Egypt Journal II (3/16-4/1/2008)

 

Day 3 – Today we toured the city of Cairo. The highlights being the Citadel, the Khalily Market and the Cairo Museum which housed all the treasures from ancient Egypt. One interesting observation concerns tourism. Because of growing importance of Chinese tourists, our group was often greeted by street vendors and service personnel with the Chinese words “how are you (Ni Hao)? Or I love you (meaning I love Chinese)” . One shop owner even said he will accept RMB if we buy from his shop (I am not sure if he was joking. After all, RMB is not a convertible currency) In the coffee shop photo shown below, an Arab start to speak with us in Chinese. And Egyptians acknowledge that many daily goods they use are made in China.

Day 4 – Today we traveled to the seaport city of Alexandria on the coast of Mediterranean – a drive of three hours north of Cairo. While Egypt is a developing country. Alexandria is clean and orderly and very different from Cairo which is chaotic and messy. Of course, Alexandria’s claim to fame is being the world’s first library collection which the Greeks completely destroyed during 300 BC. With its destruction , much of the ancient literature were lost. However, in 2002 AD, a brand new modern library was built on the original site. It is a spectacular piece of architecture with the latest information technology. It is well worth a visit to

to experience many of the precious document digitized and available on line at this library. A search for ”Kennedy and USSR” yields the original copy a letter written by JFK to Khrushchev in the fifties. Another search of “Napoleon and Egypt” comes up with the encyclopedia of Egypt commissioned by Napoleon in its original splendor.

 

Three pictures below are from visits of these two days

 

Courtyard of Cairo Citadel and Mohamed Ali Mosque

Coffee House in Khalily market