Alexandria Day Trip – Part 3 | Egypt Travel Blog: Day 1 (Part 8)

Egypt Travel Blog: 10 DAYS Egypt Explorer - Felucca Cruise & Red Sea

Stopover on My Way to Alexandria – Open-Air Complex in the Middle of the Desert 

Before reaching Alexandria, we stopped at an open-air mall or complex-like place for a coffee break. The complex was huge and I saw lots of restaurants and a variety of stores, including McDonald’s.

After getting off the bus, I tried to find a washroom first, so I could spend the remaining time looking for coffee and taking some videos.

The line at the washroom facility was bearable. By this time, I got used to the fact that whenever you go to a washroom in Egypt, you have to pay. It can run from a couple of Egyptian Pounds (LE) to 5 LEs. The amount itself is not a lot (1 LE is like 9 cents Canadian), but it’s an annoyance to remember to have change because I am not used to it.

I was looking for a coffee shop and came across some I didn’t like. Then I found a coffee chain store called The Coffee Bean & Tea Leaf. I knew it would be expensive, but didn’t expect a cup of coffee to be 40 LE ($3.35 Cad).

The shopping complex had many other stores and food shops. I didn’t have enough time to have a full breakfast and finished my coffee fast. I saw that some of my other tour mates checked the coffee and tea prices at the Coffee Bean shop, but moved to find something else.

Our time was up and I was heading to the bus. We were only one to one and a half hours away from Alexandria. I will talk about my first impressions of Alexandria and the sights we would visit.

My Top Favourite Free Financial News Smart Phone Apps

My Top Favourite Free Android Smart Phone Financial Info Apps

First Published Date: February 23, 2013 ADawnJournal.com

In the past, I talked about Android Financial Apps. Today, I will go over some financial news apps that will make your news quest in the financial world a lot easier and you will have the latest news at your fingertips instantly.

Bloomberg for Smartphone by Bloomberg LP – View financial news, market updates, and stock quotes with this app. This app can provide so many categories for financial news that it can overwhelming and hard to decide how many categories you want to set for your phone. The best feature this app has? You can watch live Bloomberg TV and video clips. Picture quality is unbelievably crisp clear. After installing this app, I started watching Bloomberg TV on my phone regularly for important highlights.

Google Finance by Google Inc. – This is somewhat a simple financial app compared to Bloomberg. There are only 3 tabs: Markets, Portfolios, and News. On the news tab, you can’t pick any categories. It shows all news at same place. The drawback with this app is that it does not support the Canadian market or stocks. If you have created watchlists for Canadian stocks under Google Finance Canada, it will show only the names of your watchlists, but will not show any individual stocks on the Canadian market.

Yahoo! Finance by Yahoo! Inc. – Very similar to Google Finance, but it supports Canadian markets and stocks. And its news section even shows Canadian business news. Very simple layout and easy to use.

Alexandria Day Trip – Part 2 | Egypt Travel Blog: Day 1 (Part 7)

Egypt Travel Blog: 10 DAYS Egypt Explorer - Felucca Cruise & Red Sea

History of Alexandria – Introducing Alexandria

I will talk about a little bit about Alexandria before moving onto my tour experiences in the city. This historic 2500-year-old coastal city is the 2nd largest city in Egypt and was founded by Alexander the Great in 331 B.C.

Alexandria was the largest city of its time and was the second most important city during the Roman Empire. When Ptolemy built the famous Alexandria Library housing 500,000+ books, it became the centre of knowledge. Alexandria attracted the most famous scholars, scientists, and philosophers around the globe at that time.

Regrettably, the famous lighthouse was destroyed by an earthquake. The Alexandria Library was burned down by Julius Caesar’s army.

Marcus Antonio or Mark Antony, Julius Caesar’s right-hand man, moved to Alexandria to marry Cleopatra after Julius Caesar’s death in 44 B.C. Once Mark Antony and Cleopatra died and Augustus Caesar became emperor, Alexandria served as a simple province of the Roman Empire.

After going through many conflicts and changing rulers, present day Alexandria started to thrive again. The Alexandria Library was reconstructed and completed in 2002 as The Bibliotheca Alexandrina or, in English, The Library of Alexandria.

That’s what I gathered about Alexandria in brief. We are about to stopover for a break in an open mall-like service station. I will try to get a coffee and look around during the break if I get enough time. I will talk about it in the next post.

The Standard of Living in China

China’s Standard of Living

First Published Date: April 1, 2013 ADawnJournal.com

China, one of the most fascinating countries on Earth, has existed for more than 5000 years and is currently the second largest economy on the planet. This country is going through a remarkable and rapid change with widespread economic reforms. Before 1949 China was characterized by extreme poverty, income inequalities, and insecurity. By 1987, the average national life expectancy has more than doubled with increased living standards.

Starting in 1980, due to economic reforms, the standard of living started to climb beyond the basic level. The general population had adequate food, clothing, and housing, and ordinary families could eat a variety of foods, wear stylish clothing, and indulge in luxury items such as electronic appliances, furniture, and shiny personal vehicles.

The level of poverty fell from 84 percent to 16 percent from 1981 to 2005. The infant mortality rate and maternal mortality rates have fallen 39 and 41 percent from 1990 to 2005. The access to telephones increased 94-fold to 57.1 percent of the population having telephones.

China may be a huge economy, but its per capita income is only $5,400, which puts it 90th in the world. Also, China has the second largest number of poor people in the world, only after India, with more than 170 million people living below $1.25 a day international poverty line. Ten percent of Chinese population still live in extreme poverty.

Although the living standard in China is rising in general, the differences between rural areas and big cities, and the eastern seaboard and deep inland remain strikingly high. The World Bank once said that China is one of the most unequal countries in Asia. Although the majority of Chinese feel that they have a higher standard of living than their parents, there are rising concerns over inequality, corruption, and consumer protection.

Even with these problems, China is relentlessly working hard to fix them and reduce the gap between the rich and the poor. The former president of China, Hu Jintao, predicted in his speech that China is aiming to double its 2010 GDP and per capita Income by 2020 for both rural and urban residents. As the years go by, things are looking brighter for this amazing country.

Top Three Retirement Moving Mistakes

Avoid These Retirement Relocating Mistakes

First Published Date: May 16, 2013 ADawnJournal.com

As you are not tied to any location once you are retired, it opens up endless possibilities to move to any place of your choice. However, jumping too conclusions too fast without considering a variety of things can cause lots of trouble. Here are some common things to consider before moving to your dream place.

Moving to An Unknown Place – Moving to a place where you don’t know anyone sounds like an adventure, but consider the drawbacks as well. You will be losing your support groups like friends and family, known health care providers, familiar stores, car mechanics, home contractors, and so on. In case of emergency, when you need someone to fix something or for other assistance, you will have a much tougher time getting the help you need right away.

Buying vs. Renting – Do not buy a new place in a new community without finding out more details and spending enough time at that location. If your new destination is near your current home, you can find out a lot more without living there physically. However, if it’s a place far away from your current location, it makes sense to rent for a while and experience how things are there without buying a place.

Don’t Forget These – There are many other things to consider before moving to a new place. Here are some of the most important things you need to check out: cost of living, climate, outdoor activities, indoor activities, what sorts of people live there, if it is a high-tax or low-tax area, how safe the neighbourhood is, how far it is from a major city, how far from an airport or a train station, what types of public transports available, and so on.