Winter break - Abu Simbel Temple

Warning!

*This is a long entry*
**Get a coffee please. This is a history post**
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Abu Simbel Temple, Aswan, Egypt.

Awhhhh! What I love the most about our trip. Oh btw, I was joining a 6 days 5 nights trip to south Egypt part.

Aswan is about 12 hours road journey from Cairo. I took Metoclopromide/Maxolon (originally for motion sickness) but I took it to its drowsiness. I love Pharmacy, mwah.

Abu Simbel was beautiful! It was really unique, intelligently designed, every part of the temple were always brought the meanings, though the drawings were confusing to me; all Pharaohs/Gods looked the same to me. Hahaha.

Well, I wasn't really good in explaining history (though I love it so much) and yes, I'm not a travel blogger. So some points are absolutely going to be missed.

Okay, since my lovely friend, Rab (hello Rab, my loyal reader haha), asking me to blog about these historical places, so I would give it a try.

Okay..

This huge temple was built about thousand years ago (Year 1264 BC) as an order from King Ramses II to celebrate the greatness of some gods, like, God of Sun (Ra), God of All Gods (Amun), God of Darkness (Ptah) as well as the greatness of himself (King Ramses II) during ancient times.

They had a lot of Ramseses (nicknames for the ancient Egypt kings), but King Ramses II was believed to be the greatest.

They also had God of Sun, God of Death, God of Fertility, God of Darkness and so on. Basically, everything had their own gods, not sure if they had God of Food also. Lol.

Original look of the temple (Pic from Google)

Discovery

It was abandoned and no one noticed about this. Until 1813, an Italian found it buried under the sand. And it's called Abu Simbel, means a little boy, who are believed to be a boy who used to bring people to the temple for visiting purposes.

Moving The Temple

(Pictures from Google)

The exciting part! When Aswan High Dam was about to be builded, it was quite chaos debates went around about how water rising from the dam might destroy the temple. So as a conservation effort to preserve this historical piece, UNESCO decided to move it.

Amazing, how the workers cut the temple precisely into 1050 pieces and rebuild the same exact temple about 60 meters higher from the original place.

It took a few months to completely moved it with the help of archeologists, experts and workers, with USD80 million (some said 60M or 40M, so I don't know).

When I was following the trip, I heard the tourist guide was talking something about the artificial mountain or something, so I did a little reading, and it said, they built two rock mountain around the temple for the purpose of strength and to make it looked as original one.

*Aswan High Dam is said to be one of the largest dam in the world, supplies about all Aswan areas with electricity and water needs.

Details

King Ramses had about 200 wives and 100+ children, I'm not sure the exact numbers. But for King Ramses II, his favourite wife was Nefertari.

At the entrance of Abu Simbel Temple, all Gods were accompanied by their favourite wives at their right side and their lovable sons at the centre.

Inside The Temple

We were not allowed to take pictures inside the temple. We did try to do, but the Pakcik was following around, as if knowing our intentions hahaha.

So, the pictures inside the temple were taken from google. Thanks Mr Google.

Every inches of the walls were carved with drawings that showed some actions doing by the King and it always brought some meaning. I was interested to the ancient Egyptian alphabet hieroglypics. It was fun, yet funny. Sorry, no offense, but when you look at something drew as comb, it actually means men! Hahaha. Okay, not that funny.

There were several small rooms inside the temple, the place for the people to pray or meditate.

Two Special Days

Interesting also. People at the old times were pretty good in predicting the future, making the other people sick/die/rebirth or something. They're also good in pharmacy, medicine, architecture, astronomy, and so on. Actually, they'd done better than people on our generations.

So, what I'm trying to say is, I was amazed when I was told that the sunlight couldn't get through the temple, except for these two special days. On 22 October (birthday of Ramses II) and on 20 February (coronation day of Ramses II as a King). Of course, they're doing a good job on predicting the sun progress; usually 61 days before and 61 days after the winter solctice.

Wait. We're coming to the most interesting part.

Can you see that small door? That's where the Gods' sculptures were being placed. When that 2 days arrived, the sun would be able to penetrate inside the temple but only illuminated these 3 Gods; Ra (Sun), Amun (God of All Gods) and King Ramses II, but not Ptah (God of Darkness). Why? Because of 'darkness' tittle that he held. Awhh, sorry, no sun for you.

**Ptah - God of Darkness, a God that was believed to be connected with the underworld, who always remained in the dark.

Well, I'm not really sure which God was which. Sorry.

Nefertari Temple

Since King Ramses II loooooved Nefertari so much, he build her one temple just beside Abu Simbel Temple. I don't really know much about this temple, but we can always google-ing. Basically, inside the temple there're a lot of drawings on wall, showing the scene like, when King Ramses doing something with another God. Or when Nefertari was doing something sweet with her husband, King Ramses II.

You know, things like that.

And also, a lot of small rooms also. For meditations.

**Sleepy, guys? Yeah, me too! Hahaha. **

 Nefertari Temple during day and night

In front of Nefertari Temple.

 Till then. Bye! :)

Winter break - Damietta

Damietta, Egypt.

It was hmm maybe 3 to 4 hours from Zagazig (I'm not sure, I was sleeping throughout the journey). Damietta is just a new developing city with a small populations, so maybe that's why it's a little bit cleaner than Zagazig. It's well known for their beaches, shellfish (cockles, of course) and the people here are famous for their furniture business - which they carve them by themselves.

 I loooove their building architectures which are so unique, much less like the combinations of the classic and modern ones, with the sentimental details on windows and carved-doors. Lovely! And suddenly reminded me of the ones in Istanbul.

(I've been to Istanbul last year - promised to update it in my blog, but never do)

At Ras El Bar, Damietta..

What amazed me the most: the meeting between Mediterranean Sea and Nile River.

As written in Al- Quran, 

"He unleashed two seas so that they merged together. And yet there is a barrier between them so they may not overstep." [55:19-20]

Okay, question of the day. How to differentiate between the river and sea?

Sea water is absolutely salty, and of course, people like me won't go down to the ocean just to taste the saltiness. Okay, just for knowledge, seawater (which comes from ocean) usually has a lot more solute than river. Thus it will have different density and weight. And it is a lot more calmer than river, just by looking at it with our naked eyes.

While river compared to the sea, it's usually cleaner than the sea and the waves are crazy. And the crocodiles inside are crazy too.

And they don't mix with each other, my theory is, maybe because of their difference in concentration and density.

Awhh, I'm proud. I should be the world next geologist. Wait, or is it water scientist job or something? Well, let's just stick to pharmacy.

Met Zen from Cairo.

And we're off to the beach!

Okay, since it's winter, the breeze was a lot more chiller and the beach was totally colder, felt as if I was stepping on ice or something. Ahh and I'd got a frostbite. It hurt for about 3 minutes then it went away.

And Damietta is actually quite famous for its shellfish (mainly cockles), especially for Malaysians, since Egyptians don't really eat them which I don't know why, seriously, cockles are one of the best seafoods ever. I love seafood, so much.

If only they had prawns here, I seriously didn't mind getting on a boat to catch them.

And unfortunately, we couldn't get to find even a single cockle. Reason: Because every Malaysian knew about this place and they came to pick them up earlier than we did. So, bangkai je yang tinggal. Hahaha.

The sunset was really beautiful, isn't? With the tamar trees everywhere, I felt like the one in Yousoff Taiyyob commercials. It was a good day. Then we're off to the mosque for a prayer and to a restaurant for Nasi Arab.

I definitely would come here early on the next winter, for you cockles! Hahaha.

Sem 3 results

*goosebumps*

So it was out. One thing that came across my mind was "Oh god, let it be good. Or else how am I going to tell dad?"

It's not that my dad's an university dean/vice canselor or something that he would expell me out from continue studying, no. Hahah.

Well, I'm afraid of him. Especially when it comes to education.

I was on vacation when the result was out. And it spreaded so fast through our Whatsapp group, like a viral. My heart was thumping so fast when I was waiting for the picture to be downloaded completely, felt like I was about to lose my grip on my cellphone.

*in Arabic*
NIK NURQISTINA BINTI NIK NORDIN 
Semester 3
GPA: 3.42
CGPA: 3.35

Phewww! Good enough, maybe, to calm my dad down.

Of course, it wasn't even quite near to Mumtaz (3.7 to 4.00), but let's just scale it up according to Malaysia's system, shall we? Hehehe. (Malaysia's system - Dean Award: 3.50 to 4.00)

Wait.. it wasn't that easy too. Because the the marks were really really expensive. I've got one C in my last exam though my mark was 69. It was such a spoiler, my pointer suddenly dropped that high. And we can only getting a solid A with 90 marks and above. If you're getting 59 marks and below, you're failed!

*biting lips*

Dad was being happy. And I wasn't that satisfied actually, but I wasn't study that hard, I mean not hard enough, so maybe I deserved such result. Allah is fair.

And Alhamdulillah..

So, last night, I came with a new resolution. "Let's study earlier next time, okay?"

Then I fell asleep and my resolution hasn't yet to be decided.

**Ameerul and Shushy just got their results too. Alhamdulillah and congratulations to them. :)

Winter break 2014

Supposed to be 2 weeks only. And it extended to be 1 month. (Due to safety problem)

Okay.. I paused for a while. And wonder.. "What the heck would I do on winter break? 1 month, really? Like really?

Sigh.

I'm always a type of person who loveeeee holiday/break/vacation a lot. But not this long. I mean, what would I really do in 1 month? Not going back to Malaysia. Not planning to go somewhere outside Egypt too.

I started my holiday with a few Korean dramas. And Running Man. Very productie, of course.

And I slept a lot. 10 hours a day, don't judge man, I was just killing some time.

I crashed the kitchen: cooked few dishes like Nasi Ayam, Nasi Tomato, Ikan Masak Stim, Rendang Ayam (which I thought I wanted to make it as my significant dish that my grand grandchildren will proud of - like the one I saw on TV, it would be Rendang Tok Mek Qis, since I'm Kelantanese) and jelly and bla bla bla. (Oh no please, don't go "wow" me, apparently 24 is not just an age, it means something serious related to women things).

I read few Sophie Kinsella's.

Most of the time, I just sleep.

And noo, I'm not shopping. In fact, I don't (seriously) shop for months. The last time I shopped was on last September; last 5 months. *clap* *Guinness World's record*

I was on saving mode actually. Everything needs money now, so I thought about spending some money and buying only necessary things. But I've added Cadbury, Mirinda, Coke and Pringles as must-have items, so, there goes my savings. (Later I discovered that Pringles containing an ingredient that Muslims can't eat - so, I stopped eating that).

Oh, did I tell you about my dental repairment? I did a root canal treatment (RCT) and an extraction and some filling, so there goes again my savings. And I actually have few appoinment afterwards.

Well, I know, my holiday must sounded sooo bored to you. And of course, I'm strongly agree with you.

So, I planned some vacations (in Egypt) with my friends. :)

Will blog about that later. 

Nynaa's Wedding

One more Dolls is married.

Nynaa's married at the age of 24. She's blessed.

I am so excited.. From far.

It's such a good feeling to actually end a long relationship with marriage. It's wonderful. Plus Nynaa knows her husband for years long.

And it's so much more wonderful that everybody gathered to celebrate the bride and the groom, obviously without me. Hehe. I'm okay here. I'm okay here.. Well, I'm not okay.

I really wanna be there on my bff's marriage. Taking pictures, sharing laugh and stupid jokes, tear up for getting old and basically, just laugh.

So here's my speech, virtually from far..

Congratulations Nynaa and husband for your marriage. I wish you an endless happiness and blessing. May the love keeps growing and enjoy every seconds of your life. Be the best woman to your husband and mom to your future kids. And I.. Can't wait for Nynaa's juniors.

(Mommy Qissy is gonna be the sweetest aunt)

3.10

Hello February the month of holiday and weddings, welcome.

So, it's been 3 years and 10 months since I've been together with Ameerul Ashraf.

And guess what, I've only discovered one thing about him which I think pretty good; he's quite competitive.

When I complained posted about how he always forgot our important dates, he laughed while reading my entry and said, "We'll see how next month"

Okay.

He did it.

But I believe he'd set some alarm or something.

Old picture. Because we haven't seen each other for 5 months.

Class portrait

We are in second year. So that means we will have 2 class portraits. Oh, it's not impulsory of course. Because we are naturally in love with the camera, we'd take picture anywhere and so we've decided to take a class picture once a year (or more).

This year, it was so much difference than in the last year. Our classmates had reduced to half since everybody decided to go back to Malaysia (which leaving us in hard times - Wani and Kiena got me tear up at anytime) and we'd really feel alone.

So now, we are only 22 people left. It's so obvious when one of us is absent at school. We cannot cheat anymore! Hahaha. Well, as an obedient student, I'd never do that. (Once Thrice doesn't count okay).

Year 2011/2012

Was held during summer. Oh, that's me photobomb-ed the picture. I was spoiled? No, of course. But maybe my kids are going to get embarrass of their mommy. Poor babies for getting a wacky mommy.

It was really fun this time where everybody were so in a good mood and we'd stayed up late the night before to prepare some props. It was really fun.

Year 2013/2014

(sad)

Was held during the last day of our final exam. Such a good idea to make it during winter with white-black theme, I didn't really had to prepare much. 

It was good too, since it was the last day for final exam and we'd only sit for one hour for Anatomy paper, the stress was relieved.