Kalabsha, Women's Clothing

There's really no doubt about it. Kalabsha is my favorite clothing store in Hamra, my favorite made-in-Lebanon retailer.

They're located just north of Hamra Street. The workshop and the store are there on the 4th floor. Some of the clothes they sell are really artsy, pieced like quilts from diverse fabrics that somehow work together. The variety of colors and textures is balanced by silhouettes that are relatively simple, classy. It's a good combination.

Mary, Mary

I grew up in the US, in an area with Catholics, Protestants, and plenty of others though their numbers were small. But, because I was rooted within the community of others I looked around at the world from that position knowing not much about what everyone else believed.

It's funny how those things look different as a grown-up. As a kid I felt irretrievably different from everyone else and now I see most of that was in my head. Not all of it, just most of it.

I suppose that experience informs my understanding of Lebanon.

Candles for sale in Achrafieh.

Life is Sweet

Today I grabbed a quick photo of the petit fours at my neighborhood bakery. They're 22,000 LL for a kilo, or about $7.50 a pound. Yum. When you buy them, you can pick and choose or you can just ask for a little of everything. There's no wrong move and everyone wins.

It's a good thing that I finally have a picture of some of the sweets sold at my neighborhood bakery. I go in there so much you'd think it wouldn't be a problem to get a picture, but I've noticed that it's the places I go all_the_time that I never seem to photograph.

Aged and Worn

There's a store in Clemenceau called Metal and Wood where they sell furniture, chairs, accessories for the home. These items are imported from India, and all of them have amazing colors, paint in layers applied and then sanded away, distressed, applied again, finished beautifully. They look aged and worn. Maybe they are. And I love what I've seen there. This window reminded me of it.

First Costco, now Tchibo?

Several months ago I posted about finding "Costco" in Beirut--except it wasn't a real Costco.

So, I was prepared for something similar when, the other day, I found Tchibo here in Beirut. If you've never lived in Germany you might not be familiar with Tchibo--though they're in a bunch of other countries too. They sell all kinds of kitchen, household, and clothing items--and in Germany the shops usually (always?) are combined with a cafe.

Inside the shop the products were exactly what I'd expect to see in a German Tchibo. Prices were great, and I had to try very hard to resist the urge to immediately buy leather boots and jackets, tablecloths, fun Christmas decorations, new plates and kitchen appliances, rain coats for my kids, and an array of nice shirts for me.

I think I'm going to take myself back there soon.

I've done a little google research, and Tchibo's corporate site lists no locations in Lebanon at all. So, now I'm left wondering if they're the real thing or not . . .

It's literally two blocks down the hill (toward the sea) from TSC Jnah. It's combined with a shop quite a lot like TJMaxx (Brands for Less) which had a decent selection of clothes for men, women, and kids.

New Routine

During the school year we passed this little shop every day on our walk to and from school. But it's summer now and our schedule in the fall will be different.

We'll have a new route to school and it won't take us past this shop. Even though there are hundreds of other shops like it all over town, I'll miss this one.

Book Bazar

I walked by this shop not long ago. Second hand stores aren't all that common, so the opportunity to "buy and sell old books" caught my eye. Also, not many places in Beirut have this much color. So I stopped and took a picture.

It was later on that I paid more attention to what they had to offer. I couldn't help noticing that Sex in the City in Arabic (below the big yellow Z in the shop's name) sits beside a book about Osama Bin Laden. I wonder if that was done deliberately.

Too bad their selection of books in English seems limited to works of philosophy and antisemitism.

L' Artisan Du Liban

Summer travel is approaching. Part of preparing to go is lining up a few good hospitality gifts and souvenirs for friends and family.

There are a lot of boutiques and souvenir shops in Beirut and they're all good, but if you ask me, L' Artisan du Liban is the best of them all. They have a wide variety of giftable things, plenty of it in stock and the prices are fair.

Every week at the farmer's market you'll see this pair of ladies making sandwiches. The one in the foreground kneads the bread, flattening it into a thin disk. Under her left arm you can see a large round pillow, or maybe I should call it a bean bag because it had some weight to it.  The flattened dough goes onto this substantial pillow and she flips it over onto the baking surface in the foreground. It isn't like flipping a pancake--the pillow sort of squashes the dough onto the iron.

The bread is finished baking in only a minute or two and then it's ready for fillings--olives, goat cheese, thyme, tomato, olive oil, etc. It's yummy. You can see bags of spice in the background on the right.

In the background on the left are a few other merchants eying me and my camera. I wonder what they thought of me, and what they thought I thought of them.

One Such Raft

You can tell the beach is nearby. Little shops that otherwise would stock little more than drinks and chips miraculously spill forth beach accessories, mostly the kind that are bright and inflatable. A day at the beach isn't the same without a boat and we could not resist.

The boat more or less secured the happiness of a half dozen children for at least as many hours.

It seems we've purchased one such raft each year for about the past five years. It's become part of how we do summer around here.

Costco in Beirut?

Not long ago I started hearing rumors about Costco. I was told that there was one here in Beirut, that it stocked the same kinds of things as Costco in the US and that they even had the Walmart off-brand merchandise.

It's true.

It's not as huge or warehouse-like as it's American counterpart.  In my case that's a good thing since I have mini anxiety attacks in huge stores.  This is where Costco is, just south of Beirut:

The shop is between the Golf Club and TSC Jnah. If you're coming from Beirut, you'll want to get off the airport highway near TSC so you don't overshoot your target.

They're open from 9 AM to 8 PM Monday-Saturday, and they're open Sunday too, 10 AM to . . . I've forgotten. But then, their phone number is on the sign and if you really need to know you could always call and ask.

Roots

This morning at Souk el Tayeb, I saw this booth, proclaiming "The Root to Recovery". The sign in the photo begins with the text, "In 1965, 35% of Lebanon was covered by forests and greenery, but in 2007 those numbers dropped to an alarming 13%." Depleted green space is one on a long list of significant changes in Lebanon over the past few decades. 

At the market, they were selling a variety of potted plants. All profits from the sale go to planting trees, to recover some of the lost green space.

Organics

When it comes to food, I feel pretty lucky here in Beirut. Fresh local produce year round (thank you temperate climate!), a culture that favors a vegetable-heavy cuisine, and very reasonable prices at the market are all fantastic aspects of life in Beirut.

And, if you're into organic produce, you're in luck.

There are the farmers markets that take place on various days around town and if you can't make it to one of those, you can find certified organics in the big grocery stores.

And, there's Healthy Basket, a shop in Ras Beirut that will deliver a weekly basket of organic "stuff" to your door--I say "stuff" because in addition to the produce that fills most of the basket, you might also find eggs, grains, etc. thrown in there too. Here's a link to their contact info if you want to sign up for a weekly basket of your own.

Antoun's, Sadat Street Hamra

A few weeks ago, errands for musically-inclined members of my family took me into Antoun's, a music shop in Hamra. It's a lovely old shop, the kind that transports you to a different world once you're inside. The proprietor was kind, helpful. I left the shop feeling glad to have entered there.

Follow-up business brought me back to his shop a few days ago. After seeing to all the items on my list, I asked if I could take a photo of his shop. "Of course," he said. With a deep sigh he continued, "I'm old, and my shop is old. It was very beautiful once, but that was 50 years ago. And now. . . ." he trailed off.

"Now," I told him, "it is still beautiful."

Ramona

There's a tiny little sweets shop in Hamra called Ramona. That's their broken-down sign hanging up to the left.

I walked past this shop in my comings and goings for months before I finally went in, at Christmastime, to buy a festive lump of sugary goodness. The shop looked even smaller from the inside, but was enthralling and I shyly asked if I might take a few pictures before I left. The shopkeeper was happy to oblige, but my camera's batteries were dead. DEAD. And it took me until now to walk that street again.

Pushing Along

During the summer you can get lots of different things on the Corniche. There's corn, beans, the ice cream truck, fresh squeezed juice, you can smoke a water pipe, there are coffee vendors, and of course, kaak which is sold by men with bikes like this one.

As I've written elsewhere, kaak is a round bread with a hole in it like a handle. It's a common street food.

While I was there, I saw this man push his heavy-laden bike along. I still haven't ever seen anyone ride a bike like this.

Art, Bright Colors, New, Important

It's theme day for City Daily Photo. The theme was chosen by a vote by CDP participants. Fun options this time: Art, Important Places, New, Bright Colors

I admit, when I saw the choices I wondered if I could get them all in a single shot.

This fluorescent orange construction is in the Beirut Souks, a new shopping mall in the heart of downtown.

Without a doubt, the thing is bright an the shopping mall is new. One could argue all day about it's artistic merit and the relative importance of luxury consumer centers like this one. Anyway, this is my best attempt to capture all four options in one. I wonder if anyone else in CDP did it too . . . .

Click here to view thumbnails for all participants

Spices

Spices in the souk in Sidon, half an hour south of Beirut.

Openly Sarcastic

Well, yes. It is nice, in a generic sort of way. But it doesn't speak to me. It isn't saying anything. It isn't grabbing my interest.

I mean, it's quaint, right? It has a sort of charm. The carved stone, the little balconies. Great, bravo. But I'm so bored by it! There's no gitz, no glamour, where is the bling?

There's no pop, no pizazz. It needs something. Maybe neon?

Please! Must everything be so traditional and provincial? I'm bored with it! Someone do something, come on!

Now that's more like it. Much, much better. I'm alright, I'm going to be fine. *Phew!* That was close.

Renovate

The Starbucks on Hamra Street has been under renovation for a few months at least. Recently, while out with one of my kids, we noticed that the sidewalk was completely obstructed. A huge something had just been delivered, and a half-dozen people at least were ripping packaging off of it. Kids love stuff like that so we stayed and watched a bit. Turned out to be a new refrigerated display case.

When we passed by it looked like they were very close to completing the renovation. Good for them, I say. They'll be ready before all the tourists arrive.