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The Kuwait Investment Forum (KIF2018) took place last week and on that occasion, they released the promo video above which showcases Kuwait while also containing information on the different upcoming projects and investment opportunities that are available. Looks like its full speed ahead for Kuwait 2035. [YouTube]

Yesterday I was invited to the Abdullah Al-Salem Cultural Centre (ASCC) for a conference and tour of all the museums. The event was meant to start at 5PM but I decided to get there half an hour early. When I got arrived I realized I was one of the first people there since the parking lot was fairly empty. So I decided to walk around the museums and explore.

For those of you who asked if the museums had enough parking, they do. There is a decently sized lot on the ground floor and another much larger lot in the basement.

The museum grounds is pretty huge and involves quite a lot of walking. It took me around 30 minutes to walk around outside the museums before I decided to head back to the first building where the conference was going to take place. When I got there I realized people were just starting to show up and that no way the conference was starting on time. So I decided to ditch the event and instead go back to exploring the insides of the museums. That turned out to be the best idea because I ended up having the all the museum just for myself and I have to say, the place is amazing!

There are four museums occupying six main buildings:

– Natural History Museum
– Science & Technology Museum
– Arabic Islamic Science Museum
– Space Museum

I literally was running around trying to capture photos for my instagram before it started getting dark and it took me over an hour and a half to run through the whole museum. I didn’t even stop to read a plaque, interact with an exhibit or walk around every hall properly and it took me that long, so imagine how long it will take you to explore the exhibits fully. I was told you’d need around 6 hours per museum and that doesn’t include attending any of the shows or workshops that are going to be held there frequently.

From all the exhibits I think my favorite might be the Human Body building of the Science & Technolgy Museum. Although I had left it until the end because I thought it was going to be lame, I think it’s probably one of the most fun and interactive areas. For example, they have a 15m running track where you could run and it would calculate your time and then compare it to famous people including record holder Usain Bolt. So you know I’m definitely going to go back in my full sports gear just to try that out. The whole lower section of that building was filled with different sports activities for you to try, interact or play around with. Then upstairs you have one of the visually most colorful and exciting looking exhibits that deals with viruses (pictured below), and there was also a biology lab where they’ll be holding workshops for people of all ages. That’s another thing I really liked about the museums, not only were their exhibits but in each museum, there were also classrooms and spaces to hold workshops.

The most surprising exhibit to me was probably the Ecosystems building under the Natural History Museum. I walked in and was mind blown, they had converted one of the buildings into an indoor rainforest with an active waterfall and water pools. I was not expecting that at all. You could walk around the rainforest from above it or from the ground floor. I started from the top since that’s where I came in from since I was at the dinosaurs exhibit next door, and then headed down. Once I was done on the ground floor I got another surprise, turns out the pools of water I had seen from the top were actually the top of the huge aquarium which was located in the basement. It’s a huge aquarium, I probably larger than the one at the Scientific Center although it wasn’t yet filled with a lot of fish.

I think I’m going to stop here since this post would end up being gigantic if I described every section of the museum. All you really need to know is that this is a legit and proper museum. I don’t know how they were able to build it and put it together in such a short period of time, and I am really impressed. The only negative thing might be in regards to the ticketing system. The museums were originally meant to be free but late into the project they decided to charge a nominal entry fee of KD3 for adults and KD2 for children. Since the building wasn’t built with the idea of ticketing in mind, they installed drive-thru ticket stations at the parking entrance. There are nine ticket stations in the parking area, you drive up to one, purchase tickets for every passenger in the car and then you’re allowed in. I can imagine that causing a lot of traffic to get in, especially in the beginning when people are rushing to see the museums. But, there is a side entrance for drop-offs and pedestrians, so if it does get super busy, I’ll just ride my bicycle down the street to the museum or have a cab drop me off.

If you want to know more about the museum including location, ticket prices, opening hours, you name it, then check out the ASCC website which is really thorough [Here]

The Sheikh Abdullah Al-Salem Cultural Centre museums is officially opening tomorrow and their website is now live and contains their ticket prices, opening hours and floor maps of the place amongst other information. The ticket prices turned out to be super reasonable with children under 18 costing KD2 and adults costing KD3. Here all the ticket prices:

Adults (18+): 3 KD
Junior | Student (Max 18): 2 KD
Under 2: Free of Charge
Ambulant Disabled: 1.5 KD
Wheelchair Disabled: 1.5 KD + Free Helper
Chaperon: 2 KD

Below is the map of the museum so you can see all the buildings and what they contain.

Opening hours are 9AM to 9PM on weekdays, and 3PM to 11PM on weekends. They’re closed on Sundays.

I’m actually headed to the museums in a bit since I’ve been invited to the pre-opening and I’m super excited. Hopefully, they’ll let me take photos so that I can post them up here tomorrow. To check out their website, visit ascckw.com

Update: They’ve changed their opening hours and I’ve updated the post to reflect that

On Friday (which was probably the hottest day of the year so far), my FJ’s air conditioning stopped working. Luckily the weather wasn’t that hot but it was still an annoyance. What was going to be more annoying though was getting it fixed. I hate taking the car to the dealership since it’s such a time-consuming process. You need to drop the car off, leave it for a few days, cab it back and forth to the garage and I just didn’t want to go through all that hassle. So I decided to try and fix the problem myself.

I kinda had an idea what the problem was. When I turned the air conditioning on no air would come out so I figured it had to do with the AC blower motor. So I googled it and found people who had similar issues like mine and the solution turned out to be one of two things:

1) Blower motor resistor failure
2) Blower motor module failure

The first one controls the speed of the fan, the second is what actually gives out the air. I watched a few videos and both seemed fairly easy to replace so I got my tools and headed to the Toyota parts dealer in Shuwaikh. First, I decided to check the resistor since it was the cheaper part of the two to replace (around KD4). I took it apart and it looked like it was still in good condition. Realizing it must be the blower motor, I walked into the parts dealer to buy a new motor. Fifteen minutes later I was out in the parking lot installing the part which was located under the glove box and connected with just three screws. Super easy swap and once I was done, I turned on the AC and it was working again. I got it all sorted by myself and even though it was an easy swap, I felt like I had accomplished so much. The new motor cost me KD59, I didn’t have to pay anyone for labor and more importantly I didn’t have to drop off my car at the dealership for a few days.

If you like Lego or putting together IKEA cabinets then you should try fixing things yourself. Everything is online nowadays including repair manuals and step by step video guides. If you also own an FJ Cruiser, here is a link to the dealerships [FJ Cruiser Repair Manual]

The Sheikh Abdullah Al-Salem Cultural Centre (ASCC) will officially be opening to the public next week on Wednesday, March 14th. The cultural center houses a Space Museum, Science Museum, Natural History Museum and an Islamic Museum so I’m super excited to check it out.

To stay posted you can follow them on instagram @ascc_kw

Late last year, Burger & Lobster closed down their location in the Avenues and relocated to a new spot in the city. Over the weekend, that new spot opened up and I really like the location. The new Burger & Lobster is located near Arabica where Cereal Killer used to be, so it’s a convenient location to pop in for a quick lunch or dinner.

Burger & Lobster is open from 8AM to 11PM on weekdays, and 8AM to 12AM on weekends. You can follow them on instagram @burgerandlobsterkuwait

Last month after posting my review on the Bang & Olufsen H5 wireless earphones, I got a message from the audio brand Shure asking me if I’d also like to try their wireless earphones. I’ve been a fan of Shure ever since I got my first pair of in-ears back in 2004, the Shure E2’s, so of course I said yes. A couple of weeks later I got their new SE215 wireless earphones in the mail.

I had a few issues with my H5’s and was curious to see if the Shure’s would solve them. My main problems with the H5’s were the battery life and the low volume level of the earphones. So how did the Shure’s perform?

Battery Life
While the B&O H5 promises up to 5 hours of battery life, the Shure’s promise up to 8. That doesn’t sound like much but in real-world use, it is. With the H5’s I make sure I put them back on the charger after using them for a couple of hours, with the Shure’s I charge them every couple of outings and still have enough juice for a third outing. But what I like about the Shure’s is that if I do run out of battery, I can just charge them using any standard micro-usb cable unlike the H5’s which require the use of the charging station that came with the earphones.

Volume Level
I’m sitting right now at Arabica having my coffee and typing up this post with the Shure earphones on listening to music. I have the music volume at 80% because at 100% they’re just too loud. With the H5’s I would always have the earphones at 100% and wish I could raise them by at least another 20%.

So yeah, the Shure’s do solve my two biggest issues with the H5’s in addition to solving another issue I wasn’t aware needed solving. When you first turn on the Shure’s, you get a voice prompt letting you know once they connect to a bluetooth source and then the voice lets you know how much battery life is left. With the B&O’s I need to launch the B&O app on my phone to find out the battery life which isn’t very practical. Another advantage of the Shure’s is the price, they cost half that of the B&O’s and sound as good if not slightly better.

With all the positives so far with the Shure’s, you’d think I’d prefer them over the B&O’s but that hasn’t been the case. Whenever I leave the house and need to pick a pair of earphones to take with me, I kept finding myself reaching for the H5’s over these Shure’s. The reason for that is the Shure’s are pretty bulky. The battery pack isn’t built into the earphones but instead is located on the cable so it makes wearing the earphones awkward. On top of that, the earphone wires are too thin making the Shure’s feel flimsy and messy because the wires keep getting tangled up.

But in the end, it really comes down to the person’s requirements. Are you looking for battery life or style? If I’m traveling then I’m definitely going to pick the Shure’s over the H5’s. But if I’m just going to a coffee shop for a couple of hours to get some work done, then I’m always going to pick the H5’s.

If you’re interested in picking up a pair of Shure SE215 wireless earphones, they’re available on Amazon for KD45 [Here]

A couple of days ago the Abdullah Al Salem Cultural Centre was inaugurated by the Emir and the event was broadcasted live on TV. In case you missed it, the ceremony is now available to watch on YouTube.

The cultural center will be open to the public later this month.

Thanks lovelykuwait

The new Abdullah Al Salem Cultural Centre (ASCC) is set to open towards the end of this month, but if you drive by at night, you can get a sneak peek at some of the dinosaurs on display.

Earlier this morning I was able to tour the new phase of Avenues, Phase 4. The Avenues extension is set to open on February 25th and so they invited the media today to walk around, explore and take photos.

Avenues Phase 4 includes expansions of existing districts like Prestige, Grand Avenue, and The Souk. But, they’ve also added new districts that include Arcadia, The Grand Plaza, The Forum, Electra and The Cinema, as well as a five-star and four-star hotel.

Phase 4 is HUGE, and its beautiful. They’ve basically taken the Grand Avenue indoor-but-looks-like-outdoor-look and built on it. It’s bright, airy and the main street is wide with lots of little alleyways that connect the various districts.

From what I saw there won’t be much open by February 25th other than a bunch of Alshaya brands, but it will still be a great space to wander about and explore.

If you want to check out more pictures of Phase 4 then check out my story on instagram. I’ve archived the story and so it should be up for some time. Check it out @mark248am

Update: I was just informed that February 25th is the target date but they’re still unsure if they’ll open by then. Also I uploaded a bunch of photos in hi-res which you can view [Here]

Yesterday I found out that the popular German large format photographer, Andreas Gursky, had captured two photos of the Kuwait Stock Exchange. The one pictured in this post was auctioned off at Sotheby’s for KD280,000!

His two Kuwait Stock Exchange photos were captured one year apart. The first photo was captured in 2007 and you can view it [Here] while the second photo which is pictured in this post was taken in 2008 and you can view the larger version [Here]

I found out earlier today that Burger & Lobster are opening up in Kuwait City, in place of where Cereal Killer used to be located.

I like this location and I think it should end up doing a lot better than the Avenues one which always felt too out of the way to pass by for a quick meal. The new location is right next to Arabica in downtown, here it is on [Google Maps]

Over the weekend I went to the Modern Architecture Kuwait conference and attended a talk by Prof. Alberico B. Belgiojoso titled “The 1970 Vision for Kuwait City”. It was a pretty interesting talk and made me realize how young Kuwait City was.

Prof. Alberico worked with the architectural firm BBPR back in the 60s on various proposals on how to bring Kuwait City into the modern era, into the city you see today. One of the interesting things he discussed was how the original master plan of the city, they proposed to build all these parking structures around the city included underground and overground passageways, shaded paths and even monorails that would connect parking structures to main areas and buildings. I’d imagine if we had any of those today, less people would be inclined to park illegally just to avoid walking long distances in the summer months.

Prof. Alberico also shared the visual above on their proposal for Safat Square which looks a lot more accessible and visible compared to how the square looks today. I kinda wish someone would revisit the old plans for Kuwait and implement some of the cooler ideas from them.

A few pictures have been uploaded online by the company fabricating some of the wildlife that will be placed inside the Natural History Museum at the soon to open Abdullah Al Salem Cultural Centre, and they look really really good.

The other day I said you could see what looks like a shark hanging on display while driving by on the Gulf Road, turns out its a primitive whale (a Basilosaurus, pictured above).

The Quetzalcoatlus pictured above even got featured in the November issue of National Geographic! [Link]

To check out some more photos, click [Here]

Thanks lovelykuwait

If I was stuck on an island and could choose to have one dessert with me, it would probably be an eclair (or a Kinder Bueno). It’s one of my favorite desserts and I recently found a place in Kuwait that had a good variety of eclairs to choose from as well as millefeuilles. The place is called Millesaveurs and until a few moments ago I thought it was a French franchise. But, while trying to get some information for this post I realized its actually local creation. I haven’t tried anything other than their pastries so can’t recommend the food, but what I can say though is that their eclairs are pretty good and you should try them out if you’re an eclair fan. Their packaging is also pretty premium looking and presentable so it would make a great gift when invited to dinners.

If you’re interested, Millesaveurs is located in the basement of Crystal Towers but they’re also available on Carriage. Their instagram account is @millesaveurskwt