Every year, tens of thousands of tourists come to Paris just to see the Eiffel tower. The Eiffel tower is a beautiful building from a photographer’s perspective and its positioning in the center of the city makes for a very picturesque setting. In this photograph we can see a distant view of the Eiffel Tower, with the tower in the backdrop of some fountains, which has made this photo very interesting and beautiful.

IF YOU GO: If you do get a chance to visit this beautiful example of human creativity and excellent architecture then you must try to experience the thrill of standing at the top of the Eiffel Tower and looking below from such an intimidating height.   Plenty of apartments in Paris have views of the famous monument, you might want to choose based on view!

Photo Credit: Courtesy of Flickr user agaw.dilim via a creative commons license.

There’s so much to do in Beijing, more than we had the time or desire for, but you have to start somewhere. Arriving into the station at 4am, we caught the raising of the flag in Tienanmen Square at dawn. Quite literally we were the only westerner’s there, but the Chinese tourists were going crazy with excitement when the color guard showed up, waving their flags and shoving their camera’s into the air. We were tempted to wave an American flag in that crowd…just to see what the response might have been. Didn’t have one with us though, and with the show over at 6:30am we were left with nothing to do for a few hours. This didn’t bother the crowd of Chinese tour groups, they promptly walked across the square to stand in line for two hours to view the preserved body of Chairman Mao.

Not interesting in standing in line for two hours to see the Chairman, we walked down to the Temple of Heaven, an ancient site for imperial worship and low and behold we found the place abuzz with activity. The park was full of Chinese participating in Tai Chi classes, music classes, aerobics classes, dance classes, playing cards, bands and even a few practicing martial arts with swords and sticks. It might have been 7am?

We stumbled into a group tango lesson practicing to a tango version of happy birthday- in English, and a few harmonica players, one who was practicing Yankee Doodle and My Darlin’ Clemantine over and over again. Our experience in the park was one of numerous moments that left us thinking “what?” Standing in the shadow of the one of the holiest sites for the Chinese Royal family, watching dance classes, listening to traditional Chinese music and an old man attempt ‘scarf’ dancing to the enjoyment of his friends, was a travel memory I’ll never forget.

Besides sightseeing we did do some rather “Chinese” things that hadn’t yet been attempted on our trip. Although moto-bikes and cars are more common than they used to be, the bicycle is still a main mode of transportation; and often with passengers hanging on the back as well. A true Chinese experience, we got the opportunity to try it our first night in Beijing. I rode on the back rack of our couchsurfing host’s bike to dinner. Jostling around in the back on her rickety second hand Chinese bike I thought I was going to die, fall off, or at best end up with a broken bone or two. My legs were too long to straddle the bike properly but sitting side-saddle left the bike precariously unbalanced, so I resorted to straddling the rack and awkwardly lifting my legs at weird angles to keep them off the ground. It was a work-out just trying to stay balanced, keep my legs up off the ground and close enough to the bike not to knock into something all while riding down a pot holed alley. Our couchsurfing host knew the road however, and as we bounced along the worst injuries I got were bruises to my butt and pride. Dinner was delicious and tucked into a small Sichuan restaurant in a huotong, or alley, surrounded by a mix of young Chinese and expats. Although I was just happy to have made it to Beijing, don’t expect me to willingly ride on the back of a bicycle again. I’m going to leave that one to the Chinese.

We found all of this and a good bit more as well. Ahh, welcome to Egypt.

Once our basic needs were seen to (which took a solid 24 hours to accomplish) we began to play tourist again. Any trip to Aswan will instantly inundate you with the loss of ancient Nubia. Nubia is the region that stretches from upper Egypt all the way to Khartoum. When the Aswan High Dam was built, creating Lake Nasser, much of the area was flooded and it took a rather substantial international effort to literally lift and remove the archaeological wonders of Nubia, like temples and tombs, to higher ground. The most amazing part to me was that this all took place in the middle of the Cold War with assistance coming from both halves of that equation.

One of those saved temples was the Temple of Isis, which easily dwarfed any site we had visited in The Sudan right off the bat. We decided to go to the sound and light show at Philie (the temple’s other name) and although the ‘show’ was extremely cheesy we enjoyed seeing the grandeur of the temple. All through The Sudan, sites were basically left as they had been found a couple hundred years ago with walls missing and collapsed columns, seeing this temple completely restored and covered in lights was really impressive. It was also nice to learn why we experienced blackouts in the cities of northern Sudan around 8pm from time to time.

Aswan overall was a complete breath of fresh air for us. There were modern comforts, a beautiful Nile view from our hotel room. A pool to swim in on our roof instead of the river itself. Wifi, Doritos, ice cream, running water, and souvenirs for sale all made us feel quite happy to be back in civilization a but also quite disappointed to be through with The Sudan, most likely for good.

IF YOU GO: Plenty of cheap accommodation along the waterfront as most people visit Aswan as part of a cruise from Luxor. Street food is cheaper than eating in the restaurants along the river but if you want a beer you have no choice. The Nubian Museum and Isis Temple are the two main attractions in town but many go to Aswan to be whisked away further south to see the gigantic Abu Simbel very near to the Sudanese border. These trips often leave as early as 3am and as we’d seen Abu Simbel from our ferry as we crossed into Egypt we opted for some sleep instead.