Eid El-Adha is the time for Muslims to recall prophet Abraham’s obedience to god in his willingness to sacrifice his own son Ismail, before god intervened and gave him a ram to sacrifice instead. And so the act of sacrificing an animal later became a ritual for Muslims.
That’s when it becomes normal to see sheep stored at very unusual places in Beirut, like rooftops for example.
… and when it also becomes very normal to see butchers slaughtering sheep in the streets.
I took all of the below 4 photos at the Beirut Mall parking, and I really have not made any effort searching for these douchebags. I just parked my car and went straight to the elevator, so these were just the ones I encountered on my way!
First thing that came to my mind was this post from Body Wotwat! Seriously, بي يلي عطاكن دفتر سواقة @#$%
… and here’s a bonus photo I took earlier at ABC Achrafiyeh.
I just took these two photos from my workplace for what looks like a huge fire in the area of Dekweneh or Sin El Fil. I’ve checked news sites and so far no one mentioned anything… I hope it’s nothing serious.
Update:
A tweep (@jackoppy81) just mentioned it’s a fire at a plastic factory near Bassoul-Hneine, and the civil defense are working on putting it down.
A photography house called “Dar Al Mousawwer” has recently opened in a two story building in Clemenceau (Beirut as an initiative by an NGO called Zakira.
The first floor of the house is an under construction coffee shop, while the second has several rooms for workshops, studio, gallery space, development room.
As per the people behind it, the place has been made for people to rents cameras (and there are hundreds of them) and photography equipments, in addition to studio space and development rooms.
Definitely worth a visit if you’re into photography!
I would like to thank Ayman Itani from OnOffBeirut for providing all the details and photos about this photography house.
Last night marked the start of Hamra festival lasting till Sunday featuring a lot of live performances across three stages near Vero Moda, Jack & Jones, and Starbucks.
The festival started on Friday at 5:45PM with a street parade that lasted till 7:30PM, but unfortunately I couldn’t manage to get there before 9:30PM which explains why I only got back with a couple of snapshots! You may check Sietske’s and Rawad’s blog posts who were there and took cool photos of the event.
What was remarkable though during the walk I took is the number of people who got furious at the street blocks, so a lot of them took the liberty to just move them away and invaded the festival premises with their cars. The photo below shows one of them, a taxi driver.
The program for today and tomorrow is loaded with live acts starting 5PM till midnight, so make sure to be there!
Tripoli is one of the cities that I personally can never get bored of. I was there last Sunday and about to come back to Beirut at around 3:00PM when I decided to waste some additional time at any random souk since there was still plenty of time till Iftar.
And so I went to Al Tall souk (the same one I previously visited) to see how does it look like now in Ramadan. Needless to say, I was encountering sweets and juice vendors everywhere in the small souk, in addition to huge stocks of vegetables in the small stores since everyone gets crazy about buying them in Ramadan, and of course the place was much crowded than last time.
The guy in the left image is selling Kharroub, a sour juice that I disliked a LOT! While on the right image the guy is selling Moghrabiyyeh platters for 3,000 L.L only!
My next stop was at Abdel Sattar Al Tom sweets in Al Zahriyyeh.
Maamoul bi ashta, Kneifeh bi ashta, and Mafroukeh! *Yummy*
Across the street from Al Tom, there’s anther shop that sells almost all kind of kaak and bread. My favorite is the kaak that can be grilled with cheese stuffed inside (it’s called Alleeta there) which can be the best souhour in Ramadan!
I might be going to Tripoli again next week and probably the week after, what other places do you recommend that I go visit?
This is what happens when you do second and third row parking, you come to find your car in the middle of the road at the end of the day and sometimes disturbing the traffic flow.
Needless to say, some drivers are simply assholes and enjoy throwing their car anywhere. On the other hand, the number of cars in Beirut is way beyond the parking lots capacity in the city.
I got the photos below from the launching of the not-so-new dining concept that was lately introduced to the snobbish people of Lebanon, a dinner in the sky.
This dining experience consists of a 22 guests table that goes up to 50 meters in the air (with the aid of a crane of course) along with three staff members, the waiter, the chef and an entertainer, to enjoy a magnificent view of the city while having your dinner. I’m not sure though if the adrenaline rush will allow you to identify how does the food really taste…
The launch of “Dinner in the Sky” took place at BIEL on June 11, and was attended by media personalities, celebrities and VIP’s (you know those who have 4-digit car plate numbers). It was held by ALF Events and the food was catered by La Table d’Alfred.
In case you’re interested, you can reserve the whole table for 8 hours at… $15,000 ONLY! So that’s $727.27 per person, ya baleish! Still, their website claims that you can divide the 8 hours according to your taste, so the more people you can get to share the 8 hours with you, at the rate of 22 person per session, the less the cost per person will be.
A friend of mine introduced me to Footprints nature club back in March and convinced me to go on my first hiking experience with them to cross the hills from Rachaya Al Wadi to Ain Ata.
It took us around 4 hours to finish the 11 Km hike. The hardest parts of it was whenever we had to go down hills, it might seems weird but during a hike you put more energy when going downhill than going up.
I’ll leave you with some of the photos I took, the mountain showing in the panoramic photo is Jabal Al Cheikh which is known for having snow covering its peaks for most of the year.
Starting from the souk of Rachaya Al Wadi
Jabal Al Cheikh
4 hours later, arriving to Ain Ata
I think Mashrou3 Leila is the only underground band to make it that big by performing at Byblos International Festival!
Lynn Bizri was generous enough to share with me some photos she took when she attended their concert on July 9th.
