Having "Me" Time

Sometimes you stumble upon unexpected things that really are very pleasant.  I guess this is what you call "Serendity."  It reminds me of the movie by that name... Anyways,  as it happens upon our "walk" around Old Town Bangkok, we passed by an unconspicuous house with a sign above saying "Bangkokian Museum."  We had never heard of this place and never intended to visit it, but since we were already passing by we thought, "why not?"  We weren't in a rush to go anywhere, so lets just explore it. And so we went in.  To our surprise, this house comprised of a fairly large compound comprising of three houses and a row of shop houses on the side.  Two of the houses and the row of shop houses had been turned into a museum by the owner (72years old) who is now residing in one of the houses.  It was like we went back in time.  The garden was green with an old wooden gate. The houses were built of wood and in a style that reflected...

Happy Thanksgiving! :)  Today, most families in the US will probably have Turkey for dinner together with family and friends.  The start of the festive season, it also marks the end of yet another busy year full of developments and happenings.   What better day to mark the end of my posts on Egypt.  Today, I end my journey to Egypt with the final resting place for most of Egypt's great treasures: The Egyptian Museum. After thousands of years of history, the final resting place for most of the Egyptian treasures is not located in the Valley of the Kings, nor inside Great Pyramids.  Instead, their final resting place is inside the Egyptian Museum or somewhere in a box in its basement.  First opened in 1863 my guidebook tells me that the museum had to move twice before settling at its current building in which it has been housed since 1902.  Even then, it is still not large enough to accomodate all ...

A little over a decade since I first started planning my trip to Egypt, I finally made it.  I was at long last in the land of the great pyramids, where great pharaohs had ruled Egypt for thousands of years.  I was finally in the land of the mummies and hieroglyphics.  A land where mysteries abound.  Of course my first destination was Cairo: the capital of Egypt. I landed at Cairo Airport and was instantly struck at the amount of people everywhere.  It's a small airport, so once off the airplane you just walk into the terminal building, watch your plane roll by and see a dozen tour groups waiting to go through immigration.  It was crazy.  Though busy and crowded with people like Japan, it was busy in a totally different sense.  Crowds of people stood around in anything but a line.  Tour leaders with dozens of passports in hand would somehow get to that window without havng to wait and then 'poof' his people would be through.  I realized...