Remembering Lebanon, part 2

Roman city next to the Syrian border... if only I had had my passport on me I would have crossed the mountains and not turned back.

Map of the fertile croissant. As in many other Arabic countries, Israel is not recognized as a lawful state so it does not exist on the map.

Loulou in front of the temples of Venus

View from Baalbek on the Syrian border

Baalbek, the city of Baal. One of the most ancient cities in the world, you can see stratas of centuries of Art on the site. The city was called Baalbek for Phoenicians who worshipped Baal, the god of gods, god of rain, fertitility and regrowth, the lord of heavens. Then it was rebaptized Heliopolis by the Greeks, city of the sun where the sky was a pure blue for 315 days a year. After the Roman and Northern African occupation, it is now back to Baalbek and holds treasures of History.

My computer crashed before I could finish uploading my Lebanese pictures last week-end: this is the man who discovered and salvaged the biggest monolith in Asia. He personnally cleaned out the rubbish dump around it and fought over several years with his fellow inhabitants to educate them into not dropping their trash around anymore. For this purpose, he started a trash collection, which the city adpoted 11 months afterwards. He has a small souvenir shop next to the monolith and offers his visitors short cardamone coffees as thick as fuel when they enter. A lovely man, former soldier, simple and passionate, who made a big difference in this world.

Champagnista V

Lights, camera, fashion

Me (guess which one i am- ohhhh mysterious ) and my girls!

I have now been in NYC for a week and all i can say is "wow". Anyone who knows me, knows that NYC stole my heart many years ago. No other city, except Paris, excites me as much as the city that never sleeps.

The buzz of this city continues to live on even with the threat of swine flu all around us. People are still shopping, partying and working just like nothing is going on. I feel that New Yorkers are so thick skinned that they take the "we survived 9/11 we can live through the swine flu" approach to everything.

I must my friends and I initially panicked and it was less about catching this dreaded virus but more because we were afraid that New York would come to a complete standstill and blight our party all night shop all day plans. Luckily NY is still NY and people continue to plough through life.

Happy that our plans where not thwarted we decided to go shopping on broadway. The clothes shops here are quite questionable. I am not a big fan of American fashion. I always feel that they are decades behind us in style- more circa 1985 rather than 2009. Anywho i was far from impressed. London definitely gives one a better shopping experience, unless you have the funds to shop on 5th Avenue or the energy to seek the elusive stylish boutiques in the village.

With a couple of weeks left in this amazing city, i continue to seek my lights, camera, action moment, and a yummy man to be the icing on the cake!

With love from NY,

Champagnista M

Remembering Lebanon

The biggest Monolithe in Lebanon. It is in Baalbek and used to lay in a garbage dump

The Plateaux in Lebanon

A lot of Lebanese go away to find fortune in another counry. When they do, they come back and build a huge house in their hometown, however small the town might be, to prove they have made it.

Green and yellow colours of the Hezbollah in the back country

Youth of the party of the future demonstrating on the 4th anniversary of Hariri's death on the Place des Martyrs

Soldier vigilantees. Tricky to get a pic of the army or check points as it is rather a sensitive subject. Soldiers get quite upset about it.

Men going to the commemoration of Hariri's death, 14th February 2009

Beirut coastline

Tanks in Beirut

Hariri as God

Beirut

Post-war Bar architecture in Gemmayzeh

'The Pigeon Hole'

Derelict 19th century building in Beirut

Checkpoint

Beirut traffic... still wondering how they got out of this one

The Intercontinental Hotel, first building rehabilited after the war

Chauffeurs waiting outside the Intercontinental

Bombed cinema outside center city

Roman Baths

Place de l'Etoile in Beirut, the new center

The new Mosque in the center of Beirut, Saudi Arabian Architecture

Center city, Beirut

The souks of Byblos, a bit touristy

Church in Byblos

Byblos, the Harbour

Tempest in Byblos

The Virgin who appeared to save Lebanon, Harissa

View from the scariest cable car in the world on the way to Harissa

Man waiting in the street

The only train in Lebanon

Lebanese beauty

Beirut by night

Do your remember our childhood soda cans? They are still opening the same way there, and the dates of perish are always about three weeks away... It looks like they are exhausting Occidental that were produced centuries ago

Beirut style, black tailored jacket, Russian scarf, red umbrella, all in strong colours

La Corniche

JFK Campaigns for Omega

Have you ever wondered what makes luxury luxury?

I have been reflecting upon that recently, and I came to the conclusion that it is not platinum or diamond, and it is not the price you put into it, whatever pression the consumer society might put on all of us to think so.

The main focus in terms of luxury is exclusivity. If you acquire a luxury item, be it a painting, a jewel or a piece of cloth, you can be confident you will not see it on other walls or other people in the street like the next Kate Moss design for Topshop.

Making something available to a few gives it more value: because the luxury item is scarce, it almost necessarily has an iconic dimension to it. It has an intrinsic power to represent something wider and of greater importance.

It only comes to sense that James Bond would devote a few lines to Omega in Casino Royale, they know what luxury is.

The new Omega campaign is a strike of genius: choosing JFK to relaunch the Omega model that went to the moon with Armstrong is marketing at its finest. The former US president is, after all, the man who said: “I believe that this nation should commit itself to achieving the goal, before this decade is out, of landing a man on the Moon and returning him back safely to the earth.”, “We choose to go to the Moon in this decade and do the other things, not because they are easy, but because they are hard.”

Luxury is not easily attainable, it represents an achievement and is a goal you have to thrive for. It represents an accomplishment. It is hard work. It means something, which is probably the main reason why it is looked jealously upon and easily discarded. An Eames chair will not be sitting in everybody's living-room.

Omega took it to an extra dimension: I hope luxury is more attainable than the moon, because if I am honest, I want to be able to surround myself with it one day. Far from me the idea I will need £6,000 Alaia alligator boots, a 30 carats diamond or a Chagall on my bathroom wall to be happy, but I do want to earn enough money to not live in an Ikea house, wear beautiful clothes and sit in the orchestra rather than the L shaped corner behind the Third floor security fence when I go to the theater.

I want to believe that luxury is not quite the moon to reach, but maybe the moon is a lot more affordable than we think? The moon might be only a state of mind...

Champagnista V