El camino del Ray
I just found an amazing video in twitter.com/hessendscher’s Tweets. Enjoy!
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The Egyptian Museum + Trip Conclusion
On our last day in Cairo we went to the Egyptian Museum, right around the corner of our Hotel. It was full of people but not as busy as expected. We followed the Museums Guide in our Lonely Planet and made our way through several rooms of this huge museum.
We liked especially the ground floor very much, with all its giant sculptures and sarkophags. It was so impressive. It got really wild in the Mummy room, where you need an extra ticket which doubles the price of the museums entrance. But it was worth it. Kept at a constant 20 degrees, we saw the bodies of 4000 year old egyptian kings and pharaos. Wow!
Another highlight of the museum was the Tutankhamon exhibition with his world-famous death mask. That was killer! But even the other stuff around fascinated us a lot.
So, if you get the chance to visit Cairo, be sure not to miss this museum. Definitely one of our highlights of that trip (along with Mr. Kugelschreiber of course).
After that we took some sandwiches in the nearby egyptian fast-food store and went back to the hotel to get our stuff packed. Right now we’re sitting at the airport, waiting for our plane to depart. Our conclusion of that trip is, that we definitely wanna come back. It is a so fascinating country with fascinating people and we wanna see more of that. Sure, there are a lot of hassles in such a trip, but it’s worth it anyway. If you know how to deal with all that touts and scams, it’s kinda entertaining. 
So, see you next time Egypt / Cairo!
Pictures of the day:
Egyptian Museum
Last Sheesha on the trip
Sheesha Mania
It’s belly dance time
Tonight we wanted to check out some Belly-dance. For this we’ve chosen the Seramiris InterContinental, where the famous Dina is dancing (one of the top belly dancers in Egypt). But before we went to Abu El-Sid restaurant, in Zamalek for a nice dinner and, of course, another sheesha (love that stuff).
There we enjoyed a nice bottle of wine together with Molokheya (me), and Circesian Chicken in Walnut Sauce (Fatima) in a really nice beduin-like atmosphere. That was absolutely great, we love egyptian food.
After our dinner we took a taxi to the InterContinental to see the dancing Dina. Downside of that was the miniumm charge of the nightclub, of 400LE each (around 50 bucks) and we were close to skip that. But then we said, „Hey, when do we have to chance to see one of Egypts most famous belly dancers?“. So we jumped in, and odered a fruit plate and a bottle of 2005 Pouilly Fumé (Steve?). After 90 minutes or so listening to live music and some singers, the famous Dina hit the stage and showed us a great performance over the next 60 minutes. When we first saw her, both Ewa and me were like „Holy Shit!“. But see the photos and the upcoming video for yourself, you’ll know what we mean 
(By the way, talking about the interior of the nightclub, we now know where german table dance bars gather their inspiration from :))
We really enjoyed the show and left at around 3am and walked back to the hotel. We must say, that even in the middle of he night, we feel very safe in the streets of Cairo so far.
Pictures:
At Abu El-Sid
Mezze
Circesian Chicken
Molokheya
Abu El-Sid
Fatima smoking a sheesha
Dancing Dina
Very good, very cheap and very Cairo
After our visit of Al-Azhar Mosque, we took the underground shortcut over to Midan Hussein, the place in front of the Mosque of Sayyidna al-Hussein and where the craziness of the Khan al-Khalili starts. Right behind the restaurants with outdoor seating, are a couple of alleys to enter the Khan. We took that one on the southern-west corner of the Mosque to get a coffee and a beer at
Mahfouz Coffee Shop. Wow, the 200 to the coffeeshop meters were really crazy.. All the vendors in the tiny alley are standing in the line, every half-meter or so, and try to talk to you and sell you their stuff. They always try to start a conversation with you and call you by all kinds of nicknames. Me for instance, they called most of the time „Rambo“, but I heard „Michael Jackson“ and „Hulk Hogan“ as well. Very charming It’s getting funny, when they’re honest with you and ask you „Hey, do you want to spend all your money in here?“. And believe me, if you don’t speak english, talk to them in your prefered language - they’re the most talented language artists I’ve ever seen. Oh, and again they take every currency you can think of.
Fatima was already pissed after 50 meters or so, but I liked it somehow. It looks stressful a first, but if you know how to deal with it, and keep smiling, it’s kind of entertaining. Seriously.
Anyway, behind the wooden door in Mahfouz Coffeehouse we had a few Kofte Sandwiches with fries and a non-alcoholic beer (!). The Lonely Planet says that they’re selling Stella (the main local beer) as well in there, but when we’ve been there they just had non-alcohol beer. And of course, it was german beer - Clausthaler. The can said „Germany’s #1“ - That’s ridiculous.
After our light lunch, we walked a bit around and made our way to nearby Fishawi’s Coffehouse, an institution in that area. In this very busy place, I had my first sheesha (water-pipe) and a nice mint-tea, while sitting outside and watching the people trying to sell all kind of stuff. Especialy in this place it was very entertaining because, they’re very easy to get rid of, but try it all the time in a gentle way. I had great fun and liked my sheesha very much. That was one highlight today.
We stayed in that place for an hour or so, and walked a little bit more around in the Khan, before taking a taxi back to the hotel to take our obligatory nap.
Pictures:
Islamic Cairo
After having a nice breakfast in a western-style café in downtown, we took a cab to islamic cairo, to the Mosque & School of Sultan Hassan, right below the Citadel. After our first visit to a Mosque in Egypt, we tried to find the way by foot to Mosque Ibn Tulur. Basicly an easy route, a little bit south east, but somehow we got lost. And so we decided, instead of taking a cab to Ibn Tulur, to just walk around and let us suck into the tiny alleys of islamic cairo. We saw a lot of food stalls, bakerys, craftworks, markets, small mosques, and so on.. A totally different world and I really like that kind of stuff. People were looking at us like we came directly from mars. Me, 2 meters tall, Ewa (or Fatima how I call her right now) a good looking western girl.
After an hour or so, we decided to take a cab to Ibn Tulur, which is, as the locals say, one of the most beautifuls mosques in Cairo. It was a really beautiful place, whith a huge square in the inside and a tower with nice views over Cairo. But even at this holy place, they tried to charge us for everything - taking pictures, climbing up the tower, breathing, etc. But we learned our lesson and kept our wallets closed. If somebody is complaining, just get the tourist police. They’re just everywhere.
After visiting the Mosque Ibn Tulur, we took a cab to Al Hussein, the place between the Khan Al-Khalili bazaar and the Al-Azhar Mosque. Equipped with a skarf for Ewa we took a few pictures of the beautiful mosque and headed north to the famous market of Khan Al-Khalili. More on that soon.
Pictures of the day:
Mosques
Mosque and School of Sultan Hassan
Islamic Cairo
Market in Islamic Cairo
Butcher in Islamic Cairo
Mosque Ibn Tulun
Mosque Al-Azhar
A very nice dinner at Sabaya
After our Desert Adventure we had to take a little nap and got up at 8pm - dinner time.
We got ready and headed to the Semiramis InterContinental hotel, just a few minutes away by foot, which hosts a couple of good restaurants and bars. There our chosen place was the Sabaya, serving lebanese food. We both never had lebanese food, and were very suprised that delicious stuff like this is not that popular where we live - or at least we don’t know any places in Bochum serving lebanese food.
So we had a nice dinner with awesome mezze (kind of tapas) and nice grilled lamb in yoghurt sauce, together with a bottle of wine (@Steve: Chateau Marquise (egyptian white) - don’t kow if it’s fit for lamb, but we both prefered white that night)
By the way, check my skin color on the photo below.
Tomorrow we wanna check out the egyptian museum or islamic cairo, so stay tuned.
The Scam and the Pyramids
So, today we’ve started after just four hours of sleep to the Pyramids of Giza. Because we’re in a rush on this trip (just three full days), we thought it might be a good idea to take the offer of our hotel guys and book a tour to Giza, Saqqara and Memphis for 100LE, so around 12 EUR or so. Don’t get me wrong, the trip was cool and our driver a really nice guy who gave us good tipps and so on, but on the Pyramids we’ve learned our first lesson on Scam.
Because after quick stop at a so-called Papyrus-“Museum“, which was basicly nothing else then a shop for cheesy papyrus art including a quick and entertaining explanation and a commission for our hotel if we buy something, the driver brought us to a friend who is organizing camel tours. Very friendly an entertaining as well, the camel guy offered us three kinds of tours on a camel around the pyramids between 200 and 350LE (25-45 EUR) each. A little suprised on that price we’ve choosen the medium tour anyway, because we where in the middle of freakin nowhere and saw no real alternatives.
So, we did the camel tour, and our first impression was not the best, because the Giza plateau is kinda placed in the middle of a not so charming suburb of Cairo, full of horse stables (Scam-City ;))
But in the end it was great for us. Seeing the Pyramids, the Sphinx and getting some flair of the desert was just great. Cheops and Chephren, the two big Pyramids, are so massive. That impressed us very much and we did a lot of cool pictures and video shots. So we weren’t that pissed anymore of the price we’ve paid for that.
Later we found out, that the current price for a tour like this is around 4-5 times lower than what we paid. 
After that we drove a bit more south to Saqqara, where we had a quite good lunch in a garden restaurant for 55LE each (8 EUR), before heading to the step pyramide, the oldest stone monument in the world. There we’ve learned our second lesson: Everywhere are signs, that you can’t take photos inside of the tombs. So far, so good. Now imagine a charming guy, who’s wearing some kind of a uniform and insists that he works there and makes us a tour for free. Still good. While entering the tombs, he was always acting like your best friend when nobody’s around and is whispering that you (because of the deep friendship) can take a few pictures, but you have to hurry.. And so we did, because it was interesting and very impressive by the way. So, but now he gots you: you owe him one, and don’t worry, he’s taking every currency you can imagine, plus a „Kugelschreiber“ (a pen - but he used the german word) for his son. Haha.. Ewa was so pissed after her first day here, because everyone is trying to get your money.
But besides of that, it was a very interesting monument with a lot of tombs and interesting egyptian mural paintings and stuff.
After a quick stop in Memphis, watching some old sculptures including a very impressive one of Ramses II we drove back to the hotel. More soon.
Pictures of the day:
Ewa on a camel
Pyramids of Giza
touching a pyramid
Pyramid of Khafre
two beduin guys
The Sphinx
Mural stuff
Step Pyramid
Mr. Kugelschreiber aka Scam Inc.
Me and my buddy Ramses II
Arrived in Cairo
So, we finally arrived in Cairo at 2:15am. After getting our Visas we grabbed our stuff and headed outside, were the friendly guys from the hotel were already waiting. It took about 15 minutes or so, to drive to the hotel. Well, it was in the middle of the night, and everything is really quiet on the streets. That means that it would take a bit longer at daytime, according to what I heard of the traffic here.
Anyway, we didn’t see very much, but the Hotel is very nice and clean. I already a tea with the guys talking about Cairo, tours and some other stuff.
I didn’t take any pictures so far, except of one that I wanna share with you. The picture of our “bathroom”. That’s hilarious. On approx. 1 sq meter you can shower while you… Well, “Multitasking”. See for yourself
Cairo 2008
Today we started onto a new adventure. This time we’ve chosen the egyptian capital cairo as the place to go. Due to an official holiday here in germany we’ve got a long weekend and decided to do our first tip on the african continent for just four days. Flights were according to the long weekend not so cheap, around 500 EUR, but in our opinion worth it.
We booked our rooms at the Paris Hotel Cairo, which had lots of good reviews on hostelworld.com, for affordable 120 EUR total.
So, right now we’re already on the plane, studying the Lonely Planet Egypt. We’ll arrive in Cairo in approx 2 hours, which will be 2:15 am local time, so in the middle of the night. Hopefully the hotel staff got our email and picks us up.
To be always up-to-date what we’re doing, you can follow my Twitter Account at twitter.com/marcelfahle, as I try to update it as often as I can (depends of course on the WiFi situation). If you don’t know what Twitter is, check out this video.
Happy New Year, Giorgio
A quick on between the NYC stuff:
My friend Giorgio from Palermo posted a nice video from his hometwon in Christmas mood. Check it out:
Day two Part 2: Midtown
After we cancelled our ESB visit we went north and visited the magnificent New York Public Library and the Christmas Market in Bryant Park. The beautiful ice skating rink in Bryant Park provided a real perfect christmas atmosphere. We spent there a while people watching and continued to Grand Central Station for taking a couple of nightshots beore continueing to the famous christmas tree in Rockefeller Center where we took some nice pictures and video clips. The weather was getting a bit better and so I decided to check out the new observation deck „Top of the Rock“, which re-opened in 2006. Ewa had no idea where we were going and was pretty amazed when we entered the elevater, which brought us to the 67th floor. The view was, well, okay at this time but NYC at night is still an experience, cloudy or not. We did a few photos and videoshots and hurried a bit fro getting back on the streets, because it was freakin’ cold up there
When we left the building at around 8.45pm directly next to the famous Radio City Music Hall, we spontaneously bought two of the few tickets left for the 9pm show, Christmas Spectacular. It was absolutely awesome, definitely a recommendation. We’ve never heard of the Rockettes so far, but now we’re fans!
The show was ended around 10.30pm and we hurried to get back to the hotel, or, more precisely, our bed, because we were pretty much knackered after the long day.
Photos of the day Part 2 (click to enlarge):
New York Public Library
Bryant Park Ice Skating Rink
Grand Central Terminal
Chrysler Building
Rockefeller Center
ESB view from Top of the Rock
Radio City Music Hall. Awesome!
Day two Part 1: Chinatown, Little Italy, SoHo, West Village, Flatiron
We started the day very early and took some pictures on Times Square. After that we took the train to South Ferry because we wanted to go to Liberty Island to see the statue of Liberty. But when we arrived, we recognized that the weather is that bad, that you can’t even see the statue from Battery Park. So we decided to cancel the ferry ride to Lady Liberty and check out South Street Market instead. There we went wild in the ultra-packed Abercrombie store and bought a lot of stuff in there.
We brought our stuff back to the hotel and took the train to Canal street to explore China Town and Little Italy, again with a little help of our Lonely Planet Guide and it’s Walking Tour recommendations. We took some pictures of the fresh seafood and meat stalls and had a nice Cappuccino in an italian cafe.
Warmed up, we headed a little north east to wander around the shops and boutiques in SoHo from where we took the 6th Ave north to Christoper Street, another starting point from a Lonely Planet Walking Tour through the village. There Ewa fell in love with a few puppies playing in the shop window of a small pet shop. Really cute
For most of you maybe nothing special but on of my alltime NYC favourites is on Grove and Bedford St. This is the adress where most of television show „Friends“ takes place, so the house where Monica’s and Joey’s appartments are, which yo’ve maybe seen a million times in the show. Actually the show is produced in Los Angeles, but here is where the storyline takes place, very cool! After a quick beer and and a Moroccan tea in the Mustache on Bedford St we headed north-east to Washington Square park, which was kind of a huge building lot at this time, so combined with the cloudy weather far away from picture worthy. We took the 5th Ave north to Flatiron district to take some pictures of the famous building where this area got it’s name from and moved on to the Empire State Building where we made a pitstop at Wendy’s before entering New York’s tallest building at this time. While standing in the queue, which was not so long, we decided to cancel our ESB visit because of bad weather and the upcoming sundown. The idea standing up there in a cold and dark cloud was not very motivating for us. And so we made our way north again to visit a few other sights (more in next post).
Photos of the day Part 1 (click to enlarge):
Ewa and me on Times Square in the bloody morning
Food in Chinatown
Chinatown
The heart of NYC’s Gay scene
Puppy shop in the village
Friends-Mekka
Washington Square Park
Famous Empire State Building from southernmost point of 5th Ave
Flatiron Building
Day one: Downtown and Brooklyn
For our first day I’ve planned two of those Lonely Planet walking tours, one in Brooklyn and another one in Downtown Manhattan. Because we wanted to walk the Brooklyn Bridge from Brooklyn side, we too the train to High St, Brooklyn. There we walked around like our Lonely Planet told us an came trough gorgeous, and very expensive, Brooklyn Heights. It’s a really beautiful and quiet neighbourhood and according to the people we’ve seen on the streets obiously very children friendly. While walking there I asked Ewa a couple of times if she would like it to move into an area like this, but… no reply
Anyway, so far Ewa hasn’t seen so much from New York, which had a coole effect on her when she first saw the impressive Skyline of Lower Manhatten when we arrived at Brooklyn Heights promenade on the East River (with noisy Brooklyn-Queens-Expressway) below. From there wen went to Dumbo (Down Under the Manhattan Bridge Overpass) where we made some pictures on a plattform below the bridge.
After that we had a Pizza for Lunch in Grimaldi’s, just below the bridge. This place is absolutely awesome! Lonely Planet says it’s one of the best Pizza places in NYC and for me it was one of the best I had in my whole life and I had a few really good while ravelling through italy. What I like besides the food is that Frank Sinatra is everywhere. They’ve got lots of photos on the walls and the Jukebox is playing his songs. When we arrived, there were just a couple of seats left in the restaurant, but when we left, there were people waiting in a line outside. I’ve never seen something like this. Oh, by the way, there I had my first local beer, a Brooklyn Lager. Very good, very cheap and very NYC
We went a couple of more blocks through Brooklyn in the area around Manhattan Bridge before crossing the East River on the famous Brooklyn Bridge. The walkway on the bridge was pretty busy this time, but as always it’s a great experience.
After that we made our way through downtwon, visited the town hall, Woolworth building, Ground Zero, Wall Street, Battery Park and, what I like most in this area, the old colonial buildings on Pearl St, what looks so cool ad charming in between of all those skyscrapers. There I had another, very good beer, but I don’t rember this name nor did I took a picture.
At the end of the day we had a nice dinner at Bubba Gumps on Times Square, on of my favourites, because of the awesome atmosphere and unbelievable friendly staff.
Pics of the day (click to enlarge):
Montague St in Brooklyn Heights
Fulton Landing
Standing in the line for Grimaldi’s awesome pizza
Brooklyn Lager at Grimaldi’s
The famous Pizza (and even more famous travelbert :))
Brooklyn Bridge
Ground Zero
New York Stock Exchange
Bubba Gumps on times Square
Arrived
We finally arrived safely in New York City, but not as quick as expected. We had a drunken woman on our plane who made some trouble up there, what caused some time at the airport. After that we had to wait ore than two hours in the immigration queue before we could enter the city. From JFK airport, we took the Airtrain to Howard Beach subway station. If you do it like this, you have to pay $7 for leaving the airtrain station. We jumped on the 8 Ave express train, which got us pretty fast to Port Authority bus terminal, where our hotel, the Milford Plaza is located. I really recomend the express train for such long trips, because they’re not stopping on every station.
If you wanna stay in Midtwon the Milford’s location is unbeatable. It’s directly around the corner of Times Square, on 8th Ave between 45th and 46th, so you’re pretty much in the middle of everything and that at a good price (of course, not around this time). Our room is nice, clean and simple and on the 12th floor and has it’s window on the back, so we can see a bit of Times Square, the Paramount Building and a few theaters on 45th. The room has a very cool entertainment system with a Nintendo Gamcube and lots of brandnew Blockbuster Movies. We’re never using it, but hey, it’s cool.
After our arrival I’ve usually planned to walk a bit around in Midtown but Ewa was so tired that she immediately fall asleep as soon as she was lying on the bed for a minute. So I went alone a bit through the streets, first on Times Square, then to Bryant Park, down to 34th and back. It was a pretty good feeling for me to be back, because I really love this city.
I took no photos so far because I’ve forgot the memory card of my camera. I tried to get one on those tourist trap-stores on Times Square but the prices there are from another dimension. So funny, they tried to take $200 for a 4 GigaByte Compact Flash Card.. Haha So photos are coming with the next post..
New York, New York
Yeeehaaaa, the next trip is around the corner, or better said, we’re already on our way. This trip was a birthday gift to Ewa’s Birthday on 23th December (she’s become 30, but looks like 22 :)) and kind of a last-minute idea for a special birthday/christmas gift, she’ll never forget. First I was thinking of going to Paris, London or beatiful Stockholm for a few romantic days, but then I’ve decided to jump over the atlantic ocean to enjoy the awesome christmas atmosphere, NYC has to offer. To make the trip perfect we’ll gonna stay for New Years Eve, too.
The problem with this trip is, that it’s nothing for tight budgets especially the prices for hotel rooms are exploding around NYE. I’ll put a little cost overview below. There we’re staying at the Miford Plaza hotel, which is directly around the corner of Times Square, 42nd street and, very important, Port Authority Bus Terminal
Anyway, as soon as I’ve booked the flights, I told my buddy Steve, who lives in Ohio, that I’ll be around and we decided to meet in Columbus. So I’ve cancelled one night in hour hotel for a one-night stay at Steve’s house. On hour way back to NYC we’ll make a quick stop in Philadelphia to do some Rocky Balboa tourism (Philly is only 90 minutes away from New York City). I wanna climb up the steps at Philly’s Art Museum, you maybe know from the Rocky movies. But more on that later.
Here are a few price informations on the trip so far (listed in the currency I’ve paid, prices for both of us):
Air Berlin Flight Duesseldorf (DUS) to Berlin Tegel (TXL): 134,00 EUR
Delta Flight Berlin Tegel (TXL) to NYC (JFK): 1105,29 EUR
United Flight NYC (LGA) to Columbus, Ohio (CMH), return to Philadelphia, PA (PHL): $437.60
Train ride Philadelphia to NYC Penn Station: $80.00
TuiFly Flight Berlin-Tegel (TXL) to Colgone (CGN): 175,96 EUR
7 nights at Milford Plaza hotel, NYC Midtown: $2417.44
So, not a cheap trip this time, but Ewa’s smile is worth it :) We have to hurry now, the plane leaves in a couple of minutes.
Video of the lightshow in Hong Kong
I’ve recorded a view clips while watching Hong Kong’s famous lightshow, which takes place every night at 8pm. Just click on the picture below:
In case you didn’t notice: the videos are getting a bit bigger A couple of months ago I’ve bought an HD camera and I’m now playing around a bit with different bitrates, sizes, etc. to find the best way to display cool videos on my website. Tell me what you think.
