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If you live outside of Kuwait and were trying to access the blog over the past few days you might have noticed a Cloudflare page or a Captcha page before access the blog. That’s because my blog was under a DDoS attack and so I had to increase security to block the attack.

Last week I got the following email:

DDOSIng ur website

hello i am going to be your senpai today and treat you really well mark-chan.

so recently my whoremones are really high but not my pockets.

email me back for the amount to be paid.

buh-bye

I didn’t really think of it much, I definitely wasn’t going to pay the person and figured if they did manage to bring down the blog that it wouldn’t be an issue. If the blog went offline it would mean I wouldn’t have to post so it would be a mini-vacation of a sort. Over the next few days, my blog got hit with close to a billion requests!

For those of you who don’t know what a DDoS attack is, it’s when an attacker sends an overwhelming amount of traffic to a website which would then either slow down the site to a crawl or bring it down completely. My blog gets around 10,000 visitors a day give or take but just like that I started getting millions of visitors per hour. It was insane!

Luckily for me, all my blog traffic is routed through a service called CloudFlare. I actually did that a couple of months ago when some readers using STC were having difficulty accessing my blog, I figured that might solve the issue (it didn’t). But one of the benefits of CloudFlare is the ability to set up firewalls and extra security measures to block DDoS attacks. Over the next few days I watched CloudFlare spot and block attacks from all over the world, the numbers were just insane and impressive. In just a few days CloudFlare blocked nearly a billion requests, here are some numbers:

Total Requests: 774.65 Million
Total Requests Blocked: 638.32 Million
Total Bandwidth: 6.73 TB

Top Threat Countries:
United States 108,540,196
India 76,169,029
Indonesia 68,455,987
Ukraine 47,789,199
Mexico 40,210,543

If I had set up CloudFlare properly from the start it would have blocked all the threats but it took me a few hours to realize what was going on and set up all my firewalls.

One benefit from all of this is that it taught me how to use CloudFlare properly and now I’ve actually managed to completely block all spam from the blog. Over the past weekend, not one single spam comment made it to the blog and that’s because any traffic coming from countries like India, China, Russia etc.. will now go through a security check to make sure they’re not bots.

So anyway, if you had difficulty accessing the blog this past weekend now you know why.

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.

Thanks ChaoticTranquility

Back in 1982 during the construction of Entertainment City, two articles were published in the Arab Time supplement magazine with information and photos on the project. The photos and reporting were by the documenter Claudia Farkas Al-Rashoud and you can check them out on twitter in their original size or in a reduced size below.

The Entertainment City was demolished late last year.

via @WafaAlsayed

I spotted these two banners at 360 Mall this weekend, the first number to dial is if you have a flat tire, the second if you have a dead battery. This is pretty cool and I’m surprised I haven’t seen a similar service in other malls.

One of the reasons I now carry a lithium jump starter in every car is because I’ve previously been in a situation where my car battery died while shopping at Avenues and had to awkwardly find someone to jump-start my car.

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.

The cache was called “Ya Darina Ya Kuwait” and the coordinates were N 29° 17.860 E 048° 05.205. The cache was placed there back in June 2002 by a user called walzuhair.

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.

This short clip is from an episode of WWF Tuesday Night Titans that aired back in May of 1985. The wrestler in the clip goes by the ring name The Duke of Dorchester and brags to a young Vince McMahon that he was a huge star on the island of Fulaka.

People thought he made the island up but I’m actually impressed the Duke who’s real name is Pete Doherty even know about Failaka back then considering the Internet didn’t exist.

Thanks Doc

The photo above is of the first large Al Mailem showroom which they opened back in 1971. Al Mailem if you aren’t aware are one of the largest retailers of tires in Kuwait and they have a whole bunch of locations up and down Canada Dry st.

I’ve actually been trying to find old photos of Canada Dry street from the 60s and 70s but can’t seem to find any and not sure where to look anymore. But, I just thought of an idea while typing this post up of trying and putting together a post with old photos of car dealerships similar to the photo of the first AlBabtain dealership pictured above. If you work at any of the car dealerships in Kuwait please email me!

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.

Aafaq Bookstore
Al-Asriya bookshop
Better Books
Book Seller
Book Stop
Bookish
Books and More
Books in Kuwait
Brilliant Company
CAP Bookshop
Center for Research and Studies on Kuwait
Claudia Al Rashoud
Jarir
Kuwait Heritage Library
Little Bee’s Books
Page Turner
Q8 Bookstore
Qasr Al-Thaqafa
Red Balloon Books
Saint Books
Spectrawide Bookstore
That Al Salasil
The English Bookshop

I recently found out about a really good Iraqi kebab restaurant in Salmiya which I decided to try out. Iraqi kebab is different from Persian kebab in that it’s generally not as fatty so you don’t have the same strong aftertaste that stays with you the whole day. It’s lighter which is why I prefer it. The restaurant name roughly translates to the “special (or unique) Iraqi kebab restaurant”, and I think they’ve been open since 2016 since that’s when their Instagram account opened up.

It’s a small little place located in the neighborhood that lies between Restaurant Street and Souk Salmiya. I ordered the normal kebab plate which comes with three skewers, grilled tomato and their freshly baked bread. The kebab meat was tender, tasty and didn’t leave any bad aftertaste. The bread which I think is Egyptian or Egyptian style is baked fresh in store.

Two kebab plates and a side of hummus came out to KD5.750. Due to the pandemic dine-in is closed so you’re either gonna have to eat it while it’s nice and hot in the car, or do takeaway. Their Instagram account is @kabab_iraki and here is their location on Google Maps.

KDD just published their Ramadan commercial called “We Love KDD” and I think it’s great (you’re always gonna win me over with nostalgia). If you’re living in the US and want to order KDD Chocolate Milk, check out my previous post here.

For those of you who didn’t know this, the first school I went to was called Sunshine School back in the 80s. It only went up to primary and my class was the last one to graduate from it back in 1990, just a couple of months before the Iraqi invasion in August. I still have a lot of photos from back when I was in Sunshine School and over the years I’ve been scanning them then sharing them on the blog.

In 1993, Sunshine School reopened as the British School of Kuwait and a couple of years ago (early 2019) I got approached by them asking me if I had more photos I could scan and share. They were working on an anniversary book and the school themselves didn’t have any pictures from the 80s and so were getting in touch with old students to see if they had any. That gave me a good reason to have all my school photos mailed to me by my sister in Lebanon which is why I ended up scanning so many and uploading them online back in 2019.

It took a while but the anniversary book finally got published and I got my copy a few weeks ago. The book was designed and printed in the UK and is really beautifully done. I’ve got a large spread in the book (pictured above) and although the section on BSK pre-invasion isn’t that large, it was great seeing the other photos they had of the school including the staff photo pictured below. I recognize so many of my teachers in it, I kinda wish I knew where they all are now or what they did after they left Kuwait.

Even though I got my copy of the book a while back I didn’t want to post about it until the book went on sale and it just did a few days ago. If you were a Sunshine School student or BSK student, they have a limited number of copies for sale. They’re priced at KD30 each and contain nearly 200 pages of photos, writeups and information on the school. They deliver internationally as well. The book is really well designed and it’s a hardcover so will look great on your bookshelf. If you’re interested in purchasing a copy then click here.

Since live markets are still not allowed, the popular craft market is back again virtually. This weekend, the Spring Craft Market will take place virtually with all the vendors offering a 10% discount.

Each vendor has also paid a small fee to take part in this market which has been donated to ‘Operation HOPE’ who are continuing their great work helping the less fortunate in our community, even more so now as a lot of people are impacted by the covid situation. You can find out more about Operation HOPE by visiting their Facebook page.

So how does a virtual market work? Simple, all the vendors taking part in the Spring Craft Market are listed on the market’s Instagram account @the_craft_market_kuwait. Scroll through the account and when you find an offering you like, say books or paintings, click through to that vendor’s account. Then you just find something you like and leave a comment or DM the vendor telling them you want it.

As a lot of the items are hand-crafted and one-off unique pieces, once they’re gone they’re gone. Please support your local artists, crafters, and small businesses and check out the market this weekend, it’s taking place tomorrow and Saturday. Here is the link again @the_craft_market_kuwait

The other day I posted a video tour of the new Terminal 2 airport. Well in case you wanted to know how our airport looked like back in the 60s, the video above shows a passenger arriving and leaving the airport back in 1965.

I believe the airport in the video above was the original one located in Nuzha. You can check out photos of that airport in my previous post here.

I’m very routine-oriented so every year when my car registration expires I take it to the same traffic department in Jabriya and go through their long clumsy process to get the papers renewed. What is the process? First I have to go to an insurance office to renew my insurance. Then I then need to head to the traffic department in the morning, wait in a long line for my car to get checked. If it passes I then need to find a place to park my car so I can go to a small office in a shack to get my papers stamped. Once that is done I then need to leave and come back in the afternoon and head to the super busy main traffic department building (the mornings are only for Kuwaitis) and buy a stamp and then submit my papers to have the registration booklet printed. If I have a fine I’ll have to get my papers back and head to the fine payment section upstairs, wait in a long line and then head back down and submit my papers again. A very complicated and inefficient process.

But years ago private car inspection centers started popping up but I never thought to try them out until now. Due to Covid and not wanting to deal with large crowds, I decided to try a private center and all I can say is WTF, I can’t believe it took me this look to go the private route!

I just renewed two of my cars last month and the process couldn’t have been easier. I went to a place in Al-Rai called Super Service and both times I was in and out in under 30 minutes. The first thing you need to do is drive your car into the center and leave it running. You then head inside and give your registration booklet to the receptionist who photocopies it and then tells you to hand over your documents to one of their employees at a counter. That employee will fill in all the paperwork, renew your insurance, and also let you know if you have any fines to pay. You then pay for everything (fines included) using Knet and go sit down and wait. 10-15 minutes later your car is done getting checked and your new registration is printed and you get in your car and leave.

That’s it!!

I paid KD29 to renew my paperwork which is very reasonable considering how fast, smooth and anxiety-free the process was. There is no way I’m ever going back to renewing my car registration the old-fashioned way at the traffic department, not unless I have to. There are a number of private inspection centers but if you want to visit the one I went to, here is their location on Google Maps.