Tag Archives | Beirut

#Undress522 – An Exhibition by Mireille Honein and ABAAD

By Rami on April 23, 2017 in Law

Activists supported by ABAAD succeeded back in December to make the parliament agree on a draft law to abolish the controversial penal code article 522 that allow rapists to escape jail time by marrying their victims, and in an attempt to push the parliament to fully approve this law the cooperated with artist Mireille Honein to exhibit 31 paper dresses swaying between the palm trees in Ain El Mraysseh yesterday as a symbol of how unjust is the article 522 to rape victims.

The exhibition was designed in Paris by Honein who brought it to Beirut to support the NGO with the pressure it is exercising to have the legislation abolished.

People who passed by the exhibition were also invited to sign a petition demanding the parliament to prioritize the abolishing of the article, which we all hope to finally seeing it happening during the next legislative session on May 15.

Photo via AFP/Patrick Baz

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!

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.

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.

Lebanese Hairdresser Uses Nutella to Color Women’s Hair

By Rami on April 4, 2017 in Creative, Food

I just stumbled upon this Instagram account by a Lebanese hairdresser named Abedallah Itani who uses Nutella, conensed milk, and cotton candy among other products to color women’s hair!

The idea sounds crazy indeed but judging from the videos he posts it seems that it somehow works! I’m not sure though how long does the resultant color last or how bad does the hair smells afterwards… I mean I enjoy the smell of Nutella but I doubt anybody would want to have it on them all day long!

Coloring using Nutella

A post shared by Abed🇱🇧 (@abedallahitani) on Dec 13, 2016 at 9:46am PST

…using cotton candy

A post shared by Abed🇱🇧 (@abedallahitani) on Dec 26, 2016 at 9:11am PST

… and even caramel!

A post shared by Abed🇱🇧 (@abedallahitani) on Jan 31, 2017 at 5:06am PST

Don’t Miss La Nuit des Musées This Friday April 7th

By Rami on April 3, 2017 in Events

La Nuit des Musées is a cultural event in which many of the country’s museums open till a late hour at night free of charge for everyone. The Ministry of Culture has been organizing this event for three years now and its 4th edition is taking place this Friay April 7th.

Last year’s “Nuit des Musées” was quite a success that some museums had massive traffic congestion around them, so if you’re willing to do some museum hopping this Friday then I highly recommend you arrange your transportation ahead of time an avoid using your own car to save the time you will be spending trying to find a parking space.

Here’s the list of the participating museums:

MUSÉE NATIONAL DE BEYROUTH
de 17h00 à 23h00
“Mathaf”, rue de Damas

MIM, MUSÉE DES MINÉRAUX
de 17h00 à 23h00
Campus de l’innovation et du sport, Université Saint-Joseph

MUSÉE DE PRÉHISTOIRE LIBANAISE DE L’UNIVERSITÉ SAINT-JOSEPH
de 17h00 à 23h00
Rue de l’Université Saint-Joseph, quartier Monnot

VILLA AUDI
de 17h00 à 23h00
Rue St Nicolas, Achrafieh

MUSÉE NICOLAS IBRAHIM SURSOCK
de 18h00 à 00h00
Rue St Nicolas, Achrafieh

MUSÉE ARCHÉOLOGIQUE DE L’AUB
de 17h00 à 22h00
Université américaine de Beyrouth, Ras Beyrouth

MUSÉE DE LA BANQUE DU LIBAN
de 17h00 à 23h00
Locaux de la Banque du Liban, Sanayeh

MUSÉE DU SAVON
de 17h00 à 23h00
Rue Moutran, Saida

PALAIS DEBANNÉ
de 17h00 à 23h00
Rue Moutran, Saida

MUSÉE DU CATHOLICOSSAT DE CILICIE
de 17h00 à 23h00
Antélias

MUSÉE DES ORPHÉLINS DU GÉNOCIDE ARMÉMIEN “ARAM BEZIKIAN”
de 17h00 à 23h00
Jbeil

MACAM – MODERN AND CONTEMPORARY ART MUSEUM
de 17h00 à 22h00
Alita, Jbeil

MUSÉE ETHNOGRAPHIQUE DE L’UNIVERSITÉ DE BALAMAND
de 17h00 à 22h00
Koura

Photo via sobeirut.com

Price of Nintendo Switch in Lebanon

By Rami on March 19, 2017 in Gaming

The Nintendo Switch was released worldwide on Match 3rd 2017, and I got excited to buy one after reading several positive reviews about it with the nicest feature about the console being its portability. I already have a PS4 and my kid sometimes randomly interrupt me to watch his favorite animated series, so instead of stopping my session, with the Switch I could simply just move to playing using the built-in screen. (In case you’re wondering, yes you can be a gamer and a responsible parent at the same time)

Anyway, I asked around yesterday and found that Nino Store in Beirut is selling it along with 2 games for $650 while JouéClub is offering the console alone for $526 while games are starting $75. On the other hand, the official price of the Nintendo Switch in the U.S. is $300 and you can have it shipped to Lebanon with DHL probably for ~$150-200. So if you’re keen on getting one, I recommend you wait a little bit as I believe prices should dramatically drop over the next weeks especially at Nino.

Photo via forbes.com

Society Bistro – French Cuisine at Extremely Affordable Prices

By Rami on March 15, 2017 in Reviews

Society Bistro at Saifi Suites Hotel is a french restaurant that has been in business for several years but became a serious hot spot almost one year ago after dramatically reducing its menu prices. My friends kept trying to drag me there since last summer but I only managed to go for the first time two months ago and totally regretted not doing so earlier!

To begin with, the restaurant’s interior is pretty cool, the non-smoking section has a ceiling made of blown glass grapes while the smoking area is decorated with backlit cymbals. And to reserve a table you sometimes should place your booking weeks ahead especially if it’s on weekend since it’s always full. However, if you have no problem waiting then you can simply show up with no reservation at 9:30 or 10:00PM and wait a bit before you get seated.

The first thing that will strike when you go over Society’s menu is how low are the prices are compared to other places of the same level. We’re talking about $6-$10 salads, $10-$21 mains, and $4 desserts, and don’t let these prices fool you into thinking Society compromises portion size or quality, on the contrary their portions are pretty generous and I personally loved all the items I’ve tried so far with my favorite being the Black Angus Tenderloin.

I honestly suck at describing flavors so I won’t act all foodie on you and just leave you with these appetizing photos all courtesy of @vistasbyrony.

Bottom line, while it’s becoming normal for restaurants to charge $20 for a burger nowadays, Society Bistro is quite a gem! With a friendly staff and cool ambiance I highly recommend you go check it out if you haven’t done so already.

You Now Need A Special Permit To Fly Your Drone in Lebanon

By Rami on March 9, 2017 in Law

The Lebanese Army announced two days ago that from now on drone owners in Lebanon need to apply for a licence from the Air Force, and they have three months to comply with this requirements. Moreover, a special permit will be needed from the Army Guidance Office each time they want to fly these drones especially around military bases.

I’m not sure how serious is the army going to be about applying this new regulation since they issues a similar memo two years ago but few people seem to have complied with it.

Other countries such as UAE and Kuwait have implemented similar regulation and I believe it’s about time to regulate drone usage in Lebanon, not necessarily everywhere but at least around sensitive locations such as Beirut Airport since it is very close to residential areas and any drone there can disrupt the air traffic just like what happened in Dubai last October.

BBC Pop UP Published Their First Video From Lebanon

By Rami on February 22, 2017 in Journalism, Sex, Videos

Remember when I told you that the BBC Pop Up team are in Lebanon for this month? Well, they published their first video and it’s about homosexuals in the country.

Over the last few years, some judges issued rulings in favor of gay people due to the fact that you simply cannot define what sexual acts really contradict “the laws of nature”, so the report discusses if this is going to offer a better future for the LGBT community in Lebanon.

P.S: The video contains some sexual content.

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