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I passed by IKEA earlier tonight, the new one which is located at the Avenues Mall. It IS huge, very huge. I really liked the new place, the whole mall although still closed looks massive. The most noticable update at IKEA has to be the restaurant, its now around 4 or 5 times larger then it was before. Actually what am I saying, the whole place is like 4 times larger. Its now a really long walk from the beginning till the end.

I had dinner at the IKEA restaurant, Chicken Masala with Rice. It was pretty good but to help paint a picture on how big the new IKEA is, by the time I got to the exit I was hungry again and ended up ordering food from the snack stand near the exit. The new snack stand by the way is a huge improvement over the old one. Other then corn, ice cream, and hotdogs they now have shawerma. I decided to order one just to try it, I would probably give it a 3 out of 5, still need to pass by and try it one more time before I can give my final score though.

The biggest change in the new IKEA is that you now have to pick up your packages yourself just before you get to the cashier. You enter this huge warehouse like room and its just shelves and shelves of packed goods. Someone told me IKEA did this to bring down the prices of the products by 10%. Whatever their reason I know many people will not like the fact that they now have to do manual labor. I took a picture of one of the shelves which you can view by clicking [Here]

Overall I think its a really great improvement. Although I really liked the old IKEA I think the new one is better in every way.

Marzouq posted pictures and prices of the PS3 and Wii in Rihab Complex. As you can imagine the prices at the moment are extremely high.

Sony PS3 60 GB (Jap Version)
Price: 450KD

Sony PS3 60 GB (US Version)
Price: 750KD

Nintendo Wii
Price: 250KD

1KD = $3.45 / €2.68

So me and some friends from work were leaving Souk Sharq at 2 after lunch to get back to the office when it turned out the cops had closed all the exits. The cop told us no one would be allowed to leave the Souk Sharq parking lot for around an hour because the Doha Asian Games torch was passing by on the Gulf Road.

So we parked the car and just hung out next to the cops on the side of the road. Nibaq was with us since he had met up with us for lunch. We just hung around chilling for like 15 minutes before we noticed a bus and an Hummer stop by us and drop off a guy with an unlit torch. Then a few minutes later down the road we noticed a huge convoy coming closer slowly. Nibaq had a camera and he took some pictures of what we saw. Basically there was some guy running with a lit torch and all the cars around him were driving slow and cheering him on. Once the guy got to the other guy with the unlit torch, he passed on the flame and then the other guy started running. It was basically a torch relay but it looked like they were dropping guys off every 100 meters.

After they passed, the Gulf Road remained closed for another 30 minutes. It was crazy, most of the people at Souk Sharq wanted to get back to work but like us they were just stuck there for a full hour. Finally at 3PM they opened the roads and we drove back to the office.

The shot above was taken by Nibaq, he also took more shots which you can see by clicking [Here]

I found out last minute I had to go down to Dubai for work and since Gitex had just started, finding a room was practically impossible. Finally though the travel agent came through and found me an empty room and booked it. I have to say it was the crappiest hotel I had ever been to. The whole place looked like a bathroom and smelled like one that had just been cleaned. They had these air fresheners that spray perfume automatically located all over the hotel but they just reminded me too much of bathrooms.

If the look of the hotel wasn’t enough to put me off, before we got the room key they made us sign a paper which said if any of our stuff goes missing in the rooms that they wouldn’t be responsible for it. Not only that but inside the room there was a framed photocopy of a similar paper stating the same thing and another A4 sheet located on the table also saying the same thing. As you can imagine I didn’t want to leave anything in the room and I didn’t, I kept my backpack with me the whole time.

Traffic in Dubai because of Gitex was just a disaster. It was always at a complete standstill, a real mess. One cab driver told me things get even worse in February during the shopping festival.

The weather in Dubai was also a lot hotter then Kuwait. Its currently freezing here. Froze my ass off tonight while leaving Maki at Marina, even had a jacket on and it wasn’t enough!

I wanted to visit Gitex but I finished my work around 8PM and Gitex closes at 7. Why can’t they stay open till like 10 or something like exhibitions that are held in Kuwait? Its like people need to take a day off work to pass by them.

I went to Ibn Battuta mall. Its not as big as Mall of the Emirates but its still a lot bigger then Marina Mall and the whole thing felt very Las Vegasishy.

I still can’t believe I was in Dubai and didn’t get to pass by Gitex!

I think everyone in the Dubai Duty Free figured I lived in Kuwait because I was walking around taking pictures of the bottles of alcohol. Moskovskaya is my favorite brand of vodka. Its the only one I can drink straight up without mixing it with anything.

I just read the funniest comments in a forum regarding Wii accidents. The Wii is the new gaming system by Nintendo and its biggest feature is the fact that the controllers are motion sensitive and in some games you swing them around and stuff. Like for example if you are playing a tennis game on the Wii you would hit the ball as if you were playing it in real life. So, it turns out people are having Wii accidents. One guy while playing a bowling game had the controller slip from his hand and hit the TV and crack while another guy while playing tennis ended up accidentally swinging a drink off a table and half way across the room. There are still some other really funny stores too, seems like people are having a lot of fun with the Wii. Here is the link to the forum where this discussion is taking place plus pictures of the damaged TV. [Link]

A friend just told me that Al-Zayani has 3 Bugatti’s for sale in Kuwait. Can’t wait to see one out on the streets. It would be pretty cool if the Gulf Road gets flooded with Bugatti’s the same way Lamborghini’s are currently seen everywhere.

Note: Picture taken by bo9agr

Someone posted this comment under a Jazeera Airways post of mine:

dear sir,
i m an indian i like to go back to india for 45 days i m in kuwait now. is there booking open 4 dec 2006 2nd and third week & what are the fare rates two way or a single way coming from india back can i book it online. pls give me a complete detail and easy way to check the online fare rates to india from destination and from kuwait to uae that is ras al khaimah. thanking u. waiting 4 ur reply.

and this is an email someone sent me regarding the new Symphony Mall opening in Salmiya:

Savio wrote:
could you send us some information on the space available at the symphony mall along with area and prices.

You see the illustration above? Well its not an illustration, its an actual picture of a hotel room thats been decorated to look like a cartoon. I think it would feel pretty weird waking up in that room. [Link] #

Since I am not a big fan of Mac City because of their extremely high prices I like picking on them a lot. The other day I posted about how Mac&More honor the warranty on Apple products purchased abroad and I decided to see if Mac City also honored the warranty.

Well I just got off the phone with Mac City and it turns out although they are official resellers in Kuwait they do not honor the Apple warranty unless you purchase the Mac from them. The guy I spoke to told me I should call Dubai and see if they would fix my laptop under warranty or I should send it back to Amazon.

I told him no thanks and closed the phone. One more reason not to deal with Mac City.

Today me and Nat had our motorbike license test. I will talk about what happened in a separate post but for now I want to focus on the written exam. If you are planning on getting a driving license or riding license you need to pass a written exam. Problem is the written exam is just a mess. Other then the fact that the English half the time makes no sense, Nat spotted a bigger problem.

Nat and I were taking the written exam at the same time in the same room. So, they gave us different tests which contained different questions. I ended up passing the test with 3 wrong answers while Nat passed with just 2 wrong answers. After we left we were comparing our tests when Nat noticed that one of my questions didn’t have a right answer. If you look at the picture above or the larger version located at the end of this post, you will notice that the correct answer to the sign on the left is “Road Narrows”. Problem is the 3 answers I was given to choose from were wrong. No matter what I would have answered I would have gotten it wrong! Its as if they wanted me to fail! Anyway I might scan the whole test later and post it online. For now here is a larger picture of what I am talking about. [Picture]

I found the easiest way to order flowers today. I needed flowers for Nat and I didn’t have time to pass by this place near my home so I searched online and found a site called Q8Flowers.com. They had a decent variety of flowers available, they accepted Knet and best of all they had same day delivery. I sent her the bouquet called Soul Mate which is a mixture of pink and purple roses. It turned out to be pretty cool and large. Here is a link to the site. [Link]

I am also reading many positive comments regarding ClicknBuy. Seems they are quick to deliver and very cheap. Its pretty cool seeing all these local e-commerce sites starting to pop up.

K.theKuwaiti conducted a survey on Kuwait ISP’s by asking people what provider they were with, how much they were paying and what download speed they were getting. Using the results he plugged them into an Excel sheet and calculated which ISP gives you the best bang for the buck.

So what is the best deal? Turns out its Qualitynet followed closely by Zajil. Fasttelco came in last. For a more detailed analysis check out K’s post. [Link]

I just got back from Mac&More in Marina Mall. Both me and Nat have problems with our MacBooks. She had a random shutdown problem plus issues with her keyboard. Me on the other hand I had the infamous MacBook discoloration plus my trackpad button was extremely messed up. Turns out if you purchased your Mac from Amazon or Apple.com they will honor the warranty. All you need to do is take the invoice with your MacBook and they will fix your problem.

Tonight we left Nats MacBook with them, it should be ready to pick up tomorrow. Also tomorrow if the technician is still there he will replace my MacBook keyboard and palmrest while I wait. I will try to take a before and after picture of my MacBook and post it here.

I finally went to the charity photography exhibition yesterday at Beit Lothan and I was really impressed. The pictures on display were really fascinating. For some reason I was expecting to see photos of Cambodia as if taken by a tourist but practically all the photos on display were works of art. I am glad I went.