Middle East Trip - Part 1 (Labenon)

24/11/09

Our flight is at 7pm. And I had to go to work in the morning to settle a few things. Ingat tak banyak kerja... but hari tu jugak lah so many requests/problem were sent to me!! Grrrr...!!! And on top of that... I was called to attend a briefing on "Why you should do your timesheet on time!' just because I did not submit my timesheet on time last month! OMG.... benci nyaaa!!! I have more important thing to do that morning... rather than attending that stupid briefing.... URGH!!! My boss insisted that I MUST GO!! I don't get it lah.... is that briefing MORE important than the business request??? Whateverrrr!!! So FINE! I went to the stupid briefing! Sorry Nini.... huhu... your request just have to wait until I come back from my long holiday... huhu! The briefing was at Menara Maybank... and right after the briefing, I had to rush back to my office in Dataran Maybank to do that STUPID timesheet!! :P Eiiii... nyampah tul lah! :P And only a few mins after 1pm I got to go home.... :P 4pm - went to KLIA by taxi with hubby and the kids from home. 7pm - Wahh.... first time flying with EMIRATES flight.... so cool!!! Emirates ROCK!!! :) 25/11/09 Reached Beirut at around 2am in the morning. All went well at the Lebanese immigration... alhamdulillah. And once outside the airport, our driver, Mr. Rami was waiting for us and brought us to the hotel. A small cozy hotel... (maklum laa... budget kecik...hehe). By 7am next morning, we were ready to go... ronda2 bandar Beirut (lots of ruined buildings yang kena bomb kat sini... made us realized how lucky we Malaysian are!). Well... picture says a thousand words, right? Here goes...

Our cozy room :) Hard Rock Cafe Beirut. Tak sempat singgah.... take photo only lah! :)

Pigeon Rock @ Beirut

Getting cozy in Mr Rami's car... This bridge was once bombed by the Israel army.... now the Lebanese are building it back... masih belum siap lagi nih..

We left Beirut for Baalbek right after that. We were told that our trip to Lebanon would not complete if we do not go to Baalbek. Baalbek is located approximately 86 km northeast of Beirut in eastern Labenon and it is one of the most spectacular archeological sites in Lebanon....

Baalbek has among the largest and best preserved set of Roman ruins in the world!

The kids had fun exploring Baalbek Daddy and kids.... beratur?? hehe Errr... whatcha doing girl??? Yours truly loving the beautiful scenary :) Mommy and kids :) Izzaty and her TY teddy :)

After Baalbek... perut pun dah lapar.. we searched for food!!! :) We wanted to taste real Lebanon food... so Mr. Rami brought us to this nice restaurant (Shams Restaurant) which served variety of Lebanon food.... I mean.... A LOT!!! Lebanese really know how to eat!! :) But Izzat complained... "apasal sayur aje ni??" LOL! See picture below.. and you know what Izzat meant :D

All these... for just the 5 of us!! There's some more not captured in this picture you know... yeap.... that's A LOT of food, eh? But both Izzat and Izzaty could only eat the fries... the rest... like Izzat said..'all sayur'... lol! But I kinda like one of the salads... can't remember what it's called... just love it!! :)

After finished eating the main course... we were shown to the 2nd table... fruits and desserts pulak... fuyoo!! Meriah betul makan kali ni :D Mr. Rami insisted we tried the Lebanese desserts.... Hmm... looked like sweet2 food lah... takut nak makan coz I don't like food which are too sweet... but hubby did try and he said quite nice lah....

Perut pun dah kenyang... so we left Lebanon to go to Syria. Mr. Rami could not cross the border (apparently they need special license to bring tourist across the border) so he helped us on finding a local taxi and help bargaining with the taxi driver for a good price (nice of him! really! kalau tak sure kena paw punya lah! huhu!). So bertukar taxi lah kami... dari kereta Reynolds Mr. Rami to an old Mercedes Benz.....

The 4 of us with Mr. Rami, our Labanese driver - right before we enter the white old Mercedez Benz taxi on the right of the pic :)

So... we left Lebanon and Mr Rami... and went to the Syria border.. macam2 ragam di sempadan Lebanon/Syria nih... lots of people trying to cross the border.... probably for the Eid Adha celebration? But syukur alhamdulillah... we passed through the immigration without much hassle.... :)

To be continued in Part 2 : Syria... ;)