I have had this issue for a few months now with Aramex, its not with their service but more with their website. Right now I’m waiting for the dual wan network balancer but its still stuck in customs, it just says delayed delivery with no specifics, its probably stuck in customs so I have to follow up on it myself or I won’t be seeing it anytime soon. The funny part is that whenever I get a delivery in the mailbox in the US, it registers it but then there is no update until it is out for delivery in Kuwait, but for the UK mailbox there are updates at every point. Now they just have to fix the updates for the US mailbox, and I have to get my items out of customs or I won’t be seeing it this week.
Recently in Kuwait there have been many hardware stores opening, which I think is a great thing. We have lots of choice for all our hardware needs as well as a different selection. Abyatt and Platform coincidentally opened right across from each other, Ace Hardware is still a bit on their own. I’m not sure if there are any more major Hardware stores of this type that are going to open, but I am really happy with the selection available. We went in one day to all three Hardware Stores to see what the difference was in service, materials and other details.
Abyatt
- Water Pumps and Piping
- Gardening
- Bathroom Items (Large Selection)
- Bathtubs and Showers
- Doors
- Large Selection of Paints and Painting Equipment
- Some Electrical
- Price is reasonable for some items but high in others
- Great organization
- Lots of raw materials for building
- Helpful staff
- There is a rewards program and if you buy from them you do save in bulk.
Platform
- Huge selection of tools (Car, Home, Electrical, and more)
- Very high quality tools
- Electrical selection is very large such as outdoor connections, cabling, and more
- Some selection of raw materials for homes
- Very organized
- Extremely helpful and knowledgeable staff
- Prices are very reasonable
- Open 7 am to 9 pm Everyday (Fantastic)
Ace Hardware
- Vehicle tools
- Vehicle liquids
- Camping equipment
- Some garage equipment
- Large selection of odd items such as grills, and other things
- Reasonably priced
- Decent Staff
- Huge electrical selection Electrical items for every kind of converter and wiring
All of them have their positive parts, and Platform and Abyatt are similar but they also differ with their items. Ace Hardware will take a hit from them, but it still has its niche market. If you are the Do-It-Yourself (DIY) type of guy then you will love Abyatt and Platform. I’m very happy that they are both around, and their location is very accessible in Shuweikh.
I do appreciate that my work is located in Shuweikh, I avoid about 90% of all the traffic since everyone is heading to the city. This time it was a bit different since my training course is located at the Court Yard Marriot and I have to be there by 8:30 am.
I take a bit of an odd route, going into South Surra then Damascus street to the city, but people would be surprised how fast that is. The only problem I found out was that today, a lot of exits on the First Ring Road and the Sheraton Round About were closed because of some important people being in town. Due to these circumstances it led me to the round about way to getting to the city, and I ended up taking longer then I expected. I avoid Fahaheel Expressway if at all possible so I took this round about route, and 90% of all the traffic lights were green, but then there was this unaccounted for traffic. I felt like an idiot since I was going back and forth trying to find the right way to get to the city, and talking to a few friends they were all stuck in traffic. Instead of 40 to 45 minutes it took me 1 hour and 20 minutes to get to the city. I was going to go nuts! What the hell is all this traffic, I didn’t ming going around too much in too many circles, but this time it was just ridiculous, a lot of traffic came to a stand still.
Up early Friday morning we just kept on going from place to place, at around 10:45am we went to Abyatt to find out that they don’t open on Friday, so we went across the road to Platform to find that they are open from 7 am to 9 pm every day.
We were the only four people in all of the warehouse, it reminded of home depot in the states. Nothing fancy, just everything you are looking for in an organized fashion. We took a cart, both me and K had somethings we wanted to pick up for our homes and a few wiring issues that we have been looking into.
First off I have to say that the staff at Platform are the friendliest and most helpful staff I have seen. I bought a completely new tool box for my house as well as new tools since everything we had was over 20 years old and brittle. I told them I want simple items for the home, nothing fancy but all American made tools which last. They had two brands that I kept taking for the my tools which were Stanley and Bosch. Both are very good brands and I already use some Stanley tools when working on my bikes for the past two years, they still look like new. So I knew Stanley is a good brand and I think they had every Stanely tool available. Then I needed a new ladder for the house, the one we have is really flimsy and old, we tried using it the other and a step broke while I was going up, so I had to find a replacement and they had a nice selection.
We also picked up some electrical items to equip some items outdoor and they had the perfect enclosure for them as well the supplemental items. The best part was the selection of tools, couldn’t get enough of them. Then there is the home materials which is good for a Do It Yourself type person, but its fantastic to see places like this in Kuwait. They weren’t even too peeved about us talking a million pictures of the whole place. We were like kids in a toy store, we wanted to try everything and picking up everything, it was great that nobody else was there.
After running around a bit in Shuweikh, some of our friends were having an early breakfast at Avenues so we ended up there at 9:20 am. It was the first time for us to be in the Avenues that early in the morning, the place was empty, I had the urge to put on some roller blades, I would have most probably fallen flat on my face.
They seemed to have this big event called Blooming for Life taking place and every company was sponsoring a flower bed. This was the first time for me to walk into the Avenues with my very large camera and snapping away, I had security walk up to me about 7 times throughout the time I was there. Each security guy asked if I worked for a magazine or a news paper, and many of them told me its usually not allowed to take photographs inside the mall but this time its an exception but only of the flower beds. As I was taking pictures one or two of them was always following me around, they would always ask me not to point the camera in the direction of the mall. There was almost nobody inside the mall so it made no sense to stop me. I knew they weren’t the bad people and they were just doing their jobs so I didn’t argue too much with them, but I continued to snap away and I snuck in a few photos.
Some of the flower beds were amazing, it gave life to the whole mall and I think they needed more. The worst flowerbed was the one around the car, it looked it was starved for water. Overall some of them were very nice, they were very colorful smell and gave a fresh feeling to the whole mall. This was the first and only time that I have seen multiple empty Starbucks in the mall. The guys were ordering breakfast at Paul while I was snapping away, we had an early break fast so I just had some cake instead. It was very nice that the mall was completely empty and we forgot how dusty it was outside the mall.
Friday morning involved roaming around Shuweikh for some places. We were looking for Ace Hardware at 8:30 am and we thought we knew where we were going, but we were completely wrong. I thought it was close to IKEA but A2Z and True Value was around the area, it wasn’t Ace Hardware, we did end of somewhere unexpected which was the KDD factory. We walked in and it seemed like heaven, every juice you could imagine and lots of ice creams.
We spent a good 20 minutes waiting for the ice cream machine to kick into gear, but still we didn’t get any ice cream. When we asked for some Rockets or Raspberries they said they sell them in packs of 10, so that wasn’t an option. We left empty handed but next time we shall be stocking up on all forms of ice creams. I don’t care what anyone says, KDD is superior to both Petra and KDCow, so much better there isn’t even a comparison when it comes to the Ice Creams.
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Its been sometime now since I wanted to take my car detailing at Al Falah Car Wash. They do wonders with cars when they take them in for detailing, they bring back the color of the interior and give a new shine to the body.
I know some people that take their cars detailing once every couple of months, but I haven’t had a chance due to luck. Sometimes they were booked up and other times when I decided to go a weather anomaly takes place such as dust storm, hurricane, or rain, so I stay home instead of taking the car in.
This time I called and they had an opening so after my last meeting I went straight there to drop off the car. It was perfect timing, by the time I got there I just parked my car outside for a little while. Half an hour later the owner of F355 convertible took has care from detailing so I was able to park my car indoors at that point. They have an enclosed garage for detailing and it takes about half a day to a day for full detailing, and the garage takes 2 cars. For only 55 KD you get fantastic results which bring your car back to life, that is what I have seen with every car they detailed, and now it was my turn. A friend of mine picked me up and dropped me off, and on the way back I dozed of in the passenger seat after a long day.
So it seems we are in a magazine because we contacted someone to be there. We are so cooooool. I want to thank Mark for pulling his strings.
Link: 248am.com
After spending a while in the Hobby Shop in Rihab I decided to purchase the detailed resin Mazinkaizer which is hand painted. Its about 18 centimeters tall, with a very mean looking face.
I have been a fan of Mazinger Z, Grandizer, and Mazinkaizer for the longest time and Mazinkaizer is lesser known to the general public but just as mean. I think my next purchase is going to be either Mazinger Z or Grandizer, but I have to find the right spot to place him. I have the Mazinkaizer standing in the middle of shelf so I can easily see hi, I need to get rid of all the DVDs that I have seen to get the shelf a little bit more organized.
Never thought I would find an anime hobby shop in Kuwait of this caliber, this is the type of store you would find in Japan Town in San Francisco, New York, or any other major city. I came across this store a few weeks back but it was closed on a Friday, so we passed by on Saturday and I really wanted to see what they had.
To my surprise they had almost everything an otaku could ask for and then some. There were Mazinkaizer, Mazinger Z, Robotech, Patlabor, Final Fantasy, Evangelion, and a lot more then I could remember. I was lost inside the store because I didn’t know what to look at and what I wanted. The one thing I knew for sure is that I wasn’t going to walk out of that store without getting something really worth it and high quality.
They had high quality resin statues painted and ready for sale, Mazinger Z and Mazinkaizer metal statues were available, there was some Ghost in the Shell items as well. There was a Kuwaiti guy working in the store to my surprise and he was very careful with a lot of the robot figures that were hand painted, I was very happy to see someone of his nature, and he loved this type of work. He was telling us how much effort he put into some of these figures which just makes them even more appealing.
Hobby Japan
Rihab, Hawally
Contact: 2418296, 6574120
