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Trip Advisor released a world map highlighting every country’s top tourist attraction and according to the map Avenues is Kuwait’s top tourist attraction. The map uses data from their ‘Thing to Do’ list and Avenues is rated the highest on the Kuwait list. Check out the full map in high resolution [Here]

Thanks Mohmed

Page Turner is a local online based store that specializes in selling must reads books and bestsellers. Their collection isn’t huge by any means with their “Fiction” section being the largest, but you could look at it as quality over quantity. They also buy used books although I have no idea where they’re listed on their website. In any case if you’re looking to buy real books and don’t have a Kindle, this could be a good source. Check them out [Here]

One of my favorite Lebanese restaurants just opened up in Kuwait. ‘Enab’ is probably the Lebanese restaurant I frequent the most when I’m in Lebanon and so was pretty surprised when I found out they opened here. In Lebanon they’re located in the popular Mar Mikhael area near all the nightlife so was super convenient to start off with dinner there before walking down to all the bars. In Kuwait on the other hand they’re located in the Menus Restaurant Complex in Abu Halifa, which means they’re so out of the way for me that I won’t be able to pass by frequently.

In case you’re interested, their instagram account is @Enabkuwait

Not to be confused with the Jaber Al Ahmad Cultural Center, the Sabah Al Ahmad City Cultural Centre will be located in Sabah Al Ahmad City and feature the following:

– 2 theaters (700 seat & 250 seats for all sorts of theatrical productions)
– 200 seat Conference center with flexibility for hosting conferences with different capacities
– 250 seat Recital hall for music performances
– Children culture center with many cultural activities for children including a 150 seat theater
– Amphitheater for outside performances
– Museum
– Art gallery for hosting art exhibitions
– Library
– Book exhibition for hosting book fairs
– Cultural café
– Oasis: a green air-conditioned large space for public gathering

I originally posted about Sabah Al Ahmad City Cultural Centre back in 2012, but the project disappeared until it was brought back to life last month. It seems Al-Diwan Al-Amiri have taken over the project and its now expected to be completed mid 2018. Al-Diwan Al-Amiri are behind some of the biggest projects in Kuwait like the recently opened Jaber Al Ahmad Cultural Center. Check out some of the renderings below:

Thanks q8-msc

A reader recommended I put together a list of places which visitors to Kuwait could check out on a short trip. It was pretty difficult to put the list together since I didn’t want to make the list too long but also struggled with places like Al Shaheed Park (Would tourists want to visit a park?). With that in mind, below is the list of my recommendations. If you have better suggestions which I’m sure you do, let me know in the comments and I might add it to the list.

Places to Visit

Kuwait Towers: I like standing under the towers and looking up more than I like going up to the towers. The observatory deck might be worth checking out if you’re interested in seeing the Kuwait City skyline although I personally don’t think it’s that great of a view. The windows are also usually dirty and at night you can’t see anything outside because the observatory deck is too brightly lit on the inside. The restaurant in the Kuwait Towers isn’t that bad, but there are better places to have a meal.

Water Towers: I recommend the water towers in Adailiya since they’re located inside the park and so you can walk up to them very close. They were also recently painted so they’ll look good in photos (pictured above).

Maritime Museum, Modern Art Museum, Dickson House and the Amricani Cultural Center are all located right next to each other so you can cover them all in 2-3 hours easily since neither of them is that big. [Link]

Souk Mubarkiya: A must visit place if you’re looking for an old traditional market.

The Avenues Mall: I know its a mall but it’s a great one and in the summer it’s probably the best place to go if you want to shop. You’ll find everything there from high end designers to IKEA and a ton of different places to eat at.

Al Shaab Gate: There are a few old city gates left but I’d recommend visiting the one adjacent to Al Shaheed Park since the area around it was recently renovated.

Jaber Al-Ahmad Cultural Centre: Beautiful architecture and a large garden with an animated musical fountain to check out. If you’re lucky there might be an event or show taking place during your visit so check their website for tickets. There are also restaurants located at the centre in case you want to have a meal there.

Restaurants

Cocoa Room: My favorite breakfast place and is usually always busy.

Street by Al Makan: Good food, gets pretty busy at night mostly with a younger crowd, located in a trendy area. Also walking distance to Souk Mubarakiya. Pass by Vol.1 located under it for coffee after dinner.

Solo PN: A very popular pizza place thats always busy. Recently won an award for the 3rd best pizza in the world.

Al Shemam: Located right in the middle of Souk Mubarakiya next to the vegetable market. Has great grills (fish, meat and poultry) but is also a pretty ghetto looking place so not for the squeamish (pictured above).

Freej Suwaileh: A very popular and affordable Kuwaiti cuisine restaurant that’s open till 5AM.

Dar Hamad: A high end Kuwaiti cuisine restaurant with a beautiful interior.

Events

There are always events taking place so if you’re looking for one to go to during your visit, make sure you check out the events page [Here]

Off the Beaten Path

Friday Market: A large flea market that takes place on Fridays, usually gets really packed and you can find lots of random things for sale there from old gaming systems to washing machines and furniture. Although you might be tempted, avoid the animals section.

Salem Mubarek Street: A street stretching out around 2KM filled with shops on both sides. Used to be extremely popular in the 80s and early 90s (pictured above).

Al-Rehab Complex: If you’re into video games you’ll love this complex since the mezzanine floor and basement are filled with video game shops. By filled I mean every single shop there is a video game shop, easily over 50 shops.

Ice Skating Rink: Popular in the 80s and early 90s but not very popular nowadays. Worth checking out if you’re looking to cool off during the hot summer months.

House of Mirrors: The House of Mirrors belongs to Lidia al-Qattan, the widow of Khalifa al-Qattan, a renowned Kuwaiti artist. She started decorating one small wall with mirrors and through time more and more walls were decorated until the whole house inside and out was covered with mirrors.

If you’re curious to know more about the new Kuwait Airport thats being built, you can watch presentation above (in Arabic) where the presenter takes the audience on a very thorough tour of it. Since its a slideshow and around 20 minutes long most people will find it pretty boring so I’ve taken the liberty to write down some of the highlights:

– Airport will take 6 years to construct
– Entrance to the airport will be from the South, from Subhan
– Transparent LED screens will be used at check-in counters (when screens are off they’re transparent)
– Business and first class passengers have their own entrance
– The airport ceiling was inspired by old Al-Andalus architecture on how to bring day light in
– The same holes in the ceiling that bring day light in during the day, at night have bright projectors inside to mimic day light. So even at night you’ll get the impression there is daylight coming in
– First impression for visitors is important so the arrival area was heavily worked on to make the impression a good one. There will be lots of daylight, large open spaces and even waterfalls in the arrival area
– There will be 37 airplane gates
– 5,200 parking spots

Old airport on the right vs the new airport on the left

– Airport is Metro ready
– Airport will also be future expansion ready. They will build a tunnel for an Automated People Mover (a computer controlled transit system) that will end up connecting to a future terminal when the time comes to build it
– The new airport level of service will be ranked “A” (Excellent). This grade is given based on various factors including the distance between gates, the amount of time you wait at the check-in counters, immigration, security etc..
– Current airport is made to handle 7 million passengers but over 11.5 million passengers use it hence why the level of service is so low
– You can check-in 30 minutes before departure because their baggage boarding system is very efficient and fully automated from the check-in counter to the plane
– On arrival, first bag will be out in 10 minutes after the plane lands while the last bag will be out in 25-30 minutes
– Minimum connect time for transfer bags is 45 minutes
– The new airport will be one of the few world wide with a LEED Gold ranking. Meaning it will be a very green sustainable building. The roof for example will be composed of solar panels that will power around 10% of the airports power while rainwater will also be collected and there are other green features as well

Lots of details as I mentioned so if you’ve got 20 minutes to spare check out the presentation. Also looks like the Metro project is still alive! [YouTube]

Last week the garden and fountain area of the Jaber Al-Ahmad Cultural Centre opened to the public and similar to the popular fountain at Dubai Mall, the fountain at the cultural centre also animates with performances set to light and music.

I wasn’t able to find out which company was responsible for the fountain installation but my guess is its WET Design, the same firm behind the Dubai Mall and Bellagio fountains since they have an office in Dubai. **UPDATE BELOW** Check out the video above of the fountain performing to Adele’s Skyfall track. [YouTube]

Thanks Waleed

Update: Turns out the musical fountain was designed by Watercube Design and not WET Design. They’ve got a much better video of the fountain in action which you can watch below.

Also regarding the schedule of the fountain shows I was told the following but haven’t been able to verify it yet:

Basically every hour from 2pm until 6pm then after 6pm there is a performance every 30 min (until 10:30 if i’m not wrong). They only turn it on if there are people so if the place is empty they skip it.

A reader just passed me a link to an interesting Economist article which I thought would be worth sharing on the blog. The two paragraphs below kinda sums up the article for me:

Innovative Dubai is the comparison that most frustrates Kuwaitis. That is in part because Kuwait was once the Gulf’s trailblazer. It set up the world’s first sovereign-wealth fund in 1953 and was a leader in health care. It started one of the first airlines in the region. But the decline of Kuwait Airways is instructive. As its fleet aged and losses piled up, carriers from Qatar and the UAE began offering better service and more routes. Politicians have talked of privatisation. But parliament, reluctant to mess with one of the country’s biggest employers, has frustrated these efforts.

…

The government’s failings extend to public services. It has neglected public hospitals and schools. Low electricity prices and a sweltering climate make Kuwait one of the world’s biggest consumers of energy per person. But the government, which is the sole provider of electricity, has invested little in infrastructure. Parliament has delayed efforts to boost the supply. In 2014 a power outage shut down all three of the country’s oil refineries, crippling fuel production for a week. Endemic corruption completes the dismal picture.

It’s not that long of an article and is worth reading fully, so check it out [Here]

The picture on top is currently my favorite Kuwait skyline photo and was taken by @ziadgram

The garden and fountain area where the restaurants are located at the Jaber Al-Ahmad Cultural Centre is now open. The timings are as follows:

Weekdays 8AM to 11PM
Weekends 8AM to 12AM

A few of the restaurants are also currently open including Beit Shoukri, Shishawarma, Googoosh, Kashounat Al-Bait and The Chocolate Gate.

To stay up to date on the cultural centre, you can follow their official instagram account @jacc_kw

Photo on top by @nosa50

The Sheikh Jaber Al-Ahmad Cultural Centre website just got a facelift along with an updated events page that now lists all the upcoming events that will be taking place there as well as the option to purchase tickets. Check out [Here]

Thanks Fatima

Burger & Lobster is a British franchise that opened around a year ago in Kuwait. Their menu is very straight forward and simple with just 3 items, a burger, a lobster roll and a lobster, each for the same price which in Kuwait was just KD8.950.

That simple formula I guess didn’t do so well in Kuwait because last month Burger & Lobster expanded the menu by adding a lot more items while also revamping their pricing system. Now their 3 primary items have 3 different prices, the burger got dropped down to KD7, the lobster roll to KD8 while the lobster had its price increase and is now KD10. As I mentioned, they also added a bunch of other items to their menu ranging from soups to sliders. You can check out the full menu [Here]

Personally I go there for their lobster roll so none of their new items interest me. But, if it means these new items will help drive traffic and keep the place open, then I’m all for it. Their lobster roll is so good.

If you missed the fireworks show this past Saturday, you can now watch it online. [Vimeo]

Ever wondered where the airport valet park you car? I never did but a friend of mine with a dashcam recently gave his car to their valet, and the dashcam recorded the journey to the airport valet parking spot. It took around 7 minutes to get to the parking spot without any traffic, which explains why the wait to get the car back can easily exceed 20 minutes.

One thing this video made me realize is that the airport can build a large long term parking away from the airport and shuttle people back and forth. This would solve the current problem with not enough long term parking spots. I found the location of the valet parking on google maps and as you can see in the picture above, there is a large plot of land thats currently empty right next to it. That could easily be turned into a long term parking spot if they wanted to.

Just an FYI in case you’re curious, valet parking at the airport costs KD2 a day.

This past Saturday, Elevation Burger launched a new breakfast menu at their recently opened Seif strip location. It was my first time at their new location and I loved it. The weather was great, they had live music playing outside and lots of outdoor seating. They were also serving Jumo Coffee but right next door is also Richards Coffee, so you could pick and choose who to get coffee from.

According to Elevation, they’ll be having a similar setup with live music once every couple of weeks so if that happens, the location should end up being a popular Saturday morning chill spot. So keep a look out for it during the weekend events list.

Here is the location on [Google Maps]

Although I think drivers in Kuwait can be the worst sometimes (people stop driving while whatsapping!), what I’ve also realized because of my Vespa and Datsun 240z is that there are a lot of drivers out there that can be pretty nice. When I used to have the Vespa and I’d be stuck in traffic, people always moved their cars a bit when they saw me so they could let me ride all the way to the front in between the standstill traffic. It felt like everyone was rooting for me to get out of the traffic that they were all stuck in.

With my 240z I’m now experiencing a lot of niceness as well. Because the car is so low, usually the headlights of other cars (mostly SUVs) is higher than my car as you can see in the picture on top. So if their lights are on it pretty much reflects off my rear view mirror and into my face. Nearly all the drivers who pull up behind me at a traffic light turn off their lights so not to blind me. It’s a small gesture but I love it since its from total strangers.

I’ve also gotten so many compliments on the car from total strangers. For someone like me who doesn’t like attention, the amount of attention I get because of the car is so uncomfortable. On Friday I was heading back home on the Gulf Road and listening to my music loud while driving like a nutcase when I get to a traffic light. So I’m sitting there checking my phone when I here a beep of a police siren. I ignore it. Then I hear it again and I look out my rear view mirror and can’t see anything so I continue to ignore it. Then I hear the quick siren burst again the third time so I look to my right and there is a cop car right outside my window with a cop inside it trying to talk to me. So in my head I was like shit I’m screwed either because of my erratic driving or the fact my music was loud or because I was on my phone. So I quickly pause my music and yell out “Sorry?” cuz I couldn’t hear anything he had said. The cop then points at my car and says “very nice very nice” while giving me the thumbs up. I say thank you! and in my head I’m going wtf this is all so weird.

I feel like I’m in bizarro world sometimes.