo, maybe to just check your WhatsApp messages or maybe you got bored and wanted to check Reddit, the ushers would automatically shine a red laser beam all over you and your phone. So while sitting there trying to watch the concert, I was distracted the whole time by red lasers being pointed all over the concert hall at anybody who happened to be looking at their phone. It was super annoying and it completely distracted the audience who were just trying to watch Sting. JACC, you can’t prevent people from taking photos, it’s just not physically possible to stop 2000 people from using their phones, so why ruin the experience for everyone with these distracting red lasers?

Finally the last and biggest issue I have with JACC is the disconnection between the restaurants and the theaters. Even though they’re located right next to each other, the gate that connects the two spaces is permanently kept closed. So after the concert when we wanted to go eat we were told the only way to do so would be to take our cars, drive out of the parking lot and then drive back into the restaurants parking lot and park there. If you didn’t want to take your car then your only other option was to take a 15 min walk through a maze in the parking lot to get to the other side. When I asked an usher why the gate was closed, I was told for security purposes. Very frustrating.

Overall though, I’m just glad we’re finally getting concerts here and I’m sure things will just keep getting better from this point forward. Can’t wait to see what concerts we’re getting next year.

Quick reminder, if you want tickets to the Sting concert, they’ll be going back on sale today at 1PM. Here is the [Link]

Goodluck!

Update: Tickets went on sale at 1PM with no drama. The website is functioning fine and 20 minutes after launch and there are still a ton of seats available.

Anyone who tried getting Sting tickets at exactly 1PM probably ran into the same issue I did, both the JACC and Knet payment gateway websites crashed. I must have been one of the first people into the booking page since all the seats were still available. Originally I wanted to get Platinum seats but the max budget me and my friends had set was KD75 a ticket and the Platinum were selling for KD175 which was over our budget. So I quickly scanned the ticket prices and found Silver for KD75 and booked 6 seats in the front row. I then proceeded to the checkout page excited that I had gotten great seats, I filled in my knet details and then nothing. It got stuck on “Processing…”

I had multiple tabs open trying to reload the ticket booking page while my Knet order continued to process. When the booking page popped back up to life for a minute I noticed the seats I had chosen were showing as taken, so I figured I still had a chance for my order to go through. Around 20 minutes later with the JACC site still down, my Knet order timed out with an error. At that point, I kept trying to reload the booking page until it finally came back to life. I tried to book the seats the same seats I had originally picked but they were already taken so got similar ones just a few seats down. It was too intense of an experience.

Regarding ticket pricing, below are the prices of all the tickets that were available for sale:

If the JACC website can’t handle this much traffic they shouldn’t launch all the tickets for all their upcoming events on the same day at the same time. They could have made them available at different points throughout the day instead of all at once so their server could handle the traffic. Hopefully, they’ll consider doing that the next time around. For now, I’m just glad I managed to score some good seats for me and my friends.

Update: Since I published the post they shutdown the ticket booking for Sting (and 7 other events) and kept pushing back the relaunch by an hour. I just checked now and they’ve decided to split up the ticket purchasing for their 8 events into half. The first 4 events will go back on sale in around 5 hours time (at the time I’m writing this) while the second batch of events that includes Sting will go back on sale in 2 days time.

The popular musician Sting is coming next month to perform in Kuwait. He will be performing at JACC over a period of two days. As if this post tickets are yet to go on sale, according to their website they’ll be on sale on Thursday, November 23rd (tomorrow) at 1PM.

I’d expect the tickets to sell out fast so if you’re interested in getting tickets, you should probably do so as soon as they go on sale. For more information, click [Here]

Last night I passed by the 47th Palestinian Heritage Exhibition thats organized by the Palestinian Culture Center. If like me you hadn’t heard of the center before, here is a little brief they emailed me:

The Palestinian Culture Center aims to support needy families and preserve the rich and vibrant culture of Palestine. It does this by encouraging ladies to continue a beautiful handicraft, embroidery, which has been in Palestine for hundreds of years and ensuring that the tradition is carried on to the younger generation.

The Center has been in operation since the early 1970’s in Kuwait and then moved to Jordan after 1990. Today, the PCC, has over 450 women from the Palestinian refugee camps in Jordan working on these beautiful pieces. For these women, the payment they receive is a great support for their families. The PCC also aims at supporting education and helps various schools and education programs in Palestine as well as needy families.

As a charity organization we use a simple rule in all our pricing. Thirty-three percent of the sale cost of an item is given to the woman that produces the work, thirty-three percent goes towards covering the cost of the item, and the remaining amount is distributed to schools, orphanages and needy families mostly in Palestine.

The exhibition turned out to be pretty interesting with a lot of handicraft and embroidery available to purchase. I got a little bit of a tour by one of the organizers because I really didn’t know much about Palestinian culture. One of the interesting things I learned was that the traditional Palestinian patterns used in embroidery are actually inspired by nature. It’s basically nature turned into abstract geometric shapes. Also back in the day, embroidery was important for Palestinian women because it was a way for them to attract eligible bachelors since they would make their dresses themselves.

Other than handicraft and embroidery, the exhibition also has artwork, books, jewelry and food for sale. So if you’re interested in checking the exhibition out, it’s running till this Thursday. For more information you can check out the event page [Here] or their instagram account @palestiniancc

One the most essential items I now pack when traveling is my little Amazon Fire Stick. The Fire Stick is a tiny streaming media device thats a bit larger than a USB memory stick and has NetFlix, Hulu, Amazon Video, HBO GO and more all installed on it. Unlike my Apple TV, the Fire Stick is a lot more portable and easier to connect since you just plug the stick directly into an empty HDMI and USB port behind the TV. Whenever I check into a hotel or airbnb, one of the first things I do after unpacking is just plugging my Stick into the TV and connecting it to the wifi so I can have access to all my TV shows.

The only reason I don’t use my Fire Stick instead of the Apple TV at home is because it’s a bit sluggish compared to the Apple TV and I tend to AirPlay a lot of things from my phone or MacBook onto the Apple TV which I can’t do with the Fire Stick. Well actually that’s not accurate, I did get an app that enables AirPlay on the Fire Stick but its pretty buggy and doesn’t work the way it should every time. But anyway, one of the best things about the Fire Stick is the price, it costs just KD12 on Amazon so it’s not that big of an investment. Also if you have Amazon Prime then you already have access to Amazon Video (and music) so you don’t really need Netflix or Hulu if you don’t want them.

If you’re interested in picking one up, here is the link for it on [Amazon]

Cookbooks are a pleasure to have, use, and gift to others, and recently our team has been obsessed with “Palestine on a Plate – Memories from my Mother’s Kitchen by Joudie Kalla”. It’s our September PantryBee Bookclub of the month choice for millions of reasons, all of them delicious.

Palestinian-Briti Joudie Kalla is a caterer and a restaurateur in London with a Middle Eastern restaurant in Chelsea named Baity. Her cookbook is filled with classic Palestinian recipes that have been passed down to her from her grandmother and family, and like all great Arabic cooking it caters to carnivores and plant based eaters alike. Our favorite picks include: Sayadeyeh, Salatet jaj wa freekeh, kubbeh bil sanniyeh, Teta Huda’s mussaka and last but not least mejdool date scones.

If you want to hear a bit more, watch the quick interview with Joudie above.

You can order the book [Here]
Or get the Palestine on a Plate app for your phone from [Here]

Post by Hind
CoFounder of PantryBee where home cooking is made easy.