Welcome to my diary...the goal is to share with you the sights, sounds, and yes, even the smells of what it's like to be an Imbrogulio in a foreign land.
The headline in town this morning: Taipei park visitors horrified by plants in pants. Some new planters at the park where plants are in pots that have legs coming out of them have caused an "uproar" with visitors thinking that there was a crime or "supernatural occurrence". I know they frown on drugs in this culture, but they are obviously on something with all the supernatural shit they see. The installations are quite cool looking and there are several pictures in that article. I should say were cool cause they park officials removed them due to this outrage.
I don't have numbers, but would guess that the number of scooters is a bit more than cars on the roads. At intersections with traffic lights, scooters are not allowed to make left turns like cars do, but are required to drive to the perpendicular lane that has the red light and wait in a 'scooter box' until the light turns green in their direction. Works well and makes sense. Taiwan News had this brief article that explains this 'fishhook' maneuver, but the crux of the story is about how two women were spacing out crossing an intersection and stopped to chat in the scooter box. One of the scooter drivers even snapped a photo of the ladies. There is a fine for doing this of NT$300 (about nine bucks), and while no reports have been filed, if one were to be submitted, "the perpetrators will be punished in accordance with the law."
Finally, we closed on our condo this week so we have a new address. Since we were not physically present, had to do everything on-line and spending a small fortune was shockingly easy. We did have a small hiccup as the people that were handling our funds needed some verbal authorization to their manager and since we were sleeping, delayed the transfer for a day. I had to answer a couple of security questions and one was the name of my high school mascot. I replied "Apaches" and heard an audible snort from the guy. Told him that it was a different time and not to be so judgy.
Not a ton this week. Going to a baseball tournament in Hualien this weekend and trust there will be some fun things to share. Hasta
Mentioned last time we made an offer on a place in Seattle and things have progressed smoothly so far and we are positioned to close at the end of the month. We're not Rich Uncle Pennybags (the monocle guy from Monopoly) in our buying and selling of properties , but this is a weird experience in that we are unable to physically see and touch the most expensive purchase of our lives. Our apprehension has been lessening and we feel that this is the right move for us. As we learn more about the space, it seems this building is right for us as the tenants are all in our age group and there are no children, save visiting grandkids. Not happy in saying that this is our home before the retirement home, but effectively is just that. The location checked our boxes of being on the Lake Washington side of town, has a lake and Rainier view, great areas to walk with a nice beach across the street and some shopping. The building went through a top to bottom remodel in the last couple of years and all the common spaces/facades have been updated and look tasteful. The last owner of our unit was an old lady that of course just transitioned to a retirement home, and the interior is nearly perfect with the exception of the master bath. That is cool with us as we can remodel that to exactly what we want and look forward to designing a super shower.
View from the deck.
The rub on that building wide remodel is that they hired a contractor to do the work. Details are not many, but what we gather is that he was slow and doing a crappy job, so they fired him and now he is suing the building for the fees he wasn't paid, and of course the BS lost other jobs he wasn't able to pursue and probably emotional distress. Like a contractor has any human emotion that isn't evil. What we didn't know is that if a place is under a lawsuit, that lenders will not let you finance a mortgage, so we are having to pay cash in full. We have it as we sold our place in Seattle before we moved here and have been investing that money for 10 years so were in a good position to make an offer under asking as the seller didn't have a ton of buyers in our position. We hired an attorney to go through all the HOA's and lawsuit docs and she seemed happy with all of it. I was feeling really good about the whole deal and then at the end she said two words that had me question the entire thing. She said the unit was a "rare find". I know that is supposed to be a good thing, so why does this phrase make me nervous as all get out.
Here in Taiwan, things are quiet. Aussie Rules football started this week so that was on all weekend and it was a great bunch of matches, and baseball starts next week, so the boring 6 weeks after the NFL is over is over. It is baseball season at the school and I will have one day without coaching some team in a month. No complaints about that. I am more than ready to complain about the weather as it is starting to turn nasty. Hasn't descended into hell yet, but you can see it from here. It is the time of year when the wind shifts and all the pollution from China wafts over and we've had several days of AQI in the unhealthy range.
B-doll turned a milestone 18 today so can booze legally here. It is the quiet before the end of the school year crush that'll be even more bittersweet as this is the end of high school for her and us. Do feel fortunate that we will get to have in person graduation and hope that they will be able to have prom and such. When she was in elementary school, and even middle school, she was not a great student. Grades were fine, but what kid can't sleep through school and not get a B. It was a lack of self confidence and her enthusiasm about doing well in school that weren't good, and we would half jokingly say that she may go to beauty school after graduation. There was always one character trait about her that I saw from the earliest of times that gave hope that she would thrive, and that is her ability to concentrate on a task. She could sit with crayons or whatever book or toy and stay focused for far longer than any kid I knew. When she hit high school, some switch got flipped and she has been not only a diligent student, but her confidence has snowballed to it now being an avalanche. I wish I could pinpoint what it was that triggered her turnaround, but if I had to guess, would attribute her taking to dance as a big influence and also that she is at a school where competition to do well in class is real. Having peer pressure to get an A is better than getting pressure to get wasted. When the three of us eat dinner at home, we'll often turn on an episode of Jeopardy! and she gets almost as many correct answers as I do. I still kick butt just cause while my knowledge pool is shallow, it is mighty big, and I know a ton of stuff just from being alive 47 years longer, but she nails all the science questions and gets a surprising number of history and culture questions right. Of course I can believe she is 18 cause I understand the second law of thermodynamics, but it is hard to believe.
We went to a wine tasting last Saturday and the featured wines were all Taiwanese. I know. I was schooled by my wine mentor a long time ago that you can grow grapes for wine anywhere. There are wines from all 50 states for instance, but there is a reason why only a few places are able to grow grapes that make for a subtle wine. Gapes grown in the tropics have properties that are not conducive for that, which they explained and I cannot regurgitate. I will never pretend to say I have a refined palette or know jack about wine, but all of what we had tasted awful to me. Too sweet and battery acidic across the board. Some of the labels were cool and wine tasting parties are just perfect for getting people to loosen up and chat. We only knew a couple folks there but the crowd was lively and we gave the local kids that were earnest in their promotion of the lacking wines an appropriate amount of shit without being too disrespectful (although we did get more so as the night went on).
The whites
And the reds and brandys
In local news, this meme of an old guy asleep at the Costco here turned into Inauguration Bernie made the rounds.
Here is a touching story about a couple of cops who came across an injured cat that was hit by a car and took it to the hospital. The cat ultimately passed. Not a big story nor do I have a gag for it, but felt it worth sharing.
And there have been lots of articles (here is one from The Guardian) about some promotion where you get free sushi if your name has the character for salmon in it, and there have been several (150) people that (tried to) changed their name to salmon to get the freebie. One guy says he did it and ate US$176 worth of free sushi. This article states that Taiwanese people are allowed to officially change their names three times, which seems like a lot, no? Will endeavor to find out more about this and am sure there are some other nutty reasons why people change their names. Also am drafting some possible changes for yours truly.
Finally for today...had a whole bit about German toilets ready to go, but have a thought or two about all the Asian hate to get off my mind. Mentioned this matter a couple times ago in relation to worrying about B-doll off to university this Fall. Betty commented that I didn't mention worrying about her, which I do of course, but also know from personal experience that she is capable of raining hellfire on anyone that messes with her. It is nice that we have a President that can speak compassionately about it, and have seen so many pieces about the need for people to get a grip after Atlanta, but before that, all the names speaking out about it were Asian. But as I watch these pleas, just feel that they are completely pointless and that not a single one of these monsters will be swayed by any of them, and the few that are would be outweighed exponentially by the ones that are emboldened by the snowflakes hearts bleeding. It is the Asians turn this month/year/history of the US, and it'll be some other groups turn in the spotlight soon enough. Sick fucks having babies and growing more sick fucks. What do you /I do about it? There was a lady at the wine party above and she seemed OK at first, but as the night wore on, she couldn't hide her crazy. First noticed the big cross earrings as she made some eyebrow raising comment, and then the gay dude confided (with accompanying eye roll) out at the smoking circle that she's "like that" cause she is born again. Her opinions started to slip as the wine flowed...'You heard about the 1000 babies in India that died during the vaccine trial"...shit like that. I only knew the hosts so held my tongue, and all the other guests who did know her changed the subject, but I've been pissed ever since that I didn't expose her in the moment. I know all the head shrinkers will say not to shame or admonish these types cause it will push them further into their hole, and that we should try to explore their feelings in hopes of finding something or other to change their mind. Seems like a colossal waste of time to me. I don't really care what you believe about climate/masks/vaccines/guns, believing and knowing are completely different things. Knowing takes some effort and believing in anything is just lazy. Think I am gonna add that word to proud and actually in my red flag list. And this goes for all genders and colors, friends and family, as there are plenty of crap people in all degrees. Have really had enough.
Gotta kick off today with this headline: Taiwan teen's toe falls out of sock after accident. A 19 year-old crashed his scooter "at high speed' into a traffic island, but was able to ride it home. Once he got there and saw his bloody sock, he took it off and the fourth (or ring?) toe 'tumbled' out of it. He stuck it in the freezer but it was too late for it to be reattached. The man's sister said that "Fortunately, he's an optimistic person" and the man joked that now he can wear two right footed flip flops (there is a drawing as to how that'll work). They end the article by saying that "the sibling's mom thought about saving her son's disconnected digit but was put off by the idea of cooking it to remove the meat from the bone." I knew it.
Last weekend was Babydoll's final High School dance performance. She made the school's IASAS team (the group that would have traveled to compete against our like schools from Singapore, Jakarta, Bangkok, etc.), but the competition was held virtually this year. Our school was the only one that was allowed to practice together and film without masks. The dance and drama teams put on a show of their pieces for the school community and they were well executed as they always are at that place. Obviously, I am biased, and maybe I have seen enough dance in the last years to have gained a deeper understanding and appreciation of it, but was not alone in saying this was the best dance piece in her era.
Was told that it was a five vignette suite about the expectations and realities of being an Asian woman, and even I understood some of it this time. Costumes were clever in that they were both loose but did not obscure the grace of their movements.
They have worked really hard over the last few months putting it together with many practice sessions after school and on weekends. B-doll came home after one grueling practice totally gassed and explained that they did 3 full run throughs that day and as there are no boys this year, she was deemed the physically strongest of the team and had to do all of the lifts. The coach/choreographer that organized the team came up to us after the show and raved that Babydoll worked extra hard and was the horse. Miss Q has been a constant in our 4 years of dance there and B-doll loves her both as a coach and for her fiesty personality. We all feel fortunate that she was able to have such a great mentor and give her a ton of credit as B-doll has come so far in her 4 years there with regards to confidence, stage presence, grace and strength.
In the post show meet and greet, I got a little misty looking at her and her best friend and knowing this was the last one of these we'll probably get like this and was the end of an era.
Finally, Betty and I made an offer on a condo in Leschi and it was accepted. There are a few hurdles to get over but things are looking good. We've been giddy with excitement over things like what bed to buy, restaurants in the vicinity (Peruvian chicken, Ethiopian.....) and when we're gonna have people over for dinner. As to when that'll be...TBD.
Quick rehab update...it was 6 weeks since replacement yesterday and the recovery is amazing. I have pretty much stopped using the cane and you would not even notice the scar if you weren't looking for it.
Still a little swollen and haven't reverted to my natural chicken legs. Pain is less each day and is almost non-existent and notice it mostly on the first couple of steps and with some tightness. We were at dinner with a bunch of other North Americans having dinner the other day and one of the topics was whether we think a trip to the States for the summer is possible. Heard Uncle Joe this morning telling everyone that vaccinations will be available to all by the end of May, and that guy is of the under promise/over deliver mentality. They haven't started inoculating people here yet and have to guess that white boys from the valley will be towards the end of the queue, so probably being in the states in July would be the fastest in getting the vaccine. The problem is getting back into Taiwan and not wanting to quarantine for 3 weeks as we surmise that this place will be the last ones to let their guard down. Thinking that I will try to get the other knee done the first week of June and then if it all shakes out right, accompany B-doll on her journey to college mid-August.
The other revelation that came out of the party the other night concerns Grey's Anatomy. Have been looking to see what the new knee is made of as people ask and assumed it is titanium. Finally found information that identifies it as being made of a cobalt-chromium alloy. Cobalt is a cool sounding word and learned that it has to be combined with other elements as it does not exist on Earth in pure form. One of the guests was a girl that is a college Freshman and she asked what it was made from, and when I told her, she laughed and said she just watched an episode of Grey's Anatomy where the patient had gotten cobalt poisoning from his replacement joint. So now I worry about that.
In news from these parts, we are firmly in the peak of Mosquito season. There are two seasons in Taiwan: Hell and Mosquito. The bug zapper is going off non-stop and any area of skin exposed has little red bumps in various stages of itchiness.
Lantern festival was last Sunday. Lantern festival is the first full moon after Chinese New Year and marks the end of the two week celebration. There were tons of fireworks that night but the big festivities around the island were nearly non-existent. A few days before CNY, there was a doctor that treats Covid patients that was found to have contracted it, and he gave it to his nurse wife and they had been out and about before being diagnosed. The entire country freaked and they canceled almost all of the large planned gatherings to celebrate the New Year in the entire country to risk spreading the virus. It's been over two weeks since the New Year and not a single new local transmission. I mentioned we had a party the other night...one where we all ate together and hugged and stuff. The economy here grew in 2020. People wear masks. What the fuck is wrong with America?
In the past, would be skeptical of the traditions and such that I found bizarre here, but now due to their Covid response, I am on board (or at least consider taking the train) with everything they say, including the crazy stuff. Here is a list of 12 taboos that we were to avoid during Lantern Festival. I think I nailed 11 out of 12 of them with my only slip up being # 11.
I
1 - Avoided family strife...did not argue with Betty nor did I hit my children. Not that it didn't cross my mind.
2 - Didn't get a haircut...easy enough as I only get one every 3-6 months
3 - Didn't see a doctor. Not as simple with the rehab, but no problemo this week
4 - Kept my tools and equipment in good order. Add generic dick joke here.
5 - Stayed away from sketchy places. I woulda thought this was dive bars, but it is more cemetery stuff. Either way...
6 - Avoided property loss. Would think this would be an everyday sorta rule.
7 - Didn't lend money. Never!
8 - Didn't empty out the rice pot. Lucky we didn't eat rice dishes over the weekend cause I cannot stand leaving food out.
9 - Avoided damaging any clothing. I am more of a spiller than a ripper.
10 - Didn't slaughter any animals. Pretty sure I have never slaughtered one. I ran over a racoon once on accident and still feel bad about it.
11 - I did swear and now will be "prone to misspeaking and starting arguments." What else is new?
12 - I didn't wear any outfits with black or white stripes. Does this outfit make me look fat? No, my fat ass makes me look fat.
The local political scandal this week has to do with the mainland canceling all importations of Taiwanese pineapples. Those China types say they banned importations cause of some fear of "harmful creatures" coming in with the fruit, which is rich coming from them. Everyone knows they are just being their typical dickish selves. It is now a part of national pride to eat a 'Freedom Pineapple' and the local Canadian and American embassy's are supporting this initiative. The locals rallied and bought all of the pineapples that were to be exported in 4 days.
By the way, the news is getting here about the verbal and physical attacks on Asians in the States. I would like to think that these are not as widespread as they sound, but the way the piece of shit ex-president continues his baiting, and his easy to join in on the racist stuff cult members zeal to blame others for everything, I do worry about B-doll going to the States in August.
That said, and I abhor that this sounds like a conspiracy theory, but after reading this report am feeling that the virus got out of that lab in Wuhan and that we have not yet heard the full story. The German scientist that researched that paper, Roland Wiesendanger, sounds like a sober and serious guy and find his hypothesis very believable. Regardless, why would people push over an old man? It'd be like a black guy smacking me cause of slavery. We (white folks) have some serious karmic atonement coming our way.
Has been a strange week. I sat on the below for a few days in hopes that something would change...it has dulled a bit, but still feel the same.
My j-o-b and favorite activity all year long is going out to coach baseball. Last week was the start of our high school team's season and it was tryouts. During the day on Wednesday, get an email from the school letting our community know that a kid had committed suicide and read the name...it's one of the boys on the team. Not just any boy, but a kid that was one of those that was hard to miss. He loved baseball and remember the first time he came out 4 years ago wearing Milwaukee Brewers gear. We had a running dialogue about the merits of Brewer baseball ever since. Have coached a bunch of sports and hundreds of kids, probably starting with the Boy's 5 year old baseball team, so 16 years, and there are only a few that get remembered. Some because they were such little shits and having to constantly say their names after 'stop doing that _____' etched their name into the brain. There are less than a handful of others that I remember cause they were interesting. Many (most) kids are not great at having conversations with adults, but when you find the rare one that does, they stick out. And when what they have to say or their perspective makes you think, one becomes intrigued, and this kid one one of those. The kid that makes you glad that you're out there whenever you'd see him walking up to practice from the other side of the field.
I've been lucky to not have been close to a ton of tragedy in my life, but do know a lot of folks that have passed away. None of those deaths have affected me quite like this one. For all of the others, there was a reason. Old age, drugs, car accident...all of them had a reason and am the type of person that can get through the first 4 stages of grief and reach acceptance if I understand why. Probably why I'm not a religious type cause believing something seems....I don't know for sure what, but maybe mentally lazy is what I would say. This time, am stuck in anger. The service was on Sunday and couldn't go. I could have gone but told myself decades ago that the next funeral I would go to would be the one where I was the guest of honor. I understand that many people need that closure, but they make me super uncomfortable, and you can call me what you want, but I am not going. In addition to that personal choice, I didn't think going to this one in particular would be a good idea cause I would probably have to talk to people and am so effin' mad, and not being a good regulator of saying things I feel, thought I should take me out of the equation.
I'm mad cause I don't understand why he did it. Am not supposed to ask and am told that we just won't ever know. He loved baseball and we were just getting started. Anticipating doing something you love, whatever it may be, is why we all keep on keepin' on, no? Am mad at the kid for taking himself away from us. Don't speak ill of the dead, but that guy screwed up all our minds. Am mad at myself for not telling the guy how much I enjoyed being around him. Am mad at whoever did whatever to him that made this his final choice. You can tell me that sometimes people have mental disorders that cause them to think these thoughts without any outside causes, and I can pretend to understand that, but I really don't. Suicide has always made me mad cause the only ones that suffer are the ones that are left behind. And I'm mad that I feel this way about it. The funeral, the group sessions the team has where they want to talk it through, I can't say anything cause I know what'll come out is the anger and no one wants to hear that. So here we are and am letting it out in this space in hopes to let it go. TBD
David Berman was a musician and his albums with the band Silver Jews are go-to's for me. He was a troubled character and disappeared for a decade or so, but a couple years ago he came out with a new album under the name Purple Mountains that is quite good. He was all set to tour with the new band and was on my shows to see list (pre-Covid), and he committed suicide before the tour started. Re-listening to that album, it is all about suicide and the song Nights That Won't Happen has been on repeat in my head.
The dead know what they're doing when they leave this world behind When the here and the hereafter momentarily align See the need to speed into the lead suddenly declined The dead know what they're doing when they leave this world behind
And as much as we might like to seize the reel and hit rewind Or quicken our pursuit of what we're guaranteed to find When the dying's finally done and the suffering subsides All the suffering gets done by the ones we leave behind All the suffering gets done by the ones we leave behind
Nights that won't happen Time we won't spend Time we won't spend With each other again With each other again
Ghosts are just old houses dreaming people in the night Have no doubt about it, hon, the dead will do alright Go contemplate the evidence and I guarantee you'll find The dead know what they're doing when they leave this world behind
Nights that won't happen Time we won't spend Nights that won't happen Never, ever again
Nights that won't happen Never reaching the end Nights that won't happen Never even begin Never even begin
This world is like a roadside inn and we're the guests inside And death is a black camel that kneels down so we can ride When the dying's finally done and the suffering subsides All the suffering gets done by the ones we leave behind All the suffering gets done by the ones we leave behind
On nights that won't happen Time we won't spend Time we won't spend With each other again
Nights that won't happen Never reaching the end Nights that won't happen We can't even begin We can't even begin
Gonna take you back in time. To a simpler one but also to the very beginnings of what has become our current age. This is an old school diary travelogue.
In March of 2020, Betty and I went to Egypt. She had to go for work and was tacking on a few days to tour the place, and as Egypt has been number one in my list of destinations to visit since the 5th grade, I wormed my way in. We departed on March 6th and it is hard to recall what the world was exactly like on that day, but Covid wasn't even called that then. The locals were taking the stuff really seriously, but not nearly as much as they would. The schools were fully open, no mask requirements, etc., but folks were still freaked mostly from people coming from China. In the week leading up to departure, the shit was starting to hit the fan in places other than China (the Seattle outbreak had just happened) and we spent those days thinking about pulling the plug on the trip, even as late as the morning we left. Egypt had reported one case and we didn't know then what we know now, so off we went. In retrospect, that was a dumb ass move and is partially why I didn't write up this trip at the time cause the remaining threads of Catholic school made me ashamed of going.
As this was 11 months ago, am relying on my notebook for details and observations.
The airport and airplane were eerily empty but the flights to Istanbul and onto Cairo were uneventful. We got into Cairo midday and since we had the afternoon free, booked a couple hour tour on a traditional boat called a felucca to cruise on the Nile. Historically sail powered, if there isn't enough wind then they crank up the motor as they did on this day. The weather was good and it was the right thing to do in the few hours of jet lagged consciousness we had.
We enjoyed it OK. Things we noted were the amount of huge party boats that were docked and cruising that played annoying hip hop at ridiculously high volumes. We also thought the water was relatively cleanish, but there was tons of garbage, especially on the banks of the river. And those banks were extremely unfriendly for people to enjoy. I pictured walking paths and for the banks to be gathering points for the citizens, but they were basically sheer walls with nothing else but the aforementioned garbage. We were the only ones on the boat and towards the end of the outing, another little motorboat with a mother and young (9ish) daughter goes past us, and as they get right alongside, the little girl holds up a giant knife and does a throat slashing gesture at me.
We were at a nice hotel and the lounge was on the 26th floor, so as your enjoying your dinner and such, can look out over the city, and seeing the pyramids in the distance had me giddy with anticipation.
Next morning was the start of our tour time and the pyramids were the first destination. Have had a hard time writing up this entry for a bunch of reasons...didn't do it right away cause of the aforementioned embarrassment, there were so many great pix to go through that I would be overwhelmed in looking at them when I tried to curate, then had waited so long that some of the minutiae has faded, and finally, what can I say about the stuff that is so iconic and has been said so many times that I don't need to repeat. If I run through some of the things with a couple words, there you go.
We started our day with a drive to the most iconic complex in Giza with the great pyramids and Sphynx. A dream come true.
Our guide Jameer, who asked us to call him Jimmy, knew all the crafty picture poses and had us perform all of them, much to Betty's delight.
This one kinda says it all
We did a little camel ride around the compound for more fun. The dudes tending the camels seem to be having a good time giving our rides the names Mickey Mouse and Michael Jordan.
The Sphynx is right there too. More amazement and staged photos.
Lunch everyday was almost identical...choice of chicken kebabs or kefta (meatballs), but today's had a lady making fresh (and warm) pita and also came with a fermented cheese that they only make in this area. I liked it but when I tried to describe it and get it on the table later, all the locals would turn up their nose.
The afternoon was spent walking around an open air museum in ancient Memphis where they had a bunch of relics that were in poor condition, or good condition considering they're 5000 years old.
And then it was over to the Step Pyramid of King Djosser.
In the distance you can see a bunch of the other pyramids, including the bent one. All of the pyramids are in the Cairo region and date back 4-5 thousand years. Later sites down the Nile were from later Kingdoms.
There were a couple of tombs to explore and climbing down these narrow passageways is not for the claustrophobic. I wouldn't say that I am very nervous of these things, but living my entire life in earthquake country does give me pause about being in enclosed spaces.
And heiroglyphics. They are on every conceivable space and became just a blur.
Day two was dedicated to sites in Cairo with the first stop being the Egyptian Museum. The building is unsurprisingly British in design
They're building a new one, it might even be open now, out towards the Giza pyramids. We drove past it and it is modern and huge. With the move imminent, they really weren't spending a ton of time keeping this one nice. It was jammed with stuff and there was dust on everything. There are so many artifacts even in this smallish museum that it is a bit overwhelming. The centerpiece is the King Tut room that contains his sarcophagi and other relics. The sarcophagi are knockouts, but taking pictures in that room are forbidden. It is a lot smaller space than you'd imagine, and what was weird about the room is that the windows are wide open allowing the soot and dust of the city right in.
The museum is in Tahrir Square, which is the cultural/social heart of Cairo and was the nexus of the protests in Egypt during the Arab Spring. Probably looked a lot different pre-riots as you couldn't go a few feet without there being a fence or barricade now. It felt chaotic and very unwelcoming.
To be honest, Cairo was a total dump. No mass transit to speak of, which means lots of cars and pollution. And the traffic is as bad as I've ever experienced and goes on 24/7. Didn't see a sidewalk that wasn't totally cracked and it seems that every building was built without the ones around it being considered. Am sure there are areas where people with money seclude themselves, but we didn't get into any of those. None of this is surprising as the city is ancient and has had a few millennia of ineffectual/colonial governance. What I'm saying is get in, see the stuff, and get out.
After the AM museum, took the 2hr/10km drive over to the Citadel. I'm calm in traffic as a passenger, but when behind the wheel get totally aggravated by traffic and know I'd lose my shit if forced to drive here. The Citadel is on the highest hill overlooking the city and has a mosque that is famous. Nice, and the view of the city is unparalleled, but if I had to do it again, would probably target the Coptic Christian sites with the 1/2 day that this took to do.
On the way to the Citadel, we passed the oldest cemetery, which is giant and called City of the Dead. Read about it in my book and was curious as it sounded interesting, but Jameer said it was quite dangerous as it is not only a cemetery but that 10's of thousands of people live in it. You could see glimpses of them over the wall. Read this article recently where a highway is going through a part of it and they're forcibly evicting the people living there. They're pissed but not really fighting the government cause it is military again and you really don't want to make waves. Whenever I would engage in politics with our guides, they were all in favor of the order that al-Sissi has brought back to the country after the Muslim Brotherhood period. Didn't feel right or worthwhile engaging with them on this sensitive topic cause they all rightfully live in fear of being reported.
I did get to tell some of the gags that I'd researched before going. The only one that got any traction from them was the one that goes, 'Why wasn't Jesus born in Egypt? Cause they couldn't find three wise men or a virgin." You can use that one anywhere, but it feels best done here.
Last stop of the day was at the souk called Khan El Khalili, which is billed as 'one of the stunning bazaars in the Middle East'. Not saying I'm an expert on the matter, but I've seen a few and this was pure tourist trap. We couldn't even find a magnet we liked. We did enjoy a cafe at an old shop within the market.
The third day was most fabulous. Up and early to the airport for the 1hr flight to Luxor.
This is the first moment in time where masks are now worn by everyone. More on that in a bit.
We were met my our guide (Ismail) for the rest of our trip at the airport and drove straight to the Valley of the Kings. I knew that all the burial chambers were located in the same area, but what was surprising was just how small that area is. About 1000 feet long, it contains some 60 tombs, including King Tutankhamun's. The price of admission allows you to go inside three of them and we did a Ramses trifecta, visiting III, IV, and IX (3,4 and 9). If you wanted to see Tut's, that cost extra and Ismail said it wasn't worth it as he died young and the tomb was not nearly as elaborate as the other ones since it was a rush job. You could see why it remained hidden from grave robbers as its entrance was right below another tomb so was obscured until Howard Carter stumbled upon it.
Going into these three, you have to descend down long narrow passageways and then can more around in the different chambers. There is not an inch of wall or ceiling that isn't covered by intricately carved and painted hieroglyphics. In each are dudes that are there to make sure you don't damage or graffiti the places, but they seem more interested in asking for a couple bucks to let you behind ropes into supposedly off limits rooms. For a couple bucks, why not.
Impossible and pointless to detail what you see...
Here is a YouTube video taken in the Ramses III tomb that does it some justice.
Talk about barren landscape
Next up and just around the corner was the Temple of Hatshepsut. We had trouble saying it and Ismail said it sounds like Hat Cheap Suit. The 8th grade baseball kids have Egypt in history and we quiz each other on Egyptian history, and they all say that name very well.
I have searched for it for years, but there was an episode of Speed Racer where this temple was featured as the home of the gang that Speed was fighting. I can't remember for sure what gang that was but my five year old self remembers it being the Car Acrobatic Team. You'd think that the internet would be of some help here, but I have found no trace of that episode anywhere.
The design of the temple is unlike any other and it is not in terribly good condition, but still breathtaking. What also sets it apart is that Hatshepsut was the only female Pharaoh. Cleopatra was too, but she was Greek and not in the heyday of the classic periods. Still very sexy though.
Ismail.
By all accounts, Hatshepsut was a badass, but the dudes never bought in and so a lot of her markings were obliterated from the records after her demise.
The Valley of the Kings and Hatshepsut's Temple are on the west side of the Nile, which is where the dead people go. The east side is where all the living gets done, so we crossed over the river. They only allow bridges every 60kms for some reason, so we took a little ferry boat.
On the east side is the Karnak Temples Complex and Temple of Luxor. You may know Karnak from the Johnny Carson bit where he says the answer and then reads the question. One I heard when I was little and have never forgotten went: Answer - Sis Boom Bah. He opens the envelope and reads the question, What a sheep sounds like when it explodes
You probably never saw it, but there is an Agatha Christie movie from 1978 called Murder On The Nile and a key scene is filmed at the Karnak complex and that has always stuck in my mind. The most striking feature is Hypostyle Hall that is 5000m2 and has 134 33ft columns in 16 rows. Makes the hair stand up on your neck.
This complex also has 2 of the 8 remaining obelisks left in Egypt. There were 102 total, but colonialism.
It was a long day and we got back to our hotel late afternoon with a nice Nile view.
Mentioned above that this was the first day that masks were seen everywhere. We woke up this morning and looked on the English language Egyptian paper and saw the headline that a coronavirus outbreak occurred on a Nile cruise ship based in Luxor. We considered a Nile cruise but it took too much time and we obviously dodged a bullet there. There was one case in Egypt before we left Taiwan, and as of this moment, the place started to explode with it. The people on all of the cruise ships were held on board that day, which made our visits to the sights pleasant as there were very few people about and we had most everything to ourselves. And NO Chinese tourists. Testing wasn't a thing then so they held people on board to take temperatures and look for symptoms. They released everyone this afternoon and the hotels filled up with tourists. The WiFi in our room was not good so I went down to the lobby to catch up and grab a cappuccino, and the scene was explosive with tourists frantically trying to get out of the country. Next to me was a woman who was crying and pleading with their tour operator to get her the hell back to the States.
What made it...funnier is not the word, but close...was that the headline was that the virus was brought on board the ship by a Taiwanese-American woman. Betty resembles that. This other Taiwanese-American woman took a trip and then the boat made two more trips before they discovered the virus was circulating by which point the outbreak was on.. The day we got back to Taiwan, there was a fantastic article in the Washington Post that detailed how this all went down. You can read the article here. It is good but long, however reading about the coronavirus and how it was spreading in March seems not only so long ago, but almost quaint.
On day 4, we drove south from Luxor to Aswan (4 or so hours of driving) stopping at a couple of sights along the way...the Temple of Horus in Edfu and the Temple of Kom Ombo. Maybe it was because the day before was so exceptional, but I don't have a ton of memories or notes from these two stops and even the pictures looked similar to the previous day and the only way to tell them apart is that they were date stamped.
Betty must have felt similarly cause in addition to temple pictures, she took a few dozen of the locals on donkeys.
In the town we stopped for lunch, Ismail took us to the spice shop. These guides love to take you to places for you to buy shit, and assume they get a kickback if we buy, which I have no problem with cause that's what makes the world go round. In Cairo, they took us to a place that sold papyrus art, where we bought a few things that I haven't opened since. Need to put framing those on my things to do list, especially if we get stuck here again this summer.. Tomorrow, we'd be taken to a shop that sold essences...they had every kind and we bought a 4 pack. We are getting our money's worth from those as Betty has a diffuser that she turns on while we're in the office. At this spice shop, I went a bit crazy, buying a bunch of dates, some tea, cinnamon and a couple other things, and the bill was like US$100. I still have a bit of the tea left so we used everything, but still felt a bit ripped off.
We hit Aswan mid-afternoon and the sight to see there is the Philae Temple. You need to take a little boat as it is on an island. There were a hundred or so of these little boats to ferry passengers to the island, but the virus made only about 5 viable on this day.
Hard to see it, but that is the Aswan dam in the next photo. Doesn't look like much, but it not only tamed the Nile, it created a 298 mile long lake/reservoir that took 4 years to fill and stretches into Somalia.
On the last day of our tour, we were to drive to Abu Simbel, which is 3.5 hours south. Another place that I knew from a grainy film they showed us in elementary school. When they built the Aswan Dam, they determined that it was gonna flood some ancient sights, including the Abu Simbal temples, and I remember the film detailing the engineering feats they undertook to move them up the hill and out of the path of the future lake.
You've seen these things in pictures, but gawdamn are they incredible in person.
It's not just the outside they moved, but there are rooms filled with carvings and such inside that were moved stone by stone.
This one is in a room that only gets sunlight one day of the year and it only shines on one of the faces. I should say that at every stop and sight, the guides would explain which god or pharaoh did what, but my brain could not absorb much of it and I would be doing a disservice to try to recreate any of that now. What did get through was marveling at the technical skill of the artists and the length of time this culture existed.
There are two temples...a boys and a girls. What word for amazing haven't I used? Whichever one it is should be the most emphatic cause this site was my favorite of all the ones we saw.
Look at how few people there are. Ismail said he has never seen it like this, even when terrorists were wreaking havoc a few years previous. On the walk back to the car, we walked through the visitors center and running on a loop is that grainy movie of the Abu Simbel move I saw as a youth.
On the way to and from Abu Simbel, you are driving through the easternmost edge of the Sahara desert. Desolate and hypnotic. There is one place to stop at the half way point to grab a coffee and visit the bathroom.
We get back to Aswan in time for our flight back to Cairo. The next day was supposed to be the one Betty came to Egypt to work for and I was free to do whatevs. Had been researching day trips...there was one out to the Sahara to see these geologic formations that I was interested in from the great episode of the documentary series How The Earth Was Made on the Sahara (must viewing). I also considered going up to Alexandria, or out to see the Suez Canal, but the dude we were working with said that they were far and traffic was inconsistent and might not make it back in time for our flight out that night. Decided I was gonna do a tour of the Coptic Christian sights in Cairo for 1/2 day.
As we are watching the news and talking with the tour operator, we get word that a storm is a-brewin' and is supposed to hit Cairo late the night we get in. The weatherman says it is gonna be bad and they have already canceled school and public business the next day in anticipation of it. The tour guys, as well as the people Betty is supposed to meet, says that if it is what they say it is gonna be, that all activities are off. If the Egyptians know one thing, it is storms of Biblical proportion, and this was one of them. We got into our hotel before it started, but once the storm started, you could easily tell where the authors of the Bible got the idea about the 7 plagues from. The hotel we stayed at was in a cool spot right near the pyramids and the lightning storm really added to the mood.
This is also the time when I still had the Sideshow Bob look going. Don't miss those days at all.
So the storm is brutal and we stick at the hotel and watch the airlines website to see if we're gonna get out of town. The guys Betty came to work with come out to our place to meet there in the afternoon and we see our flight is gonna leave but is delayed, and these nice work guys give us a ride (2 hrs) to the airport. If I thought that traffic in Cairo was bad before, seeing it in a deluge took it to a whole other level. The place just isn't built to easily drain and we went through many spots that were over a foot deep.
We get to the airport and our flight is ultimately delayed a few hours. Know that making our connecting flight in Istanbul is gonna be tight at best and sure enough, we miss it. It's now 2am or something and the next flight out leaves in 20 something hours, so the airline puts us up in a hotel. Problem is, they have just recently built a new airport in Istanbul and it opened a month previous. It looks really nice, but all of the associated infrastructure is not ready and that includes hotels next to it, so we have to drive for an hour to where the old airport was to get into the airline assigned hotel. The driver was super friendly and told us that if we were here the night before, we would have ridden with Morgan Freeman.
The hotel is fine. At this point in the virus timeline, people are freaking out everywhere, so the mood is subdued. We had time to get out and see something or go to the place we loved to eat, but it just didn't feel right. Plus, our bags made the original flight and we didn't have much in the way of spare clothes and I spilled on my shirt in Egypt. The hotel had some shops and spent 20 bucks buying the ugliest Istanbul t-shirt you've ever seen.
We make it out and get back to Taipei and at this point, Egypt isn't on the restricted to enter list, but it would get added the very next day. The school wants nothing to do with me for at least two weeks. If this were now, Betty and I would both have to have quarantined for 2 weeks in different spaces, but again, March 14th, 2020 was a different world. Betty and I stayed home for two weeks and we almost went stir crazy and it is impossible for me to comprehend how all y'all have been doing this for 10 months.
During those two weeks, we watched the local news and they would report on the new cases daily. There was a Taiwanese tour group that was in Egypt the same time as us, and that group was on the plane that we were supposed to have taken back originally. Each day, they started reporting that a person or two from that group got the virus. After a couple days, they started to refer to that tour group as ill-fated, and after a week when 20 or more of them had come down with it, the paper changed the description of the group from ill-fated to doomed. Again, good fortune shone on us for missing the flight with the doomed tour group. But reading about them every day, I started to get a bit wiggy that I had contacted it and started taking my temperature every day. One day I even convinced myself I was short of breath and to this day a part of me thinks that I had contacted the virus then.
