Social Slave

This year the Hala February festival will be starting on Saturday, Feb 4th with their annual carnival on Salem Al Mubarak Street in Salmiya. Like every year, they have planned a lot of activities, events and shopping bargains for everyone which will go on till Feb 29th. I will try to get a schedule of all their events and update it here.

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Cinescape has come up with their very own Gift Vouchers, more like Gift Cards. And not one, but four different types for each of their cinema experiences:

Classic – KD6 | Digital – KD7 | IMAX – KD8 | VIP – KD12

Each card admits two persons and can be a nice gift for anyone or any occasion. They are available at all of their locations so go ahead and surprise someone. I wonder if you can pre-book a movie with them before giving it as a gift, a movie someone has been waiting for perhaps. Now that would be a good surprise.

I like how more businesses are coming up with gift cards and vouchers, it kind of makes it easy to give someone a voucher they could use to buy something of their own liking. I still love getting presents though, it’s a whole different experience receiving pretty wrapped presents and wondering what’s inside till the time comes to actually open them and get all excited. But I don’t mind gift envelopes either! Either way, they’re both fun.

Souq.com has the iPhone 4S 16GB for just KD180 as their their Deal of the Day. If anyone’s interested, there are just a couple more left!

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Update: They’re all sold out!

X-Cite finally launched their online shopping store yesterday with free delivery and installation service as well. The site looks pretty neat and they have a lot of products available in all categories. They also have a few Top Deals available.

Now this is going start a price war between all the local online stores and we’re probably going to see a lot of good deals coming up.

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H&M’s new Conscious Collection for Fall 2011 is available in stores now. The collection is inspired by the romantic Swedish folklore and is very feminine featuring embroidered wool coats, lace blouses, floral printed dresses and shoes that are perfect for the fall season.

Check them out [Here]

Just received an email from PPAMC that they are organizing the 4th Super Brand Bazaar Exhibition for this month and it is supposed to be one of the biggest they have ever had with a lot more multinational fashion companies participating this time.

When: 27th – 30th October from 10 am – 10 pm
Where: Arraya Grand Ball Room at the Marriot Courtyard

For more information call 22450246/7/8

The Annual Holiday Bazaar is back this year and will be held at the Salwa Sabah Hall at Marina Crescent on 18th November 2011. For those who are interested in booking a stall, there will be a vendor meeting on 4th October at Costa Coffee at the Marina Crescent from 7pm to 9pm for registration. Tables are KD70 each, KD40 for half tables and KD40 for registered charities (limited amount available for both).

I love visiting the Christmas bazaars in Kuwait, they all have such an amazing Christmas spirit going on with the carol singing, yummy Christmas treats and everyone dressed in the holiday colors and accessories. It’s a great chance to get ready for the holiday season with so much variety of Christmas gifts, crafts and a lot of stuff available in the stalls. I will be putting together a list of all the Christmas Bazaars taking place over the next couple of months so check back for updates.

Surprisingly Alshaya has come up with a new policy of offering an Alshaya Gift Card instead of refunds for returned items. Even though the gift card will give the buyers 12 months to use their store credit, this policy is basically forcing them to use their money on Alshaya stores.

I read about it on Arabian Business this morning but I first came to know about this a few days ago when I was out shopping for a gift and they told me at the counter that there is no refund anymore and instead they will give a gift card. I found that to be a bit annoying because there are times when you need to return something you bought and getting store credit instead just doesn’t feel right in terms of consumer rights, that’s if we have any here. Although I appreciate that Alshaya brings a lot of good brands to Kuwait and they basically control a large portion of the retail market here, but forcing buyers to spend only at their stores is a little extreme don’t you think?

H&M ‘By Night’ collection is out in stores now to go along with Eid and I really like the classy feminine styles in soft pastel colors with the right amount of ruffles, frills and bows. For a more bolder look they’ve got the fitted pants, jumpsuits and flirty dresses with leather bits & corset detailing. There are plenty of options for any of the dressy events so go check them out.

One of our readers emailed us that The Avenues Mall management published a notice on the front page of Al-Rai newspaper that no one is allowed to mention, talk about or post pictures of The Avenues Mall, the company or the logo without getting written permission from the management. This goes to any form of text or visual advertising, through the internet, social networking or mobile phones.

This is weird, how do they plan on restricting the thousands of mall visitors from mentioning about “The Mall” in their regular social networking life? I guess it will just fade away like their “No Smoking” policy pretty soon.

Thanks Eman

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