After our epic road trip through Lebanon (so epic that it took up TWO posts, but now that I come to think of it it was actually very leisurely just being driven all over the place), we took a break from the road-tripping and spent a relaxing day in Beirut.
After a leisurely breakfast, we went out and just walked and walked and walked a lot. Walked along the Corniche, walked along crumbly pavements and dodged unruly traffic, walked in and out of shops, including jewelry shops, christian music shops etc...and just walked everywhere. We went home to pick up J and baby E, and set off to the nearby AUB (American University of Beirut) to visit a stall at the University set up by Migrant Workers Task Force, a volunteer organisation that J regularly helps out with, at the University's "society's day" kind of thing.
For lunch we got veggie/hummus/whatever wraps and sat down looking at ambitions (and fashionable) students buzzing around a very pleasant AUB campus. When a rain cloud passed over we popped into the campus archaeological museum and nosed around inside.
When the rain stopped, we wandered out of campus and got coffee and more food at one of many hipster cafes in Hamra, watching people, playing with Ellinor, appreciating the interior decor, and just savouring vacation life in an exotic part of the world.
When father K arrived to pick up J and E, Jen and I decided to take another long walk to see the Raouche rocks again.
For dinner, we all squished into the bite-size family car, drove to Mar Mikhael, and had a lovely dinner at Seza, an Armenian restaurant. They had a tiny open kitchen, with only a few ladies working in there, but it was silent - no banging around of pots and pans, no clinging of utensils, no yelling, and no faffing about. And the food was delightfully satisfying.
Jen and I were eager to look for some live music within the thriving Beirut night life, (apparently?) one of the party capitals of the Middle East. We walked along the main road in Aschrafieh, checked out a few bars, but nothing with interesting live music. We finally came to a bar called The Angry Monkey - which was actually suggested by our hosts - and surely enough they had a 4 (or 5) piece all-dudes cover band belting out popular (yet not too teeny-bopper to drive us away) hits in the middle of a thriving bar packed with young rich hipster Lebanese. We drank, we talked, we listening to the (actually rather decent) sounds coming out of these American-accented musicians and their instruments, and tried to pursuade Jen to take the mic and guitar and jam up a tune (for she is, in fact, quite a talented musician herself).
We ended up chatting to some local Lebanese people who thought we looked "bored" (they so happen to catch us at a lull in our conversation/soaking up the atmosphere/thinking of songs for Jen to jam), nearly got coaxed into going to another club for some "more serious" partying, but instead headed home in a taxi where the driver took his daughter to work with him. A rather mellow Lebanese night out, I'd say?
After a leisurely breakfast, we went out and just walked and walked and walked a lot. Walked along the Corniche, walked along crumbly pavements and dodged unruly traffic, walked in and out of shops, including jewelry shops, christian music shops etc...and just walked everywhere. We went home to pick up J and baby E, and set off to the nearby AUB (American University of Beirut) to visit a stall at the University set up by Migrant Workers Task Force, a volunteer organisation that J regularly helps out with, at the University's "society's day" kind of thing.
For lunch we got veggie/hummus/whatever wraps and sat down looking at ambitions (and fashionable) students buzzing around a very pleasant AUB campus. When a rain cloud passed over we popped into the campus archaeological museum and nosed around inside.
When the rain stopped, we wandered out of campus and got coffee and more food at one of many hipster cafes in Hamra, watching people, playing with Ellinor, appreciating the interior decor, and just savouring vacation life in an exotic part of the world.
When father K arrived to pick up J and E, Jen and I decided to take another long walk to see the Raouche rocks again.
For dinner, we all squished into the bite-size family car, drove to Mar Mikhael, and had a lovely dinner at Seza, an Armenian restaurant. They had a tiny open kitchen, with only a few ladies working in there, but it was silent - no banging around of pots and pans, no clinging of utensils, no yelling, and no faffing about. And the food was delightfully satisfying.
Jen and I were eager to look for some live music within the thriving Beirut night life, (apparently?) one of the party capitals of the Middle East. We walked along the main road in Aschrafieh, checked out a few bars, but nothing with interesting live music. We finally came to a bar called The Angry Monkey - which was actually suggested by our hosts - and surely enough they had a 4 (or 5) piece all-dudes cover band belting out popular (yet not too teeny-bopper to drive us away) hits in the middle of a thriving bar packed with young rich hipster Lebanese. We drank, we talked, we listening to the (actually rather decent) sounds coming out of these American-accented musicians and their instruments, and tried to pursuade Jen to take the mic and guitar and jam up a tune (for she is, in fact, quite a talented musician herself).
We ended up chatting to some local Lebanese people who thought we looked "bored" (they so happen to catch us at a lull in our conversation/soaking up the atmosphere/thinking of songs for Jen to jam), nearly got coaxed into going to another club for some "more serious" partying, but instead headed home in a taxi where the driver took his daughter to work with him. A rather mellow Lebanese night out, I'd say?
1 comment:
hahaha thanks for the plug! You and I totally should have gotten up there and wowed them with our folk-acoustic sensibility...not sure if it was the right crowd though ;)
I also remember hoping those guys were going to pay for our $10 drinks...
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