I am home from Egypt!!! Gosh I love the place! I am going back there again. Not all the pictures are in this entry. Please look at
http://justforkiddo.spaces.live.com/ for the rest of it. If you are interested that it...
Day 1 ( 4 Jul)
Had a horrible fight with Steven the night before. Both of us ended up not sleeping. That was bad. I pretty much spent the night roaming the streets looking for him. Anyway, that morning i suddenly became deaf in my left ear. Sound from that ear was muffled. Went to see the GP who said that my inner ear was badly swollen. Oh well... then it was off to the airport to catch my flight to Cairo.
Day 2 (4 Jul)
This is what I wake up to!!! I lost my heart there at this very moment! But at this very point, I very much wished Steven was with me.
Pictures will tell all that no words can describe.
Day 3 (5 Jul)
I cant remember where I went. I think I was off to the cruise ship. Wahaha... One thing I did remember. I took this picture. Love it. It is kinda like me... floating around aimlessly...
Day 4 (6 Jul)
Dendora Temple
Day 5 (7 Jul)
This is my personal favourite. Hatshepsui Temple. Not because of how beautiful this place is but because of the history of this Lady King. Visited the Valley of the Kings behind. Sorry no pictures from here too.
Day 6 (8 Jul)
Today, we visted the Edfu temple.
Day 7 (9 Jul)
This is the unfinish Obelisk. Well there was a crack in that one if you could see and the job was abandaned. This picture simply does not justify the size. I walked for about 3 mins to reach from one end to another.
We visited the high dam. Hmm...
Day 8 (10 Jul)
Took a domestic flight (30 mins only) to Abu Simbel. It was awesome but was a super hot day. Aswan temperature hit 45 degree. IMAGINE!!!! Below you see the temple of Ramesses II. The most magnificent was the removal and reconstruction of the temple. The 2 temples were dismantled and raised over 60 m up the sandstone cliff.
To the north, there lies a small temple built in honour of Ramesses' wife, Nefertari and the Goddess Hathor. Beautiful, magnificent, awesome... you tell me...
The flight back to Luxor landed with a huge bang. Like you could practically feel the flight attendents cursing the pilot but I am glad we survived the rough landing. Frankly, it was the worse....
Day 9 (11 Jul)
There was a new group that joined us on our cruise. We were cruising back to Luxor and the day was just to idle, chat around, sun bath on the cruise. Just enjoying how simple life can be.
Day 10 (12 Jul)
Nothing much happened today. We disembarkced from the cruise ship and flied in back to Cairo from Luxor. The rest of the day was spent with Margaret and Tracy at the shopping mall across our hotel.
Day 11 (13 Jul)
This morning, we visited Citadel of Salah El Din and the Alabaster mosque of Mohammed Aly. He was suppose to be the last prophet and a very important figure in Islam. We were informed that we had to be covered up in the mosque. I thought I was pretty alright but they decided I needed the Harry Potter cape afterall cos a little skin was showing. It was amusing. Look at the some of my classmates from Hogwarts. Wahaha... We also made a stop at the Sultan Hassan mosque. Couldn't get any pictures from there as it was way to dark.
After class, we proceeded to the Hanging Church. It was this small chapel that was built on 2 towers. You could see below that there was nothing there. I had wanted to show respect so I did not take much shots. Mass was going on in Arabic and I could not understand or relate it to the Mass at home. Highlight of this place would be the crib of the holy family. It was said that in Jesus, Mary and Joseph stayed in the crib within the church for awhile. Pity we couldn't go down because it was badly damaged during a flood.
The Egyptian Musuem certainly was one of the highlight of the trip. There we saw like the all the treasures of King Tutankhamon. Everything was in GOLD. Like the people were filthy rich. Plus, I paid 100LE to visit the Mummy room. It creeps me because, the mummies were so well preserved they look like they will wake up anytime.
That concluded our tour in Egypt. Aymen accompanied us back to the hotel and we were bidding farewell to each other. Since we had the rest of the afternoon, Aymen, Tracy and myself spent some time chilling out at the cafe in the hotel.
Day 12 (14 Jul)
The rest of the group left either in the morning or afternoon. There was only Kim, Kevin and myself awaiting to catch the midnight flight. They were flying off to Johannesburg to surprise and celebrate their son, Chris' birthday. They were sharing with me about how they knew Chris was gay and they gave him their blessing. WoW! And my dad doesn't even seem to like me at all. I am blessed to have the both of them with me. It would be hard to imagine sticking with anyone else from the group.
We had breakfast that morning at hotel and at about 10, we took a taxi to their famous bazaar, Khan El-Khalili Bazaar. It was pretty cheap to travel there. Cost us 25 LE. Plus we got a decent cab which was nice. You should see the dirty taxis they have there. Hmm... Pay me and I still wouldn't even get on one. The nice young chap offered to pick us up when we were done by 1.30.
This is not s flattering picture of the bazzar. Anyway, it was HUGE. One can get lost in it if you are not careful. But they have lots of things there like, perfume, jewellery, carpet, clothes, shoes, name it, they have it. The funny thing was that, if the shop does not have anything, the owner will definitely have a brother, sister, cousin, uncle, whoever, who has a shop like a street down that have exactly what you are looking for.
Best part of the place was haggling. Just haggle your way through. It was fun and pretty much part of the daily life of the Egyptian. After about an hour, Kim wanted to take a rest in case her asthma acts up on her again. so we picked a nice coffee house and had a drink there.
We left at 1.30 and the rest of the afternoon was spent at the shopping mall across our hotel. We were kinda tempted to watch Harry Potter (in Arabic) it would have a great laugh. The transfer had us picked up at 9.30 as we still had to battle the horrifying traffic to the airport. And it was goodbye and well, we do not know when we will meet each other again...
