Khaaaaaaaaaaaaan!

If I were slightly less lazy than I am and/or I cared, I would put up a picture of Ricardo Montalban to go along with that title. But, well, lazy, don't care, the end.

The same day we went to The Citadel, we also went to Cairo's main/infamous/crazy shopping market Khan al-Khalili. That place is a trip, to put it mildly. We only spent a couple hours there, but I imagine that if you looked long enough, you could find pretty much anything you wanted. We weren't looking for anything in particular--we just wanted to check it out--and I think that made it easier to deal with it all. I think the term "sensory overload" originated after a visit to The Khan.

This is a shot of one of the eleventy-billion alleyways, each one crammed full of tiny shops, and each one of those crammed full of everything you never knew you needed. My take on most of the wares for sale (again, though, we really only scratched the surface and clearly never made it into the section where the locals shop) was that most of it would be made exponentially better by the absence of all the pyramid-sphinx-scarab-random-Egyptian-symbols that Prove You Were In Egypt And That You Appreciate Their Culture Thank You Very Much that seemed to have been put onto everything. Pure kitsch, baby. But maybe that's just me. Not that I expected much more, but wow. I think anything and everything that held still long enough ended up with Nefertiti's head stamped on it.
When we first got there, a shopkeeper was trying to get our attention/business, but we just kept on walking. This guy's particular brand of luring customers (as we soon discovered was quite a popular one) was trying to identify their nationality. So he says as we go by, "You British?" We ignore. "You American?" Still nothing from us. "I know, I know, German!" Nada. And then, "Japanese?" That did it, and we all just cracked up. Kevan and Shon started laughing and talking with him, confirming that why, yes! We are Japanese! How ever did he know?! That then became the boys' go-to comeback the rest of the time we were there whenever we encountered shopkeepers who were into that same game. Kevan and Shon particularly liked the split-second shock they'd get when some unsuspecting shopkeeper would say, "Where you from?" and then one or the other of them would happily offer, "Japan!" It was made even better by the fact that they would conduct these conversations in Arabic, but Kevan's not here right now to help me with the transliteration, so you can just imagine. I think the shopkeepers liked it just as much, as they would then start laughing and joking with them.

Besides the crazy, there was also a lot of pretty. I loved all the old stone, the colors, and, prepare yourselves for shock, a lil bit o' symmetry. This series of pictures is from one of the quieter alleys we found.







When we were done wandering, we stopped for lunch. This is Shon, with his faithful companion cat. This little kitty, along with several of its friends waited very patiently right next to us our whole meal, just hoping for a dropped morsel.
The picture I'm not showing you is the one Kevan took of Shon with the remnants of Kirsten's meal. She ordered the stuffed pigeon. And that's exactly what she got--a whole pigeon, stuffed and fried. Kevan and Shon, I guess in an attempt to recreate an Ozzy Osbourne concert or something, took a few pics of Shon and the bird's head. You may remember that Shon is also the one behind the pictures of the dead shrimp from the day we went to the fabric market. The lesson here is that I need to stop giving up control of my camera when the triple threat of Kevan, Shon, and meals-that-include-carcasses come into play.