Souk Salmiya – 100 Fils Shops

As you may have seen from my previous posts I use a lot of crafts supplies and equipment from the ‘100 fils’ shops at Souk Salmiya. But what is and where is Souk Salmiya?

We came across Souk Salmiya a few years ago as we lived close by and used to visit for our weekly food shop. Souk Salmiya is a large pink mall/souk which has a supermarket (City Centre), a mosque, fish market, meat market, food court, bowling, an arcade (Future Kid) and numerous stalls selling craft supplies, replica designer goods, toys, clothes, jewellery, beauty products and spices. I used to visit a lot to buy crafts things for my class when I was teaching and I could spend hours looking in the different shops at the various items they are selling.

We visited Souk Salmiya this week to buy some crafts supplies and I was really impressed by the amount of things I got for my money. I spent just over 10KD and got 2 bags of plastic animals (fish and dinosaurs), 6 bags of shredded crepe/tissue paper, 15 pots of glitter (various colours), 3 bags of coloured stones, a bag of marbles, a Cars whiteboard with pen, 2 tubes of glue, a bag of shredded foil, a packet of sponge shapes, 3 sticker books, a Mickey Mouse stamp roller, some Dora the Explorer playing cards, 2 bags of coloured sand, a packet of mixed buttons, 3 rolls of ribbon, magnetic numbers and letters, 1 packet of googly eyes, 2 packets of smiley face beads, cocktail sticks, a packet of sequins and 2 pots of small beads/glitter. Yes, the quality of the items aren’t that of the Early Learning Centre or other good art suppliers but for the price I can’t argue. Plus I get a bit sick of paying mostly double the price or more for things in Kuwait than I would in the UK so it’s nice to get something cheap for a change!

We visited about 11am on a weekday and it was lovely and quiet. I know it gets very busy during the evenings especially of a weekend. On Fridays the stalls in the Souk are not open in the morning or early afternoon – I am guessing that they reopen in the evening but I have never been at this time.

Where: Souk Salmiya, Qatar Street, Salmiya. Click here for a map.

Note: A lot of items are 100 fils but some may be marked slighter higher depending on what they are – it is best asking the salesmen how much different items are if it isn’t clear. A lot of the crafts items (glitter, googly eyes etc) tend to be no more than 200 fils per item.