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After launching in Dubai, Abu Dhabi and Doha, Uber launched in Riyadh earlier today. Uber is a kind of taxi service where you can book a taxi from your phone. I tried it for the first time a few days ago when I was in Paris and I loved it.

The way Uber works is it will show you your location on a map as well as all the drivers in the area as soon as you launch the app. You can then get a price estimate to your destination and if you’re happy with it you can request for a pickup and they’ll send you a driver. Before the driver arrives you can track them to see how far they are, check out their profile as well as well as msg them your ETA in case you’re gonna be a bit late. Finally when they pick you up and drop you off the payment goes through automatically since you connect your paypal or credit card to your Uber account and you also get emailed a full breakdown of the journey including the distance traveled and time (check below).

Now that they launched in Riyadh I really hope they follow up with a launch in Kuwait. Anybody who’s ever taken a cab in Kuwait knows what a headache it can be from finding a cab to negotiating a price and then having to put up with old dirty cars and terrible driving.

I’m currently in London and heading out to Paris tomorrow and I’ve decided while I’m there I won’t be posting anything on the blog at all. I will be back to London on the 25th and will resume posting then. So that’s basically 4 days without posting, the longest I’ve gone without posting since back in 2004. I’m taking a much needed break from the blog but I will continue to instagram.

So I hope everyone has a nice holiday, I’m out!

Pizzeria Amami used to be located in Salmiya near AUK and behind Smash Burger, but last week they moved to a new location in Symphony Mall. I hadn’t tried the place until earlier today when I passed by for lunch with a friend of mine.

The place was empty and quiet so we picked a table near the window overlooking the Gulf Road. Once we sat down an Italian waitress came up to us with the menus. From what I could tell everybody working there was Italian which was a great first impression. The menu on the other hand was fairly disappointing being just A4 sheets of paper printed and then enclosed in transparent plastic. Mine was all bent and it just looked very cheap. The waitress recommended us the Parmigiana di Melanzane to start with which was fried eggplant with cheese and tomato sauce. I also ended up ordering the closest thing to a simple mushroom pizza I could find on the menu which was a pizza called Capricciosa containing, tomato sauce, mozzarella, mushrooms, olives and artichoke (I asked them not to include the artichoke). The waitress asked me if I wanted fresh mozzarella with my pizza and I figured the alternative was frozen mozzarella or something so I said yes. Once the bill arrived later I realized by fresh mozzarella she meant extra cheese on my pizza. Not cool but it must have been a lost in translation moment.

The first thing that arrived was the Parmigiana di Melanzane starter. Although the presentation wasn’t appealing the dish did taste better than it looked. But, I’d still order something else next time since it tasted more like a pizza topping than a standalone starter. Our main dishes arrived once we were done, my pizza was pretty big and looked delicious. I was hesitant to ask the waitress for ketchup since I know it’s usually frowned upon at Italian pizzerias but turns out they didn’t have any issues with ketchup and I was able to get a bottle. The pizza was good although I found it pretty heavy the rest of the day. I left there feeling like I had eaten something very unhealthy but I think that had to do with the fact my pizza had all the extra cheese on it which I hadn’t asked for (I should have said no to fresh mozzarella).

My biggest issue with the place was with their prices. My pizza cost KD5.5 while my friends Penne Al Formaggio (cheese pasta) cost KD6. With two mains, the starter, three soft drinks and 750fils for the extra cheese, the bill came out to KD19.250. The pizza barely makes it into my top 5 favorite pizzas in Kuwait ranking, maybe at #5 so combine that with the restaurants atmosphere and interior which was bland and the total experience just wasn’t worth it for me. If you’re interested in trying out the place they’re located on the Mezzanine floor of Symphony Mall in Salmiya [Map]. They’re open daily from noon till 11PM except for Fridays when they open a bit later at 2PM. Their phone number is 25770733 but the waitress told me it will only be active from next week.

DMcircle is a local event aimed at middle managers and executive managers to network, build connections, share ideas, get inspired and to learn about the latest updates to have better opportunities of growing their businesses. DMcircle was developed by a former boss of mine, Loaay Ahmed who some of you might recognize from his monthly column in Bazaar Magazine “Loaay’s 2 Cents”. I was invited to attend one of their meetings last week and although I kinda forced myself to go, I’m glad I did since the whole experience turned out to be a lot more enjoyable than I was expecting it to be.

The event was held at the Jumeirah Messilah Beach ballroom and when I arrived and signed in I was given a “Hello my name is” sticker to stick on my shirt as well as a card with the table number I should sit on. After picking up my stuff I recognized three people I knew, the manager of Bang & Olufsen, the PR coordinator for the Kei Japanese restaurant and Dr John P. Hayes from GUST who was going to be presenting that night. I chatted with them for a bit until it was time to go into the ballroom.

The event started off with two short videos, one about the Ziferblat Cafe that opened in London, the second was called The Ripple Effect of a Great Work Culture (this one was great, everyone should watch this and it’s a very short video). Once we were done with the two videos there were two presentations, the first one was by John who’s a fantastic presenter. His presentation was called “Leading With Your Personality” and was about figuring out people’s personalities so you could better understand why they respond to you the way they do and why they do what they do. The second presentation was via Skype with Safouane Almansour from San Francisco called “MENA, The New Silicon Valley?”. Very few people know this but Safouane used to work in Kuwait before and was the marketing manager for Alghanim Automotive. He was the one who first approached me back in 2006 and asked me if I would be interested in placing an advertising banner on my blog. He became my first advertiser and made me realize I could generate income by blogging for a living so it was great seeing him again after such a long time even though it was over Skype. Safouane is currently the marketing VP for the Silicon Valley start up, Boca Video.

Once the presentations were done we were told to change tables. The card I received when I first arrived had different table numbers for different parts of the event. For example mine was table #3, than #3 again for the second session and then table #1. This would allow people to mix and mingle with other people at the event instead of just sitting next to the same group the whole time. Once we swapped tables a topic was displayed on the large projection screen and we had to discuss it with the people sitting at our table.

Overall it was an interesting event, one that turned out to be a lot more entertaining than I was expecting it to be. DMcircle is held once a month and they’ve been doing this since back in 2009. The only way to take part in this is if you become a member, your company is a member or you get invited by a member. Membership prices start at around KD220 a year as an individual and higher as a corporation. If you’d like more information on DMcircle you can check out their website [Here]

I take the Gulf Road all the time and when you’re on it as much as I am you get to witness a lot of weird things (guy sitting on a Porsche for example). The other night while heading home from the gym I saw a Camaro on the Gulf Road with a girl sitting outside the car dancing as the car was speeding down the road. You just need to be a girl driving on the Gulf Road to attract the attention of the guys who cruise up and down the road endlessly for a living so you can imagine the attention she was getting.

But something unexpected happen, we stopped at traffic and the Mustang pictured above pulled up to the Camaro and I was thinking this guy is obviously going to hit on her like crazy, but instead the guy ended up telling the girl off. I guess he must have embarrassed her because she stopped dancing and actually ended up going back inside and sitting down. I managed to capture the photo above as she was going back in and as the guy in the Mustang was about to drive off. Goes to show not every guy in a Mustang on the Gulf Road is a jerk.

[YouTube]

Mr.Fari is a Kuwaiti-Puerto Rican musician whom I’ve featured on the blog before with his music video “WebCam Girl“. He’s now being given an amazing chance to win a months stay at a hotel recording studio in Ireland where he would be able to professionally record all his work in the same studio where artists like Muse and Michael Jackson have previously recorded.

Out of over 100 artists in the GCC, Mr.Fari was chosen to be amongst the five finalist to represent Kuwait in The GAP Recording Room competition where he faces other artists from Bahrain, Qatar and the UAE. The video above is one of the songs he’s entered into the competition and to help him win you just need to visit the competition website and share his profile. He’s currently in SECOND place so help him win by watching the video above and sharing his profile at this [Link]

Thank you!

In the past couple of months I introduced a bunch of new things to the blog in an effort to provide you with even more content and entertainment. The first thing I did was create a dedicated Events section late last year and then at the start of this year I introduced the revamped Community. Now I’m introducing the Market.

The Market came about by necessity since the “For Sale” section in the Community became too difficult to manage. So, I shutdown the “For Sale” section there and created this new dedicated classifieds section instead. I had the locally based Orange Jetpack Studios help me get it running and looking the way I want it to and even though there is still room for improvement, I think its ready right now. So check out the Market either by clicking the link in the navigation bar on top or by clicking [Here]

Over the years the blog has become more than just a blog and your expectations of it has also changed. In a couple of days it will be the 9 year anniversary of the blog which is a pretty long time. Awhile back a reader wrote something which I hadn’t thought of before which is that some people started reading the blog while they were still in school, and then continued reading the blog all the way through their university years and now from their jobs. I found that amazing since I never expected to blog for this long. I truly appreciate everyone who reads the blog and from my side I’ll continue to keep finding content that interests you. This is my dream job.

Have you gotten your loved one a Shani today? [Link]

Comedy: LOVE to LAUGH
Shakshooka Nomadic Farmers Market
Kuwait Riders 4th Bike Show 2014
This To That Conference
GBS Bazaar
Day Out Fiesta
Expat Mums in Kuwait Rummage Sale
Cinemagic Rooftop Movie: Surprise Movie
Cinemagic Rooftop Movie: Dry Summer
AWARE Center: Desert Camp
2014 ITTF World Tour Kuwait Open
Remal Sand Sculpting Festival
Proud 2 be Kuwaiti 2014

Does anyone know where the Salwa Sporting Club is where the ITTF World Tour is being held?

Just a reminder there are three events that start today.

4th Kuwait Riders Bike Show
2014 ITTF World Tour Kuwait Open
Al Hamra Chill-Out

The 2014 World Press Freedom Index is out and it’s not good news. Even though Kuwait still leads the region in press freedom, Kuwait dropped down from 77th place all the way to 91. The reason? The arrest of two citizen journalists. Here is how Kuwait compares to our neighbors:

91 – Kuwait
96 – Israel
106 – Lebanon
113 – Qatar
118 – UAE
141 – Jordan
153 – Iraq
163 – Bahrain
164 – Saudi
173 – Iran

Check out the full list [Here]

Thanks yousefq8

According to the person in the video this incident took place today. The plane took off from London (my guess it was heading back to Kuwait) when it was forced to return and make an emergency landing after a hydraulic problem. [YouTube]

Gazelle Club was THE club in Kuwait back in the 60s and up until the 1990 Gulf War. I went there only a few times back in the 80s and so have very faint memories of the place. I actually remember only two things, one was a large trampoline I used to play on, and two a very disturbing incident where a kid fell off the swimming pool slide, hit his head on the floor and later passed away. Gazelle Club was located in Fintas and got destroyed by the Iraqis during the 1990 invasion. I never understood why it was never rebuilt again.

The photos below are ones I found from a bunch of sources (all listed below) and show Gazelle Club during it’s greatest days as well as the current state of the club.

via @gharabally, @amerhilal, Kuwait-History and Gazelle Club on Facebook

There are new gyms opening all the time in Kuwait and most of them don’t usually interest me but, when Abdulmohsen Al-Babtain (of Sidekick Academy) emailed me about a new gym he was opening called SPARK, I knew there was going to be something different about it. Actually I really shouldn’t be calling it a gym because it’s more than a gym which is why they prefer to use the term athletic center.

When you first walk into SPARK there’s a small fitness store on the ground floor with stairs on the side leading you up to the main floor of the gym. I met Abdulmohsen on the lower level and followed him up the stairs to the main floor. I was expecting it to be a small specialized gym similar to the two gyms I’m currently enrolled in, Core Fitness and Circuit+ but when I got to the main floor I was shocked. The place was huge, 2,400m2 huge. I got introduced to the head coach right away who took me on a tour of the space. The majority of the space looks very similar to your everyday gym, they had a TRX station right at the start and tons of cardio machines on the far right. Then from one end of the gym to the other they had top of the line Hoist and Bilt fitness equipment followed by a small room at the very end for spinning classes.

But, where things get more interesting was a space in the back corner that occupied around 25% of the gym floor. The space is surrounded by a high black metal fence with a large sign outside saying no one can enter without a coach. Behind the black fence is over 400 square meters of professional indoor turf, the only indoor training ramp of its kind in the world, two 50-meter sprint lanes, a sand pit for simulating training on the beach and a corner with four Woodway super treadmills, one of which can hit can hit 40 km/h.

Finally theres a small room also at the back which they call the SPARK LAB. The lab contains a bunch of scientific equipment that can perform functional screening tests, body composition tests, wingate anaerobic capacity tests and full metabolic testing. One of the equipment is called Bod Pod and is used to calculate your body composition. It’s one of the most accurate ways of measuring your body fat percentage, around 8% more accurate than skinfold calipers. I got to try it out during my full physical assessment and after sitting in the pod for a few minutes the machine printed out numbers that included my body fat percentage, my Resting Metabolic Rate (RMR) and Total Energy Expenditure (TEE). Turns out if I sit on my computer all day I can burn 2,246 calories or up to 3,649 with very high activity. Pretty cool.

Now the reason I found the gym interesting is because instead of just focusing on muscle gain or weight loss, they’re focusing on athletic performance. They’ve brought in coaches from around the world (one was a Florida Gator coach) and they want to help improve athletes in Kuwait from runners and basketball players to wannabe Olympians. For example I could go to them and tell them I want to improve my sprinting speed or I want to be able to jump higher and they’ll help me achieve my goal.

The gym is already open and their prices start at KD70 a month which is very reasonable. They also have personal training but that would cost an additional KD20 per session or as low as KD15 depending on how many sessions you would be taking. It’s a mens only gym but they are opening a women’s gym in the coming month or two and it’s going to be even larger at 3,600m2, have more facilities and will be located in KIPCO Tower in Kuwait City.

SPARK is located in Shuwaikh right on top of where Shuwaikh Market is [Map] and for more information you can call them on 22282058.