A TRIP TO EGYPT:)

DAY1

n the first day, we arrived at Cairo International Airport at 8:00 in the morning. When I was doing research for our trip, I had read about the brand-new Terminal 3, which opened at the airport in April 2009. Unfortunately, that new building is reserved for EgyptAir. We arrived at Terminal 2, but it was still pretty nice.

Cairo International Airport Terminal 3

We were hungry after the 14-hour flight, so we wanted to grab a quick breakfast before leaving for the hotel, just in case it took longer than expected. We went to Café Ritazza, where we had chicken sandwiches and fruit juice. The food was OK, but nothing special and a little expensive.

Caffé Ritazza at Cairo International Airport

Before sightseeing, we wanted to check into the hotel and drop off our bags. Our hotel, the Conrad, was only 20 km from the airport, which normally takes about 45 minutes due to Cairo’s bad traffic. However, as the driver kept making his way through a maze of streets, we started to suspect that something was wrong. Byungju thought that our driver was lost, but I believed he was trying to rip us off. Anyway, after a full hour and a half, we finally arrived at the hotel. It was a relief that we picked such a nice location to stay. The Conrad overlooks the River Nile and is close to the major attractions we planned to see on our first day in Egypt. We each checked into our individual rooms, and we were pleased to see that we were all on the same floor with great river views.

Exterior and room interior views of the Conrad Hotel Cairo

We were so tired after the 14-hour flight, but we knew that with such a short time in the country, we couldn’t afford to sleep. We had to push forward and make the best use of our day. Oryun suggested we allow ourselves an hour to settle in and unpack, and maybe get some rest. I knew that if I lay down on the bed, I would fall asleep right away, so I just unpacked and took a quick shower. When I had changed my clothes, I took a moment to look out the window to the River Nile. I was so thrilled to finally get a chance to see this historic river with my own eyes. The longest river in the world, this was the site of one of the earliest major civilizations. Though the Nile is now flanked with large buildings on both sides, for a moment I could imagine how the ancient Egyptians might have seen it. I had to admit that it was much more impressive than the Han River.

We would soon see the river close up. By 12:15, we were already on a felucca, a traditional sailboat that the Egyptians use to navigate the Nile. This was a sightseeing cruise that would allow us to get oriented to the layout of the city. The tour guide told us about how the flooded river made the soil around it very fertile, allowing ancient Egypt to sustain a stable population. The Egyptians even had a god, Hapy, who they believed was in charge of flooding the river.
The Nile River through Cairo, and a felucca

After the cruise, we went back to the hotel. Although Oryun wanted to go experience a traditional market for lunch, the other three suggested that since we needed to leave enough time to see the sights around the Pyramids, we should just eat a quick lunch at the hotel restaurant. Interestingly, the restaurant was called Felucca Café, after the kind of boat we had just taken down the river. We enjoyed the elegant atmosphere, and the food was delicious.

Felucca Café at the Conrad.

At 2:30, we took a taxi to Giza. This time, the driver was much better. Within an hour, we were at the foot of the Pyramids. I didn’t realize that these ancient monuments were so close to bustling Cairo. In fact, there was even a Pizza Hut restaurant almost directly across from them (YouTube video here: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=D5bqxONkns8). Still, this didn’t spoil the atmosphere. Once you are next to the Pyramids and the Sphinx, it is as if you are in ancient Egypt thousands of years ago.

The Great Pyramid of Khufu (the only remaining monument of the Seven Wonders of the Ancient World) is the largest, followed by the Pyramid of Khafre and the Pyramid of Menkaure. The Great Sphinx, just to the east, faces the rising sun and guards the pyramids, which were used as tombs for Egyptian kings.

The Giza Pyramids

The Great Sphinx

The Pyramids are massive, and as I looked up at the Great Pyramid I remembered that our guidebook said that it was the largest and tallest man-made structure in the world for over 3,000 years. But I was even more impressed by the Sphinx, which is so well preserved. The lion paws are very long and must have intimidated anyone who thought of stealing objects from the tombs. First, we went inside the Pyramids to see some of the tomb chambers. It was dark and humid inside, and for long stretches I had to lean over to avoid hitting my head on the ceiling. When we finally arrived in the tomb, it was just a room, since the objects are now all in museums. Still, it was interesting to see how the inner chambers were constructed. I would not want to be one of the workers responsible for carrying the king’s mummy all the way inside!

Uijung wanted to take a camel ride around the Pyramids, and we all agreed that it was a good idea. I was a little afraid of the camel spitting, but my camel turned out to be well-behaved.

Camels near the Pyramids

By 6:30, we were ready for dinner. While researching for our trip, I had found out about the excellent restaurant Abou al-Sid in the Zamalek neighborhood. It looked like a great place for authentic Egyptian food. We took a taxi there and we were not disappointed. The atmosphere was very different from any other restaurant I have visited. It had an exotic, old-world ambience.
Abou al-Sid’s website shows several views of the lavishly decorated interior.

We returned to the hotel by 9:00, and took a short rest in our rooms. Uijung and Byungju wanted to go to the bar. Although Oryun and I were a little reluctant at first, we decided to join them. Oryun doesn’t drink, so she just had some non-alcoholic cocktails. For about an hour and a half, we mingled with other hotel guests at Jayda, the hotel bar that serves Lebanese food. Since Egypt is a Muslim country, it doesn’t have much of a drinking culture, but the hotel bar was full with tourists from all corners of the globe. We chatted with a couple from America and some students from Germany.
We came back to the room at 11:30, ready to leave for Dahab. Oryun was our designated driver. We picked up our rental car at 12:00 and were on our way to the Red Sea for scuba diving the next morning.

Day 2

We left Cairo for Dahab, with Oryun driving. We had already reserved a diving tour at the Club Red diving center. When we arrived at about 6 a.m., we were all very tired and decided to rest for a few hours. After breakfast, we traveled to Blue Hall by camel. The Club Red staff gave a short talk to introduce their program, then we started to practice basic diving techniques. Byungju was more experienced in diving than the others, so at first I was worried that it would be hard to catch up to him. But the training was easier than I expected. By the time we finished, it was 12 p.m., so we ate lunch.

Lunch was good but there wasn’t enough food for all of us. We decided to split the group in two. Byungju and I chose the deep course (End of the Road Reef), while the others chose the course called The Bells. My course was on an offshore submerged island, covered with coral and with great diversity of sea life. After the dive, Oryun wanted to do some windsurfing, but none of us were experienced in that sport, so we did not join her and just watched from the beach. Three women tourists approached us and asked if we wanted to go for a swim. After that was done, we were hungry, so we all came back to land and cooked up some of the fish we caught on the dive. At night, we went to a club called Aladdin, recommended by the dive instructor. The atmosphere was a little strange and the cover charge was expensive. We didn’t stay long and went to the market to buy some souvenirs. I got some tea for my parents. Byungju drove the car on the next leg of the trip.

Day 3

Next, we were headed to Luxor, the site of an ancient capital of Egypt. We were so tired that we fell asleep right away. But some of us had to wake up because the trip was so long that we had to drive in shifts. Finally, we arrived at Hotel Mercure in Luxor at about 6:00 a.m. I ignored the rude staff and went to my room. We were planning just a short nap, but none of us woke up on time. When we finally gathered to leave the hotel, we headed for Luxor Temple. It was very close to our hotel. We walked up to the temple’s large pylon and saw the ruins of the Alley of Sphinxes, which originally led all the way to the temple of Amun in Karnak. I was really impressed by the large obelisk. Our guidebook said that there were originally two, but one of them was now in France. After the temple, we moved to the Mummy Museum, which was underground. It was kind of creepy, with preserved organs and even some animal mummies.

For lunch, we tried to go to the Egyptian fusion restaurant 1896, but the bouncer wouldn’t let us in because we weren’t dressed up. We settled for McDonalds. We could have had this food anywhere in the world, so it seemed silly to eat there in Egypt, but we were so hungry already that we didn’t want to look for another place. Luckily, we met Michael, an Australian tourist who recommended that we try “Love Balloon Rides.” We chose a course in a smaller basket, flying high and close to the temple of Karnak. I appreciated Michael’s advice, since it was a great way to see the city. After getting out of the balloon, we saw the Karnak temple from the ground, and by then it was getting dark. We saw the sound and light show, but I thought it wasn’t as good as the one at the Pyramids. Dinner was at the English restaurant Lantern. It was a big improvement from our fast-food lunch. It was time to head back to Cairo.

Day 4

We arrived in Cairo at 5:30 a.m. and returned to our first hotel. After nearly three days of sleeping in the car, we were so tired. Originally we had planned to visit some more places outside of Cairo, but the capital was so interesting that I argued we should stay in the area. The first day, we had already seen the big sights, so we tried to get a better sense of how Egyptians live in this huge city. Uijung said he really missed Korean food. Luckily we found a Korean restaurant, Gu Ryong Gwan. I didn’t have such high expectations for the food, but it was actually quite good. We went back to the hotel to rest until 10:30. On the way, we heard the call to prayer, and saw people on the street start praying suddenly.

At 10:50, we visited the Cairo Museum. It was so large that it was impossible to see the whole thing in just one day. I was happy that I had done some reading about Egyptian history on the plane, so I could understand some of the context for these impressive antiquities. Some areas of the museum were not that well protected, with cases that allowed tourists to touch the artifacts. I guess their collection was so huge that it was not possible to conserve everything equally, so the curators had to make decisions about what was most valuable. At 2:00 p.m., we left the museum for the Citadel fortress.
The Citadel had four mosques. We visited the newest one, Muhammad Ali Mosque. Oryun had to cover her hair in this holy place. The designs on the wall were beautiful. I felt that I started to appreciate the aesthetic of Muslim art, which does not allow depictions of humans. The view from the mosque was also spectacular. At 6:00, we went to Khan el-Khalili market to eat a dinner of roasted lamb and pigeon. It was all right but the waiter wanted to overcharge us and gave us a salad that we did not order. Afterwards, we went to a café to try a Shisha, the traditional water smoking pipe. I tried the lemon flavor, which was refreshing. We returned to the hotel on our way to the airport, to end a memorable but exhausting trip.

Way to go Queen Yu-na!

A Korean young lady has become a superstar, not only in Korea, but also all around the world. She is Kim Yu-na, whom I really like and admire personally. You can easily encounter her presence in TV commercials, newspapers, and even on billboards along the roads. She has truly become a number one celebrity in Korea. There are a good many reasons why I adore her.

The most important reason why I admire Yu-na is that she managed to establish herself as a leader in figure skating, in spite of all the difficulties she faced training in Korea. First of all, she didn’t have proper practice facilities, so she had to move from ice rink to ice rink, training at night after the customers had gone home. Even worse, her skates were very expensive, and she had a hard time obtaining them in her size from abroad. Finally, she couldn’t find a properly experienced coach to help her improve her skating skills to the point where she could compete internationally. However, she overcame these obstacles and has become an international sensation.

Yu-na’s ability to transcend personal hardship is admirable, but her greatest asset is her graceful skating style. She glides effortlessly across the ice, and her movements have a naturalness and charm that is uniquely her own. She is famous for her technical perfection and speed in executing jumps, and first landed a triple-triple combination at the 2005 World Junior Championships when she was only 14. Despite her brilliance as a jumper, she is not a mere automaton. Every jump combination emerges organically as an extension of her program music, and no element feels artificial or forced. Yu-na has also become known for a type of spin move with a bent leg, which is now often called the “Yu-na spin.”

Yu-na has an excellent taste in music for her skating programs. Last year, she cooperated in releasing a CD of her favorite tracks called “Yuna Kim, Fairy on Ice.” This year, her short program to music from the James Bond films shows off a playful side of her personality. Her free skate to Gershwin’s Concerto in F is more serious and elegant. She has a large number of appreciative Korean fans who come out to see her at competitions all over the world. They hold signs that say “Queen Yu-na” and throw many flowers and stuffed animals onto the ice.

When she competes, Yu-na is often well ahead of the second-place skater after the short program. Commentators tend to judge her by her own high standards, and she is a perfectionist in all elements of her performance. For example, just recently at Skate America, she won the competition thanks to a huge lead in the short program, but her free skate was considered a disappointment because she was unusually tense and failed to land her hardest jump combinations.

Yu-na’s recent competition history demonstrates her domination of the field. She won both the 2006-07 and 2007-08 ISU Grand Prix Finals, and placed second in the 2008-09 Grand Prix Final. She will compete in the 2009-10 event in early December. Yu-na won two consecutive bronze medals in the World Championships in 2007 and 2008. At that time, she was suffering from a back injury that caused her a lot of pain. She finally triumphed at the 2009 World Championships in Los Angeles, where she set ISU world records for both her short program and total overall scores. She is now the clear favorite to win the gold medal in the 2010 Winter Olympics in Vancouver.

Kim Yu-na is clearly a superior athlete and artist who has worked hard for success in the figure skating world. Thanks to her, there are now many more Korean fans of the sport. However, her appeal transcends figure skating and she has become a national and international star in her own right. Not many people can match the willpower and determination it took for her to succeed so dramatically when the odds were not in her favor. I am eagerly awaiting her success in the Winter Olympics. History has shown that even prodigiously talented skaters such as Michelle Kwan can fail to obtain an Olympic gold medal, but I am confident that Yu-na can overcome nerves and give a superior performance in Vancouver.

My profile!

It would not be easy to define myself in few sentences. I am still trying to get to know myself better. To be honest, I thought that I knew who I was when I was in high school. As I grew older, however, I came to realize that I could not observe myself with the objective eyes. As a matter of a fact, the more I grow up, the more confused I become about myself. What I am pretty sure about myself is, however, I love to meet my people and share great time with them. I believe that spending delightful time with my people is the most important thing in my life. I became too serious about this typical topic. I will show you who I am and what I am interested in with a few categories.


BRIEF BIOGRAPHY

I was born at a local town in Ulsan in 1986. Even though Ulsan is a pretty big city, the town where my family lived was quite small with just a few people. Since it was a small town, I could make some good friends in my neighborhood whom I always hung out with. I had finished all my schools including elementary, middle, and high schools before I entered Sogang.

I remember I had the happiest time when I was a middle school student. I actually studied classical piano until I was in the second grade in middle school. Since there were no qualified teachers in Ulsan, I had to travel to Busan once a week by myself to take a piano lesson. Even if I was too young to travel to Busan, I was so passionate at that time and very brave to do anything. My mother didn't like the idea for me to go to Busan to take lessons but I persuaded her to let me take lessons in Busan. When I became a third grader, I could not help but give up my dream to be a pianist. Becoming an artist requires a lot of money in Korea. My parents could not really support me when I had to decide whether or not I would go to an art high school. Even though I hated the situation that I had to give up piano due to economic problems, there was no choice but to give up.

After I gave up piano, I was very depressed all the times. I did not feel like doing anything. Since I was not interested in anything at that time, I remember I just studied for my school work. I did not go to any private after-schools to study. I just studied by myself in my room when both of my parents worked at their companies. I cannot really figure out why I studied very hard at that time but I did study hard and finally became the student who got the highest average on school test.
I graduated from the middle school with honor and entered Hak-Sung high school. The high school that I went to had a high standard on their students. Even if I didn't have to take an entrance exam to get in that school, all my seniors had taken the entrance exam to get in that school. Contrary to my middle school life, life in Hak-Sung was not that great. I had too much pressure from my parents and school. Especially, my mother caused me a lot of stress while I was in high school. She called me right after my exams were over to find out what score I got on each exam. It was very hard for me to endure those stresses and expectations that I at least had to be the first in my class. In high school, no matter how hard I tried, there seemed to be a certain limit that I could not go over. I was too tired and too pessimistic about my future to make a good result.



After I finished high school life, I decided to move on to Sogang. My mother was very unsatisfied with my decision and she wanted me to study one more year to get in a better school. However, I knew that I had no energy to go further and that would make nothing but a huge failure. No matter what my mother said to me, I entered Sogang. After I got in Sogang, I did not study at all. I actually attened classes but had never worked hard for my school works. Finally I ended up with a very low GPA and decided to join the Army. Fortunately, I had an opportunity to work in the American Army as a KATUSA. I had a lot fun serving in the American Army. Since i had never been out of the country, everything there was very interesting and quite new to me. Even though I was a soldier, I think I was very excited to experience all those new cultures. I met a lot of new friends in my unit and I still keep in touch with them. In particular, I met a nice SGT in my section whom I spent a lot of time with. She now works for IRS back in America. I am planning to visit her this winter when I am travelling to America. I am looking forward to travelling America this winter.





After my Army service, I came back to Sogang and now I am struggling to get a good score to recover what I had spoiled before I joined the Army. It is very frustrating from time to time but I am trying my best to be optimistic about my future. Whenever I become frustrated and feel defeated, I try to be thankful for what I have at this moment. Thinking that way, I realize that what a blessed person I am.




PERSONAL INTEREST

Things I love to do during my free time include talking with my friends for everything, listening to classical piano music, cooking for my friends, going to Samchung-dong with my friends, walking around the streets for nothing, watching Kim Yu-na's skating through You-tube and listening to Jason Mraz's songs etc. It is really difficult to specify my hobbies and things I like since I have too many interests and too many tastes. It might be easier for me to clarify things I mind doing.

However, if I have to pick one particular thing I like to do during my free time, I would pick 'talking with my friends for everything'. I think friends in my life are the best gifts from God. Some people might think that it could be a waste of time to talk with your friends for nothing. However, I believe that talking with your friends and people, you can learn more about life and understand things in different views that you might never have if you don't communicate with others. Except for that pretentious reason, you can have fun and release all your stress. I do love my friends!

STUDIES

I am presently studying Chemistry in Sogang. Actually, I was not really interested in science. To be totally honest, science was my least favorite subject when I was in high school. When I had to decide whether I would attend the humanity and social study field or scientific field, I wanted to go for the humanity and social field. However, my mother forced me to attend the scientific field telling me that I should become a doctor. Even though I was not happy with her decision, I thought that it would be nice and economically stable to live as a doctor. So, I agreed with her idea which turned out to be a wrong decision. I failed to enter a medical school and I had to decide which department I would enter among the scientific departments. Even though I didn’t like science, I could not but choose one of those fields and decided to enter Chemistry which I liked the most among the science. I have a lot of problems with my major since I am not that good at it. As I know there is no way out, I am trying my best to get good scores on the studies of my major.

Other than chemistry, I like to study English. It seems that studying English is not really studying a subject. I have never gotten any stress or pressure studying English. It is just another language. There are no complicated equations and definitions in studying English. You can just accept and understand that the way it is. Sometimes I got to think what if I could have an opportunity to live abroad when I was young. It could have helped me a lot to improve my English fluency. I occasionally feel a little bit bad when I find others speak English much better who have live abroad for a long time when they were young. But I personally believe that even if you are in Korea, you can still learn a lot better than others in the English-speaking countries utilizing all kinds of English learning materials. The other study that I am interested in is classical piano. Even though I gave up becoming a pianist, I have never totally abandoned my dream. I am still eager to start classical piano again. When I was a sophomore in Sogang, I called on a professor in Yon Sei to ask for a lesson. I told her why I had given up my training. After she auditioned me she allowed me to be her student just paying a quarter of normal lesson fee. I was so happy to get the opportunity. Nevertheless, while studying my major in Sogang, I couldn’t practice at least 4 hours a day. To get an one-hour lesson, I was supposed to practice at least 4 hours a day. Since I couldn’t have enough time to practice, my teacher and I agreed that I could not get a regular lesson. So now, I am taking time off from my piano lessons. I am going to start again after I graduate from Sogang.