Shiomi Komiyama
11/11/99
RLA D

Friday, 12/20/96
Dear Diary, let me tell you about our family trip to Egypt. But before that, let me introduce myself. I am Shiomi Komiyama. Now I am living in Calcutta, which is in India, because of my Dad’s business. I am REEEALLY excited right now about our trip. I can’t wait! I am jumping around the entrance with my things ready. I wonder why my Mom and Dad aren’t so excited. They are sitting in the dining room, chatting to each other and drinking coffee. It’s already late in the evening. Our plane is going to leave Cal around twelve o’clock. Dad says that we are going to Singapore first and are going to rest there in the morning. After that, we are finally arriving in Egypt! He estimates that we will be there on the 22nd, the day after tomorrow, in the early morning.
Egypt is really cold at this time, so we collected many coats and sweaters. They are all stuffed inside our baggages. Undoubtedly, I am very pleased to visit this place because I like cold weather better than tropical weather. We have no seasons here in Calcutta at all!
Oops! It’s time to go now. We have no elevators, so we have to walk down the stairs all the way down from our third floor. Well, I don’t actually care about it now because all I have in my mind is airports and airplanes, and Egypt! And now! We are heading for the airport. So goodbye Diary, see ya tomorrow in Singapore!

Saturday 12/21
Sorry Diary. I missed you very much! But I didn’t have time to write today. We were rummaging all around the place with baggages and tickets and taxis! God, I am exhausted. So, I promised to see you in Singapore but now I’m already in the airplane, heading towards Egypt. I’ll tell you what happened today, but I assure you that it is going to be confusing. Now, I left Calcutta yesterday evening, and headed for Singapore. We arrived in Singapore the next day; I mean today early in the morning. We stayed in a hotel (we actually checked in and stayed there for only sixteen hours. I think that was useless!) and checked out again late in the evening and got on the plane heading to Egypt. Here I am, inside the roaring plane, sitting beside Mom. It is freezing cold in here, and besides, my brain doesn’t work anymore. The plane stopped for hours in Dubai too, and some passengers came in and out of the plane.
In Singapore we slept a little in the hotel room after we checked in. We also went out shopping and bought all the things we needed for the trip. My mom bought me a pair of sunglasses. To my surprise, my dad also bought some books about mysteries of Egypt. He seemed to get interested in it. Okay, I am very sleepy right now, so see you tomorrow sometime.

Sunday, 12/22
DEAR DIARY! I am very impressed right now. I can’t describe exactly what had happened today. It was sooo exciting!
Finally, we reached Egypt this morning at around 6 o’clock. It was the city called Giza. As soon as we checked into the hotel, we slept until noon. From our balcony, we could see the vague shadow of the pyramids, and I was starting to feel awfully delighted. After taking a nap, we were quite refreshed. Then we realized that we were getting hungry, so we went to this Italian restaurant and had a great lunch. By the time we were finished, I was extremely full and satisfied. We were too lazy to go to dinner, so we ordered pizzas to take out. And our first tour planning began.
My parents were skimming through guidebooks, and found one interesting attraction called Pyramids Sounds & Light Show. Immediately, we decided to visit there. We came out of the taxi and noticed that it was night already. The sky was black and bitter because of the cold. I was curled up in a huge red coat, but the wind blowing past my face was so icy that it was almost cutting through my cheeks. Our breath puffed white smoke into the chilling night sky, and I was having fun with it. Far away in the empty desert, I saw dim shadows of the pyramids and the Sphinx in the darkness. The four stone figures were standing lonely in the desert by themselves. Below my expectation, the Sphinx was somewhat smaller than I thought. Maybe it was because of our distance. The desert extended far beyond into the horizon, and everything was remarkably still. I was standing there motionless, then my parents’ call broke my silence.
“Shiomi!”
They looked pretty annoyed because I was not following them, so I ran to catch up. That was very weird. The atmosphere was so “ancient” here. I could even feel it by myself. It was so old, that I almost felt time stop. I can’t forget that weird feeling even now.
There were quite a lot of people there waiting for the show to start. We went inside the old, shattered building to the top floor. There were few people sitting at tables. Although there were rows of chairs outside, we chose the top floor of the building because it had a better view. I leaned over on my toes and looked down with binoculars.
The show started after few moments of silence with a blasting noise. Everyone turned their faces to the pyramids all at once. I leaped up with my binoculars. A man’s voice blurted around the place. It was so loud that I couldn’t hear what he was saying. We could even feel our ears banging from the vibration. The whole winter night shook with the sound.
“Welcome to our Pyramids Sound & Light Show!…”
Suddenly, a bright green laser light pierced through on the pyramids from somewhere far behind us. The light started to draw queer outlines of hieroglyphs of famous kings and queens. They gleamed on the surface of the pyramids, then disappeared, then the lasers danced on them again. I was so fascinated that I recognized myself with my jaws open. Some kind of deep, eerie music vibrated in the background. The voice started explaining about the mystery and the legend of the Egyptian Civilization. As I listened to these attractions, I knew that I was getting deep into history.
Okay, and this was how my first day in Egypt went. Actually, Mom and Dad were anxious that the pyramids might collapse because of the blasting sounds and lights. Well, we had too many things happening today. I probably can’t forget this day! I’m too tired. Good night, Diary!

Monday, 12/23
We slept till late in the morning. We ate lunch and breakfast at the same time, or brunch. Well, that’s what my mom calls it. Anyway, we ate brunch at the poolside restaurant.
Something weird started to happen this day. My mom started getting sick in the morning. She said that she had a stomachache and felt nausea. She ate so little this morning, so my dad and me were starting to get worried. We judgmed that it came from something we ate. The strangest thing was that my mom was the only one who was not well. As we surveyed the past two days, we decided to blame the mineral water she drank yesterday night while we were eating pizzas. I drank juice from a can, and my dad was drinking beer, so this supposition fitted the most to the cause of the problem. We were already keeping aware of foods and water, but my mom was grinding her teeth and was saying that she was not on guard. Anyway, she wasn’t that bad, so we decided to walk and take a look inside the pyramid. We met a tour guide at the front of the hotel and headed for the largest pyramid, the pyramid of Khufu. The driver pulled up a gear, and we stood in the middle of the desert. It was so windy that you could hardly stand still, for the wind was pushing us to make us knock over. I stood there like a dumb scarecrow with my hair rustling all over my face. And there stood this indescribable, massive remain of the civilization. The sky was so blue and powerful that you could only blink at it. Back in the far end of the endless desert, I could see the tiny figures of the other two pyramids.
There were a few foreign people who were also visiting the pyramid like us. I could also see camels roaming around the place with their masters on their back. They were all wearing typical Egyptian clothes with white robes and masks. Four of us climbed up many stones about my height, and finally, stepped inside the pyramid. There was a small opening with a stone missing. We slowly entered inside the dark area. It was dark and quiet. Yellowish dim lights made on the wall were the only light source for us to see by, and to me, it made the surroundings more creepy. As we walked down into the pyramid and left the entrance behind, the bright light from the entrance seemed to fade away. We walked deeper and deeper inside, and the tour guide explained to us every detail of the traps and tricks hidden in this pyramid. She told us that we were heading towards the King’s Chamber. It was quite spacey inside, unlike my expectation. It wasn’t so hot too, but rather cold. Still, gradually as we walked up and down, we started to become hot. There were steep stairs, narrow entrances, huge rooms and stone walls, and we were getting worn out. When we came to the wide open space with towering ceiling, the tour guide stopped.
“Okay, we are going through this narrow tunnel. This is quite tough, so you should prepare for it. Are you ready…?”
I swallowed my breath. The entrance to the narrow tunnel seemed to be so small. It was the size of a dust shoot. I could never believe that I could go through it. I glanced at my mom and dad. Both of them looked serious, especially Mom, who was pale and blue. The tour guide went in slowly, and I huddled in behind her. Then my Mom stepped in, then my Dad, following my mom. Few other tourists seemed to follow us too.
We pushed our way through with our backs, heads and knees bent over like shrimps. There were wooden steps to put our feet on, and they were the only things we could look at. My head was right under the low ceiling, and I was afraid about banging myself into it. It was hot and stuffy inside, and the lights on the walls were making the air even more hotter. I was sweating all over. These steps were so long that I thought it was not going to end! The air was getting stuffier and stuffier in the narrow chamber, and there was no air to breathe. I needed fresh air and I could hardly breath. In the end, I was nearly crawling over the steps because of this horrible condition. Left step…right step…left step…right step… My only thought was to complete those steps. My eyes were fixed at my feet. And finally, we reached the enormous, extensive room, into the King’s Chamber. I just stumbled out and ran towards the wall, crying with joy. My mom came out from the tunnel right after me. To tell you the truth, she looked more pale and sick. She just sat there against the wall, and I squatted beside her. My dad also jumped out of the tunnel panting, and sat right next to us. The guide was the only one who seemed to be standing and laughing cheerfully. She also was a short of breath though. Soon after that, lots of other people continuously burst out of the tunnel. They were all exhausted and worn out like us. They stood there bending over with their hands on their knees, making thin noises as if having asthma. Some were even lying dead on the floor like the pharaohs. I doubted myself of having claustrophobia (afraid of enclosed places), but later I convinced myself that no one could feel comfortable in such a small space.
After resting a little, we walked over a few dead bodies of tourists towards the stone coffin. It was empty inside. The guide told us that it was found like this, and no one could find the body of King Khufu. Right now, some archaeologists say that the pyramids were not built as tombs but as observatories. This is because of its relationships between placements and the stars. Some also say that there still might be an undiscovered room for the real King’s Chamber, and that the mummy is sleeping there even right now without any disturbances.
We finally came out of the pyramid late in the afternoon. Once again, I stood right in front of the pyramid, and looked up at the top. I almost fell back wards because of its incredible height. I stood there staring with my head pushed back forcefully, and I felt like fainting. This splendid triangle looked perfect and equilateral. I wondered how people made these things. I remembered what the guide said, that this pyramid was so accurate that archaeologists thought they used calculations and theorems to build it. I guessed that maybe they were cleverer than us.
Then we went to the Sphinx. It looked really tiny and petite, but maybe it was because we saw it right after the pyramids. We heard the guide explain about it to us, took pictures, and that was it. I looked up into its face. Frankly speaking, it was ugly. I could not get its face because its nose was broken. It had a huge cave in the middle of its face. It was the god who protects the three pyramids, but it did not seem to be true. The tour guide said that people estimate that it is few thousand years older than the three pyramids. There are many mysteries about this little guy too. In the meantime, we took pictures with this little guy at the back. My dad always carried the camera with him during this trip. He was like one of those cameramen, and he never wanted to be in one of them. He even took pictures of us eating at restaurants, and it was not funny at all. And for worse, it took him forever to take one picture because he frequently moved back and forth, held the camera in one hand and another, in different ways and directions. While he was fiddling with it, my mom and me used to become tired of smiling and posing. This is why that everytime in every picture he took, we look very tired and disgusted. I always regret myself for frowning in front of the Sphinx and the pyramids. Someone might think that I’m really weird and spoiled if they see these pictures without explanations. Well, that’s my dad’s fault.
Mom became really sick after that, maybe because of that tough, narrow tunnel. All of us were tired that night too, so we just fainted on our beds and went to sleep.

Tuesday, 12/24
Dear Diary, it’s Christmas Eve! In the morning, we ate breakfast in the hotel buffet. After that we checked out the hotel, and headed for Cairo from Giza by the tour guide’s car. She showed us inside the Cairo Egyptian Civilization Museum, on the way to the hotel. It was very odd and peculiar inside, and I didn’t like it. We saw King Tut’s sandals and accessories, shining with bronze and gold. Well, it was good, but it was boring. There were only households and items to look at. It was seriously cold and scary inside, and I felt unpleasant. We saw lots of mummies in a limited room. The guide told us to be quiet otherwise we would wake up the mummies. Oh yes. I knew that it was a joke. We could hear soft whispers of visitors. It smelled weird in there too, and somehow I felt a chill run down my spine. There were mummies of Ramses I, II, Queen Hatshepsut and lots of other kings and queens. They looked like starved zombies, and it freaked me out.
After that, we went to this famous mosque in Cairo and took some pictures. That wasn’t quite exciting too. We said goodbye to the guide. She was really kind and nice, and I missed her a lot. We checked in to the hotel in Cairo. It was an old and pretty famous hotel, which was made as a palace by this famous man. It was turned into a hotel after his death. It really looked like a palace, with old portraits and long leading stairs. I was attracted to the huge Christmas tree in the hall. The floor was covered with red carpets, and as I looked into the bright Christmas tree I got really excited about Christmas. Although I didn’t have any Christmas presents, Mom said that this trip was good enough for me to be a Christmas present. Well, I kind of like it, so it’s okay. After lunch, we didn’t do anything but rest. We had a barbecue party at night, and we slept again. Yes, tomorrow’s Christmas.

Wednesday, 12/25
THANK GOD IT’S CHRISTMASSS!!!!! It was Christmas, so we ate brunch at the hotel restaurant and rested for the rest of the day. At night we were invited to my dad’s company friend for dinner. My mom was getting worse that day, so she said she would stay at home. She was watching “The Nightmare Before Christmas”, while munching on her room service food. I wanted to watch it too, it was better than visiting your father’s friends and saying hello. Anyway, we headed to his house, and I thought I was definitely going to be bored. But when we went there, I made friends with two older girls. One was my dad’s friend’s daughter, and one was her best friend. They were students in university, but were visiting her father in Cairo during the winter vacation. They were very cheerful and nice, and I felt as if they were my sisters. I chatted with them about India, and what I did in Cairo. After having dinner with them, we three decided to go to the Cairo Tower.
Dad gave me the camera to take pictures. We drove to the tower and went to the top floor. It was already night, a Christmas night, so there were millions of lights and illuminations glowing in the dark below us. The view was so nice that I took too many pictures of these views, about ten to fifteen. And every picture looked the same, although they were beautiful. Mom scolded me for wasting the film.

Thursday, 12/26
Early in the morning at about 6 o’clock, we checked out of the hotel and started off to Luxor by plane from Cairo. There was a tour bus to take, but we didn’t take that risk because its route was famous for terrorists and guerrillas. At eight-thirty in the morning, we arrived at the hotel, but couldn’t check in so we waited at the lobby for about two hours. God. We ate lunch at the hotel coffee shop, and without listening to my parent’s warning I gulped down one whole bottle of mineral water. My mom was getting well because my dad’s friend kindly gave us medicines yesterday night. We slept for a little, and went to the Karnak Temple to watch the Sound & Light Show.
However, something weird started to happen with me, while we were waiting for the show. Suddenly, I started to feel a sharp stomach ache, and I felt like throwing up. Oh, ooh…maybe the mineral water was wrong. I shouldn’t have done that. I complained my stomachache to my mom, then she told me that that was exactly what had happened to herself. Just like I thought, my mom became mad because I didn’t listen to her. I got tired of making excuses, so I was leaning on the wall, scowling. I could hear Mom and Dad arguing about it, and they were nearly deciding to go back. My dad took the picture again, of me blue because of sickness, with the Karnak Temple in the background. Another bad one, I thought.
We went back to the hotel as quickly as we could, and to my surprise, I became extremely well after eating pizza. I also drank the medicine. I was smiling and munching at my delicious pizza, when my dad took a picture. Oh well, no one will ever notice that this picture was taken after only one hour or so from my blue-faced one. Today was quite unlucky for me. Dear Diary, I do not feel really good now, and I’m going to sleep. GOOD NIGHT!

Friday, 12/27
I was very well today in the morning, and I woke up nice and fresh. After having a gorgeous breakfast, the three of us discussed and planned about what we were going to today. We decided to visit the Valley of King and Queen, so we contacted and joined a tour group at once in the morning. Our tour group was called “Sunshine”, and there were only about ten people including us. A man with a thick, black mustache stood on the rock with a flag in his hand. He treated us like babies. First we were told to have badges pinned on to our shirts which were written “Sunshine”, and he started explaining what we were doing today.
“Okay, everyone, our group is called SUNSHINE. It’s SUNSHINE. If you are lost, look at the bright yellow flag,” he fluttered his flag in his hand. “It is written SUNSHINE. It’s SUN, SHINE.”
I was getting fed up of this group name. According to this sunshine man, the valleys were on the west bank of the Nile River. These valleys were used as tombs for the kings and nobles. There are many other dead mummies buried in the valley which are still undiscovered. This place is also called the City of the Dead, or the West Thebes. He told us that we were crossing the Nile River by boat. As we trotted down to the bank of the Nile River, we saw a little floating engine boat tied to the quay. It wobbled and shook when we stepped inside, but I thought that was thrilling. I was very excited and was hopping around and exclaiming inside the boat. My mom was extraordinarily quiet, and then I noticed that she was afraid of water. Just to tell you, she had hydrophobia. She sat in a corner and was frozen at her place. Anyway, my dad said “Cheeeeeeeeze” so I posed in front of the camera with Mom, and I smiled with her. After the flash, I turned to look at my mom, and she was frowning.
The boat jerked and gurgled and started to bump its way towards the other side. It reached the west bank after few minutes, and all the tourists jumped onto the bushes.
The bus was waiting for us, so we hopped in, and headed for The Valley of King. The bus rattled into the desert along the dusty road. It was gleaming hot today, unlike winter. They sky was so blue like the other day when we went inside the pyramids, and the sun was glazing white. There was nothing outside the window but desert and large ranges of mountains not green but dead, dusty brown. The view was lifeless; it really was the dead valley. We finally reached the Valley of King. I had my backpack with a hat on my head, and wore my sunglasses. I felt like going hiking. We first headed for the tomb of Ramses II. There was an entrance underneath the valley, and some stairs leading to the underground. We held flashlights and slowly stepped inside. It was silent and cold. I held the flashlight upto the drawings on the wall. They were hieroglyphs describing the king’s life during his rule and also about his life after his death. Ramses II was sitting in his throne, and a god with a head of a dog, something called Osiris, was standing next to him. He was the God of Underworld or Death, and this showed the death of Ramses II. The faces of the King Ramses II and other various gods and goddesses were so mysterious and fantastic that we couldn’t help ourselves staring at them with a sigh. I even tried to understand what the hieroglyphs were talking about. Well, I didn’t understand a single word. These hieroglyphs made me wonder. Why are these faces all facing sideways? I asked this question to the sunshine guy. Then he grinned as if towards a retard, then shrugged his shoulders. What a great guide. When we were looking at these great wall paintings, a guy came up to us and recommended us to take pictures. We were marveled, because no one else was taking them, and we thought we were not supposed to. Well we were very glad too, because we were pretty much fascinated with these hieroglyphs. Somehow we felt it strange too, because he was standing right next to us, smiling, as if waiting to be taken. At last, Dad took a picture in a flash. The dark tomb lightened white, then the man shouted, as if shocked.
“No! No! No! No flash sir! You pay moneeey!”
We were standing there for few moments without any words because we didn’t get what was going on. Then my dad started to become confused and mad. Oh my god, that was quite a problem. Somehow, one tourist broke in and started to scold the man. I still couldn’t make out what was wrong, but we thanked the woman because she sounded right. Then we just ran away. Maybe Mom and Dad knew what was going on. We walked continuously along the valley in the glazing sun. The air was evaporating and we were boiling down to death. We roamed around the tombs, went inside and tumbled out again. We were fatigued, walking helplessly like zombies in the desert. It was fun and exciting though, adventuring inside tombs and looking at the puzzling hieroglyphs. I felt like Indiana Jones when I found myself searching inside these tombs with the flashlights. But most of them looked the same, even the tomb of the famous King, Tutankhamun.
The Valley of King and the Valley of Queen were much similar to each other. After this troubling tour, we visited the Colossi of Memnon and the Temple of Hatshepsut. The Temple of Hatshepsut was an enormous temple standing against the valley. A wide bridge spread in front of us, as if leading us to the top. This piece of architecture had an interesting shape. We also saw the Colossi of Memnon from the top of the cliff. These two tremendous figures of sitting men frightened me because of their legend. These statues had a story told by Greek travelers long ago during BC, and it was said that he heard a deep cry from the left statue when the sun came up.
By the time we came back to the hotel, we did not have anything else to do, so we decided to visit the Temple of Karnak, where we missed the Sound & Light Show (and that was because of me). We walked inside and observed the sculptures and pillars dug into hieroglyphs. Some were recklessly wide and thick, for example the one we saw in the huge hall. Its diameter was about two meters, and when I spread my arm on to it, I could not even reach the opposite side. We saw the obelisk, the incredible tall monument with hieroglyphs describing about Queen Hatshepsut. By the time we got out of the temple, it was getting dark. But before going back, we tried a coach to the Temple of Luxor, just to take a look at it. We caught one on the street, so we hopped on. The horses whined and raised their heads high. Although getting little scared, I slowly patted their backs when they started galloping, but to my disappointment, they ignored me and kept on going. It was fun and exciting though, particularly when the coach bumped and shook on the road. It was like a roller coaster! The Temple of Luxor was too dim for us to see, because the whole city was now enveloped with the night sky. Regretfully, we took pictures in the dark and left.

Saturday 12/28
After the breakfast, we checked out Luxor and headed to Cairo. We didn’t do anything today but just rested.

Sunday 12/29
Dear Diary!!!!! Today is the last day in Egypt! I am feeling weird now, empty inside. School is going to start after a few days. This week was so breathtaking, and I can’t explain my feelings exactly. Now I am going to miss this winter vacation. I’m sure that this trip is going to be important in my experiences, and my memories. I was kind of tired too. Anyway, me and my dad spent our time left taking a walk along the Nile River. We checked out of the hotel, and headed for the airport.
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