Category: Travel

Although I’ve been trying out burgers on this trip, I rarely have any when I come to Lebanon since the burgers here aren’t good at all. Instead I usually have other things:

Salads
I think the salads in Lebanon are better than the ones I have in Kuwait. The salads are lighter and taste better, probably because restaurants have access to better produce. I had the one pictured above yesterday and it came with goat cheese, walnuts, baby tomatoes, lettuce and figs for a bit of sweetness. It was great.

Pizza
For some odd reason pizza is extremely popular in Lebanon in the same way burger joints are popular in Kuwait. It seems every place around the corner makes pizza and most of them are pretty good. I end up having pizza maybe every other day and every time at a different place.

The Healthy Alternative
When I’m on vacation I’m off my regular diet but I also don’t like overdoing it since I end up feeling guilty. Other than salads there is one healthy dish that I love having and it’s the one above called the light grilled chicken. It’s delicious and very tender grilled chicken that comes with steamed carrots, mushrooms, broccoli and corn. I also order a side of honey mustard with it and I end up wiping the plate clean since everything on it including the broccoli just tastes amazing.

A few burger places have recently popped up in Lebanon and I decided I would try a new place every day on this trip. So far I’ve tried two places and have ended up with mixed results which you could read about on my Lebanese blog [Here]. Best part is, since I’m on vacation everyday is a cheat day!

I’m going to be posting from here for the next 10 days.

So I’m in Lebanon right now and I’ve kinda left my diet back in Kuwait. Yesterday for example I passed by a place in Tabarja (an area near Casino Du Liban) and had some amazing dessert at a place called Al-Antabli. If you’re a calorie counter this is NOT the place for you. Seriously. You have to come in with the understanding that everything you will eat is fattening like crazy. Personally I started off with Halawet El Jeben and followed it with a Ousmalieh. I downed everything with a large jug of jaleb and ended with a delicious scoop of Ashta ice-cream. Amazing stuff. Everything is pictured below in the order listed above.

I just read that 150 passengers were stranded at the Kuwait Airport for up to 4 days because Kuwait Airways flights to Mumbai were cancelled. According to the article, on top of the waiting the passengers also had to endure discrimination and rude treatment. I once got stuck at the Kuwait Airport for 6 hours when my flight got delayed and I got bored to death so I can only imagine how terrible it must have been for these passengers. Here is the link to the article [Link]

Yesterday there was an article in Arab Times about how the Ministry of Interior will start taking fingerprints of all incoming and outgoing passengers. Well it seems this is going to happen very soon since the fingerprint devices have already been installed at the airport. I took the picture above last night when I arrived to Kuwait, not sure why they don’t use the scanning device that was installed back in 2008 (pictured below) but never put into operation. [Article]

On my trip to Dubai I decided to stay at EasyHotel. I had a good experience with them on my last trip to London so was interested to see how the hotel was in Dubai. What attracted me to the hotel was the fact rooms start at just KD7.5 a day (99dhms). Yes KD7.5 a day! I thought that was ridiculously cheap and specially for a hotel in Dubai. I looked for reviews online but couldn’t find anything and the only pictures I found were the PR shots. I was a bit worried to book a room but figured what the hell its only for 3 days so worse comes to worse it would be over quickly.

The hotel is located in the Jabel Ali free zone which is around 40 minutes from the airport and 30 minutes from Dubai Mall. I rented a car from the airport and headed with my GPS towards Easy Hotel. Even though the software on my GPS is the 2010 map it seems since the map got released the roads in Dubai changed because the GPS made me take the wrong exit and I spent 40 minutes trying to get back to the main Sheikh Zayed road. Once you find the hotel though its pretty easy to get there.

My first impression with the hotel was positive. The building was very clean and simple on the outside with ample parking underneath. The reception was also very clean with a few vending machines on one side and some computers connected to the internet on the other. I should mention this in case you didn’t know already but Easy Hotel is a no frills hotel in the same way how Jazeera and Fly Dubai are budget airlines. The rooms are cheap but that’s because you get just the basics and you pay for extra stuff. The Easy Hotel I previously tried in London was also extremely tiny (see review here) but if all you care about is a place to sleep at night then you really won’t mind it all.

The rooms at Easy Hotel Dubai are pretty big compared to the London branch. There was ample space around the bed , a flat screen tv (with just 4 channels), a small open closet with shelves and hangers. There was even a little desk next to the window and a small safe to put your items in. The bathroom wasn’t that bad as well, the sink was kinda small but the shower area was pretty big.

As I mentioned with Easy Hotel you pay for extras. For example the fact I wanted a room with a window.. thats an extra cost. If you don’t care about a window then you pay less for the room. TV remote? You pay for that as well (although we were given one for free), extra towels? you pay, Internet? you pay, you want your room cleaned? you pay, water? you pay, room service? its a vending machine in the lobby. Surprisingly I didn’t have to pay to park my car at the hotel!

But with all that I loved staying there and in the end my room with extras came out to just KD10 a night which is still incredibly cheap and this is DUBAI!!. The hotel was super clean, the Internet was fast and the staff were very friendly. From now on that’s the hotel I will be staying in when I fly there.

Things to keep in mind though, you need to rent a car since the hotel is 30 minutes away from places like Dubai Mall. There are no cabs outside or near the hotel so you would have to order one and I don’t know how long that would take. There is a metro nearby but not walking distance. There is also nothing around the hotel, nothing you can walk to. But, because the hotel is so cheap you can splurge on a rental, my Toyota Yaris from Budget cost me just KD15 a day with all the insurance, gas and crossing 4 electronic toll systems a day. Would I recommend EasyHotel? Yes I would.

I tried FlyDubai for the first time on my recent trip to Dubai. I booked everything the last minute and FlyDubai had the cheapest prices so I decided to try them out.

My experience with FlyDubai itself didn’t turn out bad. We started off on the wrong foot since when I tried to check in at the airport I had to wait around 20 minutes because the ticket staff lost the list that contains all the job occupations that can get a visa on entry to Dubai. That was extremely annoying and frustrating. Then once we boarded the plane I thought the interior was gloomy. I think its the color of the seats (brownish orange with a dark blue) made the interior look old. But I thought the uniforms of the flight attendants were cool and trendy plus they were also very friendly and polite. On my way there the seats didn’t have a TV screen but on the return flight there was a screen with a credit card slit. You could use your card to purchase movies or tv shows to watch (movie is 25dhm tv show is 5dhm). You could also order duty free and food items using the screen including alcohol.

Actually my only issue with FlyDubai is the airport they fly in and out from in Dubai. FlyDubai uses Terminal 2 which is one of the saddest airports I’ve been to (and I’ve been to quite a few). After falling in love with Dubai on this trip (mostly because of Dubai Mall and Burj Khalifa) I found the airport a step in the opposite direction. It was old, small, dark and had no source of entertainment whatever. The Duty Free looked very poor and the only restaurants available were McDonalds, a Kebab place and Costa. On the bright side there was free wifi at the terminal but after spending time in a very futuristic and modern city to end the trip in that depressing airport was an extreme let down. The airport sadly is a deal breaker for me which is a shame since everything else wasn’t bad at all.

Some great looking lounges like the one above which looks like a recreational area on a Star Trek starship is the Virgin Atlantic Clubhouse at London Heathrow Airport. [Link]

I am going to be in Lebanon for the next few days. I got here around 1pm and first thing I did after dropping my bags home was to head up to Faraya and have lunch at a place called Jalset El Erzal.

The weather was really great and the food was amazing. The strangest thing though is the fact the sun set at 4:30pm here. It’s 5:20 now as I write this post and it’s pitch black out side. Very weird…

If you’ve got a Kuwaiti passport you’re lucky since according to recent data, a Kuwaiti passport allows you visa-free entry into 71 countries topping out all the other Arab countries. Lebanon on the other hand ranks at the bottom with the likes of Iran, Yemen and Syria ranking higher. Here is the list of Arabic countries rankings:

1- Kuwait 71
2- Bahrain 67
3- Qatar 66
4- UAE 64
5- Oman 61
6- Saudi Arabia 57
7- Egypt 43
8- Jordan 39
9- Syria 39
10- Yemen 38
11- Iran 34
12- Lebanon 32
13- Iraq 27

On the other hand the British passport topped the whole list allowing visa-free entry into 166 countries. Here is the link to the full article [Link]

Picture from zDistrict

I’m going to be in Beirut for the next 10 days enjoying the sun. As usual I’ll still be posting from there. I’m taking my GF1 with me so expect a lot of pictures.

Just got back from New York earlier tonight. Nearly got a heart attack at the airport when picking up my luggage. I realized all my bags locks were missing and that my laptop which I had shoved between two pockets in one of my bags was gone. Turns out JFK security must have broken all the locks and searched through the bags because I found my laptop but it was placed in a different location. So far doesn’t look like anything is missing but that was pretty scary though.

I spotted another street fair today in New York and this time I told myself if I found fried Oreo cookies I would try it. After a bit of a walk I found a kiosk that was making them, 1$ per cookie. I decided to order two.

The things I do for this blog. The fried Oreo cookies looked gross and very greasy. I told Nat these will probably be the most disgusting thing I’ve ever eaten. Guess what? They weren’t. In fact, they were really good and I actually ate both cookies. They tasted like the Lebanese awamat (fried doughnut balls) except with Oreo as their filling.

I leave New York tomorrow and get back to Kuwait so everything should go back to normal then. Basically a lot less food posts.

And no I didn’t try it.