Check out this video shot inside a 1,400m2 two floor penthouse apartment in Sama Beirut that is reportedly selling for a whooping $27,000,000.
Needless to say it is massively big and sports an amazing 360 degree view of Beirut, with a pond on the 1st floor and a pool on the second. Watch the video and eat your heart out! š
via reddit
Today’s giveaway is provided by Chili’s Achrafieh. This place is dear to my heart for two reasons, first because my friends and I had awesome gatherings during our teenage years there, and second because I also go there during major sports events to root for my favorite teams.
Like a typical American diner, Chili’s is known for serving dishes with huge portions and that’s why you can best enjoy the place if you go in group and share several platters.
My personal favorite item on their menu has to be the sizzling fajita which I consider as one of the best in town. Every time I crave its juiciness and unique seasoning I usually go there and share it with my wife along with a salad, and the combination never disappoints… Add to that a Cherry Coke and the whole thing is guaranteed to make your day!
Anyway, on to the giveaway! The people at Chili’s are offering 2 vouchers worth $50 each, and as usual all you have to do is go to +961’s page on Facebook and interact with this giveaway’s. Two lucky winners will be chosen tomorrow morning and I will contact them for more details on how to claim their vouchers.
Check out this cool shoebox apartment up in Achrafieh up for rent on Airbnb that recently made it to dezeen.com. While 15 sqm are barely enough space to cater for a bedroom or a living room in some modern apartments nowadays, Lebanese architect and designer Elie Metni squeezed everything a person could need into a mini apartment of the same size.
To make it feel relatively spacious, the apartment was all painted white and fitted with custom made space saving furniture including a queen size bed and folding tables to keep the 2 meters wide room as neat as possible the whole time. A kitchenette and a bathroom are also available and separated by a glass door, in addition to an outdoor roof terrace overlooking Beirut.
Practically speaking, the apartment can sleep 2 people but accommodate around 5. You can read all about it on dezeen and if interested rent it through Airbnb.
You’re so lucky if you live in Achrafieh or Hamra because Ogero announced two days ago that they started offering fiber connections there, and you can apply to the service by sending an email to thepeople@ogero.gov.lb.
I don’t imagine the procedure to be very straight forward because it certainly involves changing the wiring and Ogero didn’t provide any further explanation about that yet.
Anyway, while this is a big step forward for the residents in these two areas, you can’t but think about the big gap being created among the users of the same phone network, and you can clearly see it in the comments on Ogero’s page. Some can’t benefit from more than 1 or 2Mb connections and others can’t even have DSL installed at their premises, while others on the other hand are benefiting from open speed plans and now fiber connections…
And let’s not forget also the problems that need miracles to be fixed such as mine which has been trailing with IDM and Ogero for more than 5 months now. At some point I’m starting to think it will only be solved once I move to Beirut!
The solution for all of this is certainly an infrastructure overhaul, but given how slow our governments tend to be with fulfilling promises, I really hope we get to see this during our lifetime.
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 testsĀ 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.
Earlier last week, a friend told me that the organizers of BIAF (Beirut International Awards Festival) are planning to lay down the world’s longest red carpet as part of their 2-day event. The red carpet is expected to start somewhere in Hamra, then goes towards Achrafieh and all the way through downtown to Zaytouna Bay where the ceremony is taking place.
At first I was mainly concerned about the traffic jam this red carpet will be causing on a weekday. But after spotting parts of it on my way to work this morning, I think the traffic jam is absolutely not a problem compared to how hideous it looks!
The thing doesn’t qualify as a red carpet. It’s barely a piece of red cloth, and it seems that some genius decided to lay it down last night and cars eventually ended up tearing it down.
The end result is needless to say, bahdaleh. I wish all the money that was put into this silly attempt to make it into the Guinness Book was allocated for something more meaningful, like helping Rozine get that liver transplant maybe!
According to an article on Now Lebanon and another on Beirut Report, it seems like the post I wrote back in March on the new highway in Achrafieh connecting Hazmieh to Charles Helou is true, since the project has already been given a green light and works might start in a month or so.
And ever since the news was spread, “Save Beirut Heritage” has been opposing the project as it requires destroying 28 old buildings. But how true is that?
I mean let’s assume each building has only 3 to 4 families living in it, then the government should currently be in the process of buying a minimum of 90 apartments in order to later destroy them and be able to go forward with the project. But 90 isn’t a small number, that’s 90 families who can easily coordinate a protest or at least appear on TV to oppose being evacuated from their apartments, which is not the case right now.
That means the number of buildings is either much lower than 28, and therefore a large chunk of the highway will be underground, or the government is offering a really large sum of money for the families and they’re simply happy with it.
And let’s be real for a moment, the highway might be seriously endangering Beirut’s heritage, but old buildings in the areas of Achrafieh and Mar Mkhayel are rapidly disappearing anyway to make way for high rise towers! So are we over-reacting a little bit here..?
Anyway, I personally don’t really see the need to connect Charles Helou with Hazmieh through a highway passing by Achrafieh, since there’s already another highway connecting Hazmieh to Karantina which is pretty close to Charles Helou!
Discover Mar Mikhael is an event organized by Achrafieh 2020 that turned the Mar Mikhael neighborhood into a car area yesterday in order to motivate people to discover itĀ either walking or by bike, and enjoy the cultural and artistic events that were taking place.
Below are some photos shared by Achrafieh 2020 showing how was the event like.
According to this article in The Daily Star today, there’s a new highway that is set to be constructed in the near future in Achrafieh linking Hazmieh to Charles Helou and passing by Mar Mkhayel. The project plan has been there since the 70’s but was delayed because some residential buildings have to be demolished, and the Council for Development and Reconstruction is now set to go forward with it starting this summer to help reduce the traffic in and out of Achrafieh.
Some activists however are opposing the project and trying to suggest some alternatives to avoid demolishing of old buildings and preserve the streets that might be affected by this highway. You can read more about it here.
This is definitely not an accurate drawing of the highway, but I’m trying to imagine how will it look like. I guess it will start somewehre in Alfred Naccache, passing by the small bridge in Charles Malek, and then straight to Charles Helou.
The accident happened a few days ago and fortunately only one employee was slightly injured.
Reminds me of the the guys who crashed into Wardieh pharmacy in Hamra 2 years ago.
via @KunHadi
