Kuwait is experiencing a period of stagnation. The landscapes of Kuwait—its patchy downtown, its repetitive suburbs, its flat desert, its Gulf waters—have not been reimagined for decades. There is no societal expectation that these landscapes will or should change. Even simple and sensible improvements remain outside the realm of possibility. We cannot imagine a more green and pedestrian friendly downtown. We cannot imagine suburbs more diverse in building type and resident background. We cannot imagine a less trampled and littered desert, richer in biodiversity and always beautiful. We cannot imagine our water being less polluted and its depths more bountiful. And this deficient imagination of ours is also lacking in the other direction. Given the current economic, environmental, and humanitarian challenges the country is facing, it is baffling why most of us cannot visualize the rapid and disastrous transformations that our urban, rural, and natural landscapes can undergo in the near future. Regardless of the evidence, there seems to be a widespread expectation that things will essentially stay the same. Full Post Link
Yesterday I uploaded some old photos of Family Bookshop to Flickr which I had taken back in 2011 before they closed down. I had always assumed that the Salmiya location of Family Bookshop was the first and only branch but turns out that wasn’t the case,
The Family Bookshop started off as bible shops around the region by the Danish Missionary Society with the one in Kuwait opening up in 1910. But in the 60s, as part of their literature mission they decided to build a new concept called the Family Bookshop Group (FBG) with the following objectives:
To print the Gospel
Encourage dialogue between Muslims and Christians
Provide all Christian churches in the region with literature and auxiliary materials, provide society with quality literature and other books primarily in Arabic and English
Seek the best possible cooperation with various Christian churches
Develop a self-supporting organization by efficient leadership
Offer education and encourage Arab Christians to become booksellers
Develop cooperation between the bookshops and coordinate a future development
From what I could gather there were two Family Bookshops in Kuwait. One at the American Mission Hospital (now the Amricani Culture Center) which opened in 1969 and pictured at the very top of this post. Then there was a second branch located in Salmiya which also opened up in 1969 (pictured above).
I think it was Salmiya because in the photo above taken outside their 1969 location, the building in the background on the far right of the photo looks like the building in Salmiya which the Family Bookshop we know was located in. I believe the building they were in got demolished so they moved to the location across the street in 1971 (pictured below).
The Salmiya Family Bookshop which most of us know eventually closed down in February 2013 when they were evicted from their premises and the building demolished.
The store manager at that time who you might recognize if you were a regular was Jaswinder Singh. He joined Family Bookshop in 1979 as a part time accountant before eventually become the manager. He’s now retired and back in India, but his daughter runs the bookstore @little_bees_books
A couple of days ago a new announcement was made that only vaccinated citizens can travel. Expats on the other hand (and they made this part very clear) are still banned from entering Kuwait. Keep in mind most citizens would most likely travel for leisure purposes while most expats would travel for family reasons. A lot haven’t seen their loved ones since the start of the pandemic, I haven’t seen my dad for two years but I know of people who haven’t seen their wives or kids for as much.
I’m fully vaccinated now with my two shots which is great. I have the immune app and I’m all green and on the Mosafar website, my vaccination circle is also fully green. Yet if I fly out of Kuwait I can’t come back in because I’m an expat?
I was annoyed but I had decided a couple of weeks ago that I wasn’t going to post about this stuff anymore. Citizens are equally upset by these bizarre decisions and they’re all being very vocal about it on all the social media channels. So I left it at that.
Then last night, my sister calls me from Lebanon and tells me my dad has fallen ill. He’s fully vaccinated so I don’t think it’s covid, but he’s old and frail so I don’t know. This morning I wake up to a message saying things have taken a turn for the worse and they had to admit him to the ER.
So now I have to make a choice.
Fly out to Lebanon as soon as possible and get stuck outside Kuwait for months. I’d have to decide to leave my friends, my job, my blog, my life, (everything basically) and be uprooted for an indefinite amount of time.
Or, stay in Kuwait and possibly never see my dad again.
This rule isn’t just unfair, it’s illogical and unrealistic and because of it, I’m unable to do the right thing which is to be with my dad and family, especially when I know I’m needed.
Note: I just want to add that I wasn’t planning on publishing this post. I originally wrote it as a way to vent and self-therapy. I don’t like sharing personal parts of my life so it feels very awkward putting this out there but I just felt that if this post somehow helps change the rule, even if it’s a very small chance, then it’s worth putting it out there. Thank you for your messages.
Update: My dad is doing a lot better now, thank you everyone again.
As you are probably aware by now, movie theaters will reopen again during eid after having been closed since the very start of the pandemic. Here is some information I was able to obtain regarding the opening and what the safety measures will be taken:
Only vaccinated customers will be allowed into the cinemas. Your vaccination status will be verified using the Immune App. Only people with a green color bar behind their name will be allowed entry.
Cinemas will operate with 50% occupancy
2m social distancing will be enforced
Cinemas will be promoting online ticket and food sales to reduce the lines
Cinemagoers will have their temperature checked at the entrance
Some more info:
If you vaccinated outside of Kuwait, you will have the chance to upload your vaccination to the Immune App. This update will not be available for Eid.
After taking your first vaccine shot the Immune App will not display a green color bar behind your name until 5 weeks have passed.
All the above has still not been finalized so there might be adjustments made.
Last week I was looking for something on Google and ended up stumbling across an old picture of Salmiya which I hadn’t seen before. I started digging around looking for a higher resolution version and turned out I had actually posted the photo on my blog back in 2009 with a bunch of other old photos.
My memory is terrible and I’ve published over 12,000 posts so there is no way I can remember everything. I tried to find a higher resolution version of the photo online but everyone else had taken it off my blog so I couldn’t find one. So I decided to go through my emails to see if the source had originally sent me better quality scans. Turns out he had scanned the images in high res but because they were over 160MB he only sent me low res versions. I decided to randomly reply back to that person’s original email 12 years later asking if he still had the high res images. Turns out he did! He sent me a link to all the photos and I downloaded them and just put them up on Flickr and you can check them out here.
Anyway, I wanted to do a before and after comparison of Salmiya and you can view that in high res here. It’s impressive how many old buildings are still there but sadly they haven’t been maintained and are all in a state of disrepair. The whole neighborhood honestly is disastrously mishandled with no sidewalks or parking spots and loads of large open garbage bins that stink up the neighborhood. My neighborhood has so much potential and it’s sad I can’t do anything about it.
At the start of the curfew, I asked for some shows to watch since I had pretty much watched everything already. I got a bunch of suggestions and some turned out to be really great, so here are some more recommendations for you to watch:
New Amsterdam
This show is so cheesy but there are over 50 episodes and although it’s so not my style, I couldn’t stop watching it. It’s like driving by a car wreck on the highway, binge-watched the show over a two-week period non-stop so it helped kill a lot of time. There are two seasons out on Netflix and season 3 recently started on Hulu.
The Terror
Two seasons, two different stories. I loved season 1 but couldn’t get past the first episode of season 2. Season 1 on the other hand grabbed my attention from the very first episode. It’s very different from the usual stuff I watch and based in a time period I’m usually not a fan of so the whole thing was a bit refreshing. It’s a horror but has more of an amazing stories kind of vibe. Highly recommend it, available on Hulu.
Industry
While working on this post I realized none of the shows here have good trailers, Industry included. This is a show about young traders at a UK bank and if I just went off the trailer above I would have thought it was actually boring or lame. It wasn’t. It’s very different from other trading shows like Billions or Black Monday, but that’s mostly because it’s British so it’s a lot calmer and less dramatic. Only one season is out and it’s available on HBO.
Your Honor
I was close to not adding this show to the list only because I really really hated the way it ended. But up till the ending, this show was so good and stars both Bryan Cranston and Michael Stuhlbarg (Boardwalk Empire) so really incredible acting. This show is on Showtime.
The Big Flower Fight
I thought I posted about this series but just searched the blog and turns out I haven’t. If you like shows like The Great British Bake Off then you’ll like this show since it’s got a very similar structure, style and mood. It’s on Netflix.
The Great Pottery Throw Down
Similar to The Big Flower Fight and The Great British Bake Off, a bunch of amateur potters compete to become the top potter. It’s also a British show so it’s slow-paced, calm and very chill to watch. It’s available on HBO.
Blown Away
Ok one more show similar to the two above except this one is about glass blowers competing against each other. Unlike the other two this one is an American show so it’s much more fast-paced and intense but it was also fun to watch and really interesting. This one is on Netflix.
Yesterday I found out about Charles Cecil, an American diplomat who served in Kuwait back in the 60s. While here he took some great photos of Kuwait including the images in this post of Kuwaiti homes that were newly constructed at that time.
I’m not sure how many are still standing today, I think I recognize 2 but they’ve had their colors changed. You can check out more photos taken by Cecil on his website cecilimages.com.
Back in March my Garmin dash cam stopped working, I found out by mistake when trying to retrieve a video of an accident I thought I had captured only to find out my dash cam hadn’t been recording any footage for 2 years. I thought it was my dash cam that had failed but turned out it was the fault of my memory card. By then the local Garmin dealer had already seen my post and got in touch with me so they could send me their new Garmin Dash Cam 66W to replace my old one. Exciting!
I had my Garmin dashcam for 7 years and back when I had purchased it, the main selling point to me was how compact it was. But, compared to the new Garmin, my old one now looks HUGE (check the photo above). The size difference is enormous, not only because the dash cam itself is a lot smaller, but Garmin also redesigned the windshield mount making it much more compact. My new dash cam is so small it’s hidden behind my rear view mirror, I literally can’t see it when driving.
Another cool feature about the new Garmin that I love is the ability to connect to it with Wifi to adjust the settings, update the firmware and most importantly, view and download footage. Previously to view the footage I’d have to remove the memory card from my dash cam, take it home, connect it to my computer and then access the footage. When I’m done I then had to remember to take the memory card back down to my car the next time I leave my house which I obviously always forget to do. It was a hassle so I love how I can just connect to the camera from my phone directly. Without removing the memory card I can now connect to the Garmin, find the video I want, select which part of the video I want to download, and then download it to my phone. This is extremely practical, I really can’t emphasize how useful this feature is.
The two features above were really the most important for me, but there are a bunch of other features that other people might be interested in, for example, the Garmin has the ability to notify you of upcoming speed cameras. The 66W has GPS built-in and access to Garmin’s local database of speed camera locations so it can alert you if you’re getting close to one. The dash cam also has an extra-wide 180-degree field of view and records videos at 1440p. My previous dash cam had a 120-degree field of view and would record videos in 1080p but I never had an issue with the field of view or video resolution in my old camera. But, one thing I’m curious about with the new dashcam is how well it performs in the evening but due to our curfew I can’t test that out right now. During the day though, especially when the sky is blue, the footage is pretty sharp and clean and only starts to get noisy when the sun starts setting but that’s pretty normal.
Here are some other random features the cam has which I personally don’t care about:
– Forward collision warning
– Lane departure warning
– Voice control
– Travelapse
– Incident detection
– Go feature which notifies you when stopped traffic in front of you has started to move
As usual, I like to leave the negatives till the end and this camera has two. The first is the fact that it’s pretty slow transferring videos over wifi. It takes around 30 seconds to download 13 seconds of footage so you need to be veryyyy patient. The second downside is the price. The Garmin 66w costs KD75 which is right at the top end of the dashcam market. You do get a lot for that price and the build quality is miles apart from cheaper counterparts, but it’s still a lot of money especially when you can find decent ones at a third of the price.
Based on some recommendations from my readers I also ended up buying one of the most popular and cheapest dash cams from Amazon and I’ll be posting a review of that one soon. I’ll also do a comparison with this Garmin but I can tell you from now that once I got the Garmin I stopped using that other dash cam. The main reason was how cheap the other camera felt but also because of basic things like the user interface and the horrible LCD screen of the other one. But, if you’re interested in getting or checking out the Garmin dash cams, here is the link to the local dealer’s website.
Last year I posted about how Traffic Department’s instagram account @traffic_kw was very active and constantly posting videos of car chases and before and after videos of cars that had violated laws and then after they were caught. Over the weekend the Traffic Department posted a video of a tragic incident that took place last Sunday when one of their officers was killed by a reckless driver.
The video is in Arabic but with English subtitles and you can watch it above. It’s pretty sad and makes you aware that the roads aren’t just unsafe for us, but also the cops. A week earlier another police officer was lucky to escape injury when a speeding car hit his parked car. The video of that incident along with the officer recounting his experience can be seen below. We really need to try and figure out how to make our roads safer because it’s not gonna get better by itself.
Back in December, I posted about the Japanese restaurant Kei closing down because the hotel was getting renovated. Since then more details have come out on the project as well as renderings of the new facelifted hotel.
The hotel’s ground floor will be converted to mall use and become a continuation of Salhiya Complex with a dedicated entrance on Shuhada street. There will be an additional 6 stores on the ground floor and 5 more on the mezzanine.
The hotel entrance will still be on the ground floor but the hotel lobby will now be moved up higher into the building, possibly the rooftop.
The entire building exterior will be redone. Although I’m a fan of the current retro exterior, the 40-year-old design does look dated and gloomy.
The project is expected to be completed sometime in 2022.
This new project by Mabanee (the same people behind Avenues) looks like it’s going to be pretty cool located within Jaber Al-Ahmad City.
The comprehensive development will include a modern, architectural design in a community feel, with several components including 276 residential units and facilities and services to accommodate its residents and visitors including parks, schools and a retail component consisting of international retail and F&B brands. Aventura is expected to open during the first half of 2024.
Going by the video it looks like a neighborhood you’d find in Dubai or Europe with proper sidewalks, bike paths everywhere, and lots of greenery. Ah sidewalks, how I wish we had them in my neighborhood.
If you order a laptop from the US or Europe it would generally come with an English-only keyboard. So people who require Arabic get Arabic letters printed or stuck on the keyboard which is fine unless you have a backlit keyboard. If you just printed Arabic letters on a backlit keyboard you wouldn’t be able to see them in the dark so when I found out about laser engraving a few days ago, I was a bit surprised it was something that was so easy to do and also available in Kuwait.
Laser engraving as you can see in the video above basically cuts out the letters on your keys so that the light can pass through them as well. There is a store in Sharq area called Sharq Center which does it and charges KD15 for it. The process takes only 15-20minutes so you don’t have to leave your keyboard or laptop there overnight. If this is a service you’re looking for then check out their Instagram account @sharq_center
Local architect Asseel Al-Ragam has been posting a series of “Simple Fixes” for different parts of Kuwait on Twitter. It really wouldn’t take much to improve the different places and her animated series is a way of showing that.
Geocaching is an outdoor recreational activity, in which participants use a Global Positioning System receiver or mobile device and other navigational techniques to hide and seek containers, called “geocaches” or “caches”, at specific locations marked by coordinates all over the world.
A typical cache is a small waterproof container containing items for trading, such as toys or trinkets, usually of more sentimental worth than financial.
Someone was asking about geocaching in Kuwait and I hadn’t heard that term in years. The first time I heard about geocaching was back in 2002 and back then GPS devices weren’t as common, Google Maps didn’t exist and phones didn’t have GPS built-in so the only way to find a geocache was using a dedicated GPS device like a Garmin. I faintly remember a geocache located near Radisson Blu and after a bit of researching it turns out it was actually the first geocache in Kuwait.
What’s cool about caches was that you never knew what you’d find and you were always meant to take whatever was inside and then replace it with other items for the next person to find. There still seems to be a bunch of active geocaches in Kuwait so it might be a fun activity to do this Ramadan.
I remember a time when people were complaining about the lack of bookshops in Kuwait, well things have changed drastically. Below is a list of all the English bookshops I’m aware of in Kuwait. If I missed any let me know in the comments.
