where did my feet go?

ok, technically this is more than one photo a day...

360 degrees

tonight I decided to give panorama photography my first rookie shot. This was made from 15 shots...

lights

Now that the nights are warmer, under these lights I spend most of my time.

rain in cairo

tonight it rained in Cairo and it messed up all the roads along with my evening. I was supposed to go to Mustafa's engagement, but missed it because I got stuck in traffic. At one point, I started feeling nautious because of the exhaust gas. Towards the end I couldn't take it any more. I made a U-turn and started driving back home which took another 1.5 hr. In total close to 5. Can you believe this? Well, what's this got to do with the photo above? That's me all dressed up for the big night.

Bougainvillea in the sky

4 guys on a motorcycle

Some days life is easy, I have an obvious choice of photo to put here. Other days, I can't decide between a good photo and a funny one. Today, I had to make that choice and of course I went with the funny one. If you were ever wondering how many people you can fit on a motorcycle, here's the out of focus answer. I had to pull over by the road, roll down the window, and try my luck at capturing this. Afterwards, I was asking myself why I didn't step out of the car to get a better shot. You know, I would have had to open the door, take off the seat belt, get out, ... in short, I felt lazy.

Then I remembered this poor guy from the BBC documentary Planet Earth who was trying to film the bird of paradise which displayed its tricks only when the female was around, in case he was feeling in the mood, no one was disturbing him, he was feeling like life was treating him well. The cameraman had to wait in his hide for days, 10 hours a day and he almost went insane. He even kept singing this 80's song bird of paradise in his head all the time: Bird of Paradise

And, I was feeling lazy because I had to take off my seat belt...

*In case you're wondering if the 4th guy fell down after this shot - no, kept clinging on. And I'm just waiting for the day, I will see 5 guys on a motorcycle.

egyptian breakfast

I know it's not wise to write about food at this time of the night and my mouth's already started to salivate. This is ful or fava beans in arabic and it's the most common food eaten for breakfast around here. It's wrapped in pita bread and you can see these mobile ful sellers everywhere. At least, I see them all the time as I'm driving to work and even though I've just had my breakfast of old boring cereal, I can't help but feel hungry every time. I've tried this only once, but I have a feeling that if I stay here longer, I might ditch the cereal for the ful.

Mmm, I think I'll visit the kitchen now. It's still 4 minutes to midnight, so I should be ok.

I have a strange carpet

which reminds me of the monsters cartoon and looks like something's going to come out of it any minute.

who's there?

hyper mosque

the weirdest color sink

in Egypt and it's in my house.

driving in Cairo at night

it's 3am and we're driving from the airport. The quietest you can ever find this city.

destruction

in istanbul

melosh again

yes, I know I've missed my cat...

oltu kebap

This is from the kale in Ankara, the historical part of the city on the hill. If you want to have delicious kebap from Erzurum with excellent service, this is the place. Don't forget the dolma kadayif. I know I shouldn't write these things just before going to bed.

melosh, my cat

flying home

pijamas

sushi tonight

walking

garbage

Memluk cemetery

I wanted to see it from the time I heard about it. The city of the dead. A cemetery where people live in between tombs. I would catch a glimpse of this place every now and then when I was passing through, but for some reason I kept postponing my visit.

It turned out to be the most memorable experience for me in Cairo. The feeling kept nagging me as if this was not real. It was a different time and I had intruded. People kept looking at me. People who shouldn't have been there. Empty roads, tombstones, mosques in ruins. I walked in the Ibn Barquq and Qaitbey mosques. Entry was not allowed into Amir Qurqumas which was so much in ruins it looked like it could go down any time. I couldn't help feel sad for the relics of an era that were disappearing and no one noticed. Someone later told me that I was visiting all the places where there were signs of my ancestors. I had never imagined Memluks to be my ancestors. Slave Turk soldiers from the Caucuses who had wrestled power in Egypt (among other places) and founded their own state which lasted for 3 centuries until the Ottomans came. But the more I heard their names, ending with Bey, old Turkish names from Asia, the more familiar they felt. Their signs are all over this city. I keep discovering as I walk on the dusty roads

caps lock

let's go macro today...

El-Brince

We've been talking about going to this local restaurant for so long that it kind of turned into a joke after a while to say "so when are we going to brince?" El-Brince is actually The Prince, but since p is pronounced b in Arabic, we have the local pronunciation become the written form just like it writes "5 min rob jumping" on my training schedule in the local gym. El-Brince is the meat place from lamb, egyptian sosis, liver to all kinds of crazy stuff. The liver which I always stay away from was actually delicious. The sosis was great. My friends' dishes tasted pretty good. My lamb was a little to fatty for my taste. We finished the night sitting at a local cafe outside drinking our tea with mint leaves. The street was like a carnival, a never-ending mixture of honks and shouts with tok toks maneuvering around microbuses.

on the road

One thing I like here is the number of people you can see walking by road side, so it's never boring. Contrast that to the US where my first week, I was walking on the sidewalk and I felt like an alien...

living on the edge

There are a lot of things in this country that most people simply would be shocked to see, things I understand. Maybe because I've seen similar things in my own country. Still, when I see something like this in the morning as I'm driving to work, I'm left speechless. I know I'm one of those guys that wears a seat belt, so you can say that I've lost my cultural edge. I've been spoilt by that safe, comfortable, and sterile world, so it's normal for me not to comprehend it. I mean what if the pick-up truck makes a sudden stop and the pasha here who's enjoying the morning sun and the sweet breeze takes a fly onto good old Egyptian asphalt? That, my friend, is what we call in this part of the world "kader" or fate...

koshari sauce

now, I have to tell you there's nothing like some hot koshari sauce to raise your taste buds from sleep... they warned me about it. my friends did, my driver in my first days in egypt, even the policeman at the passport control made me promise not to eat it, but I couldn't resist the temptation. I first started pouring a lick of it, then it was half the plastic container, and finally I was dumping the whole thing in. That heaven like feeling that makes you want to smile and cry at the same time (ok, I think here I have too much hot sauce diffused in my brain cells) while I ate the people's food in Egypt. I saw the shopkeepers eat this in between our negotiations, the esnaf food. I bought my tesbih
as the seller was receiving his koshari, a mixture of carbonhydrates and protein in the form of lentils, spagetti, pasta, rice, onions, vermicelli, and of course the hot sauce...