Monday, April 28, 2008

Exotic Enigmatic Egypt! Part 1

Sorry, I just have this need to rant!!! I am not through sorting out my Egypt pics and amidst my sleepy days and wide awake nights (I have yet to "tune" my clock back to local time!), frustration sets in! I lost one of my thumb drive on the way to the office (thanks to my "blur" state!) and came back yesterday to find my old PC monitor acting crazy as if it was a prop in "Poltergeist". My new PC also gave me problems when it suddenly wouldn't respond anymore; same old story with Windows Vista and incompatible drivers which are not updated. I've been busy troubleshooting PC problems for 1 1/2 days now and just finished downloading some updates (that took me almost forever!) I had drafted part of this post earlier and putting this up is taking me 10 times longer than it should as the problem is still not really solved yet. Sigh...Ok, enough of this for now! Here's a short post...

We arrived for a 6 hour transit in Dubai International Airport before flying off to Egypt. This was about about 2 in the morning. Blurry eyed and sleepy, we entered the airport, a first for me and I became wide awake when I saw the surroundings.

Dubai International Airport

Dubai International Airport
These were taken at around 2 plus a.m. and yet Dubai International Airport was pretty busy. Still very much a hive of activities with lots of people still shopping away.

Arriving in Cairo, Egypt in time for lunch, we were whisked to a restaurant nearby to the Sphinx. Understandably, lunch was eaten in a zombie state like and I didn't take photos of the food! We had some grilled chicken as mains (I remember vaguely that they were tasty! Actually, all the grilled chicken in Egypt tasted good and was full of smoky flavour). Before the mains, we helped ourselves to loads of pita bread. However, I did manage to take a pic of the kitchen as I walked passed.

Kitchen
A lady making pita in an old fashion fire stove; we really ate a lot of bread in Egypt.
Egyptian Museum Of Antiquities
After lunch we dropped by the Egyptian Museum of Antiquities where the remains of several pharaohs are kept and where we saw the famous artifacts of King Tutankhamun. This was the only shot I took as they did not allowed photography inside.

Dinner Day 1

We were then driven to the hotel to freshen up and off we went for dinner an hour later. More pita bread! See what I mean? It's the standard serving at meal times as a starter. At this point I was "still" enjoying eating the bread with hummus and other sort of assorted stuff like chili eggplant, potato salad, cheese and yogurt (somewhat like an Egyptian "tapas"). We had meat dishes like chicken and lamb kebab style but everyone was hungry and I didn't take anymore photos as we all couldn't wait to tuck in. I was told that meat is actually a luxury in Egypt, I guess that's why there is so much bread and rice around. Oh, the rice here is really nice; big grain and have an added herbs to it, sometimes with added bits of capsicum or peas.


To be continued...

25 comments:

Sugar Bean said...

Haven't been to Egypt before. Sounds very new to me. The photos look nice! Pls post more of the photos that you've taken there. We wonder how Egyptian food is like. :)

Anonymous said...

more pics plzz..im sure tat ur pretty sick of pita bread at the end of ur trip huh

daphne said...

Those photos are gorgeous! Wow!

and did u really get sick of eating pita?

"Joe" who is constantly craving said...

ouch..looks like vista still being an arse after so long..poltergeist means new big big monitor to edit photos from now on??

looking forward to more photos...

Allan Yap & Nigel A. Skelchy said...

Hey mw; welcome home love! Looks like you had fun. Great pics. I see you're getting used to the big daddy! ;-) Lots of stuff to play around with right? ;-) hehehe My thing is, focus is fast but with a DSLR there's so many controls you've got to decide beforehand what it is that you want to set it to before the pic even happens. To the point where I'm kicking myself that I miss pics. Food's quite easy as it stays still. But action shots. Shit man! ;-) hehehe Have fun and see you soon luv. Hugs.

k.t.x said...

u lucky pie u.

their pita bread must b really out of this world. v must really go cek out places offering pita and u can gimme yr thoughts abt those....hehe. u pita specialist mar....u cacing pita.

jasmine said...

wow. can't wait to see more photos and food recommendations! :)

Bernsy said...

Welcome back ... actually I am back after away for a week...working in jungle...

Nice and interesting post, will be waiting for more posts on Egypt...

Anonymous said...

Too bad no photography allowed inside the museum :(

sc said...

welcome back! pictures looks good as usual :) cant wait for your posts!

Precious Pea said...

6 hours transit..enuff to explore the whole airport ar?

I can imagine how tired the whole journey was. Looking forward to more pics...especially the sand, sand and more sand ;)

ilene said...

Welcome back WMW!

I suppose you wouldn't want to eat anymore pita bread for the time being right? The rice sounds tasty even on its own!

I don't suppose you've got any photos of mummys! hahaha! Can't wait to see more photos and hear your adventures.

~Christine~Leng said...

*Jealous* ;P
More more more! haha..
when you first mentioned Egypt, the only word on my mind was HOT!!! I cannot tahan heat... ;P
but bet the whole journey was unbelievable and worthwhile :)

J2Kfm said...

hey there ... just back from KL la. thanks for the 'pig-out' session. ;) now i know whom should I follow when I wan REAL GOOD food. Hehe. anyway, anxious to see how Egypt food looks/sounds/taste like.

Anonymous said...

Glad you enjoyed Egypt! =)

ai wei said...

cool! i love ur pics! do post more okay?! mummy n daddy planning to go egypt. still on our way in saving up a 'fortune'. this gonna be a great guide for them.

big headache now, i still find it hard to teach them using camera ...

New Kid on the Blog said...

More pics pls?!

Anonymous said...

Dubai Airport is really futuristic!

Jun said...

pita is simply so versatile-- u can dress it up or dress it down, depending on what dips u choose to accompany it with. man, i wish i was in egypt too!

Simon Seow said...

Seems to have oversea post from a few food bloggers recently. I think I have to prepare for my next trip to Singapore already mid of May. Calling Uncle Nic and XLB.

wmw said...

Sugar Bean : Egyptian food, not like Malaysia food, so many variants :)

kampungboycitygal : Uh huh! Hahaha.....

Daphne : Thanks. Stay tuned!

Joe : Eh, still haven't answered me. What bouncing camel???

Allan & Nigel : Yup, there were a few moments where I missed some shots cos still fumbling with it. LOL!

K.T.X : Aiks! Alamak, does that mean I'll have to think of where to get authentic Egyptian food ;o)???

Jasmine : See you around again, I figure there'll be more parts posted :o)

Bernsy : Ta! Jungle? For me it was sand! Hahaha....What did you do in the jungle?

Jason : Yeah, we couldn't take pics inside several places.

SC : Hey there...still haven't manage to makan with you yet. Hehe...

Precious P : You like sand, is it??? Keep talking about sand? First cursed sand, now, sand, sand, sand??? LOL!

Unknown said...

makes me wanna try the pita bread. did you 'tapow' back? hehe...

Anonymous said...

Welcome back!

Good thing Pita is thinner than regular bread - so you can eat more without too much carb intake. Did you eat saffron rice (my favorite)?

A Mature Student said...

Lovely photos. I quite like the sound of Egyptian food. Rather similar to Moroccan.

wmw said...

ilene : Hey there...no pics of mummy lah. Hahaha...yalah, no pita bread for a long time to come.

christine : It gets hotter further down south, the folks down south are a lot darker. You can go earlier in the year where it's a lot cooler but it will be quite cold at night.

j2kfm : No worries, a pleasure.

c: Hey there girl! What have you been up to?

ai wei : The point and shoot camera should be easy enough for yr parents to operate? No?

NKOTB : Too many to posts, hahaha...

aidan : Yeah, modern and busy!

jun : Yes, I love pita bread but unfortunately I overdosed on it! So, I have a love hate relationship with pita bread now. Hee hee...

Simon : I'm sure you'll hv a good time in Singapore!

Jackson : You told me to get some Egyptian sweets for you. When to pass to you?

keropok man : Tapow? Hahaha...no lah, I eat until scared already!

Lee Ping : Hello there! Thanks. I had a few meals of saffron rice. I love it. Sometimes, I get tired of the meats but never the rice.

Clockwise : Thanks for the compliment....like the sound only ah?