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Saida’s Palaces

By on April 24, 2008 in Lebanon

Although it is the third largest city in Lebanon, but I’ve never went to Saida and made a tour in the city until a few weeks ago. It might not be the best place in Lebanon but WOW, I was impressed!

Call me an ignorant, but I really didn’t even know there was a gorgeous old city there with people living in it! The streets are so tight and cozy, at some places they’re barely 2 meters wide.

http://plus961.com/wp-content/uploads/2008/04/OldSouk_small.jpg
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I was also surprised to know that the Audi family (yes those of Bank Audi) were involved in manufacturing soap bars in the old city of Saida, and they have actually established a soap museum in what used to be their soap factory.

http://plus961.com/wp-content/uploads/2008/04/SoapMuseum_small.jpg
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The museum is maintained by “Fondation Audi“. If you get to visit it, you will be able to also the Audi’s palace since the museum is located on the ground floor of it, and they’re both open to the public.

Oh and not only the Audi’s are famous there, but also the Debbane family! They have a great palace in Saida, which is nearly 300 years old, and it is also open to the public. Check its entrance in the photo below.

http://plus961.com/wp-content/uploads/2008/04/DebbanePalace_small.jpg
Click to enlarge

It’s awesome from the inside but unfortunately I was not able to take good photos there. However, you can always refer to the Debbane Foundation’s website and preview the available photos there, although I believe they do NO justice to the palace.

I do recommend that you visit Saida in case you still have not done it yet, and make sure to go through the old souk. But, if you’re looking for luxurious places to have lunch and stuff, then Saida is SO NOT for you.

http://plus961.com/wp-content/uploads/2008/04/Street_small.jpg
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Traffic lights

By on April 22, 2008 in What the fuck!

Traffic Light

Woohoo! Lebanon is getting into the traffic lights era!!

You’re probably aware (or not) of the new traffic lights at some areas in Beirut, they’ve been installed even at places where you least expect traffic congestions to occur, that’s what I have noticed at some intersection in Sad El Bouchrieh.

But you can still observe policemen at a lot of intersections giving their instructions to car drivers, that’s a bit weird given that those traffic lights are functioning well. However, the policemen presence is kind of justified (to me at least) since people here are NOT used to stop for a red light and maybe it’s the policemen job right now to force people to obey the traffic lights!

So far I can tell they’re not doing a good job…
I was in a Taxi today going from Jdeideh to Sodeco, passing through Sad El Bouchrieh. The driver arrived to an intersection and the light was red, but he surprisingly crossed it and started cursing at people coming from other directions! Ok, I’m not writing about this to tell that I was shocked, because I actually wasn’t, since that’s quite a normal behavior from a typical lebanese driver. But come on, with a large campaign on TV telling people to STOP on RED, such behavior becomes quite disturbing.

To me, traffic lights are a waste of money. Policemen and their yelling in the streets are way more effective and efficient.

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Back from my trip to Mars!

By on April 20, 2008 in Blog news

Shame on me for not posting for almost 1 month now… When I registered this domain a while ago, I though I will updating it on a regular basis. Unfortunately I was wrong! (And I hate being wrong)

So what has been keeping me busy?

  1. Posting at my other blog, Zero Hour Sleep, a tech blog loaded with lot of tips and tricks to maximize your use of computers and internet.
  2. I built a video site that is FULL of Lebanese videos. Check it on videos.plus961.com. I agree it doesn’t have the best theme out there, but it does have good content, and I will be adding more categories to it very soon.
  3. In addition to the .com domain, I also have plus961.net registered to me as well. It currently leads you to this blog, but will soon be hosting a directory for Lebanese blogs (still working on it).
    If you author a blog on Lebanon, you can submit it to “rami [at] plus961 [dot] com”.
  4. Reading F*ck Lebanon. The guy there writes several times a day, and I can’t help but read his posts! It’s kinda addictive.
  5. Taking photos like this one (click to enlarge). That was taken from Harissa.
    http://www.plus961.com/wp-content/uploads/2008/04/Jounieh_small.jpg
  6. Work..
  7. MBA..
  8. Shall I keep going???

Despite not posting, I was still noticing some people checking on my RSS feed from time to time! Whoever you are, thanks for showing your interest! Anyway stay tuned, it won’t take another month till you see another post here! 😉

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Firing an RPG and Carlos Edde being funny

By on March 16, 2008 in What the fuck!

Have you seen the video below before? It features a guy launching an RPG in the air during the latest speeches of either Nabih Berri or Hassan Nasrallah.

Blacksmith Jade is calling to arrest the guy. I know it will never happen so I will just go with asking that guys a small question:مبسوط بحالك؟. Although I doubt he will ever check on my blog…

On the other hand, Carlos Edde, the National Lebanese Bloc leader, warned his followers from firing their guns while he was in an interview on LBC TV.
You can listen to what he said by downloading this mp3 file. I honestly found this new hilarious, the National Lebanese Block is most probably made up of Carlos Edde himself only!
To Carlos Edde I say: مصدق حالك؟
I don’t know the probality of Carlos Edde checking on my blog.

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Copying me already?

By on March 16, 2008 in Blog news

Arghhh my blog is not yet popular and I have already came across a website with a similar name.

Today I received a spam email that landed right into my junk folder (thanks to Gmail), promoting a new Lebanese gifts website called 961gifts.com i.e. Lebanon gifts. Ok they’re not really copying me actually but they did copy the name, no?

I did a whois query to see when was it registered, and I got the following result:

Registered through: GoDaddy.com, Inc. (http://www.godaddy.com)
Domain Name: 961GIFTS.COM
Created on: 19-Feb-08
Expires on: 19-Feb-10
Last Updated on: 23-Feb-08

Ok mine was registered on December 2007! 😉

By the way, if you’re looking for an online gifts store to get your mother a gift on Mother’s day, I recommend Zoohoor.com. I work in a sister company to them and the guys are pretty nice and friendly there.

Oh and talking about popularity, I see people are constantly checking on my blog through the RSS feed. Whoever you are I’m glad you’re interested in my content! I’ll try to post more often.

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Half a million is gone!

By on March 13, 2008 in Lebanon

I was informed today that the population in Lebanon has decreased to 3.5 million this year knowing that we were around 4 million according to the statistics done in 1998.

So that’s a half of a million decrease within 10 years! However, you will not find that number huge if you take into consideration the following facts:

  1. $44 Billion in debt
  2. We have no president, and we don’t give a damn about it
  3. Geagea is out of prison
  4. Nasrallah declared a worldwide war
  5. Aoun is back from Paris
  6. Wiam Wahhab wants to fire rockets at Walid Jounblat’s bedroom
  7. Naser Qandeel is back on TV
  8. It takes a lifetime for Saad Hariri to make a speech

And the list goes on…

By the way, according to Wikipedia,Lebanon’s population is exactly 4,196,453 right now, and it might have increased by 1 or 2 while I am writing this post. I never knew somebody has done such an accurate study about us before!!

Oh and talking about wikipedia, check this out if you want to get some “real” data about Lebanon.

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Beirut on fire!

By on February 29, 2008 in Lebanon

Beirut was still was on fire tonight because Nabih Berri was set to appear on TV, knowing that he asked his followers 2 days ago NOT to fire weapons during his interview.

One of my friends told me that 7 RPGs have been fired in the air up till now (1 hour and a half after starting the interview) and people heard their massive sound everywhere in Beirut, I just wonder what could have they done if he asked them to use their guns…

The Internal Security Forces were of course watching for anything unusual in the streets 😉

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Internal Security Forces are having good time!

By on February 22, 2008 in Photography

I got this photo by e-mail today showing a couple of guys from the internal security forces. I believe this was taken somewhere near the Annahar building in downtown.

Lebanese Internal Security forces

No wonder the criminials are getting away after each explosion!

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