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A Lebanese Blog

Tag: Beirut

  • Horsh Beirut is Open Again to The Public

    Horsh Beirut has been closed down by the Municipallity of Beirut for several month now ever since a disease spread among the pine trees there and was threatening the whole area. Fortunately, the municipality back then took the matter seriously and closed down the park to treat the issue by cutting down and burning the infected trees, which eventually resulted in containing the disease.

    Accordingly, Horsh Beirut has been officially opened again to the public as of yesterday except for some areas where the municipality is still working to clear the invasive insects.

    For those interested, the park will be open from 7AM till 1PM on weekdays, and from 7AM till 7PM on weekends. Barbecue and Shisha are of course still forbidden inside, and thank god for that!

  • Engineering Lessons from Beirut

    A group of workers were demolishing an old building in the Ras El Nabeh region of Beirut when it suddenly collapsed and filled the surrounding street with rubble that almost reached people who were observing the process, and definitely damaged some of the parked cars nearby.

    You can’t but admire the contractors for the safety standards they’re working with. It tells a lot about the quality of the building that will soon be constructed there!

  • City Centre Parking Now Has Car Plate Scanners To Help You Find Your Car

    I was at City Centre Hazmieh the other day when I noticed they now have car plate scanners in their parking to help you find your car if you ever forgot where you parked.

    Several machines located at the mall entrances will help you find your car once you provide your car plate number. I tried the system out of curiosity and the machine took around 10 seconds to return images of several cars, I then had to flip through a couple of images before I found my car along with its exact spot.

    Needless to say, the machine will of course fail to find anything if people of the Lebanese 7arbou2 kind remove their car plates or erase the numbers to evade speed radars, but these are douchebags anyway and definitely deserve to get lost in a parking lot.

  • Beirut-Montreal Direct Flights Are Not Happening Anytime Soon!

    Remember all the talks about possible re-establishment of non-stop flights between Beirut and Montreal? Well, Duncan Bureau, VP Global Sales at Air Canada unfortunately tweeted on Monday that the Canadian Government rejected their application to make it happen, which is definitely a huge disappointment for the Lebanese community there.

    For more details I recommend you read this article “What Is It About Direct Flights To Beirut That Scares Trudeau?” by the Huffington Post discussing how illogical the rejection is given that airlines from much less secure countries such as Egypt are allowed in Montreal.

  • The Best Yard Sale Ever – For The Vintage Collectors

    Following my post about Hadi’s retro games collection, I got some e-mail asking me if I knew about some shops with same offering around Beirut. I unfortunately don’t, but I thought of writing about this Yard Sale taking place at antwork’s garden in Hamra tomorrow since it will cater for retro lovers.

    I know for sure there will be Gameboy handhelds and other old gaming consoles up for sale, in addition to vintage comic books, DVDs, vinyls and others.

    The event is all organized by cool people from antwork, Heyoka, and Tell(tale), and will also include some fun activities like a Knefeh eating competition so make sure not to miss it if retro stuff is your thing.

    The yard sale is running tomorrow from 11AM till 8PM and the entrance fee is 5,000L.L / pers.

    For more information you can check the event on Facebook.

  • Awesome Trip Back in Time – Hadi Ramadan Retro Games and Consoles

    I was recently looking to buy the original Game Boy (the one from 1989) and my internet search led me to an awesome retro games collector in Beirut called Hadi Ramadan.

    I initially saw an ad by him for a used Game Boy on OLX so I contacted him and agreed to pass by his place to check it out, and judging by the other ads he was running on the platform I thought he was selling a few of his old stuff but boy I was wrong! When I reached the location he greeted me and showed me his apartment which has two rooms filled with all kind of consoles and games from the 80s and 90s! Nintendo NES, Super Nintendo, Family Computer, Atari, Sega Mega Drive, Sega Saturn, Game Gear, All kinds of Game Boy (original, color, advance, etc..) you just name it, a true heaven for retro gamers!

    Hadi turned out to be an avid collector who constantly look for old consoles up for sale around the world and gets them to Lebanon with the help of his relatives. He also of course tries to make some extra money by reselling them here but his full-time job keeps him from properly advertising the stuff he has or even just properly organizing them for a suitable display, however he told me he has a plan to soon organize everything once and for all. But for the time being, if you visit his place prepare yourself to dig into several boxes to go through the available devices and game cartridges.

     

    What I first thought would be a 10 minutes visit led into me staying over an hour with him going through the old consoles and he even showed me his own private collection. That guy has probably the coolest bedroom by the way with old games and gadgets all over the walls.

    Now you probably are wondering about the prices and all I have to say is that he’s quite fair with his pricing. For example he’s selling the original Game Boy for around $50-60 (depending on its condition) which does not vary much from the prices you find abroad on eBay by the way. On the other hand cartridges sell for ~$10 but the price varies depending on the game rarity and whether it’s authentic or not. I personally got the Game Boy I wanted with 4 cartridges for a good price.

    If retro gaming is your thing or if you just want to buy back a piece of your childhood then I highly recommend you get in touch with Hadi on 71-727302 and arrange for an appointment since he’s not always available. I embedded below a map showing his place which is located very close to the old airport road, but you can definitely call him for accurate directions.

    He’s also planning to organize retro gaming exhibitions in the coming few months so you might want to follow him on Facebook and Isntagram to keep up with his news.

  • Beirut-Montreal Direct Flights Might Soon Become a Reality

    According to a recent article, Air Canada seems to be currently focused on making direct flights possible between Montreal and Beirut.

    “We started the regulatory process in 2003,” Rovinescu said. However, geopolitical events intervened, and the carrier itself did not have the right equipment to make the route viable. “We are now at the stage where it looks like we can put the pin in it,” he said.

    Part of the challenge of operating the route is ensuring right-level security screenings in Beirut, Rovinescu added. Air Canada is working with its Star Alliance partner Lufthansa, which operates in Beirut, to learn how to address these concerns. Source

    With more than 200,000 Lebanese now residing in Canada (as per Wikipedia), such direct route is much needed to help them avoid the tiresome layovers in the European or Gulf cities. And attributing the ban on Beirut Airport to security issues is in my opinion invalid since many airlines operate direct flights to European airports that have some pretty high security standards.

    Back in 2012 there was some talks about bringing back direct flights between Lebanon and the United States but it never led to something serious, so let’s hope the efforts Air Canada is currently putting to make Beirut-Montreal route possible do not end the same way.

  • Old Footage From The Opening of The Beirut-Tripoli Railway in 1942

    I’m pretty sure we will never witness something similar to this during our lifetime.

    This video I just found on YouTube shows old footage from the opening of the Beirut-Tripoli railway line on December 20th 1942 which was at that time the last link in the Cairo-London line, and you can see the Lebanese president back then Alfred Naccache present at the event (at the 1m56s mark).

    This railway was by the way also connected at that time to Haifa in Palestine, but following the Israeli occupation in 1948 and civil war that erupted in Lebanon in 1975, it almost all disappeared except for a small portion that is currently still operational nowadays between Nahariya and Haifa in northern Occupied Palestine. (Source)

    As you watch the video you can easily identify Naher El Kaleb at the beginning and probably Jbeil at the 1m10s mark, but it gets difficult (at least for me) to identify the areas that later show.

  • For The Love of Elevators

    We always encounter strange stuff on the internet and this YouYube channel I stumbled upon today is one of the weirdest I’ve seen so far. “Batatavator” is a channel full of videos shot just inside elevators around Beirut.

    From old to new, slow or high speed elevators, the YouTuber behind Batatavator likes all kinds of them.

    If elevatorphilia is a thing then this guy is most probably an elevatorphile.

  • Review – Munchease Khaldeh

    On the highway from Beirut to Saida there probably not a single restaurant or sandwich joint worth seeking for good food except for this burger place called Munchease.

    Until last summer I never thoigh of checking it out even though a couple of friends kept talking about how good it is, but it wasn’t until they once dragged there me that I knew what I was missing!

    I know there are several good burger places in Beirut but Munchease is probably the most underrated one among them. Passing on the highway you can’t miss it after COOP as it stands out with the wooden design and cool ambiance.

    The menu is straight forward and is divided into 4 sections, starters, subs, burgers, and hot dogs. By now I can claim I tried almost everything they have and was never left disappointed except for when it gets too crowded inside (especially on weekends) even though the friendly waiters try their best to cope with everybody.

    The portions are in general quite generous, and you can sometimes get enough with appetizers alone whenever you do not intend to go on an eating spree! My personal favorites are the mozzarella sticks, onion rings and chicken wings, and although they’re all fried items but they always served crispy and taste “clean” (or non-oily). I highly recommend you try the chicken wings by the way because they’re as good if not better than those served at popular american diners in town.

    On to the burgers. They’re good, trust me, and I won’t go on to describe the bun and the patty because they’re just good! However, one thing you have to know about the people at Munchease is that they like their items to be overloaded with sauces and cheese. So the burgers they serve will always be messy (good luck avoiding to drip) and quite heavy with all the cheese inside. I personally always feel full with their decadent combo meals and never managed to finish the fries at the end.

    For starters, I recommend you go with my all time favorite “Munchease Special” since it has the least amount of cheese, and make sure to try their different dips since they all taste good especially the honey mustard.

    Price wise, value for money is quite fair compared to other places, a fulfilling meal for two with drinks will set you back around $20-25 which is far less that what you’d pay at other popular diners or burger joints.

    Long story short, Munchease is worth the 10 minutes drive from Beirut to change from the usual places you’re used to, and with the summer season ahead, it’s also one of the ideal places to hit on your way back from the southern beach resorts.