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As of yesterday, Beirut is the new book capital of the world.

BEIRUT: Culture Minister Tamam Salam is expected to fly to Paris next week to take over the presidency of the “World Book Capital 2009,” his media office said on Wednesday. The United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization (UNESCO) announced in April 2007 the nomination of Beirut as the “World Book Capital 2009.” “Beirut should raise awareness about the importance of reading, books and publications all through 2009,” Salam addressed reporters during a lunch at Le Bristol Hotel in Ras Beirut. The official program of Beirut World Book Capital 2009 starts on April 25, 2009 and ends in April 2010. Beirut is the ninth city to be designated World Book Capital, after Madrid, Alexandria, New Delhi, Antwerp, Montreal, Turin, Bogot‡ and Amsterdam. According to a statement by UNESCO, the city of Beirut was selected “in the light of its focus on cultural diversity, dialogue and tolerance, and of its diverse and stimulating program.”

Source: The Daily Star

I believe minister Tammam Salam has to do double the effort here in Lebanon and the Arab world, as our people simply hate to read. I don’t know the average number of books an Arab reads per year, maybe half a paper? Could be!

Last Sunday I thought of taking advantage of the nice weather and go shooting some sunset photos at Ain El-Mrayseh, but the outcome turned out far away from what I had in mind.

For some reason, every single Beiruti has apparently chosen to go have a ride on the corniche, so I ended up getting stuck in a traffic jam for more than 30 minutes… and you think it was boring? Hell no! It was not!

Next time you get stuck there like me, try to look for the clowns who drive their cars with their feet. YES WITH THEIR FEET!

(Click to enlarge)

So, this guy decided to stand up like a monkey on the driver’s seat, in the middle of the road, and control the steering wheel with his feet, without forgetting to raise the radio volume to the max while listening to Goerge Wassouf (you thought he was listening to Nostalgie? you silly..!)

And it looks like being cool these days is associated with getting out of the car window when you’re going for a ride on the corniche! Then you’ll get to open your mouth to the air and literally “teikol hawa” like our 2 friends below.

Conclusion:
Ain El-Mrayseh + Sunday Afternoon = Bad Idea. New York (aka Hamra) could have been a much better option.

… is BEIRUT!

Among the top 44 places to visit in 2009, published in the New York Times, Beirut is ranking number ONE. That is, people are recommended to choose Beirut as their next destination instead of Barcelona, Venice, Paris or New York for example.

Don’t ask how and why we’re ranking number one, all I know is that people are invited to Beirut to enjoy a good drive on the seaside while trying to avoid falling into potholes, then go to Hamra and get stuck in traffic, and why not going to ABC for shopping and spending 30 minutes before finding a car parking.

Not to forget Gemmayze akid! There’s only one Gemmayze street in the world and it’s right here in Beirut.

Bkaffeh? tab khalas bikaffeh…

I was driving near the Beirut Marina today when I noticed new concrete blocks placed on the sidewalk.

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I drove further to find the same concrete blocks supporting metal rods.

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Now if you take a look at the inside of the marina , you will notice that these block and rods are meant to form a visual block (as in the photo below) to PREVENT people from watching the sea and the parked yachts.

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Very soon, the Beirut Marina will be pretty much like the Movenpick and Riviera, where the sea view is blocked for the public just because they own the land on the seaside.

Anyway, it’s Solidaire’s time now! Bravo! After stealing the center of Beirut now they’re stealing the sea view from the Beirutis.

I know there’s still the rest of the corniche, but still, fuck whoever came up with that idea, they do NOT have the right to do it.

After climbing more than 70 of the world’s tallest structures, Alain Robert aka spiderman arrived to Beirut to climb the Phoenicia Intercontinental hotel tower using his bare hand without ropes!

The event was set today at 6:00PM and I heard about it by chance on Mix FM. I thought it would be cool to go and shoot some photos of spiderman but unfortunately I was wrong… As soon as I arrived in my car near the Phoenicia at around 6:10, I found hundreds of cars stuck in a traffic jam on the road passing by the Phoenicia and leading to Saint George.

Reason? Not because there was too many people, but apprently the internal security forces have blocked the road and stopped cars from proceeding towards Ain El-Mrayyseh. I didn’t understand why they did that especially that Alain Robert was climbing a tower that is far away from the road….

I was also surprised by how the ISF took actions to make that event a success! As I know, in almost every other country the cops arrest Alain after he does his stunts because it is so unsafe… Check this wikipedia page and see for yourself. The ISF here were actually amused by what he did.

Anyway, at the end after being stuck for more than an hour in that traffic jam without even facing the building he was climbing, I returned back with no photos…

Update: Thanks to Dona, now I’m posting 2 videos of the event.

Dear minister Ghazi Aridi,

Have you been driving in Beirut lately? Did you notice the potholes everywhere in the city roads? And did you notice those open manholes?

I nearly crashed my car yesterday on my way to Rawche because of an open manhole! I was very lucky to have sopotted it.

Please do understand that unlike you guys (MPs and ministers) I cannot change my car on a monthly basis. I worked really hard to pay for my 2 months old car and I won’t like it if something broke because of your potholes.

I hope you will read this post someday when googling your name! (Would you mind commenting if you did?)

Regards,
Beiruti Alfa Romeo driver.

Dear Alain Tabourian,

You are wrong if you think that cutting off the electricity on Beirut is a smart move. It is the CAPITAL, the heart of the country, where generators are PROHIBITED.

Increasing the cutoff hours in Beirut will not help the other areas at all! Beirut Vs. the rest of Lebanon? Come on! I wonder how many extra hours of electricity will each other city have… 15 minutes maybe?

Oh and if you think that this it the best way to have your revenge from the Future Movement, then f*ck both of you. We have nothing to do with your stupid conflicts with Saad Hariri!

Regards,
A pissed Beiruti internet addict.

Today was the day, Michael Suleiman is finally a president or (فخامة الرئيس)!

And while the majority preferred to stay home watching politicians making out with the new president on TV, I chose to go to Ain El-Mraiseh for a walk on the corniche with some friends. It turned out to be a good decision, especially when some entertaining motorcades returning from the parliament and heading to Phoenicia Hotel passed by with bodyguards inside that are fully equipped with machine guns and aiming at potential threats, also known as “pedestrians”!

Anyway, for once everybody seemed to be happy and relieved, and once again they were congratulating each other… OK I will shut my mouth this time!

One thing that interested me in Ain El-Mraiseh was a bunch of guys jumping from the sidewalk into the sea, check out this photo of one of them (Click to enlarge).

Decamping of the opposition from Downtown Beirut is an old news by now, and as you know people are back to going there again and filling almost every cafe and restaurant around the Nejmeh square.

So I went there today to see how does things look like now, and I was honestly surprised how fast the recovery phase was. Although there are still some business owners that are not done yet with the renovation work, but most of the almost all of the famous places are back into business again.

Here are some of the photos I took there.

Nejmeh Square (Click to enlarge)

Full restaurants (Click to enlarge)

In case you’re wondering about Buddha Bar, I think it will be re-opened soon since it’s currently being renovated. (Click to enlarge)

And finally, a silhouette of Riyadh Al-Solh statue. (Click to enlarge)

I live in Ras El-Nabeh, where clashes have been raging for the last 2 days, and thanks god today is relatively calm and under the Lebanese army control. But still, I didn’t go to work in fear of not being able to come back! Yeah feels like being under siege!

So far the opposition has defeated the Future Movement militia in our neighborhood and in almost every other area in western Beirut. Although this result was expected (to me at least), but I really didn’t expect for the Future Movement militia to fall apart that fast!
Lesson learned: A cat should never mess with a lion.

I am wondering what will the opposition do next, I am pretty sure things will not be over at this stage, but I hope the situation will not get worse.

Oh and by the way I really feel like going out and shooting with my camera, I’m sure there will be a lot of scenes that are worth keeping for history, but I am afraid someone might beat me… Anyway here is a panoramic photo I took today morning from my balcony (it’s made of 3 photos), it shows “Basta” to the left and “Ras El-Nabeh” to the right. Unfortunately my camera is a DSLR and doesn’t capture video, otherwise I would have posted some very interesting sounds from yesterda’s clashes!

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