Today’s trip is definitely not one to be forgotten. Our tour guide for today is an Egyptian woman named Nana who’s well experienced in pyramids. She was super friendly and sweet and not to mention very helpful because she helped us take a lot of pictures today, especially with me, my dad and bro. Have to thanked her a lot for her knowledge in pyramids and Egyptian history and mythologies because I have gained a lot of knowledge from her. Yes, I’m super excited because I’m very in love with Egyptian mythologies and history. So if anyone wants to tell me a thing about centuries ago of Egyptian history, I’m all ears.
Our trip for today started at 7 30am. I really hate the traffic jam here in Cairo. So terrible. You think Malaysia is worst, wait til you are at Cairo, it seems every where is jam. At least in Malaysia we know that KL is always jam. Plus the drivers in Cairo never give signals when changing lanes. But i really love the weather here soooooooooooooooooooooooooooooo much (how can I emphasized that even more??!). It’s sooooo cold. But i still can stand it so didn’t need to wear a sweater (plus, wearing one will just make me look fatter). It’s cold but sunny.
Our first visit was to the PYRAMIDS. The Giza pyramids. There are 3 big ones but we managed to get the opportunity to enter the biggest and tallest pyramid. We were told that per day, only 100 people can enter the pyramids. Although we can enter the pyramids, we are NOT ALLOWED to take pictures what’s inside the pyramid. So what is it like to enter the pyramid? DREADFUL. The entrance to the pyramid is small and narrow. It’s quite a distance to reach the tomb of the King. While trying to get there, you have to climb narrow and steep steps and then crouch like 90 degrees because the passageway is simply small. Not only that, the way to the tomb and coming back from the tomb is the same way so you really have to squeeze your way through to get passed people going back. And it’s HOT. Totally different from the outside weather. Seriously, i don’t know how many times i bumped my head against the low ceiling. Once we reached the tomb, my dad and bro tried to lie down in the tomb. Me? NO WAY. I don’t want to provoke any angry spirits :-p. The tomb was empty. There was nothing really to see except to get the experience of being inside a pyramid.
THE GREAT PYRAMID BEHIND US.... MOST BEAUTIFUL I'VE EVER SEEN...
THE ENTRANCE INTO THE GREAT PYRAMID.. SMALL AND NARROW.
THIS IS THE 2ND PYRAMID.
ILLUSTRATION ON HOW THE PYRAMID WAS BUILT...
Pyramid is a King’s tomb. It’s built like a triangle because the apex is pointing towards the sky, some kind of stairway to heaven I guess. But I really admire the fact how behind every symbol there’s a reason to it, may not be logical “logical” but nevertheless it efforts some kind of logic behind these actions. It takes 20 years to built the great pyramid and 2.3 mil of stones (Sorry if i got some of the facts wrong because i’m bad with numbers :-D). The pyramids are just so beautiful and i admire how people back then built the pyramids. The engineer behind it is so smart. When i touched the pyramid, it felt so strong and solid. Unfortunately, some things are not meant to last forever and these pyramids may soon be gone due to natural erosion.
We also had the opportunity to see the Sphinx, a creature with the head of a human and body of a lion which represents intelligence, power and i forgot the other one (wisdom? Knowledge?). The tour guide explained the purpose of the Sphinx but i forgot about it. I can’t absorbed every information ;-p. We also went to see the steps pyramid. The steps pyramid are the first pyramid to be built because to begin with, are never built as triangular shapes.
THE SPHINX.. BEHIND IT IS THE 2ND PYRAMID...
THE STEPS PYRAMID.. COZ IT LOOK LIKE STEPS..Next, we visited a shop where they make glass bottles and perfumes. This is very educational for me! The glass bottles they make are so beautifully designed. Some of the bottles are designed to store perfume oils. We were given a brief lesson on how glass bottles are made and later how perfumes are made. Egyptian perfumes are concentrated perfumes in the form of oils. The essence are originally extracted from flowers, hence no alcohol or whatever chemical stuff that modern perfumes have. To make various essence, the flower essence are mixed up.
HOW TO MAKE GLASS... INVOLVED A LOT OF BLOWING...
AND FIRE....
THE FINAL PRODUCT... A BEAUTIFUL GLASS BOTTLE... EGYPTIAN STYLE..
THE PERFUMES WE BOUGHT.. MINE IS LOTUS FLOWER AND VANILLA...
The person explaining this informed us that whatever modern perfume that we are wearing, like CK, Polo, Dior, Hugo Boss and many others are all originated from Egyptian perfume. CK, Dior, Hugo Boos are commercial names of the perfumes. I refused to believe it at first until he asked me what perfume i like and i told him Britney Spears – Fantasy (i thought he wouldn’t know that since it’s a celebrity brand but surprisingly he knows!). He let me smell the Egyptian perfume of Fantasy and it smell exactly like Fantasy! Hmm now that i’m thinking back, perhaps these commercial perfumes come out first and later the Egyptian version of the perfumes are made. Examples : Hugo Boss is known as Tut Ankh Amon, Ramsis II as CK 1, Cleopatra as Poison. We bought some perfumes. I bought Vanilla and Lotus Flower scents while my dad and bro go for Arabian Nights a.k.a Egyptian Viagra – the smell suppose to drive WOMEN CRAZY and GAGA. The guy said “Scent of Arabia” is a woman’s perfume that suppose to drive men crazy. I tried the smell, it didn’t make me go gaga so i opt to go for scents that makes me go gaga and not what men go gaga for. The 4 scents cost 105 USD, 30 ml each. Me being a girl, has the PRIVILEGE to get 2 :-D. Mwahahahahahah.
After the perfume shop, we went to the Papyrus shop. Egyptians are the first to create papers, and not the Chinese. We were shown how the first paper was made, and this is not your typical A 4 white paper. Paper made from papyrus are such of good quality. It’s strong, and no matter how much you bend it or roll it, it will return to it’s normal size. After the demonstration on how the paper was made, we went to the gallery where pictures are drawn on papyrus. Egyptian mythologies were drawn into the papyrus. One really interesting picture is how one is being judged on judgment day where your heart will be weighted against a feather in a balancing scale. If your heart is lighter, you’ll go to heaven or vice versa.
AND THE EXPLANATION ON HOW THE VERY 1ST PAPER ON EARTH WAS MADE BEGINS...
THE PAPYRUS.. SOURCE OF THE PAPER.. SORRY FOR THE BAD PIC WITH MY FINGER!
YOU NEED TO HAMMER IT TO FLATTEN IT.
IT'S ALMOST LIKE COOKING REALLY...
THEN ARRANGE IT TO FORM A PIECE OF GOOD QUALITY PAPER...
TADA! A PIECE OF GOOD QUALITY PAPER...
THE GUY EXPLAINING WHAT THE EGYPTIAN CALENDER MEANS....
HE'S EXPLAINING THE PROCESS OF EGYPTIAN JUDGMENT DAY... VERY INTERESTING.
THE CAT PIC WHICH I BOUGHT... WITH MY NAME IN EGYPTIAN HIEROGLYPICS
I went around looking at the gallery and found a beautiful cat picture! Actually it’s the picture of a cat goddess, Bast. The shop also offer to write your name in Egyptian hieroglyphic next to the picture. This got me very excited and every hieroglyphic symbolised something. What i saw would cost me 110 Egyptian pounds. I was okay with the picture until the guy showed me another picture of a cat, BIGGER and more beautiful but it will cost 350 Egyptian pounds. Too expensive. Oh God, but the seller was so determined to get me to buy it. Picture my dad lecturing and then killing me later, i told him i’ll be happy with the cheaper one. He said he can reduced the price to 300. I said no. Then he said, is it because of the price, i said yes. He said he’ll reduced it to 275 (now this got me interested a bit). He said, with 275 pounds, he’ll give me another free small picture and a bookmark. Hmm so i decided to push my luck and asked him what about 250? He was hesitant but gave in for 250 and plus the bookmark. I asked my dad and he said ok (after i explained to him HOW I BARGAINED). But i find the seller to be sincere and genuine. The free bookmark he gave me, i can also write my name in hieroglyphic. So i told him to write it in my name but after a few minutes, i decided to change my mind and wanted to give it as a present to a friend. So i quickly went to the seller and told him that if my name have not been written yet, is it okay to changed it. But he told me it’s already written but, he’ll give me another one. That was very kind of him! For a shop like this one, which sells good quality products, i would think i had a good bargain. 250 for a medium size cat picture with my name on it and 3 free bookmarks.
The following visitation is to the Carpet School, to see how carpets are made by handmade. There are 3 types, silk, wool and i forgot the other one. Different techniques to make these 3 types of material carpets. These are difficult stuff. And because the carpets are handmade, the prices are expansive. We didn’t buy any there since in Malaysia, you have tons of carpet sellers everywhere especially from Pakistan or Bangladesh.
HOW HANDMADE CARPETS ARE MADE...
WE LATER WHEN TO THIS ONE PLACE, SOMETHING LIKE A MUSEUM... STATUES OF THE KING. SOME OF THE FACE ARE PARTIALLY DAMAGED, LIKE THE NOSE. IT'S DONE PURPOSELY BY ENEMIES SO THE SPIRIT OF THE KING WON'T BE IN PEACE.
Those were the trips of the day. We had planned to do a night time activity of some kind of pyramid light show but we decided to skipped it. We were too tired. Hell, we started at 7 30pm and ended at 4 pm. Then to go out at night time with the crazy traffic jams where we will spend hours in the car and the next day we have to get up as early as 4 am because we need to leave the hotel at 6 am and take 9 30 am flight to Dhubai? It’ll be too tiring.
So once we reached the hotel, as promised by my dad, we went to the souvenir shop to get my cat doll ;-D. I went there the first time yesterday but thought maybe i’ll get the cat dolls at other places outside the hotel because hotel ones are usually expansive. But the tour guide said that the stuff sold outside are mostly bad quality so my dad said just buy the ones at hotel.
THE KITTY WHICH I BOUGHT..
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