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I found a seller on Instagram that had a Kids ‘r’ Us catalog for sale. Kids ‘r’ Us was the largest and most popular toy store in Kuwait back in the 80s but during the 1990 invasion the store got burned down. After the invasion, a smaller location opened up in old Salmiya and that later closed down and was turned into X-cite.

The catalog had already been sold for KD50 but the pictures were still up and they brought back a lot of memories. KD50 sounds expensive and it is, but anything Kids ‘r’ Us related is near impossible to find so you’ll always have collectors willing to pay that much.

There is actually someone on eBay selling the Centurions Walkie-talkie pictured in the catalog above for 35KD brand new in the box. Please buy it before I do! Check out the rest of the catalog pages below.

When I found these photos yesterday I was completely taken aback, other than the fact I had no idea that NES first opened in 1969 (I thought they opened much later), I didn’t know they first started off in a villa and a really beautiful one.

I love how this is most likely common knowledge to every NES student ever, yet I just found out about all this even though it’s been basically been my job for the past 18 years to find out about things like this. I guess I was too obsessed with digging up stuff on my school (Sunshine School) that I didn’t really even consider looking at other schools in Kuwait.

In any case, I found these photos partially on the NES Facebook account and partially on their website. I’m really impressed with the fact they still had these photos and had actually taken the time to scan and upload them. I really really love all these photos and mostly because how they totally don’t look like Kuwait.

The first classes of NES opened in a villa in Shamiyah, actually starting at Secondary level and very soon after extending backwards to Kindergarten. It was soon apparent that this educational venture was outgrowing the original premises, so a purpose built campus was opened in 1974, and to date, improvements and extensions continue to maintain an environment that allows students to thrive. source

There are more photos on their Facebook page and website, but you can check out my favorites in my post above a lot more inside this post below.

The hoarding has gone up around the area that will become the third phase of Al Shaheed Park and there are a bunch of renderings showing what will eventually be built there. I also have some PDFs dating back to December 2018 showing the plan for Phase III so combining whats in the renderings and the PDFs, here is what Al Shaheed Park Phase 3 might contain:

Outdoor cinema and amphitheater
Clock fountain
Kids shaded playground
Mountains playground
Maze garden
Outdoor skate and BMX park
Outdoor parkour and sky trail
Karting
Extreme sports building
Ice skating rink and snow park
Indoor Skydiving

I don’t have any info on when Phase 3 will be completed but, if its anything like the other Al Diwan Al Amiri projects, expect it to be done in around 2 years’ time. You can download the PDFs I have from this link.

Update: Added indoor skydiving to the list above and you can check out some renders of the park here.

For those who don’t know me, I go by the nickname FajerTheLawyer and I’ve been trying to make the law accessible for everyone which is why I am so excited to be sharing this news. I just launched the first online legal platform in Kuwait called Simple Law which is accessible by visiting makinglawsimple.com

Since I started my career I have been getting questions like How do I calculate my service indemnity? How do I start a business? or How do I register a trademark? This made me realize that people needed to have easy access to our laws.

The main services the Simple Law platform will offer are:

COVID-19 Resources: Laws and rights related to the current situation

Small Business Advice: Simple documents with infographics to help you understand the law. A lot has been uploaded already but we still have around 180 more to upload for you.

Find-a-Lawyer: Book a consultation and we will make sure you get the right lawyer for you (you will be able to view lawyers and law firms directly on the website soon)

Simplified Laws: An easy to understand copy of the local law

Employment Laws: Find out your rights and the laws related to employment

Download Contracts: You can download ready to use contracts

Courses: Take legal courses – we currently have one with KFAS

Questions and Answers: View answers to commonly asked questions

Next week we will also be launching memberships, so you can pay a monthly fee and have lawyers available when you need them.

I have made everything COVID-19 related completely FREE as I know it is a tough time for everyone. Also you now have the option of booking a consultation pro bono (your documents will be reviewed first) and we will connect you with a pro bono lawyer. We have an app coming soon as well but because of the situation right now, we decided it was important for us to launch the website right away instead of waiting for the app to finish.

Most of the employment documents are in English, Arabic, Hindi, and Tagalog with more languages on the way. Business-related documents are in English or Arabic.

Although the platform is for any legal questions, we focused more on employees, small businesses, and tech startups. We really hope that this website will help make the law accessible to everyone so that more people know their rights. This is a soft launch and all feedback is welcomed [email protected]

Website: www.makinglawsimple.com
Instagram: @simplelaw.kw

Post by Fajer Ahmed – Legal Counsel

Snail Trail is a small home business based in Kuwait that breeds snails and finds them homes. I didn’t really think having a snail as a pet was a thing but after checking out their account I’m tempted to get one for myself. Snail Trail sells different kinds of snails as well as everything you need to set up your own snail terrarium.

They sell snails starting at 2KD but can be as cheap as 1KD depending on how many snails you get. They also sell a terrarium set with everything you need including soil, moss, twigs + pines, healing stones, shells, and cuttlebone all for KD10. Or you could buy the items individually all from them as well.

It’s a pretty cute idea and snails seem easy to care for so if you’re interested to find out more check out their account @snailtrailkw

My cousin used to go to Al-Jamil but I had no idea it was that old. I actually just googled it and found out it originally opened back in 1960! This is from Wikipedia:

Al-Jamil Private School, Salmya was created in 1960 by a partnership including its first principal, Khawla Rizk, a Lebanese woman who was residing in Kuwait at the time. Al-Jamil started out as a private school in a hangar belonging to the Caterpillar, Inc. dealership in Surra, now a suburb of Kuwait City. In the late 70’s the school had nearly 1200 students in 1st through 12th grade. It produced some of the top students at the national level. In 1980 three of the top 10 national secondary school certificate list came from Al Jamil. After the Iraqi invasion of Kuwait in 1991, the Surra school campus became deserted and was later relocated to Maydan Hawalli. The old campus still remains deserted a reminder and a standing testimony to the damage caused by the tyrant of Iraq.

Does anyone have any footage from Sunshine School between 1980-1990? If you do, let me know I’ll help you digitize it.

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A post shared by قطاع شئون المرور والعمليات (@traffic_kw) on Jul 12, 2020 at 2:33am PDT

Back in January, I posted about how the Traffic Department set up a Whatsapp account (99324092) where residents can report violations. I tried them once and got no response so really didn’t bother contacting them again. But, they’ve recently been reminding people about this service and they even posted the video above with some examples of violations that were reported.

I think I’m going to give them another shot, maybe starting with something easy like reporting people who park in handicapped parking spots. Oh and those guys who drive up and down the Gulf Road going 10km/h trying to chat up girls. Yup, I’m going to be a snitch. If it works then maybe I’ll have a reason to upgrade my now 6-year old dashcam with a 4K version.

Has anyone tried this Whatsapp service recently? Did they respond?

Me and a friend have been talking about the Concorde over the past few weeks so I was pretty surprised yesterday to find out that the plane actually came to Kuwait back in 1979.

On Monday 19 February 1979 the Queen flew on Concorde from Heathrow to the sunshine of Kuwait in just under four hours, at the start of a three-week Middle East tour that would include Bahrain and Saudi Arabia. The Queen’s Private Secretary later wrote to Ross Stainton, BA’s Chief Executive to say the Queen was especially glad to make her visit to Saudi Arabia by Concorde. Apart from making the first day of the tour very much easier for Her Majesty, this wonderful aircraft created a great impression, and there could have been no better way of commencing a most important tour covering seven countries. source

Sadly, I only found a handful of photos of this event and none show the plane fully. The Queen ended up leaving Kuwait aboard the Royal Yacht Britannia as part of the tour of the Gulf while the Concorde flew to Bahrain.

Thanks Nick

I won an eBay bid on some 35mm slides of Kuwait taken back in 1978 and thought I would share them. Most of the slides are of a motorcade but I’m not sure who was visiting.

There are UK flags up on the roads but it couldn’t be the Queen since she visited in 1979. I thought maybe the British Prime Minister back then, James Callaghan, but I also couldn’t find any info about him visiting Kuwait. So if anyone has any idea who this might be, let me know because I’m curious.

I’ve uploaded all the scans to Flickr and you can check them out here.

Ever since Alshaya shut down a bunch of their restaurants in Avenues I’ve been curious to see who will take over those prime locations. The first one seems to be Adidas, they’ve taken over the Café Coco location in Phase 3 across from Harvey Nichols.

I’ve heard rumors about whos taken over some of the other locations but nothing solid yet. I do know that Avenues is asking the new tenants to put up their coming soon hoardings right away so we’ll soon know whos opening what and where.

The 2020 Formula 1 season finally kicked off last week after being delayed due to the Corona pandemic. The second race of the season is taking place later today but like last year, you’re pretty limited to how you can watch it here in Kuwait. The only network in our region that broadcasts the races is MBC Action but it’s in Arabic and I couldn’t find a way to stream it online. The other (and better) option is watching it directly on F1 TV.

I’ve posted about F1 TV before but I mentioned you needed a U.S. credit card to sign up since live broadcasts aren’t available for Kuwait. But, my U.S. credit card expired and I still haven’t gotten my replacement card so I was worried I wouldn’t be able to subscribe again this season. Turns out you don’t need a U.S. credit card!

If you’re on an Apple device and have a US Apple Store account, then you can subscribe to F1 TV from inside the app and pay for the subscription using your Apple Store account. It’s a neat loophole that should make Formula 1 broadcasts easily accessible to more people.

So if you’re an F1 fan and want to watch the races, download the F1 TV app.

The new Land Rover Defender is finally in Kuwait, around a month late from it’s original scheduled arrival. The Defender has been completely redesigned and although I wasn’t sure about the design in the photos, in person it does look really great.

From my understanding, the first shipment is all sold out but the dealer has one model on display and I think they have another white one for test drives.

It’s definitely a car I’m considering swapping out my FJ for. Prices start at around KD16,000 but can nearly double in price depending on the specs. The one in the photo is priced at 25,000 but you can also build your own and price it out yourself on the local Land Rover website.

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A post shared by YOUSEF ALRASHED يوسف الراشد (@yalrashid) on Jul 4, 2020 at 3:42pm PDT

The other day I posted a link to photos showing Entertainment City taken over by mother nature, but I figured it wasn’t very recent since when I passed by the park a couple of weeks back there was some sort of demolition taking place. The video above though is more recent and shows what’s really happening to the park. According to one of the guys in the video, it’s getting completely demolished and the land turned into an empty sand plot as part of the handover process.

This is really sad like all the other landmarks in Kuwait that are getting demolished one by one except maybe this might even be sadder. I’ve been visiting the park from when it first opened in the 80s and kept going even towards the end of the parks life. I really believe the issue with the park was the lack of maintenance and not because the rides weren’t exciting. Towards the end most of the rides were just not working and so people had no reason to go there. I wish they kept the park and just renovated it and expanded it but not completely demolish it like this.

I was told there was a warehouse in Entertainment City where the old arcades from the Ice Skating Rink and Entertainment City were being stored. If anyone knows anything about this let me know. Also if you want to see a video of the park during its better days, watch the video above starting from the 8:34 minute mark.

The Ministry of Public Works have updated their complaints app with a brand new interface. The new app looks much nicer but also makes it easier to submit a complaint. The app is called “MPW Emergency 150” and it allows you to submit complaints related to public infrastructure like street or sewage issues. The app is available for both Android and iOS devices.

Now if only the Ministry of Interior can release a similar app…

Thanks Zaydoun

A day before our three-week total lockdown I got a delivery from Amazon, the NEOGEO Arcade Stick Pro. It’s an arcade stick pre-installed with 20 old-school NEOGEO games. I’m a huge fan of NEOGEO ever since I was a kid since it was an unattainable gaming console back then due to the costs involved which was extremely high. Back in the 90s a single game could easily cost over 100KD for example, so paying 40KD for a NEOGEO arcade stick with 20 games included seems like a steal.

But, I really wasn’t interested in the games that were included, instead, the reason I wanted to get the Arcade Stick Pro is that someone found a way to install even more old-school games onto it.

Like all the classic mini-consoles that have gotten released over the past few years, the Arcade Stick Pro runs off USB power and connects to your TV via an HDMI cable. I spent hours and hours the first week of lockdown going through nearly 2,000 classic games from the 80s and 90s one by one. Whichever game I liked or reminded me of my childhood, I put aside to create my ultimate old school gaming playlist. The Arcade Stick Pro was obviously best at emulating NEOGEO games but it also did a great job of emulating other home consoles and arcade systems like CPS1, CPS2, and more. I wasn’t interested in emulating home consoles though since I could do that with my SNES mini and my Odroid Go Advance. Instead, what I really wanted to do was emulate games I used to play in the arcades when I was a kid and shooting scrollers (both horizontal and vertical) like Blazing Star and Mars Matrix which the Arcade Stick Pro did a phenomenal job with.

If you don’t want to copy your own games onto the Arcade Stick Pro, the system comes with 20 fighting games built-in and an additional 14 bonus games which includes a bunch of Metal Slug games and Super Sidekicks. The Metal Slug series alone would be worth the $120 price tag.

There aren’t really any negatives, except for one major inconvenience. With my SNES Classic mini system, I have it set up next to my TV and I bought a wireless controller for it. This means I can sit back on my couch and play games comfortably without having to worry about running power and HDMI cables. With the Arcade Stick Pro, the actual controller is the console so you need to have power and HDMI running to wherever you’re sitting. So if your couch is 3 meters away from your TV, you need a 3 meter long HDMI cable running to your couch and a USB cable to power up the system. It’s a hassle and anytime I think about wanting to play on it I have to think about setting it up. A second issue that might be a problem to some people but isn’t for me is 2-player games, if you want to play 2-player games you need to purchase an extra controller for it which is another $25.

I really do love this arcade stick and it made the lockdown a lot more bearable for me. If you’re looking for an affordable arcade stick that can run some of your old favorite NEOGEO and arcade games, this is a pretty great option. The stick costs $120 on Amazon and I think I paid KD14 for shipping and customs. I wasn’t able to find it here but Rihab Complex was also closed back then so they might have it now.