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Beirut Just Got Its First Bike Lane

By Rami on April 23, 2017 in Beirut, Traffic

In a public post on Facebook, Jawad Sbeity the owner of Beirut by Bike shared some photos from Waygand street showing the setup of the first bike lane in Beirut.

It wasn’t clear where exactly does the lane start and where does it end, nor the streets that will cover or when will it be finalized, nevertheless it’s definitely some good to those who take their bikes around the downtown.

However, the only and most important concern remains whether driver will acknowledge this bike lane or not. Waygand street gets quite busy during the day with some shops there have valet parking service and most of the time you find cars parked on the right lane which narrows the road… so whether you like it or not drivers will have no option but to drive over that bike lane especially during rush hour. Still, neither Sbeity nor the municipality can be blamed for that, but rather the lack of urban planning that should have provisioned wider streets around Beirut.

Anyway, let’s see how long will this lane live on!

Five Tourists Lip Synced Ed Sheeran’s Shape of You While Touring Lebanon

By Rami on April 21, 2017 in Music, Travel, Videos

I just bumped into this video on YouTube showing five tourists who documented their journey around Lebanon in an unusual way. They compiled several segments of themselves lip syncing and dancing to the tunes of Ed Sheeran’s Shape of You.

The best thing about the video is that it was shot using a smartphone with no pretentious acting or moves all while showing some nice places around the country, so not much energy was put into it but the resulting video was still pretty cool to watch.

Among the places that show are Raouche, Jbeil, Batroun, Saida Castle, Saida Old Souk, Harissa, and Baalbeck. I believe if this goes viral then it can easily become one of the best promotional videos for Lebanon!

Bouza 3a Kousa and Other Weird Flavors at Fadi Fruits

By Rami on April 21, 2017 in Food

Fadi is a quite popular fruit and vegetable store in Jnah that has been recently making rounds around social networks for the zucchini-flavored ice cream. The thing eventually went viral simply because “bouza 3a kousa” has been always regarded among the least appetizing things to try.

And it seems like he’s intending to continue with these weird flavors! Over the last few days he posted about spicy chocolate ice cream, and just today he added a new beetroot flavor!

Aside from ice cream, Fadi is well known by the way for the high quality vegetables (at a relatively high price) and the seasonal products that you can’t easily find in other stores.

Lebanese Alex Demirdjian is Competing in a 3 Hours Endurance Race at Monza

By Rami on April 21, 2017 in Racing, Sports

As part of the Blancpain GT Series Endurance Cup, Lebanese driver Alex Demirdjian (also CEO of Demco Steel) along with two other team mates is competing this weekend April 22nd and 23rd in the second round of the series, the TM Performance 3 Hours of Monza, which is an endurance race that will be held at Monza circuit in Italy.

A total of 53 teams will be participating and Alex will be competing aboard a Ferrari 488 GT3 with the “Lebanon is calling” slogan all over it.

A friend will be attending the event and promised to try to send me some photos and I will definitely be sharing them here if she did. In all cases, let’s all cross our fingers for Alex!

Samsung Galaxy S8 and S8+ Already Available at Amhaz

By Rami on April 19, 2017 in Technology

The new Galaxy S8 and S8+ are set to be released on April 21st in the U.S. and on April 28th around the rest of the world. However, Amhaz is as usual a step ahead of the official resellers in Lebanon and is currently offering the two phones at City Centre and Bir El Abed for a ridiculous $950 and $1150. Still, as in the case with any new smartphone the prices should decrease by the day.

On the other hand, the official prices for the S8 and S8+ are set by Samsung Lebanon to $799 and $899 respectively, and you can pre-order your device while benefiting from free bundles by placing an order on their website.

I personally briefly passed by Samsung’s Dbayeh showroom today and found the S8 to be absolutely gorgeous, and I’m now having a hard time resisting the urge to get one even though my current S7 is still running perfectly. Disregarding all the phone features and specs, the infinity display alone is guaranteed to make you fall if in love with the S8.

Price wise, I expect Amhaz and other stores to soon start selling at a price lower than Samsung’s once the S8 is officially released, but after the issue I enountered with my old S7 Edge, if I’m buying the S8 then I will certainly get it from an authorized retailer because the official warranty is definitely worth it.

Things to Do This Week in Lebanon – April 19th 2017

By Rami on April 19, 2017 in Events

Here are my picks from Lebtivity for this week. The Heartbeat annual fundraiser concert is taking place this week and you can of course support them by attending their event.

Make sure to check Lebtivity.com for much more options.

OGERO #UnleashTheSpeed – Test Results in Achrafieh

By Rami on April 13, 2017 in Telecom

Today marked the third day in Ogero’s “Unleash the speed” tests for subscribers in Beirut, and among the exchange offices that were included today is the Achrafieh exchange office, so I passed by one of my friends there in the area to test the “unleashed” bandwidth myself!

I eventually used speedtest.net and picked a server in Lyon that I usually use to test my home connection. I performed numerous tests and was impressed by the download speed which was consistent at ~6.5Mbps (3 times the subscription original speed), however the ping latency varied from 90 milliseconds as shown above up to 300 milliseconds, it’s worth noting though that ping to local servers at Cyberia and Connect was consistently less than 50 milliseconds.

Assuming the subscription fees will remain unchanged or hopefully decrease, the speed upgrades are much welcome but the latency thing should definitely be reduced to provide a better experience for online gamers. Aside from that, the ultimate challenge for Ogero will of course be to cope with the increasing demand on bandwidth once they remove the speed caps for all subscribers. People are currently barely getting the speeds they are subscribed to, so increasing line speeds without having the necessary bandwidth to cater for the users is going to be pretty disappointing.

Anyway, I don’t want to be pessimistic about the upgrade plan, but let’s just keep our fingers crossed until it is all done.

Casino Du Liban Documentary by George Ghanem

By Rami on April 12, 2017 in Documentaries

We’re definitely lucky to have somebody like George Ghanem producing documentaries about the recent history of Lebanon for our generation. He has so far produced and contributed in several good documentaries about Lebanon and remarkable Lebanese politicians such as Koullouna Lil Watan, Zaman Rafic Al Hariri, Lady of the Palace and others.

His most recent work deals with Casino Du Liban and it aired last weekend on MTV in two episodes. Just like Ghanem’s previous documentaries this one was also quite enjoyable as it introduced us to how the casino was established and quickly became a point of attraction until the Lebanese civil war intensified which eventually led to closing it down in 1989 and then reopening it later in 1996. The documentary also of cited the challenges that faced every appointed general manager due to political interference.

I highly recommend you check it out if you missed it on TV. The two episodes are available on MTV Lebanon website in HD.

Part 1
Part 2

Things to Do This Week in Lebanon – April 12th 2017

By Rami on April 12, 2017 in Events

Here are my picks from Lebtivity for this week. I’ve been hearing some positive review about the play “Kif Ken El 3acha” so I guess it’s worth watching if you’re into the theater plays.

Make sure to check Lebtivity.com for much more options.

Smurfs: The Lost Village (Arabic)

By Rami on April 11, 2017 in Reviews

If you grew up during the 80s in Lebanon then you definitely remember watching The Smurfs in Arabic! I personally used to to enjoy them as a kid with Joseph Nano, Samira Baroudi and other Lebanese actors voicing the smurfs and Gargamel.

Smurfs: The Lost Village was released on March 30 in Lebanon and is currently showing in two languages, English and Arabic. I opted to watch it in Arabic to see how does it compare to the old episodes we used to watch, and because a new character (Smurf Willow) is voiced by Lebanese Raya Abirached whom I admire so much.

Despite the fact that voice actors have eventually changed, I totally loved The Lost Village an felt it was true to the Smurf spirit. I also had my 4-year-old kid with me, and judging by his impressions once the movie was over it is fair to say he had a blast watching it. The movie follows Smurfette and three of her smurf friends as they venture away from their village to discover a new colony of smurfs, with of course Gargamel trying to capture them at every possible chance.

It goes without saying that Smurfs: The Lost Village is more suitable for the younger audience, so if you have kids this is currently the best movie to pick among the ones showing. And needless to say, watching it in Arabic is guaranteed to bring you some childhood flashbacks!

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