Category Archives: Flights

big or small, these are the planes we are riding on.

Kuidaore!

Oh Nepal. You will be missed!  It was a very long journey to leave you, about 27 hours from hotel to hotel, and it included a five hour layover in the airport in Bangkok, Thailand, and then waiting for Joan and Steve for another ten hours or so at Osaka’s airport.  Luckily, both airports were nice and had things to walk around and look at.  

Bangkok to Osaka

Bangkok airport

it's like pho but good

 Like I said, we waited for Joan and Steve at Osaka Airport for quite some time.  Our flight landed at 6 am and Joan and Steve didn’t emerge from the arrivals door until about 4 pm.  Seth and I spent the day wandering through the airport, marveling at all the amazing food choices, and noting the different cultural mannerisms of the Japanese people.  So far, I like Japanese culture.  

corn and chicken tea

mom and dad in Osaka

After settling some business at the airport, like JRail passes and money exchange, we grabbed a taxi to our hotel.  Joan found us a beautiful hotel in a very convenient location.  The Hotel Monterey Grasmere is a great choice if staying in Osaka.  It has nice clean rooms near a major train station, near great areas to explore, and the rooms are quite luxurious compared to what we’ve stayed in on our trip so far.  Something instantly noted in our room, and in other public restrooms at the airport, have been the bathrooms.  The rumors are true.  Japan has some high tech toilets with sprays, a heat seat, courtesy noises while you sit, and buttons galore.  If you’re not careful, you could push a button and you’ll be sprayed with water.  At first, flushing the toilet took some time to find the flusher.

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We spent 5 days in Osaka and I loved every minute of it.  There are tons of little streets lined with interesting restaurants and shops with cute little toys and nick nacks to look at.  The Japanese really do have an infatuation with anything small and that has a large cuteness factor.  If it’s cute when it’s life sized, make it smaller and the adorable factor multiplies exponentially.  One of our days in Osaka was spent on a tour with All Star Osaka Tours.  Our guide, Minako, was amazing.  She showed us around Osaka pointing out bits and pieces of Osaka history and culture.  She had tons of great little stories to match up with every place we went.  And she’s been quite a help.  Espeically if you don’t speak Japanese, I highly recommend taking a tour or finding someone to translate, because Minako’s assistance was invaluable.

shinto shrine

budda shrine

Osaka Seth

Another landmark we visited was the Osaka Castle.  Perched upon a bit of a hill is a fortress which looks like an elegant mansion from the times of the orient.  Obviously an important castle, continuous groups of children of all ages streamed in and out of the castle doors.  Groups of elderly persons were wheeled and were ushered about, and we were right in the midst of it.  It really is amazing how few non asian people we’ve seen in Japan so far.  The castle was more interesting on the outside than the inside.  The inside had been converted into a museum, but there was a viewing deck up top that proved for spectacular panoramic views of the city.

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Japan Kids

My favorite areas in Osaka happened to be clustered around our hotel.  First of all, there are subway stations in Osaka, and some of them have massive underground mall-like areas.  Namba Walk began just outside of our hotel’s doors.  We’d descend the flights of stairs into an underground world filled with seemingly endless shops and restaurants.  So many of them fulfilling the stereotype of needing to have an adorably cute mascot of some kind.  

Osaka street scene

The most vibrant scene in Osaka occurred at Dotonburi Bridge area.  This area is the Times Square of Osaka, packed with huge billboards, three dimensional caricatures of people and animals and store mascots, and signs with neon lights abound.  We took the necessary photos with the Glico running man, the Kuidaore Clown, and stuck our heads in any cardboard cut out we could find.  Well, at least I did.  We walked over the ‘pick up girls’ bridge where guys hang around in the evenings to pick up on the ladies, and learned why the Honshu Tigers have had bad luck since the early 80’s.  Apparently they won the series and fans would jump off the bridge into the water screaming their favorite player’s name.  There was an American on the team so they went searching for an American to jump off the bridge.  They found an American guy and they picked him up and threw him off the bridge.  The reason the Tigers still have bad luck is because the American has not been recovered, until recently.  He was found, but his left hand and spectacles are still missing.  Minako took out a picture of the American man and we saw that they had thrown in a statue of Kernel Sanders from outside the close by KFC.  Awesome story.  It is said that when they find the hand and specs the Honshu Tigers will break the curse!  

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good luck

 

I mentioned the Kuidaore Clown but I don’t think I explained the word kuidaore.  Kuidaore is something commonly practiced among the people of Osaka.  Osakans are foodies and kuidaore means eat until you fall over.  I love this idea.  And when you are practicing kuidaore you need to take a picture with the Kuidaore Clown.  So, we did.  How did we practice kuidaore that day? We began the day with pork bao from 551 (go go ichi in Japanese) because they are renowned for their bao.  Yum it was delicious.  Eventually we made our way to another delicious restaurant where we tried okonomiyaki.  This is a wonderful mix of tons of ingredients like eggs, onions, cheese perhaps, maybe some seafood, some rice cakes, you could really put just about anything in there, but it always tastes delicious, and you douse it heavily with mayo, okonomiyaki sauce (which is dark, sweet and savory at the same time) and sometimes hot mustard.  It is so, so good!  While we were there we, also, tried their yakisoba (noodles), and their taki yaki.  Taki yaki is a wonderful dish native to Osaka.  They are little octopus balls served molten hot and doused in mayo, some kind of dark sauce, bonito flakes, and whatever else they put on it.  This is a type of street food and it is amazing.  Though delicious, they are fiery hot inside and my mouth is paying for it.  But the taki yaki we had in the restaurant was a bit different, as it was Tokyo style.  It was milder in flavor and you dipped it in a clear broth type liquid with green onions and kind of salty water.  Not as amazing as the Osakan street version, but still pretty good.  We, also, tried something that I could compare to an omlette, but a little different.  That was delicious too.  The food was amazing and plentiful.  Surely kuidaore was achieved.  

okonomiyaki

pancake

Later, we tried some freshly made soy milk.  It tasted different than any I have ever tasted.  It was fresh like the beans themselves, and had no artificial sweetness like the ones you buy in the stores.  And the couple who ran the shop were great to talk with (with Minako’s help, of course).  They were just as curious about us as we were of them.  We learned that they were closing the shop in about a month to retire while they could still enjoy their time together.  One goal for them was to visit Honolulu for the woman to run in the Honolulu Marathon.  That’s awesome.

Osaka mamma

soy milk

There are so many things I want to share! Osaka was amazing, so I’m trying to do it justice.  

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Olo olo

Osaka Shrine

wheel view

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We decided that we were going to put our lives in peril while dining in Osaka.  Fugu is a potentially lethal meal of puffer fish.  You have to be trained and certified to handle fugu, and you can, literally, die within hours of eating if improperly prepared.  Stories have been told of people who regularly eat fugu, but suffer symptoms of tingling in extremities and facial numbness. Minako had showed us a famous fugu restaurant, so we decided to live on the edge.  It was a very delicate fish, so delicate in fact that it hardly had any flavor.  Yes, we dined on fugu, but will we order it again? Probably not.

fugu 1

fugu 2

If you don’t know already, sushi is my absolute, hands down, favorite food.  So, having a meal of sushi in Japan was a pretty big deal for me, and has definitely been on my bucket list.  Anthony Bourdain visited Osaka and dined at a tiny tiny sushi bar run by an old couple.  It took some effort, but after wandering around asking numerous people, we finally found this exact restaurant.  We told the couple that we were interested in omakase, chef’s choice.  I was in heaven.  We were in Japan, at a tinsy tiny sushi bar, eating amazingly fresh toro, blue mackerel, abalone and so much more.  Something interesting we tried was bamboo shoot sushi.  I’ve definitely never seen that on any sushi menu before.  I’d say it was all amazingly delicious, but that would be a lie.  I wasn’t a fan of the abalone.  It had the consistency of chewing on a rubber band, and the raw calamari sushi was like chewing on the sole of a shoe. I chewed it for a really long time before giving up and swallowing.  But, the experience was enough for me.  I even tried uni (sea urchin) and it wasn’t that bad.  I really hope I get more sushi experiences before we leave.

berkley sushi

Solu Khombu Trek – Day 8 (Berkley)

I woke up feeling much better, but still quite weak.  I was really excited because, if all went according to plan, I would see seth in the late afternoon!  So, I head downstairs with my Kindle to have some breakfast.  I was absentminded and made a breakfast mistake.  Nepal doesn’t really do dairy products.  And, I”m going to go out there on a limb and say that they don’t eat yogurt.  So, when they try to serve it, it’s just not right.  Their yogurt may even be dry from a packet.  It kinda fizzes like soda and almost melts any other food item it touches.  Anyhow, I was debating between muesli and yogurt  and porridge.  I figured that the muesli and yogurt would be lighter than the porridge, and my stomach still wasn’t all the way better, so I went with that.  I should have gone with the porridge.  

As I was sitting outside at my little picnic table reading, listening to donkeys with their bells tinkle past on the mountain side, when people started coming in from the front street. About twenty Australians ascended upon me in my quiet solitude.  A nice woman named Ana sat down with me and chatted me up for the next hour.  It was nice.  Eventually they left, but soon thereafter another plane landed and another large group of people ascended upon me again.

I decided that I should try to go on a walk and check out a bit more of Phalpu.  I was still so weak that all I could muster was between five and ten minutes and I was exhausted.  Still not 100%.  At about ten o’clock I decided to head up to my room to make myself presentable for Seth when he arrived.  Though he was supposed to show up between 12 and 1pm, I got a knock at my door from Cook at about 10:30am.  Apparently Seth must have been running to get to Phalpu.  I trotted down the stairs to meet him.  It was so nice to see my sweaty, dirty husband.  Though I was happy to see him early and in one piece, I was dismayed to find that he’d slipped in yak poo and scraped his arm really good, and he was walking with a bit of a limp.  No good.  We scarfed down some noodle soup and caught up a little bit.

Pretty soon Purba came to tell us that we could get on the flight at noon to Kathmandu.  We ended up running onto the plane and were two of four passengers.  It was a bit scary getting on the plane.  I think I failed to mention in an earlier post, but during our trek there was a plane crash of a plane that followed the same flight path as ours.  So, we were nervous to fly.  But, we ended up receiving an unexpected treat on the flight.  Other than the little coconut caramel candies, we were able to catch an above the clouds view of Everest and the surrounding major peaks.  Pretty astounding.  

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We picked up our extra bag from Hotel Manaslu and made our way to Hotel Courtyard, where we will be staying for the rest of our time in Kathmandu.  It’s a really comfy, reasonably priced hotel.  It’s clean, has great internet, comfortable rooms, decent breakfast, and each room has a DVD player for the giant DVD library downstairs.  We both took nice, long, hot showers that were much appreciated, before resting and eating. Aahhh, Kathmandu!

I’ve Found the Magic

Like Seth mentioned, India was easier for me to handle than for him.  But, that doesn’t mean that I wasn’t confounded or appalled at times.  As a matter of fact, upon leaving India I ended up becoming so infuriated that I was barely holding myself together.  If I were a different person I would have started punching people, but luckily I have a thread more of patience, but really it was only a thread.

We began to see enormous mountains peeking through the clouds from the airplane.  It was really exciting.  But the real excitement came when we began to walk around the area surrounding our hotel.  We, luckily, booked a crap hotel in a good area.  Thamel is the super touristy area, but that means that food is basically safe wherever you go.  There are tons of shops, overpriced of course, but many things to look at.  Bustling streets, live music, and the best part… no cows!  And when there are no cows, there are no cow patties.  And, on top of that, the streets are clean!  I can walk without looking down.  I can look at shops as I walk past.  It’s amazing.  But, what I really found here in Kathmandu on our first night, was the magic that was missing in India.  It was clean, safe, and smiling.  I felt as if a huge weight, that I didn’t even realize was there, was lifted from my shoulders.  I’m not going to say that I completely disliked India, because there were parts that I enjoyed.  But, I don’t think I felt as relaxed, comfortable, or happy one single day while in India, as I felt this first night in Nepal.  

See ya later stink town!

So, Berkley has been a bit more kind about her description of India than I would have. The last month in India has been above and beyond the most frustrating, and at times perplexing, portion of our trip so far. I don’t even have the energy to write about India. Lets say it took quite a few of these to make me someone Berkley wanted to travel with.

Kingfisher Strong

We left Delhi (after an infuriating situation at the airport) and took a short 1:45 minuet flight to Kathmandu, as soon as the plane touched down it was like the monkey on my back had jumped off. (pun intended)

kathmandu flight

It feels great to be out of India, Kathmandu has been a wonderful change.

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Kwa Heri Africa, Namaste India

Good bye Africa, hello India! 

It took us 24 hours of travel to get here, but we’re in New Delhi, India.  We left our beach bungalow at 10am to get to the Zanzibar airport.  We took a short flight, about a half hour or less, to Dar es Salaam, then we had to wait for our next flight, which was 5 hours away.  This might be ok if we were in an airport like DIA (Denver Airport) where we could wander through the stores aimlessly, have a decent bite to eat, or even post up at the New Belgium Brewery in the airport.  But, Dar es Salaam is a tiny airport. There’s 3 to 4 tiny shops that have the exact same items, and a restaurant that looked questionable and was severely overpriced, like the stores.  It was actually kinda funny.  We found little Kirkland packets of nuts for sale, but they were like $5, and not worth it.  A small pack of gum was $3.  So we sat and listened to our audio book.

Finally we took the 3 hour flight to Ethiopia.  We had another 5 hours to kill in that airport.  We had originally thought we were going to be there during the day, and that we would check in, leave our bags, and venture out into Ethiopia for lunch or dinner.  But, it was from 7pm to midnight, so we skipped that idea.  This airport was weird.  The shops were filled with random designer labels, but it all seemed fishy, like they were counterfeit, or they had “fallen off a truck”.  Also, the shelves were fairly empty, there’d be a huge shelf with two or three items on it.  And there were TONS of cigarettes.  Apparently cigarettes from China are a hot commodity, because they were expensive, $50 a carton, while Marlboro were $16.

It was finally time to head to our gate.  When the man called for passengers with children, needing special assistance, and business class members, the entire group of people in the waiting area bum rushed the entrance.  And they began to enter without being let in.  Eventually we made our way up, but the people were so pushy and then so close behind us that I kind of wish we had waited for everyone else to board first.  But we needed to assure that we had overhead luggage space. They would push up against you, and when you turned your head they would apologize, but do it again and again.  Just before the plane there was a guy trying to check everyone’s ticket, and we watched him turn away a passenger and realize that he might have been letting people on the plane who shouldn’t have been let on.  Hmm.  I’m pretty sure there were some stow aways on that flight.

The flight was about 6 hours, after the delay, but it was not a bad flight.  We dosed ourselves with our respective knock out drugs and were able to sleep a bit.  Aside from the fact that I was awoken by people walking by and bumping into me with elbows and carts, we were awoken in the middle of the night for a meal.  I think we were in a daze because we sleepily ate a meal at about 2:30 in the morning.  Totally unnecessary, but we were zoned out.  Seth barely remembered anything the next day.

The plane landed and the airport in India was much more vigilant about the passengers on the plane.  They cattle blocked the exit and checked everyone’s ticket stub, and if they couldn’t find it, they had to wait.  I thought that was awesome.

We were picked up by someone from our hotel and we made our way into Delhi.  We landed on a Sunday morning, so traffic wasn’t like it normally is.  We’ve heard a lot about Delhi traffic.  And, maybe it’s because we just spent a few weeks in Africa, but so far New Delhi is not like we expected.  It is much ‘nicer’ than we expected.  But, I’m also going to assume that we are in the nicer part of the city.  When I looked up our area it seems to be the Silverlake of New Delhi.  But, when I say this, don’t picture a street lined with pretty store fronts and welcoming restaurants.  I said it is the Silverlake of New Delhi.  We’ve already encountered areas that require ten gallon lungs to hold your breath.

Our hotel, aside from our romantic anniversary night, is the nicest hotel we’ve been in.  Amarya Haveli is a cute boutique B&B where we were offered their delicious homemade iced tea upon arrival.  Our room is the Jaipur room, so it is themed pink, with a pink temple painted on the wall.  And the bathroom is glorious.  Aside from the fact that you have to keep your mouth glued shut in the shower (we’re in India) it is amazing, with water pressure and extremely hot water.  And we had the best night sleep, probably since we moved out of our apartment in May.  AC, hot water, clean, and a comfy bed.  Awesome.

Amarya Haveli

We ventured out for a walk to a park nearby.  We ended up finding Deer Park, where they actually have deer in an enclosure.  There was a lady there who was feeding them yellow rice and naan.  I have a feeling that she wasn’t supposed to be doing that.

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Eventually we made our way to a recommended restaurant called Park Baluchi (which I bet means deer park), where we would have our first Indian meal.  We ordered two beers, two vegetarian dishes, and two types of bread. The beer was Kingfisher and the waiter presented them to each of us like one would a bottle of wine.  It was interesting.  Then there was a well packed ball of ricotta like cheese in something similar to a vodka sauce (i.e. tomato and cream).  That was really good.  It had lots of spices and a bit of a kick. Yum! Then there was a spinach based dish with string beans, corn and potatoes.  That was, also, very good.  We accompanied those with regular naan and kolcha, which is what I believe to be India’s version of pizza.  It was a flat bread with some chopped tomatoes, spices and cheese.  All very good.

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We made our way back to our hotel and ordered some masala chai tea to keep ourselves awake so that we wouldn’t fall asleep too early.  The tea was delicious. And so was our night’s sleep. Aahhh…

Cappadocia

We figured that we’d pop a Lunesta and sleep for the 10-11 hour trip on our night bus, and save a bunch of money in lieu of taking a plane.  That was optimistic.  The night bus was extremely uncomfortable and not well suited for sleeping.  Aside from the discomfort, there were strong odors surrounding us, threatening our nostrils.  One seat behind us was a woman with two young children, and a loud cell phone that she would allow to ring till it hit voicemail.  She’d stuff her children with sugary treats at every stop we made which resulted in the children becoming amped up then cranky, fall asleep, get woken up by the cell phone and cry, then start the cycle all over again.  Seth was able to feel some of the effects of the pill and was able to sleep a bit.  I did not sleep more than 20 minutes the entire trip.  And it was not 10 hours.  We began our journey at 6:30pm and didn’t hit the final bus station until about 9am. 

Needless to say, we were absolutely exhausted.  But, we arrived at our cave hotel with 10 minutes to ‘freshen up’ in the communal bathroom in reception before heading out for our all day tour.  Luckily, our tour began with a hike.  Oh man.  That was rough.  And I think our mood detracted from the beauty of the area.  Sandstone formations shot up into the air to make for an interesting landscape.  The formations originated from volcanoes so the colors of the rock varied from whites, to rose, to blacks.

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Our day passed us in a haze, stopping at one destination here and a panoramic viewpoint there.  The highlight for us was an elaborate underground city comprised of tunnels and rooms that even connect across different towns throughout the vast region of Anatolia.  The Christians used this underground city to hide when under attack from the Romans.  They could live underground for a couple of months at a time.  The cave system was elaborate, going down 8 floors, with ventilation systems and everything.  

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We ended up making friends and going out to dinner in town at Sofra Restaurant.  Though I’m not sure of it’s name, both Seth and I ordered a regional special.  Mine was with lamb and his was with chicken with peppers and tomatoes.  It went great with Efes, the Turkish beer.  We ended off the night with a game of Farkle.  Yes!  Somehow Neil won, after Farkling a million times.  Beginner’s luck!

Our second day of tour was a bit better because we were well rested, but we were still dealing with our bad choices from the Istanbul market. Remember the ice cream, yogurt, and pickle combo? Our stomachs were still not 100% better.

The Open Air Museum was pretty cool.  It is a series of churches built into the stone formations.  After a few descriptions from our tour guide, we decided to explore on our own, and it turned out that we made a good choice.  The people who stayed with the group only saw like 4 churches, while Seth and I saw a ton.  

We eventually made our way to another place where we were free to explore all the cave like structures on our own.  Seth and I went clambering up to the tops of as many structures as we could.  These were like homes carved out in the middle of large rock formations.  Kind of hard to explain, so I hope the pictures do them justice.

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By the evening our stomachs were finally better, so we got a recommendation from a local in town and had a really good dinner at Micro Restaurant, once again.  Seth got the Ottoman Special, and I can’t remember what mine was called.  His was chicken with gravy and a garlic yogurt sauce atop a bed of shoe string french fries.  Mine was eggplant topped with a yogurt garlic sauce and lamb.  

We went back to our cave to sleep.  I mention this, because the area is known for its caves.  The history of the area is as a cave culture.  The people still build their homes into the mountain side.  The temperatures in a cave are such that they are fairly stable, making it cool in the summer, and warm in the winter.  So our hotel was a cave hotel.  Our room was pretty cool.

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Since our experience on the night bus was so unpleasant, we decided to book a flight back to Istanbul.  We had already had a miserable day due to lack of sleep and we didn’t want to mess up a day in Istanbul too.  Plus, we didn’t want to get sick.  Since we were trying to book our flight so late the availability was pretty slim.  Only two seats left on the plane, and one of them was business class.  When we got off the plane I asked Seth how his in flight snack was. “Snack?” Seth had gotten a meal.  Which brings me to something I’ve been meaning to mention.  Some of you may remember a time when you received a meal for free while flying.  If it was a short flight you received a snack.  Well, they still do that outside the United States.  On every flight we’ve been on since we left the US we’ve received a meal, and they’ve been decent and quite interesting, and they don’t charge you a cent.  They are usually representative of where we are flying in some sort of way.  For example, Turkey is big on yogurts, and my snack included a yogurt with mint.  That was pretty good.

A Whole New World

camels in front of the great pyramids

I’ll give you two chances to guess where we’ve been.  Wait… No I won’t.  If you can’t tell from the pictures, then you’ve been locked in a closet your whole life (and if that’s the case, I’m impressed you’ve found our blog).  We’ve spent the past 6 days in Cairo, Egypt.  It was a spur of the moment plan.  We got the idea one day, did a lot of research, and booked a package deal the next afternoon. 

Day 1:

We begin our journey at the airport.  It’s not too much of a surprise, but we stood out a bit.  Aside from our height, we are much fairer than most of the people in the airport (despite our attempts to become as brown as possible on the beach).  Similarly, Egypt’s majority is Muslim, so about 95% of the women wear a head scarf, if not fully covered.  There were women ranging from wearing western clothes and a head scarf, all the way to women completely covered, except for their eyes.  Some women even wore gloves and their dresses dragged on the floor.  Then, we ended up waiting a long while for our bags.  It turns out that we arrived in time for the breaking of the fast.  See, it’s Ramadan right now, so Muslims are fasting, but break the fast at about 7pm.  So, our escort implied that the people who were handling our luggage might have stopped to take a break to have a bite to eat.  All around us people were breaking open boxes to break the fast.  Although we really wanted to leave the airport, it was interesting to people watch.

We were walked to an air conditioned van to be driven to our hotel in the city.  The ride was described to a “T” by our coordinator, Mohammed, “Like Playstation!” Exactly.  Our driver, also Mohammed, weaved in and out of the cars, honking at anyone who got in his way, and even those who stayed away (as a warning, perhaps).  Nonetheless, we made it to our hotel unscathed.

Giza from the highway

Boys on a bike with dad

Our hotel is right by the Nile River, the Pyramisa Hotel Casino.  Though it is very nice, it seems as if it used to be super chic and fancy.  After discussing tour plans with Mohammed, we found our way up to our room.  Room? No, SUITE!  I’m pretty sure that this hotel room is bigger than our apartment in LA, but that’s not saying too much.  Anyhow, it is comprised of a bedroom with a big bed, a living room, a ‘kitchen’ and a bathroom.  But, a real bathroom.  I’m not sure if I mentioned it before, but on the Greek islands we dealt with plumbing where you can not put toilet paper in the toilet, but have a trash can for it, and I know I mentioned all the shower situations.  Anyhow, normal toilet, actual shower, central air conditioning (not barely functioning wall unit), real big bed, and a TV, a functioning one.  Nice.  

We walked around the hotel a bit and found a store with jewelry and essential oils, aka perfume.  We didn’t have any Egyptian money yet and were just expecting to look, but the man in the shop insisted we take a bottle and pay him later, when we got money.  He said he could trust us, because we were Americans, not Russians. Alright, we were a bit nervous, but we figured that since it was in the hotel, we would be ok.

Day 2:

After a good night’s sleep, we made our way to the included breakfast.  It turns out that the included breakfast is a real buffet breakfast, with things you’d find in the US and things that were more intriguing.  My omelet consisted of eggs and some spices mixed in.  It turned out to be pretty good, a different flavor.  There were different types of soft cheeses rolled in spices (cumin, fennel, and chill), a savory pastry with an array of sauces (honey, oil, cheese, and tahini), but there were also tons of breads, cakes, and pastries.  Seth went straight for the chocolate cake.  Chocolate cake, it has all the things you need! Eggs, milk, flour, it’s the perfect breakfast food! (if  you can recognize my reference I’ll be impressed)  

Following breakfast we met up with our tour guide for the day, Wa’al (sp?).  He turned out to be lovely, a very informative, genial man.  Our first stop was the piece du resistance!  We went to the Giza Desert to see the pyramids!! Oh man.  It was an experience we will not forget.  I mean, it’s the pyramids!  Everybody learns about ancient Egypt in school, but who actually travels to Egypt and sees, touches, and climbs about the pyramids!   Well, apparently, we do!  They were massive.  And, there are more than the three you see in all the pictures.  There were 9 in total in Giza.  After walking around the largest pyramid (the name escapes me) we made our way into one of the smaller pyramids to see where the burial chamber was like.  It was hot and stuffy all the way down there in the middle of the pyramid.  Something that intrigued us were all the wild dogs that live in the shady crevices of the pyramid.  It was kinda cool to watch the dogs bounding up the blocks of the pyramid. 

GizaPano

rider next to pyramids

After taking our time with pictures, and turning down a million and a half requests to buy chachkies, we then went to what they call the panorama spot, where we could see the pyramids amidst the desert without the view being marred by the nearby city.  And it is nearby.  I know that I envisioned the pyramids to be deep in the middle of a vast desert.  The desert quite possibly may be vast, but the pyramids are no longer deep within the desert.  The city of Cairo almost reaches the desert.    Anyhow, we made it to this panorama spot to see the unmarred view, but for another reason yet.  We were on a mission to haggle a deal to ride a camel alongside the pyramids.  The first offer was, I think something like 600 Egyptian Pounds.  No way.  We gave the man our price, but when he refused we walked away.  The next man had a higher price of 900EP per person, on one camel.  Bigger no way.  Luckily I have Seth, and he can haggle.  We ended up paying 300EP which got us each a camel, then we gave the man a 50EP tip at the end.  And we were able to take tons of pictures.  It was pretty amazing.  My word of the day was, “awesome!”.  

Us with our guide in front of pyramids

camelGuideGiza

camelEatingGiza

After the pyramids of Giza we made our way to the Great Sphinx.  Though it was not as large as I had expected, it was still quite a sight to see.  Though I thoroughly enjoyed the Great Sphinx, I was greatly disappointed by our American franchises.  Just outside the gates of the Great Sphinx were Pizza Hut, McDonalds, and KFC.  It cheapened the experience.  Similarly, I want to give a firm kick in the butt to any American who enters one of those, or those type, of places in a foreign country.  If that’s where you choose to eat when traveling, you probably deserve the coronary problems that follow.  That’s my rant for the day.

berkley in front of sphinx

seth sphinx

After that, we went to a papyrus factory where we were given a brief tutorial on how papyrus, the ancient Egyptian paper, was made.  I remember making papyrus in middle school in Ms. Garratt’s class (Shout out to my ER peeps!).  Anyhow, we looked for a while before deciding on some prints that suited us.

berkley black block

seth black block

We, then went for lunch on the Nile River.  There was a restaurant called Imperial that was included in our tour.  It was nothing special, but it was nice to be out of the sun, with some cool water.  

For our final destination we made our way to the Kahn al Kalili market.  This is a maze of winding streets crowded with shops.  It also happens to be rife with pickpockets and scams.  I was already a bit nervous to visit this market, but when our guide offered to meet us in an hour at a meeting point, I nearly ran for the van.  But, that was unnecessary, because Wa’el reluctantly entered the labyrinth with us.  We probably spent about forty five minutes to an hour walking through the jam packed streets, passing stalls with sweet smelling sugars, head scarfs, metal works, and more.  Because the breaking of the fast was nearing, the streets were becoming more and more congested.  Little cars filled with pre packed boxes of food continuously squeezed their way through the throngs of people.  We made our way out to the square alongside the market, where people were setting up tables and food carts for the upcoming meal.  We, then, bid Wa’el good bye and held on tight for the Playstation ride home.

khalil market

khalil Market Inside

When we got back to the hotel we washed the day’s sand and sweat from our bodies before heading down to the perfume shop to pay ‘our friend’.  It turned out that he wasn’t there, but ‘his friend’ was there.  And, he was a bit confused about the price we were paying for what we were telling him we bought.  It sounded like we had paid a price for 6 bottles in a box, when we only purchased one.  From the guy’s reaction and confusion we decided that we were given the ‘American price’.  We’ll know better next time.  

After that it was time to check out the hookah cafe.  We sat and smoked mint and apple shisha, a sweet, sticky pipe tobacco that when smoked creates thick white clouds of smoke.  Our hookah was a traditional three foot tall tapped metal water pipe that cools the smoke before it hits your mouth.  Our charcoal boy came violently swinging a metal basket full of hot coals like an altar boy in a catholic church.  

The television was on and we watched a few intriguing music videos.  For the most part they all had a story line.  I obviously couldn’t understand the Arabic words, but I understood that one song was describing a man’s love for his wife.  It started out with him wooing her, taking her on their first date, and ended with his daughter running to embrace him, followed by an embrace by this woman.  I, also, noted a theme in the commercials that were airing.  They were all like mini musicals.  Once again, I couldn’t understand the Arabic, but there would be a group of people dancing and singing around washing machines, before a logo/brand name would pop up on the screen, and I can only guess that they were singing an ode to the washing machine.  Real interesting.  Our waiters walked over the the television and changed the channel, the show that came on that was quite disturbing.  It was somewhat like Ashton Kutcher’s Punk’d, except it was not a funny joke.  At least to us it wasn’t.  I’m not sure what they intended, but we were the only white people in the restaurant and we were front and center in relation to the TV.  In this prank there were about 4 masked gunmen that overtook a bus in the desert.  They blindfolded the two women who were the butt of their joke, screamed in their faces, hand cuffed them, shot realistic guns, and had them on their knees.  Not my idea of a funny joke, and I don’t think these screaming crying women thought it was too funny, either.  But, before we could see the end of this ‘lovely’ show, two men turned off the tube and sat down in front of it, to play a guitar like instrument, a tambourine, and sing.  Much better.

https://www.sethandberkley.com/downloads/cairo01.m4a

Later, more to rid ourselves of the tobacco feeling than out of hunger, we had an evening snack.  We both ordered lentil soup, which was good garnished with key limes and salt, and we shared some grape leaves which were also good.  But, once again, we were pleasantly surprised.  Almost in an instant the area by the lounge in which we were eating was filled with smartly dressed people.  It turns out there was a wedding going on.  At least we’re pretty sure it was a wedding.  We talked to Mohammed and though confused by a wedding during Ramadan, what we described to him was a wedding.  Anyhow, it began with bagpipes, which we thought was odd, but is apparently quite common.  Then, that was replaced by drums, tambourines, and a piercing, ‘nasal’ horn that led the music.  There was dancing in a circle around the couple, and eventually movement to another location.  It definitely was not a wedding ceremony, but we think that it was the celebration after the consummation of the marriage.  Once again, we can’t be sure, but this is how it appeared.  Once the loud music migrated elsewhere we, ourselves, migrated off to bed.

Day 3:

We woke up in the morning, and headed down to our breakfast buffet.  Much more of the same, but we noticed olives.  I’ve finally found an olive I truly don’t care for.  Seth compared it to an olive that tastes like gunpowder.  Why he knows what gunpowder tastes like is still a concern, but either way, I didn’t even eat a whole olive.  Just one bite was enough.  But, once again the chocolate cake was good.  I like the one with dates and chocolate on the inside and coconut on the outside.  Fruit!

We, then, made our way to the pyramids that date to before the famous Pyramids of Giza.  The first pyramids are in Sakkara, and the oldest and first pyramid is known as the step pyramid.  It is the burial site for King Zoser, but his remains were never found.  But, the star of this site was not the king, it was Imhotep, the architect for the burial site.  He is the one who designed the first pyramid, and if you think about it, gave Egypt it’s world renowned icons.  So, thank you Imhotep, they are amazing. Especially on camelback.

step pyramid entrance

berkley pillars

After checking out the Sakkara complex and the museum, we made our way to a carpet factory.  Though we had high hopes of gifting small silk carpets to our family and friends back home, those hopes were squelched when we found out that it was a ‘school for children to learn how to make carpets’ (aka child labor).  Boo.  I know that it is a different country with different cultural values and the like, but I can’t get behind that.  The boys we saw working on the carpets ranged from probably 5 through 14.  I understand that it is a different way of life, but a child’s place is not in a factory. (I understand that these are my views and other’s may be different. Tough crap, it’s my blog)  If the rugs were not made by children, we might have bought some of the likely overpriced rugs, because they were quite pretty.

hyroBerkley

We then headed off to Memphis, to a sacred burial ground.  We didn’t see much of burials, but there were some really nice statues.  Our guide, Heidi, said that UNESCO stopped funding the projects so exploration halted.  The statues we did see, of King Ramses, were pretty impressive though.

hyroSeth

After that we went to a perfume oil shop where we were given a very brief explanation on the process before being led to smell some essential oils.  Though we found some we liked, they were being sold for ‘American prices’ as well.  But, they were 8 times more than what we paid for our little bottle at the hotel.  Our overpriced hotel bottle was 80 EP and this place was selling the same bottle for 200EP. Fool me once, shame on you. Fool me twice, shame on me.  

When we got back to the hotel we paid our perfume shop friend a little visit.  He was so happy to see us.  He immediately ushered us in to sit and have some tea.  He made us some hibiscus tea before talking business.  He wanted to sell us more, so we told him about our visit to the shop earlier in the day and he ended up cutting us a deal.  We checked the internet and decided that we would not pay more than 30EP for the smallest bottle.  And, we were supposed to ask for a smaller bottle after he showed us his ‘smallest bottle’.  Man, I love the internet.  We purchased 4 of the actual smallest bottles (we were going to buy 6 but he ran out of small bottles) for 25 EP each, plus a 20 for him.  This is how it works in Egypt.  Everyone needs a bit for themselves.  It’s a different culture here.  You just have to know what you’re dealing with.  After this seemingly honest talk with the shop keeper, we wonder about the prices of all the shops we’ve been taken to.  I’m not so sure about this ‘government regulated’ stuff that we’ve been told, and we’re pretty sure that the tour company, the tour guides, or our driver get a kickback when we buy something.  Either way, we like our papyrus paintings, and the shop keeper said that since they have signatures then they are higher quality.  The more you know…

 

Our tour representative organized a Nile River dinner cruise for us.  He told us that the price that our tour company offered was really high, and that he had a friend who could get us less expensive tickets.  So, he met us at the corner by our hotel to pick us up with his friend.  But, then he asked for the money for the cruise.  666 Egyptian Pounds.  We were already catching on to the fluid price charts here in Egypt, so we did a bit of questioning.  He assured us that it was a really nice boat, and that this was a very good price.  But, since we hadn’t anticipated that high a price, we didn’t have enough to cover the entire bill.  He told us we could pay him the rest later.  When we got to the dock, he had us wait while he went and bought the tickets.  That was it, we knew we were getting ripped.  He told us that when his friend drove us back to the hotel we could get the rest of the money for the tickets and give it to him.  Obviously, this meant that the tickets were paid for and he was pocketing the rest of the money.  But, we still hadn’t seen any price signs and hadn’t seen the boat, so maybe we weren’t getting too bad of a deal.  

 

Seth’s quote, “This is the most depressing boat I’ve ever been on, and I’ve been on a lot of boats” sums it up quite nicely.  Though everyone kept reminding us that it was a 5 star boat, with 5 star food, and 5 star entertainment, we were not convinced.  Then again, I don’t know who was giving out the stars.  The food was pretty bad, aside from the baba ganoush, and you had to pay extra for drinks, even water.  I don’t know of any 5 star anything where you have to pay for your water.  The kicker, we were 2 of about 20 or less passengers on the boat, all of whom were tourists, on a boat that could have easily fit 1,000 people.  It’s like going to a party and no one’s there.  Lovely.  Oh, and then there was the entertainment.  The first act was a couple singing to karaoke tunes.  The woman was pretty good, but I have no idea why they were singing all old American pop songs.  You’ve never heard Patsy Cline’s Crazy until you’ve heard it  on a felucca floating down the Nile.  And the man, I really don’t know why he bothered.  He was reading the words, but I don’t think he could read English, or even knew the songs.  My Way was hummed, poorly, except for the word Way.  And then there were two poor examples of belly dancing (I’ve seen belly dancing in the south of Spain that could blow these women out of the water), and one was accompanied by some people in a horse costume that would ‘nuzzle’ people’s heads while a photographer took pictures to sell to you later.  The best part about the boat was the last act.  This guy in 3 layers of wide skirts came onto the ‘stage’ and began spinning.  And he ended up spinning for at least 10 minutes straight.  He spun and did things with his skirt, including taking pieces off and spinning them over his head, and the ‘crowd’ (I use that word lightly).  

The main problem about being on a boat excursion of any kind is that you are stuck.  You can’t just leave if you are done.  Although, in this case it might have been possible, since we didn’t exactly take a cruse down the Nile as the name implied.  We kind of just paced back in forth in front of the dock for about 2 hours.  And man that was a long  2 hours.  

When we got off the boat, we were a little bit nervous, because Mohammed was not going to be the one to pick us up, his friend who drove us there was to pick us up, and we couldn’t remember what he or his car looked like.  But, since there was not a crowd of people exiting the boat, we were able to find him amongst the 15 other tourists that disembarked with us.  That evening we did an internet search to find out actual prices for the nile cruise we took.  It turns out that it costs 150 EP per person.  So, we paid over double the listed price.  Once again, the shiesty nature of the culture prevailed.  It’s really left a bad taste in our mouths.  At no time have I felt a threat to my physical safety (unless you count the reckless nature of the traffic here), but I am constantly worried that my wallet is under attack.  It’s too bad.  When we were in Greece, our couch surfing host made a very interesting statement, ” The new Greeks don’t deserve their country.”  I feel this is the case for Egypt as well.  It is the cradle of civilization, rife with amazing natural wonders, and the people have made it difficult for the world to share in it’s wonder.

Day 4:

Heidi began our next day by inquiring about our boat tour from the night before (good job at remembering, 2 points!).  We gave her the honest answer, telling her about our price research.  We also gave her our account of the perfume shenanigans.  She made it sound like the tours of the factories (aka carpets and perfume) were an extra that could be done if time permitted.  She said she didn’t know the prices of the places, but began telling us of the different classes in Egypt and the price discrepancies.  She told us that for the most part, there is no fixed price in Egypt.  Ya, that’s difficult.

Berkley Mosque

We made our way to see some Islamic Mosques.  If I’m being completely honest, the mosques I’ve seen in Spain and Turkey have been much prettier, and way more impressive.  The Islamic museum was interesting, but so hot that it was hard to concentrate.  We, then, made our way to the Coptic area of Cairo.  We thought it was curious that it was blocked off by a gate and some guards.  We, also, found many guards inside.  Though her answer was unclear to us (I think she may have left out some explanations that may be implicit to Egyptians, so she didn’t realize we wouldn’t understand right away) what I got from her response was that the area had groups of people in it that the majority may not necessarily want in Cairo.  The Coptic Church seems to be the Egyptian branch of the Orthodox church.  Her descriptions of the religion were similar and she pointed out similarities.  Also, the art displayed was if not the same, dam near similar to the art of the Greek Orthodox Church.  This makes sense because the Greeks inhabited Egypt for some time.  Anyhow, we were in the Coptic center of Cairo and we felt much more at ease in this area than any other area we had been in Cairo.  The people smiled at us and said hello, we weren’t hassled to enter stores, and even their museum was more pleasant.  Something we’ve noticed is that the state of the museums are not up to par with any other museums we’ve been in.  The Cairo Museum, filled with mummies and ancient artifacts from the start of civilization, was hot, muggy, unorganized, and not properly secured in most cases.  This Coptic Museum was like, what we would call, a normal museum.  All items were properly displayed and numbered with explanations, there were little thermometers in the clean glass cases to regulate the temperature, and the whole place was properly air conditioned.  If any artifacts are going to last through to the next few centuries it will be those in the Coptic Museum.

We visited a few of the churches in the area, but what surprised me was the Jewish Temple.  We entered and it was pretty neat to see that the Jewish people were still represented in Egypt after so much persecution.  And, for the most part, it was in tact and quite pretty.

Though our tour was complete, Heidi offered to escort us to Felfela Restaurant for lunch.  We really wanted to experience Egyptian food outside of our hotel.  It was pretty good.  We ordered grilled meat with rice, felafel, and beans with an egg on top.  It was all pretty good, but the felafel was the best.  It was very nice of Heidi to accompany us there.  She then took us to find a taxi.  I can now say that I’ve walked the streets of Cairo.  Because you have to walk in the street to find a taxi, and that’s like walking though a nascar race track.  Cairo Street Crossing should be an extreme sport.  The taxi driver made our list of people we like in Cairo.  The cab we found already had a woman in it so we shared the taxi.  That was nice.  And though the price for getting from point A to point B would have normally been 20EP he only accepted 10 of the 25 we were trying to give him.  That was nice, and much appreciated.  I am sending good Karma vibes to you sir!

We bid our farewells to Heidi and head up to our room.  We turned our bath tub into a washing machine and hung clothes from anything we could.  We turned our room into a clothes drying Christmas Tree. I wish I took a picture.

Day 5:

We have nothing planned for the day.  We were going to either do a cooking class with Mohammed’s friend or hire a car to take us around Cairo for the day, but after all the ‘deals’ we’ve been encountering, we decided against both.  We spent the day relaxing, reading and catching up on things that needed to be done.  In the evening we went for a walk to find a dinner spot recommended by the concierge.  After being turned away and sent towards the Chilis (yes, they have a Chillis) we found a spot with a buffet where the locals were breaking their fast.  That was pretty neat.  What we noticed that they get there right as the buffet opens and pound the food and escape to the deck for shisha and tea.  We had a variety of Egyptian cuisine,but we’re pretty sure our entree selections consisted of mainly sauces and dips, the US equivalent would be eating mounds of salsa, butter, and ranch dressing, with a few veggies and a piece of bread of course.  We head back to the hotel in the still sweltering heat, hit the showers and went to bed.  

We truly enjoyed the sights of Egypt.  The pyramids were amazing.  We have some qualms, but that’s for another post.

NYC, Airplanes, & Madrid

Hello to all! Our final day in New York was wonderful, thanks to Amy.  We started off the day right with some bagels from Tal Bagel.  Delicuous. I had my favorite combo of Poppy seed bagel, chive cream cheese, tomato, and lox.  Holy cow, big, fat yum.  I love bagels, and New York is the best place for that.  We then traveled over to the Natural History Museum.  We walked around for hours checking out different ‘peoples’, birds, mammals, gems, and minerals.  When we were geeked out, we headed over to Japadog.  Japadog is a place we discovered this past Thanksgiving weekend when we were visiting Vancouver, Canada.  We heard that there was this street cart that had amazing Japanese inspired hot dogs.  I wasn’t super excited, but was pleasantly surprised when I found that they were more like sausages than hot dogs, and the toppings were eclectic.  Well, when we found out that Japadog opened a storefront in New York, we knew we had to give it a try, once again.  Yep, still good!

It was finally time to head to JFK Airport.  We showered, said our farewells to Amy (our amazing hostess with the mostess), and caught a cab.  No traffic in the city, go figure, so we arrived quickly.  That will be the last time I use the word quick.  (unless I talk about our time spent in Dusseldorf)  

Though we arrived at JFK 2.5 hours early, we ended up spending at least an hour in line.  Boo! The plan was that we were to fly to Dusseldorf, Germany, then catch another plane to Verona, Italy.  We’d spend the day in Verona, before returning to the airport to catch another flight to Madrid.  So, the first flight left on Sunday evening and we’d arrive in Madrid on Monday evening.  Well, that didn’t happen.  After waiting in the terminal for an hour and a half without the flight crew mentioning anything, we finally boarded our first airplane.  And then we got to hang out on the tarmac for about another hour before we actually took off.  When we finally landed in Dusseldorf, we were about 3 hours late (we also, had to wait to disembark the plane), and therefore we missed our flight to Verona.  But, we were reassured that our flight was rescheduled.  Great, except, the line to get through customs was about an hour long (where a little kid in line directly behind us, puked up everything and anything he had eaten on the flight beforehand).  Therefore we missed our rescheduled flight.  So, we went to the ticketing booth to talk to our lovely Air Berlin personnel, where the guy told us that the only thing he could do was to put us on a flight to Vienna, and then to Verona.  Aside from the fact that this made no sense, we would not make our flight to Madrid with this plan.  He assured us that there was no way he could get us to Madrid, due to the fact that the flight was made with a different carrier.  We would have to buy a separate ticket.  Great.  So, we went in search for our luggage.  That was interesting.  They were lost in the ether for a bit before we were able to retrieve them.  We then went to the Air Berlin desk a few floors up (Where they probably weren’t hearing as many complaints) and the wonderful woman heard our story and was like, “sure, we can fix that.” And she did.  She put us on a direct flight from Dusseldorf to Madrid, where we would arrive an hour earlier than planned.  Similarly, we had a bit of time to kill, and we didn’t want to do so in the airport.  So, we stashed our bags in a storage room, and took a train into the city of Dusseldorf.  Awesome!  We wanted to go to Germany, but didn’t arrange it because of time, money, and I don’t know!  With some advice from a local bookseller and his patron, we ended up eating lunch in a traditional beer hall, Schumakers, which appeared to be quite old and established.  Cool! We had bratwurst, sauerkraut, and mashed potatoes, accompanied by a deliciously smooth, spicy mustard and a refreshing house beer.  Awesome.  

Dusseldorf Coaster

On our way back to the train station, Seth picked up a bratwurst from a place that he’s been talking about for ages that he went to the last time he was in Dusseldorf for the World Cup.  It’s funny how things work out.  We arrived back at the airport in time for our flight, and spent a short 3 hours listening to an audiobook on our way to Madrid.

We arrived without a problem, and our bags were some of the first out of the carousel.  We found Alberto waiting for us, an made our way into the city.  After dropping off our big backpacks, we headed out for some dinner, even though it was probably about 11pm.  We had tapas! Oh how I missed Madrid! Jamon Iberico, cipirones a la plancha, queso manchego, and boquerones, all brought together by my cerveza con limon.  Oh man, how wonderful!  A great ending to a difficult journey.  

Today we did a lot of walking.  We were walking around Madrid from about 11am until probably 8:30pm.  We saw a lot.  And, on the way we sampled Madrid’s finest, with the help of my amazing friend Alberto.  For those of you who don’t know, he’s a friend of mine from when I studied in Spain, about 7 years ago.  Since then, he’s visited me twice, and hosted my sister this past year numerous times.  He’s a great person, and a wonderful guide!

Alberto, Seth, y Berkley-El NeruQueso de Cabrales

 

Seth has been completely obsessed with the ham since it first touched his lips the other night, and has been scheming all day how to get an entire leg back to the US, or how we could bring one on our trip.  We have only a few more days to figure this one out!

Jamon

I’m looking at the clock and it’s 3:30am here in Madrid.  Obviously, I’m having problems with the time changes.  I have a feeling this is going to catch up to me soon! Tomorrow we’re off to Segovia, I hope I can make it through the day!

DonQuixote