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Tomorrow is the anniversary of the 1990 Kuwait Invasion, and every year on the anniversary, I like to share some links related to the war. This year though I noticed two of my favorite websites related to the invasion are no longer up and running, Free Kuwait and The Evidence.

Both those website contained a large archive of photos related to the invasion and I’m pretty upset that they’re both no longer working. I’ve already emailed the people behind those two websites to see what the issue is, hopefully, it’s just a technical hiccup but in any case, below are the rest of the links.

Free Kuwait
This is a website that focuses on the campaign that was led by Kuwaitis in exile and is loaded with photos and information.

Kuwait Invasion – The Evidence
This is a website that contains over 1,200 pictures taken right after the 1990 invasion as photographic evidence to all the destruction caused by Iraq.

Short movie: Hearts of Palm
Hearts of Palm is a short movie set in August 2nd 1990 and deals with Kuwaiti students living in Miami Florida during the Iraqi Invasion of Kuwait.

The Class of 1990
This is a short documentary about reuniting class mates years after the 1990 Iraqi invasion.

Homemade video from the Iraqi invasion of Kuwait
Video clips taken by a Kuwaiti family during the Iraqi invasion

Desert Storm Photos
Photos taken by soldiers during Desert Storm.

Short Animation: Sandarah
A captivating story based on true events that took place during the 1990 Iraqi invasion.

First Account of Iraq’s Invasion of Kuwait
Interviews with various Kuwaitis that were in Kuwait during the 1990 invasion.

Iraqi Invasion Pictures
Photos of the Gulf War aftermath.

Politics of Wor
A tumblr account with some not so commonly seen photos from the Gulf War. (Warning some are graphic)

Magnum Photos
A gallery of images taken during the Gulf War by some great photographers. (Warning some are graphic)

BBC Documentary: The Last Flight to Kuwait
A series of documentaries on Iraq begins with a look at the fate of British Airways flight BA149 to the Far East in 1990. As the plane landed in Kuwait, Saddam Hussein invaded, capturing its crew and passengers.

Photos in this post are by Bruno Barbey

Update: I just bought a hard copy of the books The Evidence and Evidence II which is what the website The Evidence is based off. Now looking for “A Testimony from London” which the Free Kuwait website is based on. If you know where I can find it let me know.

Early this year I decided I wanted to get a cool classic car and not sure how exactly, but I ended up deciding on an old Alfa Romeo, specifically the 1750 GTV. So I started looking all over the web for a car that fit my requirements and I ended up finding a couple in the US, one in Sweden and one in Germany but in the end, I found a perfect one in the Netherlands at a family-run classic car dealership called Gallery Aaldering. After a few emails back and forth, I decided to fly out to Holland to check the car in person. The place was insane! It was 4 floors and filled with so many beautiful and pristine condition classic cars. It was like a museum except everything was for sale. While there I actually didn’t give the Alfa much attention at first because I ended up falling in love with a Lancia Fulvia Coupe 1600 HF. But after I test drove the Alfa and left the dealership did it start to settle in and I knew I wanted it.

This was back in April and once I got back to Kuwait I proceeded with the purchase. It took around 8 weeks to finalize the paperwork and get the car registered for exporting and it finally shipped to Kuwait this past Monday.

One thing I realized through this whole process is that very few people in Kuwait know what the process is for importing a classic car. There is a lot of misinformation and the whole thing is just confusing so I decided I would share the process on the blog.

So this is what I was told, but keep in mind laws change all the time and there are various exceptions that can be made so use this info just as a starting point. Firstly cars are divided into three categories and each has different rules:

New Cars
Cars less than 5 years old are considered new. Both expats and Kuwaitis can import these cars without much of a hassle.

Old Cars
Cars older than 5 years but less than 40 years are considered old. Expats aren’t allowed to import old cars while Kuwaitis are allowed to import one old car in their lifetime.

Classic Cars
Cars that are older than 40 years are considered classics. Expats aren’t allowed to import classic cars while Kuwaitis are allowed to import one classic car every two years.

Now I’ve also heard from people I know that cars older than 20 or 25 years are considered classic. I can’t verify that since I was told by a car importer that it has to be older than 40 years old. But I was also told exceptions can be made. If you get a paper from a dealership stating the car you’re importing is special or rare, then from my understanding, the car doesn’t follow any of the rules listed above.

Since I’m not Kuwaiti I’m importing the car under a friends name. I’m using a local logistics company called Transcrate to get the car from the Netherlands to Kuwait and they’ll also be getting all my paperwork done. They’re pretty pricey compared to other companies, but their customer service is great, I’m communicating with them in English by phone and email (haven’t visited them in person yet), and they’ve been updating me with photos on the progress of my car. The company also belongs to a friend of mine so I feel really comfortable dealing with them. Other companies I approached either didn’t take me seriously, only communicated in Arabic or were pretty slow in responding to simple questions or requests.

The car is now expected to arrive at the end of August and once the car arrives I’ll post Part 2 with information on the registration process.

I recently found out from a reader about a small store in Al-Rai called Sahm Sports that specializes in archery supplies. The store opened up earlier in the month and they sell everything you need to get into archery from bows and arrows to targets and accessories. They even have a small archery room you can book for target practice and lessons (KD7 for 30 minutes).

What I like about their instagram account is that they’re posting videos and stories explaining what the various items and accessories do, so it’s a bit interesting if you want to know more about the sport. The store is located across from Avenues and here it is on Google Maps. Their instagram account is @sahm.sports.kw

Thanks Mohamad!

The popular Italian restaurant and marketplace Eataly opened up last week at Avenues Phase 4. I dropped by over the weekend and although the place was fairly busy I did manage to get seated after a pretty short wait.

I ordered a pasta which was good but one of our other mains arrived fairly dry and the service was pretty sloppy. But, both those issues are understandable since they’ve just opened up. I was impressed by their gelato though (the mango is soo good) and their small market place had a pretty good variety of products. They even had a cold cuts section which I wasn’t expecting since I thought they would only sell boxed items à la Marks & Spencer.

Prices ranged from around 4KD+ for their pasta with I think the most expensive dish coming in just under 10KD. I still need to go back and try a few things once they settle in. They’re located in Avenues Phase 4 near the Mercedes dealership and for more info you can check them out on instagram @eatalyarabia

It’s a tiny list but there are some pretty cool things happening this weekend. Check out the list below and if I missed anything let me know.

Thursday
Al3ab Village
Cultural Festival – South Korea

Friday
Al3ab Village
Cultural Festival – South Korea
O I Summer Residency featuring Kade B.
Vi by Vogularity x Bunka Pop-up

Saturday
Al3ab Village
Cultural Festival – South Korea

If you’d like to share an event on the blog [Email Me]
For a full list of upcoming events click [Here]

Sometimes events get canceled or have details changed so always double-check with the organizers.

Google just made taking the bus a lot easier in Kuwait by integrating it into Google Maps. You can now plug in your location and destination and Google will guide you to the nearest bus stop and tell you which bus to take, how often that bus comes by and how long the ride will be. Try it out yourself!

via Reddit

View this post on Instagram

A post shared by Deliveroo Kuwait (@deliveroo_kw) on Jul 19, 2019 at 2:50am PDT

Explains how their delivery guys manage to stay so lively and cheerful in this heat.

Last week I was contacted by Chevrolet asking me if I’d be interested in test driving their fully electric car, the Chevrolet Bolt EV. Although I wasn’t interested in the Bolt specifically, I was interested in experiencing life with an electric car so I agreed to borrow the car for the weekend.

Right now I don’t think there is any other company in Kuwait that sells a fully electric car, I know both Toyota and BMW sell hybrids (a combination of regular petrol engines and electric motors) but can’t think of anybody else that sells a fully electric car so Chevrolet I guess are the first.

First, let’s talk about the elephant in the room, the Chevy Bolt isn’t a pretty looking car to put it nicely. If I’m driving around in an electric car I want it to look like an electric car and I guess by that I mean I want it to look futuristic with lots of things glowing blue and lots of sharp and angular shapes, like a car that wouldn’t look out of place on the set of Tron. The Bolt looks like an entry-level budget crossover vehicle and the car I picked up was a super boring white. But, I already knew that the Bolt wasn’t pretty, for me this was all going to be about the electric experience.

I picked up the car on Thursday and it was half-charged showing me I had a range of 161KM left till empty. That was fine since I only had a few errands to run and then I was heading home so I could charge the car there. There are no Chevy fast-charging stations around Kuwait, there is a Tesla fast-charging station at Al Shaheed Park but that isn’t compatible with the Chevy charge port.

If you want to charge the Bolt you need to use the charging cable that came with it which allows you to plug it into any regular power socket. My building’s underground parking lot has power sockets all around so when I got home I just plugged the car into one and headed upstairs. A few hours later I decided to check on the charge status and was surprised to see it barely charged. So I started playing around with the car settings and noticed the car had two charging options, 6Amps and 10Amps. According to the car infotainment screen, the car was currently charging at 6Amps (which is the default setting) and that the car would be fully charged by 1:15AM on Saturday. Keep in mind it was Thursday night at that point so 6Amps wasn’t gonna work for me so I switched the car to 10Amps charging. At 10Amps, the car would be fully charged by 1:45PM the next day. Not fast enough, but still a lot better than the original estimate I got.

Next morning I left the house early around 8AM and the car was around 80% charged showing me I had a 261km range. I later found out after reading the manual that it takes around 33 hours to fully charge with the 10Amp setting. That’s just too long although I guess if you’re charging the car every time you park it then it’s not so bad, but in my case, it was starting to give me anxiety. Friday I had a bunch of things I needed to do and by the time I got home that evening, I had around 60KM range left. Unlike with fuel, if you’re close to empty you can’t just fill up at any gas station, so once I saw my range drop to 60 I was like shit, I need to get home now. I really don’t need more anxiety in my life…

Other than the whole charging debacle the car felt like a normal car to drive. I liked the minimalist dash display which was the most electric thing about the car and it was a fairly comfy vehicle to drive. Although not a fast car, the electric motors made the car feel fast since acceleration from a standstill was fairly instant. You know, thinking about it now, I think the biggest issue I have with the car isn’t the looks, or the interior or the slow charging. I think the biggest issue I have with the Bolt is with the price which is causing me to set my expectations so high. The Chevy Bolt is selling for KD13,000 which might be considered affordable compared to other electric cars, but compared to what you’d get from a similarly priced petrol-engined car, it just feels overpriced.

If you’d like to test drive the car yourself or check it out you can do so by passing by the local Chevrolet dealer. They’re on instagram @chevroletalghanim

In a bid to stop people from parking illegally the MOI have launched new “No Parking Vehicles” to drive around areas and ticket illegal parkers. The vehicles have cameras located on the outside to capture the license plate of violators automatically without having to leave the car making it really convenient.

Not sure how I feel about this, I think I preferred the previous method of removing license plates and towing cars since those were instant punishments that caused a lot of headache to the violators. I don’t think this new system will be as effective since violators will only know they got fined way after the incident.

In any case, not being pessimistic or anything but based on the history of MOI ideas, this won’t last long anyway before things go back to normal.

Thanks Meshari

Back in September, I posted about a cool new 3D printing service at Best Electronics where you can get a very realistic miniature figurine of yourself (and of you and your friends). That didn’t last long since the very next day Best were forced to close down the service due to religious reasons.

But, Best recently opened up a new store in The Avenues, it’s near Saveco in the basement in a pretty hidden location. But, the good news is they’ve brought back the 3D printing booth and have it set up there. So if you previously wanted to 3D print yourself but missed out, you should probably pass by Best quickly before it gets shut down again.

The current Municipal Council building would be turned into a museum under the umbrella of the National Council of Culture, Arts and Letters, said Chairman Osama Al-Otaibi Monday.

After relocating to a new one, the old building would be preserved due to its historic significance, Al-Otaibi told a press conference. Source

I’m so glad they realized the importance of the building and won’t be demolishing it. After the decision to demolish Sawaber and the Ice Skating Rink, I wouldn’t have been too surprised if they had decided to demolish this building as well.

The Kuwait Municipality building was designed by the architect Sami Abdul Baki and constructed between 1959 and 1962 by The Arab Contractors. I tried to find information on the architect but really couldn’t find anything other than a design he had proposed for the Martyr’s Square in Lebanon that never came to be. Interestingly, the Kuwait Municipality building features arcs similar to the one in his Martyr’s Square design (check below). So either that was his design signature or, maybe since it was never executed in Lebanon he decided to implement it into this building.

If anyone knows what other buildings he might have designed in Kuwait let me know in the comments below.

Image on top and building information was taken from Modern Architecture Kuwait 1949-1989

There is this app called FaceApp which allows you to change your age, hair color, hairstyle and other features, but unlike other apps that do similar effects, this one is actually incredibly realistic. Like scary realistic. Been having fun with it all morning so if you haven’t tried it out yet it’s available on both iOS and Android devices. Link

Last week I posted about a pet cat called Winston that got lost and later died at the airport after it was taken from its owner to be sent to the cargo terminal.

The cat owner has now set up a gofundme page to pay for her legal fees in suing NAS, the company that the airport uses to transport the pets from the main terminal to the cargo terminal and the ones who lost her cat. She also wants to try and change the procedures for arriving pets at the airport. From some of the comments I’ve read by other people who’ve traveled with their pets, the procedure at the Kuwait airport is inconsistent and in most cases unnecessary.

If you want to support her fight then here is the link to her gofundme.

Virgin Megastore which originally opened up in Marina Mall back in 2002 and then closed down in 2012 is now reopening again, but this time at The Avenues. Their new location is where the clothing store Express used to be located in Phase 1 and should (theoretically at least) prove to be a better location for them this time around.

Very few people know this but back in 2006 Virgin Kuwait bullied me and threatened to sue me over one of my posts. It’s a long story and made me dislike the brand and the company Azadea (who own the brand in the Middle East) for a very long time, but, I’m pretty glad they’re opening again since their Dubai store actually sells interesting things albeit overpriced.

No idea on when the opening will be.

So this is a funny story that recently happened that made me appreciate car detailing a lot more than I already did.

One of the guys in my WhatsApp group has an old 1995 Acura Integra which he’s turned into a track car. He’s upgraded the engine and brakes on it, stripped out the interior to reduce weight and he has a ton of fun with it on the race track. Since the end of last year though he’s had the car parked in a dirt lot outside another friends place gathering dust. Not that it was in good condition before he parked it, half the car was covered in ducktape while the rest of the car really needed a paint job.

Last week the guy whose house the car is parked outside of took the picture above and shared it on our whatsapp group. Right away we started teasing the car’s owner with jokes about how he should scrap the car and other silly stuff. As a joke I suggested he should get the car detailed which he replied to saying he was waiting for a sponsor. Within seconds one of the guys captured a screenshot of the conversation and sent it to another friend of ours who owns Al Falah Car Wash. Al Falah have a detailing service called Showshine which I’ve posted about on the blog before and after seeing the screenshot of the conversation, they responded with “bring it on” in full confidence not really knowing how bad the condition of the car was.

A week later they got to see the car in person after it was dropped off to them and I wish I was there to see their faces. They knew it was going to be a challenge, but they didn’t think the car was in this bad of a condition. They started posting pictures on their instagram account and started calling it the “Disaster Car Detail”.

One of my friends even joked that he would give them a trophy if they can get it just decent looking. I dropped by to take some before pictures of the car and when I saw it in person I thought it was a hopeless case. The car had no shine whatsoever, the paint was completely flat and patchy, it was truly a disaster car.

Over the next two days, Showshine worked hard on the car, they started off with a regular wash before moving it into their detailing department to start the difficult process. Finally, when they were done and pictures of the car started leaking into our group we couldn’t believe it. The car looked new and shiny! When I passed by and saw the car in person I couldn’t believe it was the same one. They did such an incredible job detailing the car and somehow managed to bring the color and shine back to life.

My friend who joked that he would give them a 🏆 also kept his word.

For the past couple of weeks, I had been thinking about giving my Datsun 240z which I recently purchased a paint job. But now after seeing what they could do with a disaster car, I’ve actually decided to get the car detailed instead. If they could bring back so much color and shine to my friend’s car, then it should be fairly easy with mine which is in so much better shape.

Thank you Al Falah for going along with this. If you want to get your car detailed their prices start from KD30 (depends on the size of the car). Al Falah are my favorite car wash and they’re on instagram @showshinealfalah.