2:48AM - Entertaining Kuwait since 2003We found 10,846 results for your search.
Fehaid Aldeehani won a bronze medal earlier today at the Olympic double trap event. The only other Olympic medal Kuwait ever won was back at the 2000 Sydney Olympics and it was again because of Fehaid. Congrats! [Link]
Update: Turns out Fehaid came in 4th NOT 3rd. I misread the Yahoo article. 4th doesn’t win him any medals but it’s still a very respectable ranking that puts Kuwait on the map.
I’m out of the country right now so didn’t experience it but looks like an earthquake with a magnitude of 4.2 hit Kuwait around 7:30 in the morning. [Source]
via Blogger Mathai and Sun2
Social Slave put together a short list of restaurants serving Iftar buffets along with their prices. The list needs more hotels but it’s a good start. [Link]
[YouTube]
Last month Sidekick Academy competed at the 2012 US Open World Championships in Orlando and they ended up leaving with a ton of trophies. Last year when they competed they ended up winning 17 trophies and medals but this year they ended up leaving with a total of 28 which was more than any other team at the tournament! Here are the results:
Day 1: Standup “Tae Kwon Do”
FORMS DIVISIONS
Shaikha Alshuaib 1st Place Creative Teen Forms
Omar Alosaimi 1st Place Int Creative Forms
Hussain Gholoom 1st Place Int Extreme Forms
Ahmad Hayati 1st Place Adv Creative Forms
Shaikha Alshuaib 2nd Place Extreme Teen Forms
Hussain Gholoom 2nd Place Int Creative Forms
Ahmad Hayati 5th Place Adv Traditional Forms
SPARRING DIVISIONS
Nasser Alqattan 1st Place Adv Cont Sparring Heavy Weight
Ahmad Hayati 1st Place Adv Clash Sparring Heavy Weight
Shaikha Alshuaib 1st Place Teen Clash Sparring
Shaikha Alshuaib 1st Place Teen Cont Sparring
Omar Alosaimi 2nd Place Int Cont Sparring Middle Weight
Abdulrahman Aljasser 2nd Place Int Cont Sparring Heavy Weight
Mosab Alali 2nd Place Int Point Sparring Middle Weight
Abdulhadi Aladwani 3rd Place Int Cont Sparring Middle Weight
Ahmad Hayati 3rd Place Adv Cont Sparring Heavy Weight
Shaikha Alshuaib 3rd Place Teen Point Sparring
Hussain Gholoom 4th Place Int Cont Sparring Middle Weight
Ahmad Hayati 5th Place Adv Point Sparring Heavy Weight
Nasser Alqattan 5th Place Adv Point Sparring Heavy Weight
Day 2: “Jiu-Jitsu”
NO-GI Division “No- Uniform”
Abdullatif Aladwani GOLD Blue Belt Bantam Weight
Abdulrahman Aljasser SILVER Blue Belt Cruiser Weight
Abdullah Alshamri SILVER Blue Belt Master Bantam Weight
Ahmad Hayati BRONZE Blue Belt Middle Weight
GI Division “Uniform”
Nasser Alqattan GOLD Blue Belt Middle Weight
Abdullah Alshamri SILVER Blue Belt Master Bantam Weight
Ahmad Hayati BRONZE Blue Belt Middle Weight
Abdulhadi Aladwani BRONZE Blue Belt Bantam Weight
I seriously love these guys, if you want to know more about Sidekick Academy you can check out their website [Here] and their Facebook page [Here]
I just found out from Jacqui that OSN have released an iPad App for their OSN Play service. OSN Play allows you to stream movies and tv shows on the go and now with the iPad App you’ll be able to stream the content onto your iPad wherever you are in the Middle East. It’s perfect timing with the olympics currently taking place.
But I can’t get the App to work for some odd reason. I logged into my account but whenever I try to stream anything I get the error “You’ve now registered the maximum number of devices for this account.” I have no idea what that means but I’m hoping its a technical issue from their side that will be worked out soon.
If you’re an OSN subscriber you automatically have free access to OSN Play and you can download the App from [Here]
Update: Turns out every time you log in to OSN Play from a different computer it adds that computer as a device. You can have maximum two devices which I already have which is why I couldn’t get OSN Play to work on the iPad. There is a workaround without having to remove an already added device. OSN Play allows you to have other members in the house create sub accounts so I just created a second account for myself and this should solve the problem.
Last month I posted about the Flying Start Triathlon that is going to take place this coming October here in Kuwait and it got me thinking if it would be possible for me to compete. I think I’m in great shape since I’ve been working my ass off at Core Fitness for the past two years and I’ve been eating really healthy so I think I’m ready.
There are two distances in the Flying Start Triathlon and I’m hoping to complete The Sprint which is the shorter of the two. The running and biking seem very doable it’s the swimming I’m more concerned about. Currently I can swim across an Olympic sized pool horizontally once before collapsing in exhaustion and that’s only like 25 meters or something which is not even close to the 750m distance required in the race. That’s why I passed by The 3 Club who are the organizers of the event and asked them if they did any training. Turns out they did and starting next week I’ll be training with them twice a day every day.
There will be two sessions daily which rotate between biking, running and swimming exercises. I’m pretty nervous about this since I have no idea how I’m going to perform. Once I actually start the classes I’ll post my impressions here. So far my schedule for Ramadan looks like this:
5PM – Training with The 3 Club
7PM – Training at Core Fitness
10PM – Training with The 3 Club
Best part about this though is I’ll be eating WHATEVER I want since I’ll be burning so much calories. Fat Mark is going to make a comeback.. at least in a mental state.
According to a post on Mental Floss, Kuwait is among 21 countries with only one Olympic medal. I don’t think that is bad considering how tiny Kuwait is and how there is very little interest in track and field or most other Olympic sports. [Link]
Kuwait’s only Olympic medal was won by Fehaid Aldeehani in the men’s double trap shooting event at the 2000 Summer Olympics in Sydney. Fehaid is competing again in this years London Olympics and was the flag bearer during the opening ceromony (pictured above).
Thanks Ds
I passed by Bang & Olufsen recently to check out their computer speakers and although I didn’t end up getting anything I always love checking out their stuff.
They had the Beolit 12 (pictured above) which is their Airplay compatible portable music system. Design wise it looks very sharp and if I didn’t already have the BeoPlay A8 I would have considered getting this. Price wise it’s selling for KD250 which is very reasonable for a B&O product.
When it came to computer speakers they had two models available. The first I saw were the BeoLab 4 (pictured above). These speakers look very cool but at KD325 they were a lot more than what I wanted to pay.
They also had the BeoLab 3 on display which looked even cooler than the BeoLab 4 but these also cost nearly four times more coming in at over a thousand Dinars so I didn’t even consider them.
If you’re interested in passing by their store they located in Symphony Mall next to Missoni Hotel in Salmiya. They haven’t launched the new store officially but the shop is open if you want to pass by.
That looks slightly better than our DeLorean in Kuwait. [Link]
Looks very futuristic. It’s not yet open to the public so you can’t experience it just yet. [YouTube]
Update: Vimeo video got set to private, YouTube video still active so I swapped the links
Update2: YouTube video has also been removed now
Borderlinx is a service in which they provide you with a US and UK forwarding mailbox so you could shop online. It’s similar to Aramex’s Shop and Ship except Borderlinx works with DHL. One of the major complaints about Borderlinx was the fact you had to pick up the packages yourself but now that’s no longer the case since they’ve just started delivering. Plus, while Shop and Ship keep increasing the prices, Borderlinx recently announced a price cut and some of their shipments are now %30 cheaper. If you don’t have a Borderlinx account you can sign up for one from [Here]
Hopefully Aramex will react by reducing their prices or improving their shipping speed.
I’ve gotten confirmation from two different sources that Prada will be opening at 360 Mall this October. I was also told a second branch would be opening at a later stage in Avenues Phase II. The launch date for the 360 Mall Prada store is currently set for October 15th.
Update: My guess is that the Miu Miu space in 360 Mall is actually for Prada as well.
[YouTube]
As a way of keeping up to date on the Kuwaiti athletes at the Olympics you can follow some of them on Twitter. As of now I’ve found the following athletes on twitter:
TJCfilms has been really busy lately releasing one video after another. His latest is the first episode of a series on the Kuwait Gridiron Football team. American Football that is.
This is the Kuwait Gridiron football team. Not Soccer…NFL style football. They are the official team of Kuwait. These guys are serious and want to take this team to an international level. This first episode of a hopefully ongoing series introduces the coaches, players and the drive and discipline these guys have. They are working hard to get tough so they can take it to teams all around the world and here in Kuwait. Next episode will be about their conditioning exercises.
I for one didn’t know Kuwait had a national Football team. Watch the video above or on [YouTube]
A few days back a reader contacted me and told me he was leaving the country for good and wanted my recommendation on a shipping company. Since I had just used a shipping company myself I figured I might as well write about my experience.
Back in May I shipped some furniture and electronics to my apartment in Lebanon. I didn’t really look for a shipping company, I just contacted Alghanim Freight since I previously heard they were the best and so didn’t even bother looking for any other options. My experience was a mixed bag but truth be told, not sure they can be blamed for all of it.
The problem with shipping stuff to Lebanon right now is the the fact there is internal conflict taking place in Syria right now. Before the internal conflict shipping stuff from Kuwait to Lebanon could take anywhere from 1 to 4 days but now it takes around two weeks. The shipping trucks are held at the Jordan/Syria border a few days and then formed into a convoy and led by security to the Syria/Lebanon border. Once they get there they get stuck in a long queue waiting to be cleared into Lebanon.
Based on a previous conversation with Alghanim Freight we were told our stuff would arrive to Lebanon on June 3rd. So me and Nat booked out tickets from May 31st to June 16th. Alghanim Freight sent over a packing crew and they did an amazing job. They worked around 10 to 12 hours with just a small break packing everything into carton boxes and wrapping up stuff with bubble wrap. In the end we had a total of 105 boxes which they loaded up onto their truck and took off.
Insurance
The day after they picked up the packages and while talking to Alghanim Freight we found out that although our shipment was insured, it was only insured up to $20,000. That amount was far less than the cost of the items we were shipping. To increase the insurance we were told that we would need to state the value of the items in each box. Although we had a list of all the boxes and what was inside, the descriptions were generic. Majority of the boxes were described just as “Furniture”, a few boxes were described as “Kitchen” and only a few boxes mostly the electronics were more specific. Since there was no way to know what was in each box there was nothing that could be done and so we didn’t get the extra insurance. We should have been asked ahead of time if we needed extra insurance kinda like how McDonalds asks if you want to upsize your meal while taking the order and not after you’re done.
Delivery Dates
This is where we had the biggest issue but now looking back at it I realized it mostly wasn’t in their hands. Originally we were told our shipment would arrived June 3rd. Two days after our packages were packed and taken we were told our shipment would arrive to Lebanon June 8th. That’s already a 5 day delay and the packages hadn’t even left Kuwait. When we got to Lebanon we found out that the shipment would get delayed again and in the end the shipment finally arrived on June 12th.
The Delivery
Our biggest concern was if all our items would end up arriving to Lebanon and how much we would get charged for customs. Luckily we didn’t end up having any problems. All 105 boxes were delivered with nothing damaged and nothing missing. In addition we also didn’t pay any customs at the border. Seems Alghanim Freight use trucks who have good relationships with the border people and so their cargo don’t get unloaded which is why we didn’t pay any taxes.
Conclusion
The fact that all our items arrived safely and the fact we didn’t pay any Lebanese taxes on our shipment is more than enough reason to use them again or recommend them to people. They were not accurate with the delivery dates but I truly believe it wasn’t in their control this time around. Total cost for shipping was around KD650.