Candwich is a new product hitting American shelves late this year. They are canned sandwiches which has a shelf life of 1 year. Manufactured by Mark One Foods, they intend to sell to people on the go and people paranoid careful enough to store food in the even of natural disaster, as per their ad.
Will you go for them when or if they ever hit Kuwait’s grocery stores?
The diet was not a failure, I was. I gave in to callings of Shish Tawouq and Kebab.
I’m starting over today.
I am nearing my fourth year in Kuwait now. I can say I have pretty much settled in
I now have my favorite hunts, I have restaurants I frequent, a gym I *try* to regularly go to. In a way, Kuwait has felt like a semblance of home.
I always knew that moving to Kuwait can possibly become something long term. I’ve had seen friends come and go in the short time I am here. From what I’ve seen most expats go through phases while settling in. I would like to categorize them as: Absorption, Accumulation and Acceptance.
Absorption: I arrived in Kuwait at about 11 PM sometime in July. First thing that greeted me was a temperature of 59 degrees Celsius. The weather was just the tip of the iceberg, it took 3 days before I went out anywhere outside work. As I stepped out, I was in awe over women who were all covered in black, men wearing dishdashas and holding hands at the mall. At the grocery, I get to see my favorite brands in Arabic. It was a definite feast for my senses!
Eventually, the newness of things had worn off and I’m left collecting, assimilating what I have absorbed. That’ll be the next phase, which is…
Accumulation: As days developed into weeks, weeks turned into months, I am now facing anniversaries of staying here in Kuwait. This phase can be experienced differently by different people.
One of my friends, an Italian expat, has decided to open himself up. He struck friendships with people in and out of work, went to get-togethers with mixed nationalities and feels that its the best way to spend time in Kuwait. He says: “My decision to open myself up enriches my stay in Kuwait. People expect that if you’re in Kuwait, you will bore yourself out but I decided not to waste my time here like that”
Another person I know took a different route. An Indian flight attendant, said she decided to keep to herself. Not to the point of being a loner but she decided to make friends only with her colleagues, most of them Indians like herself. She says: “It allows me not to forget my roots, by having a limited number of friends, I protect myself from the absurdities happening outside [men not taking female expats seriously] and I have more time to communicate with my friends and family back in India”
Whichever way a Kuwait expat decides to while their time away in this country, the Accumulation phase determine the amount of experience and growth you’d be bringing from Kuwait.
Acceptance: Sounds like a phase in grieving, but there is no sense of surrender here. I suppose this is where I am in right now. I have settled into a way of living, made adjustments and though some people don’t really want it– I now have a routine.
Living in Kuwait has been an experience. Some of them happy, some heartbreaking. It’s a complete set of discovery that I’d always be grateful for.
All you can eat!
In college, it was called Freshman 15, it might be known to you as Freshman Spread. It was something I was able to avoid though.
However, three years ago when I arrived in Kuwait I got hooked on it. I personally call it Kuwait 8.8
That’s the exact weight gain I have been carrying around since I got here in Kuwait. I have tried several diets: portion control, vegetarian, the 1300 calorie diet. All of them were successes for a limited number of time. Whenever work became too demanding, I fell back to my old practices. Emotional and Social Eating.
It does not help as well that Kuwait hosts a variety of restaurants of varying cusines that is just so hard for me to resist being the adventurous eater that I am. So, during one of those social lunches I never say “no” to, one of my friends discussed the GM diet. After three days of reading from the net, I decided to give it a try.
I’ll be on my first day today and it should go like this:
Day One: Fruit day! I am allowed to eat all the fruit I want except bananas (and there’s a good reason for it so keep posted!) Melons are highly recommended and if I end up eating just melons, chances that I’d lose about 3 lbs on the first day is very high.
Okay.. this diet looks promising so far. I’m a fruit fan. I did once a two-week diet where I ate just fruits– and it worked wonders, though of course, it was temporary. I had to go back eating other stuff too, you know.
So, last night. I went up the local Jamiya (that’s how Cooperative stores/Groceries are called in Kuwait). I bought a big water melon, a melon and a box of plums. I’m set for the day.
Wish me luck!
August 11, 2010– Ramadan has finally arrived in Kuwait!
This is actually my fourth Ramadan in this country. For first-timers, Ramadan can be an experience. For starters, all restaurants are closed. So, if you are a take-out person like me, better be prepared.
Good thing however, groceries are open . Most of them have prepared food that you can buy. I went to Lulu Supermarket yesterday and was glad that they have a banquet of food already prepared for Iftar (the dinner which breaks the fast), granted they are mostly Indian like Sambosa and Biryani, it was good enough for someone as hungry as I.
Since we’re on the topic of food too, make sure you don’t eat nor drink outside your home. Respect the custom, you never know when someone is looking. It is not unusual for the police to apprehend someone caught drinking or just even chewing gum.
One good thing though, shops and restaurants close much later, about 1 AM or so. A good thing since this year’s Ramadan came during Summer. You can sleep off the day and have the night to stroll around!
So there, enjoy the coming Ghabqas, Iftars, night get-togethers you might be invited to. Ramadan in Kuwait is an experience in itself that can create uique memories here in Kuwait. Share your stories here or drop us an e-mail at Q8huntahan@gmail.com and we’ll publish your story here.
Yes, you love your iPhone. You got a mobile line for it, a data service subscription, what else shall go wrong?
You cruise out of the mobile shop place, ready to download nifty apps to make your iPhone cooler.. but, an error message keeps popping up. You don’t seem to have a data connection installed.
Before you run back to the phone place, make sure that the following settings are in place:
For Zain subscribers*:
1.Go to Settings > General > Network
2.Choose Cellular Data Network
3.Use the following settings for Cellular Data:
◦APN: pps
◦Username: pps
◦Password: pps
4.Use the following settings for MMS: (fill the fields below, you can leave other fields blank)
◦APN: pps
◦Username: mms
◦Password: mms
◦MMSC: http://mms.zain
◦MMS Proxy: 176.0.0.65:8080
◦MMS UA Prof URL: (leave blank)
5.Go to Settings > Phone
6.Type in your mobile number in the “My Number” field in the following format:
◦+965 9*******
*Information gathered from the Zain website
For Wataniya Subscribers:
1.Go to Settings > General > Network
2.Choose Cellular Data Network
3.Use the following settings for Cellular Data:
◦APN: action.wataniya.com
◦Username: (leave blank)
◦Password: (leave blank)
4.Use the following settings for MMS: (fill the fields below, you can leave other fields blank)
◦APN: mms.wataniya.com
◦Username: (leave blank)
◦Password: (leave blank)
◦MMSC: http://action.wataniya.com
◦MMS Proxy: 194.126.053.064:8080
◦MMS UA Prof URL: (leave blank)
Now, there you have it. Nice little tricks to know, so next time you change sim cards and erase all these stuff you can always just go back here and have these info handy!
One of the first things an expat would definitely need in Kuwait is a mobile line. Once you have landed, you are sure to be itching to tell your family back home stories from your first 24 hours in Kuwait, be it about the weather or that freaky guy giving you weird stares.
But the first thing to ask yourself is whether you should get a postpaid or prepaid line. Here are things to consider when availing of a mobile service before you rush off and get one.
Prepaid Lines
This is a great starter line for anyone who has just arrived. Surely, you do not have your civil id just yet, which is a requirement for getting a postpaid line here in Kuwait. Prepaid line is a service that requires you to put air time/credit on your mobile account via voucher cards you can buy from the phone company where you bought your line from. There is a set per minute charge on every local or international call. If you use up your credit, you can still accept incoming calls but you will need to recharge to be able to make calls again.
Pros:
Easy to acquire, just go to any phone dealer or telecom branch, present your passport, pay the cost ranging from 5KD to 15 KD.
Easy to set-up, most prepaid sim cards are already open for international and roaming services. Just pop-in the sim on your phone and you’re connected instantly.
Cons:
Recharging your phone credits can be a problem when you run out of credit in the middle of the night and you’re in a new city. Yes, you can do this online, but if the connection fails and you have entered your credit card information, would you still be able to sleep through the rest of it?
Some services are probably not available or more expensive. Local calls definitely would be of a higher per minute charge. Data usage on prepaid lines means you have to pay per kilobyte. So, if you have amounts of data to download, better be prepared to pay about 1 fils per kb.
Postpaid Lines
This kind of service gives you freedom from worrying where you will buy your next mobile credit from. You rack up as much phone usage as you want, just make sure you are prepared to pay your bills by the end of the month on a specific date set by your telecom provider. Getting this service however, requires a civil id since you are not pre-paying the service. Postpaid lines have cheaper local rates and can be bundled with a local unlimited internet service.
Pros:
This service is much cheaper than prepaid especially if you intend to make a lot of local calls.
It also allows users to have an unlimited data access within their plan for a certain fee.
Cons:
This service can be a disadvantage if you cannot control yourself when it comes to calling. Your service will be disconnected after you reach your limit, normally 60 KDs but would you like to pay that much monthly for a phone service?
If you travel and intend to use your Kuwaiti postpaid line as your main line, be prepared to pay about double your normal consumption since you will be paying even for incoming calls and if you are really unlucky the local provider in the country you are visiting might charge you even if your mobile line was just rung by anyone. And we are talking .125 fils per attempt to call you.
There you go, hopefully I was able to tackle some of your questions regarding prepaid and postpaid lines. In the next entries, I would be comparing services between the three telecom companies in Kuwait, namely: Wataniya, Zain and Viva.
Q8HUNTahan– A place to hunt. You need tips on how to start life in the oven? You may find it here.
This blog covers everything and anything in between the life of an expat in Kuwait. Visit here for information, tips, reviews or just plain answers to your problems be it here in Kuwait or your life back in your country. I’ll try and reach out and have something for everybody so try and come back if you need more servings.
Settling in Kuwait? Shoot us an e-mail and we'll give you advise on how to make life in the oven a piece of cake.
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