Category: Travel

Last week while in Lebanon I stayed at a guesthouse called BEYt. They’ve been open for nearly a year now and I found out about the place by chance on my last trip there while visiting a small bookshop (Play BEY which belongs to them) and overhearing the owner talk about it. The guesthouse was located on top of the bookshop on the main Mar Mikhael street (where all the pubs are) and when I got a tour of the place I knew I would be staying there on my next trip, which is what I ended up doing.

As I mentioned above, BEYt is located on the very popular Mar Mikhael street. It’s on the first floor of a traditional Lebanese building with high ceilings, wooden shutters and beautiful floor tiles. They only have four rooms available which are:

Master Bedroom (90$ for 1 person, 110$ for 2, 130$ for 3)
Private bedroom with its own en-suite bathroom
1 queen-size bed & 1 single bed

Private bedroom (75$ for 1 person, 95$ for double occupancy)
Private bedroom with its dedicated bathroom across the corridor
1 queen-size bed

Twin Bedroom (60$ for 1 person, 80$ for double occupancy)
Private bedroom with shared bathroom across the corridor
2 single beds (1.20 meters)

Corner Bedroom (50$ for 1 person, 70$ for double occupancy)
Private bedroom with shared bathroom
2 single beds (1.10 meters)

Those are the prices as of this post.

I ended up taking the “Master Bedroom” and found the room fairly spacious with a pretty large bathroom area thats nearly as big as the room itself. The whole guesthouse is fitted with vintage furniture and various vintage electronics like record players, TVs and cameras. It’s a beautiful space and all the furniture was handpicked by the owner. The biggest seller for me though was the location, being situated right on Mar Mikhael street meant I could walk to my favorite pubs and then clumsily stumble back at the end of the night. For those of you who know Lebanon, BEYt is located 2 minutes away walking from pubs like Radio Beirut, Internazionale, The Train Station and The Junkyard. Walk a minute longer and you’re at Bar Tartine, SUD and The Sandwich Shop. I can’t really imagine a better location to be staying at in Beirut. Because there are no pubs below or right across the street from BEYt the place was actually pretty quiet especially the room I stayed in which didn’t overlook the main road. BEYt also had WiFi and it was a pretty reasonable speed compared to Beirut standards.

With all the positives I did have a number of issues though. When we first arrived at the guesthouse we were told that they needed our rooms for 2 hours because they were installing new vintage lights in our rooms. Nice but why couldn’t they have done that before we arrived or after we left? The first thing I wanted to do was unpack and head out. Another day I walked into my room and noticed they had removed the window shutters and a guy was standing outside my window working on them while looking into my room. That made me feel really uneasy since I was just sitting there on my computer with a guy looking in from my window. Again it wasn’t anything urgent that needed fixing so they should have done it before or after we left. I called the owner and told him how weird that was and he told me the guy just needed 10 more minutes. I had to wait until he was done so I could go and shower which annoyed me since I don’t like other people managing my personal time. The next morning I woke up to find the guy was back at my window, he had removed the shutters and was working on them again. It was really annoying and an invasion of my personal space.

Other issues I faced, the original room description which I listed above stated my room would have two beds but when I got there I found only one. It didn’t turn out to be an issue for me but it would have for someone wanting the second bed. Finally, the last issue I had was with the AC. We were told that we should shutoff the AC when we leave our rooms. I hate doing that especially when the AC isn’t really powerful like the ones they had installed. I usually come back to the room to sleep and don’t want to come back to a hot stuffy room and wait an hour till it cools. Luckily we managed to keep it on the whole time without any issues.

There were a few more things that bothered me like the smell of the cooking every morning or the really rough and hard towels. But all the issues were relatively minor and nothing really took away from the whole experience except for the guy with my shutters. I thought the price of my room was pretty fair and the fact they have rooms starting at $50 is ridiculous. It’s all about the location and that’s why I’d stay there again with all the issues I had. For more information on BEYt, check out their website [Here]

Another similar place I would recommend staying at is the Hayete Bed & Breakfast which I’ve previously written about [Here]

Note: Picture of the room taken from the BEYt website

A couple of weeks ago, me and a friend where looking for places to travel this coming October and Cuba was on the top of our list. We didn’t manage to do much research other than finding out which airline would take us there but, the local travel blog Hello 965 just posted some information on Cuba including how to get there and what to do once you’re there. So if you’re ever considering flying to Cuba, this post should interest you. Check out her post over [Here]

A Kuwait Airways plane carrying 200 people made an emergency landing at Brussels airport Monday after the pilot reported smoke in the cockpit, Belgian news reports said.

The plane, an Airbus 300, was en route to London from Kuwait when the pilot asked for clearance to land, the reports said, citing airport spokeswoman Florence Muls.

“The landing proceeded without incident and all passengers disembarked safely,” Muls said. “Safety services are now examining the aircraft” to see if they can discover where the smoke came from, she added. [Source]

Good thing they’re getting new planes end of the year.

If you’ve traveled recently you might have noticed the Pearl Lounge at the airport was getting refurbished. Well the makeover is complete and someone from the National Aviation Services uploaded a 30 days time-lapse of the whole processes. I think the new lounge looks better and it also looks like it can fit a lot more people. Check out the time lapse below.

[YouTube]

As I’ve previously posted, Emirates is now flying their double decker A380 plane to Kuwait which is now officially the shortest flight for the plane in the world. The flight is only 1 and 25 minutes long and the video below is a behind the scenes look at the inaugural flight to Kuwait. [Link]

For the month of August, British Airways will be airing a short documentary about Kuwait on board more than 3,000 flights around the world. The documentary is called “Kuwait: Through Our Eyes” and is divided into four 10-minute films. Originally British Airways were planning just a 10-minute film but due to the overwhelming demand they ended up turning it into a four part series. Kuwait is just one of twenty countries from around the world that are getting a film done and Kuwait is the first one from the Middle East to be featured.

August is one of the busiest months of the year so Kuwait should get a lot of exposure. I couldn’t find a copy of the film online to watch but I’m hoping British Airways will upload it next month onto YouTube or their website. Check out the full article on KUNA [Here]

Thanks @Buzfairy

Update: Part one is now online, watch it below.

[YouTube]

Jazeera Airways recently opened four new exclusive gates at the Kuwait Airport but at one point it looked like Jazeera Airways was going to get its own terminal. Back in 2012 I posted renderings of a terminal design I had found online but I now found another rendering of a completely different design (pictured above) that looks even better than the previous one I had posted. You can check out larger renderings of the terminal along with more information [Here]

Last week someone told me that the top floors of the Kuwait Airways Building in Kuwait City used to be a club called Al Hamra back when clubs were legal. So I spent all day yesterday trying to find information on it online but I couldn’t find anything. Instead, the whole research somehow turned into history lesson on Kuwait’s aviation history and I ended u finding a lot of interesting information most of which I hadn’t heard before. I already shared the vintage timetables in a separate post below but I’ll now combine the rest of my random findings here.

Al-Nugra Airport
This was Kuwait’s second airport and it was located in Nuzha.

1947-1948 KOC develops new Al-Nugra (Al-Mayass) airport, located in Nuzha district. Open for daylight operations only. Airlines open offices in Kuwait city to handle ticketing and cargo operations for the Arab expatriate community. Al-Nugra airport steadily developed with new concrete buildings and hangar. [Source]

I couldn’t find any decent photos of the airport but I did find the video below.

[YouTube]

Kuwait Airport 1975
I found the images below on Flickr and they’re dated 1975 but I’m not sure if they’re photos of Al-Nugra Airport or the location of our current airport which started in 1961.

1961 State of Kuwait declares independence. Phase One of new Mugwa Airport begins operation. Airlines serving Mugwa include BOAC, Lufthansa, KLM, United Arab Airlines, Saudi Arab Airlines, Syrian Arab Airlines, Air India, and Lebanese carriers MEA, TMA and LIA. Facilities comprise passenger terminal (Terminal 1), 2,200-metre asphalt runway, parking apron, and control tower equipped to handle operations round-the-clock. [Source]

Photos [Source]

It’s most likely the site of our current airport but the only reason I am having doubts on the location is because in 1979 the current airport was completed but in the aerial photo above I can’t see any signs of the new airport construction taking place.

Trans Arabia Airways
Trans Arabia Airways was a Kuwaiti carrier that started operating in 1959 out of Beirut to Kuwait with an ex-Australian National Airways DC-4. By 1964 the the fleet consisted of three Douglas DC-6Bs and they flying to: Beirut, Bahrain, Cairo, Jerusalem, Damascus, Doha, Jeddah, as well as Frankfurt, London and Rome. In 1964 they were purchased and absorbed by Kuwait Airways. [Source]

The Kuwait Airport by Kenzo Tange
This isn’t new information since I already posted it years ago but I still think the photos are worth sharing again. Our current airport was originally designed by the legendary Japanese architect Kenzo Tange and was completed in 1979. The airport originally looked completely different and a lot nicer as you can see in the photos below. The British architect and critic Stephen Gardiner wrote in 1985 that it was “the most beautiful airport in the world” because of its “breathtaking simplicity of color and shape.” It is “white sculptured space as cool as an ice-cube, as enormous as a vat intake of pure air, as light as a tent, as canvas hung from cables and sails.”

Photos [Source]

While I was researching for a post I found a page with old Kuwait Airways timetables dating back to 1959. According to that timetable Kuwait Airways was flying to the following destinations back then:

Abadan
Bahrain
Basra
Beirut
Bombay
Cairo
Damascus
Dhahran
Jerusalem
Karachi

I also found the image above of their fleet inside one of the timetables which I thought was very cool. Check out all the timetables [Here]

Failed Kuwaiti carrier Wataniya Airways is reportedly planning a comeback as soon as the first quarter of 2015. The airline has begun efforts to re-launch by attempting to raise KD24m ($85m) and lease an initial two planes, according to Kuwait Times.

The company has asked the Ministry of Commerce to publish the minutes of an extraordinary assembly meeting held this week and will then contact the Capital Markets Authority so it can prepare for a new initial public offering (IPO). The airline needs a minimum of KD11m in capital to re-launch operations, a company source was quoted as saying. [Source]

Looks like Wataniya Airways is finally coming back to life. I wonder if they’ll fly out from Sheikh Saad Terminal along with FlyDubai or if they’ll be joining the rest of the airlines at the main terminal?

I’m at the airport right now waiting for my flight to Barcelona. I’m taking a few days off and I will be back on Monday. It’s going to be a event filled long weekend so not really sure how much I’ll be able to post from there but I’ll see how it goes.

A couple of weeks ago I went to Cairo for a friends wedding and since the wedding was taking place at the Four Seasons, me and my friends all ended up staying at the same hotel as well. I hadn’t been to Cairo since back in 2008 when I went down to film the Wataniya Airways launch commercial and back then I stayed at the Grand Hyatt Hotel which I really didn’t like. The Four Seasons is literally across the street from where I stayed last time but the experience this time around was worlds apart.

The last time I was in Cairo the city was full of tourists but this time there were barely any. Even when we went to touristic places like Khan Al-Khalili and the Pyramids we barely saw any tourists and the hotels are obviously affected by this. When we were at Four Seasons the hotel was mostly occupied by people attending our wedding and people attending another wedding that was also taking place there and from what a friend told me, the prices the hotel was charging for the rooms was around 40% less than they used to charge when the city was bustling with tourists. I ended up staying in the Diplomatic Suite which turned out to be a lot larger than I was expecting it to be. When you first walk into the room you have a small hallway with a guest bathroom and a small closet. Right after the hallway is the main living space with a large LCD screen, a couch which unfolds into a sofa bed, a work area and a large terrace overlooking the Nile. At the far end of the room is a doorway that leads you into the bedroom where theres a second large LCD screen, a huge walk-in closet and a large marble clad bathroom with two sinks. I think this was pretty much the largest room I had ever stayed in at a hotel.

The hotel as a whole felt a lot like a cruise ship and some of my friends treated it that way by not leaving the hotel the whole weekend we were there. Other than the restaurants and the pool, the hotel also had a bar, a club and a department store all located on premises. The pool area is where we spent all our mornings tanning and recovering from the night before by relaxing on their really comfortable lounges. The only downside to the pool area and actually one of the only issues I had with the hotel is the fact by 12:30PM the sun ends up behind the hotel casting a shadow over the pool area and basically putting a stop to any tanning that was taking place.

On the plus side I didn’t get any food poisoning while I was there. Before leaving to Cairo everyone was warning me about how easy it was to get food poisoned and not to have any salads or drinks with ice so by the time I got to Cairo I was planning on not eating for the whole trip. In the end hunger won and I spent most of the weekend having the hotel burger for brunch and then mixing it up with dinner either by eating at the hotel or somewhere around Cairo. The location of the hotel was pretty great since it was right on the Nile which meant the view from my room was spectacular. The staff were all really friendly and professional and you really don’t feel like you’re in Egypt when you’re inside the hotel. A good example on how good the staff is, on the last day after checking out we were waiting outside the hotel for our rides when the doorman noticed one of the girls with us was holding a pair of shoes in her hand. Without her asking he went and got her a paper bag and placed the shoes inside for her. That earned the hotel a lot of points in my book.

Overall I had a great weekend in Cairo and the hotel was part of the reason why. This is the third or fourth Four Seasons Hotel I’ve stayed in and so far they’ve all turned out to be pretty great. There are two Four Seasons in Cairo, the one I stayed in was the Nile Plaza one (not the one with the casino) and you can check out their website [Here]

Although I love flying with Qatar Airways the biggest issue I had with them was their airport. That looks to change now with the opening of their new Hamad International Airport. Check out some photos [Here] and [Here]

This week I am traveling to the USA for a vacation so I have had to think of some really smart ways to train while I’m away, as a gym won’t always be available. On top of this a lot of my clients are about to travel and have been asking for the best ways to train while they have limited resources. So here you go.

The first thing I usually do is pick exercises that give you the biggest bang for your buck. Meaning, they work the most amount of muscles at once to get the biggest muscular and metabolic response. I also put emphasis on volume training, as it is one of the best ways to train for fat loss and if you have limited time, it will leave you in a pool of sweat.

In terms of most bang for your buck, a bodyweight circuit including squats, push-ups, lunges, mountain climbers, burpees, sit-ups or any other core variation. These could be done with body weight only or moderate additional weight if it’s available.

Here is an example of something I would do for a bodyweight circuit:

A1: squats

A2: alternating lunges

A3: push-ups

A4: burpees (chest to floor or regular)

A5: mountain climbers

A6: core variation

This could be done as a timed circuit e.g. 30-60 seconds per station (depending on ability) with a 60-90 second rest before repeating the cycle 3-5 times.

Another option is to do 15-20 reps per exercise moving through as fast as you can, with a 60-90 second rest before repeating 3-5 times.

In terms of conditioning, this could include running sprints, stair runs or even intervals on any piece of traditional cardio equipment. Short intervals of maximal work are the key and you want to aim for roughly 25-30 minutes.

Here is an example of something I would do for conditioning type work:

Running on a Treadmill, in the park, jump rope, stairs or using any cardio equipment that is available (or Burpees if your brave)

20-30 sec max work with 30 sec rest

Repeat 4 times. Rest 2 min

Do this sequence 6-8 times

So there is one example of what you can do with limited resources and limited time.

I usually alternate between resistance training one day and cardio conditioning the other day this is quick for when you are time poor and gives the metabolism a push in the right direction. With that in mind…

To finish I want to include some nutrition tips for Fat loss when on vacation. Here are some simple things you can implement:

– Drink water 2-3L per day. I have to admit I am a bad water drinker, so to help me get my daily intake I add slices of lime or lemon and it really helps.

– Up the intensity of your workouts. One way is by reducing the weight slightly, increasing the reps and reducing rest. I’ve found this makes a big difference.

– Eat your veges, these are a great detoxifier with all the antioxidants they contain.

– Lastly, when you indulge try not to overeat till you almost burst. Its vacation so of course you want to be able to enjoy yourself, just try to avoid overeating.

Lastly remember you are on vacation so do what you can with the time you have available. Happy Training Kuwait.

Post by Amy Freeman, a Strength and Conditioning Coach from New Zealand and currently a Personal Trainer at Inspire Pure Fitness in Kuwait.

References
Trapp, E., Chisholm, D., et al. The Effects of High-Intensity Intermittent Exercise Training and Fat Loss and Fasting Insulin Levels of Young Women. International Journal of Obesity. 2008. 32(4), 684-691.

[Image Source]

That National Aviation Services just released a mobile app for iPhone and Android devices. The app called NAS Airports allows you to check flight information, book an airport lounge or the meet and assist service among other things. Sadly even though the app says that NAS is available at more than 80 airports, the app itself is limited to just 6.

You can download the app by searching for NAS Airports in the store or using these links: [Apple Store] or [Google Play]