Al Mraah

[This post is still being updated, the internet connection here is horrid, can't upload images and videos fast enough...]
[I added English subtitles in the videos so everyone can understand what is being said in them]

So I went to my uncle's house for a visit, he lives in Dammam, around 200 kilometer from my city.

We used the train, there was no way we could drive by car, the night before we went was raining heavily, and the streets were filled with ponds lol, we shouldn’t take our chances in this regard.

We arrived at 3PM, uncle picked us up and we went straight to his home.

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Anyway for the good part! After we took a good rest Uncle woke me up at around 6 am the next day in preparation to go to his farm, it was only me and uncle, my mother is too tired to go and my sister hate these kind of trips with a passion :P

The farm (if I can actually call it that) is in an area called Salasil (صلاصل) which is 100 km from Dammam,

Wanna go to that Desert Access?

I tried to spot it using wikimapia but to no avail, the name is there on the link but nothing shows up on the map itself! If I go too far back it shows the area is closer to my city than Dammam itself, which is what uncle confirmed.

I think I am off, but this is my best guess.

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After we finally arrived , I was greeted by the sight of the sheep marching away from the farm, to graze on the area beyond it.

I just arrived, and the sheep went away, I didn't have the chance to take some pics of them, I was totally disappointed beyond belief :(

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The farm is very big, not sure by how much (forgot to ask uncle about that), but the camels' area and the pigeons and chicken Yards are very far apart that we had to use the car to reach them.

Here is a look at it:


Sorry for no grassy lands, we live in a desert.
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So it is about 7 AM, what is the first thing to do? usually they split the adult and the young camels up so they can manage them better, take the adults to another area and start milking and checking on them.


Take the adults to the other area


Poor kiddies all alone (not sure what that one adult doing there)

After they have been split up, time to feed the adults.

Eating Barley here



Did you notice the white camel on the back? that one is an albino I believe, it is the only white one there.
Though i am not sure if it is really an albino, there are some shepherds who's all their herds have white coat like that one, these are worth millions, so i am confused as well about their rarity (just white coat or a real albino).


Never the less, it is very pretty!

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Egypt 3

[Click on the images!! they are not being displayed correctly here..]

ohh decent internet connection ;o

This will be my last (detailed with images) post about Cairo, after this will just be small tidbits here and there about my stay at Cairo.

First! We have gone to Cairo Citadel and we visited the Mosque of Muhammad Ali Pasha
I didn't take alot of pictures due to the low battery of the camera, and each time i forget to recharge it..but you will find lots of pics online of these places so it is not a big loss.



to be honest i didn't feel like taking pics at all that day, hrm...

...oh yeah, because it was too damn hot, i didn't fell like walking let alone taking images... >.>

While looking at historical events inside, the guide said it was totally ok to take some pics if i wanted to(after he noticed the camera in my hand) and i was like "huh, oh yeah.." and took one just make him quite about it:

An image of a gun that was used by a dude who failed to assassin the leader of the Egyptian revolution, Gamal Abdel-Nasser..
Random much??



At the same day we have gone to the Egyptian Museum, since it is forbidden to use the camera inside i didn't take any pics, here is a shitty image of the entrance instead.




At night( yes the same day) we have gone to the Ramses Hilton hotel and ate dinner there (which was crap) and had some beverages afterward.

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We took a ride with the taxi the other day and visited Al-Azhar mosque, and finished our tour at a restaurant called قدوره "qadoorah" for seafood, it was decent.

After that we took a boat (each person 3 LE) with alot of people on board, it was FANTASTIC, one of the best rides i took, the riders sang and danced with the music it was so much fun! I recommend you take one of these if you will ever go to Cairo!



A view of the Nile from the side:


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Man I really didn't feel like taking pics in the past few days...hrm but my visit to the Al-Azhar Park changed my mood completely, it was such a beautiful place! you HAVE to go there if you will ever visit Egypt!

We have gone at about 5 pm to the park, so it was almost sunset, the weather was great and i really felt like taking pictures here!



I liked taking pics of the flowers, even though i am not a flower person, but they were pretty~~











the Palm trees here haven't gone ripe yet, ironically at my home country it was their harvest time months ago!


(notice the sky changing, it is almost sunset)

some had signs telling what kind of flower is there and such:





A playground at the top of the park:


Hey what is that thing hopping like a rabbit!? oh a kitty!! :o I wonder what was it chasing o3o:


and finally the sun has gone to the west:


and after the sun sets, we have gone to the restaurant that was part of the Park,

this place finally serves food that i can describe as being "tasty" seriously it was great, we had a wonderful time here, but alas, at 11 pm the park closes and we have to go back to the apartment.

Egypt 2

We are staying in a hotel called Om Kolthoom Hotel & Tower (you can google where it is).

The hotel is called what it is after a famous singer called Om kolthoom, she lived in the sixties, and the hotel is on her villa.

the infamous Om Kolthoom


an old music player.

what is unusual of this hotel is that each room is named after one of her songs, this is our room...

it is called "darat al'aeaam" or "the days go on".
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JhffcdT1Jn4&feature=related

This hotel has a very nice view of the Nile, When we reached it we had to stay 2 hours at the reception so they can finish clean our apartment, apparently the previous users just left, huh.

So out of boredom I left and gone across the street to see the Nile, pretty nice!




and i noticed a bird! i couldn't tell what kind of bird was it.



This is the living room in our apartment.


We have a nice view of the nile from there.


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At night, we went to an open restaurant called The Pharaoh, you ride a ship which takes you on a ride in 2 hours, you can choose whatever you want to eat (the food is not that good, but it is edible).



The entrance of the restaurant.


this is the ship that we will ride.


After we waited for the ship to arrive, we finally boarded it, this was our seat.


The Pharaoh moving, slowly.


we had a nice view of the Nile.


What i liked the best about this are the entertainers, first there are some drummers, not that great but pretty good!



After these guys finished, came in the best part of their show, a what we call locally a "dress dancer", they wear a big circular dress that they can manipulate while spinning continuously, he used some drums to dance with, too.


and the rest were a comedian and two singers couple, not worth taking pictures and videos of them, little laugh here and there but not that memorable.

Over all it was pretty nice! i do recommend it, but bring your own water/soda or beverages in general, they are priced way waaaaaaaaay too highly.

So i am in Egypt

Our plane was suppose to take off 4 am in the morning, so we prepared our stuff and gone by car to the airport at around 10 pm (early much??). It took us 2 hours to reach the airport, as soon as we reached there we finished our business early on, there was an internet connection at the airport, but it was on the main hall and not the waiting lobby that we stayed in most of the time, so i was only able to tweet once :d

We waited until 4:30 to ride the plane, the lobby was kind of empty when we first reached it, but as the takeoff time draws near, it got really crowded with Egyptians! going back to their homes certainly, I spent most of these hours waiting at the lobby playing Pokemon Heart Gold (i just got it, and downloaded the soon to end event the legendary wish Pokemon Jirachi, by the time of this post i think it has already ended) I got an ubber pokemon at the start of the game! lol XD

We took the EgyptianAir lines.
*image of the pillow*
/btw/ this is a pillow.

when we boarded the plane the dawn was already welcoming us.
*picture of the plane's wing*
/I got a nice seat, next to the window, you can see our plane's emblem on the curve of the wing too.

We spent alot of time on the plane, and it didn't take off yet, i think it was around 5:15 am that we actually took off.

since they didn't allow us to open any electronic device anymore, i couldn't take a picture of the breakfast that they gave us, overall it was actually pretty good, they gave us fries eggs mixed with spinach (i have never eaten this before, imagine my horror when they gave me a pale-green fried egg!) with bread, jam, butter, cheese and fruit salad(the best part!).
To be honest, i never ate plane food that was actually below average before in my life, all the stuff i experienced were above average, luck i guess?

the journey took us 2 hours and 45 minutes, I wanted to sleep but i would never be able to if there was no bed in sight!! :( I was never been able to sleep in cars, buses and the like...

So we finally reached Cairo! i won't bother you with boring stuff about waiting in line and such, so let me tell you about one of the weirdest thing i have ever saw,
I actually saw a Japanese couple in real life! I did hear them talk and i am pretty sure that they spoke Japanese (anime power!) but that was not what i was referring to when i mentioned the /weird/ sight...
the lady has an extremely long hair, like really REALLY long! it reached her feet!! i didn't take a pic of her(that would be impolite!) so i will describe it the best way i could.. see Princess Zelda? more specifically her Twilight Princess/Smash Bros. Brawl design? she had the EXACT same hair style on the back, except the braid part, she split her braid into three braids! everyone at the lobby was looking at her!!

It looked kinda like this...

After that i got to see some of the planes, and it caught my eyes how there were different emblems on each plane(i have no idea if they belong to different companies of not, but they were all labeled under EgyptAir) An Eagle Egyptian one and a cat/dog one, what caught my attention was how these represent different old Egyptian figures,



I am not an expert on this but the one we boarded had a design similar to what the pokemon Lucario designed after, oh so i was riding Lucario airlines all along!! XD XD

lol
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Got our stuff, and a taxi driver stole our luggage in order for us to use his car(they ALWAYS do this)... and we gave in, too tired to argue..
That driver was a chatter box, and a freaking thief! when we reached our hotel he wanted 100$!! "oh this covers for the parking area and stuff.." shut up! it was obvious that he wanted to get as much money out of us as he could for the sole fact that we are from the Gulf... Gulf countries = oil= rich people, yeah sorry but it doesn't work like this with us! :\
We only gave him 30$, seriously all the Arabian countries has this mind set about the Gulf countries, we are rich rich RICH... sorry but most of us are not...seriously we wont get ripped off if we went to a non Arabian country... :|

Cockatiel Sticker (and some sketches)

Bulbuls, or to be more specific, white-eared Bulbuls are considered to be to most famous bird to keep as a pet around here, these guys are very easy to feed (locally we call them Date Bulbuls, because they diet mostly on Dates in the farms here), give very smart and have a beautiful voice.

Here is a good video to show what does one look like (the little guy is PISSED lol)


I made a little sketch of one, I'll make a better drawing of one later, because these guys are awesome:



- Yesterday, I was confronted as being Australian! (i still can't comprehend how, I never mentioned myself being one anywhere XD) anyway i thought it was so funny i made a sketch of my Cockatiel declaiming to Mr.Parrot that he is an Australian that doesn't speak any English..O_o:
They both speak Arabic for your info :P



- And finally, i tried doing these sticker like drawings, they appear very simple but i find them the hardest kind to draw, simply because you have to have the lineart's thickness consistent all over the drawing you try to make, which is very hard by hand!!

I see most people use the pen tool on photoshop do it so they won't mess it, but since i forgot how to use the pen tool, this is all by hand.

My new sketches with my new tablet.

So i finally got a new, shiny, cheap tablet to draw with, it was so long until i could get to use one again! so i made some practice images with it that i will post here.

i always had a fancy with drawing sketches on a very dark backgrounds, it looks cooler to me :P
Here is Mr.Parrot, my African grey pet, get the pleasure to be my model for my very first sketch:

He isn't really standing on a tree branch, just on his cage, and he never really changed his position, so i had a comfortable time sketching him.


Next is a Sketch of Kuroneko003's avatar XD, for some reason when i saw it on twitter i really wanted to draw a semi-realistic version of it so here it is:




Last but not least, i decided to make a new avi for myself, i always liked Tiki (my Cockatiel) to be my avatar on my blog posts and twitter, so i tried to dublicate the position as best as i could, and the end result was way too realistic for my liking:


so i won't have this as a new avi, I'll make a "cuter" version of Tiki later.

These DRRR!! ed parodies are amazing

One of the newest parodies that emerged to popularity is the DRRR!! anime's ending theme, being recreated for another series.

And these are awesome, so awesome.

If you don't have time to check all of the videos linked, check the ones with a red star * mark, these are the best of the best in my humble opinion, the top three of my choice are at the end of this post, so scroll down if you only want to see these :)

One of the reasons that it spread like wild fire is it's ease of being recreated, if you are a good artist, just draw the characters that you want with similar positions and have the picture scroll down with the music playing, add some touches at the beginning and the end, all of this with basic flash knowledge.

But here is the ones that impress me the most, a combination of factors i chose for theme to be in the post, 1) the art my be great of course and 2) the scrolling is smooth. 3)the series' here are from franchises that i actually know :P

since most of the videos are from niconico, a Japanese equivalent of youtube, you'll need to be registered there to watch the videos, here is a guide to do so.


Final Fantasy

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NFMYghNSj3Q All the series' main characters.

http://www.nicovideo.jp/watch/sm9912852 *FF VII *

http://www.nicovideo.jp/watch/sm10403534 Dissidia, although the scrolling is bad and the characters just float there without interaction between them (the art is fantastic though).

http://www.nicovideo.jp/watch/sm9977272 a better Dissidia, the same scrolling problem, but it is a proper one this time!

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JGhmyuDGcDU *All of Cloud's appearances in videogames *


Kingdom Hearts

http://www.nicovideo.jp/watch/sm9758399**


Tales of Graces

http://www.nicovideo.jp/watch/sm9479776***


Pokemon

http://www.nicovideo.jp/watch/sm10892688 ***The whole series's main characters with some GYM leaders, the addition of the new Black/White main characters makes it the best one yet!\o/ *

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XbGuEpTp10g The whole Manga series's heroes

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5lQ7Kf7_i68 Gold/Silver/Crystal/HeartGold/SoulSilver (in short, 2nd generation)

http://www.nicovideo.jp/watch/sm9536834 Diglett (ROFL)


Ace Attorney

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TzKdIGPHEZA Phoenix Wright

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zICyoeMI9B4 Apollo Justice


Harry Potter (?!)

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zAZmikALZNE

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=88BgM4yHimI*


Detective Conan

http://www.nicovideo.jp/watch/sm9578793*

http://www.nicovideo.jp/watch/sm9831360*


The World Ends With You

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FAqcB6ggpUU *****one of the best games ever to get one of the best DRRR!! parodies, this is the 3rd best one here in this post!


Hitman Reborn

http://www.nicovideo.jp/watch/sm10888207***** This is the second best, it is drawn with black and white manga style and the interaction between the characters is pretty unique and awesomely drawn.


Axis Powers Hetaila

http://www.nicovideo.jp/watch/sm10580327 ***** I don't even watch the series, but this is the best DRRR!! parody i have seen, this is by far my no.1 pick, not only the art is great, but the song is uniquely remixed, and the iteration with the characters are awesome.

Failed Oekaki collab Pokemon battle

Making up a board and trying to get people start the theme of what you made the board for on iscribble is a bitch.

The sole fact that i couldn't publish the canvas on the site because of my user stats was the reason everyone kept going away from the board i created.

I wouldn't blame them, who wants their drawing to get deleted?

But in my case, since i print-screen them and post them here, it is no issue at all, the olny problem is figuring out what the best image code to save them in so it won't lose it is colors like what i did here:
My poor poor Rotom :( look at what saving the image into BMP format made it look like...
Anyway here i actually drew Raichu, Ninetails, Rotom and Garchomp, when it was supposed to be the first user draw in a corner and the second user in the other corner, but this user told me she can't draw (why did you sign in the site then??) and wanted me to drew her a Raichu and a Ninetails.
I told her that she should be the one coloring them and she bailed out before she finishes...and here is the result...



The second one here didn't go any smoother, one user joined and said how about a legendary pokemon double battle?? yea sure why not?
But it is almost the same scenario as the first pic, he left the board before finishing...


Kinda funny isn't it...oh well i saved this image in JPG format and it looks ok i guess...