First, I woke up to a nice pleasant sunshine shining through my window. I went for a swim in my personalized swimming pool. It's not THAT amazing -- it's just like a smaller swimming pool without the chlorine. You couldn't really practice actual swimming, because the moment you did a flip turn you would be on the other side of the pool. It was still relaxing, however.
I got dressed, and toured my room a little bit more. Finally, I went downstairs to get breakfast. I didn't feel too much like going out of my hotel, which didn't serve much authentic food as I desired. I ended up going to a restaurant called "Silver City Spur." It served international food. Overall, it was really good.
I went up to my room again to prepare for my adventure today. After I was ready, I was off into the heart of Uganda.
Today, however, I didn't go too far. I went to the Uganda museum. The Uganda museum is truly something to be marveled at. Founded in 1908, it is simply a wide display of cultural heritages of the Ugandan tribes. One of the coolest things you can do there is play traditional Ugandan instruments. I tried one, but I did not get a very good sound out of it. Someone working at the museum knew to play it, so it sounded beautiful when he did. Unfortunately, we weren't allowed to take pictures.
Other than that, it was mainly just some history about the Ugandan people and their ancient ways. It was a reminder of their colorful past.
After the Ugandan Museum, I ate some lunch (late lunch). I went to the Ekitoobero restaurant in Kampala. There were some dishes that I just loved, but there were others that I wasn't particularly fond of. Most of the other food around here were from street vendors (or international foods but I was just interested in the Ugandan food), but the "guidebook" that I was using said it wasn't 100% safe to buy food from the street vendors, so I just went to a restaurant that still sold authentic Ugandan dishes. For all this, I paid about 11,000 Ugandan shillings. 11,000 Ugandan shillings! That sounds like a lot, right? Well, in the US, that's just under 5 dollars.
Two dishes that I got were Groundnut sauce (peanut sauce) and some sort of goat stew. The groundnut sauce was excellent with a rather strong nutty flavor, but the goat stew was so-so. There were personally too many bones in the goat stew, but that might have just been me. Also, while the meat was cooked fine, I still wasn't very accustomed to eating goat at the time. I'm sure I may be eating this or other similar foods a lot.
After the lunch, I went to the Bahai Temple. Just four miles from Kampala, it is built on Kikaya hill. This temple is often considered the "Mother Temple of Africa," since there is only one of these on each continent and it is considered great praise to the Ugandan people for it to be chosen to be built in Uganda.
The Bahai Temple, otherwise known as the Mashriqu' I-Adhkar. It basically describes the religious ways of the Bahai. Developed by Charles Mason Remey, it is 130 ft high and over a 100 feet base diameter. The Baha'i Faith, a monotheistic religion (meaning that they believe in only one god) was founded by Baha'u'llah in the nineteenth century. There are approximately 6 million Bahais in the world, which means that 0.1% percent of the world is Bahai. In the Baha'i Faith, religious history is seen to have unfolded through a series of divine messengers. Each of them established a religion that was suited to the needs of the time and the capacity of the people. Examples of these messengers were Abraham, Jesus, Muhammad, Buddha, and Baha'u'llah. Another interesting thing that I learned was an example of how the Bahai Faith differed from the Christian religion. In Christianity, Heaven and Hell are places "up there" and "down there." In the Bahai Faith, The Baha'u'llah views Heaven and Hell as states of being reached through goood and bad actions. Here is a picture of the temple:
For dinner, I just found an "American" food place because it was getting dark and I just wanted a quick bite to eat. Apparently, in Uganda, there is a lot of International based foods because it has been invaded many times and is close to many countries. Besides American food, I've even encountered some Italian, Indian (most influencial), Middle Eastern, Chinses, and French restaurants along the way.
Well, that'll be it for now. I'm back in my beast villa typing this all up. I think I'll go for another swim in my swimming pool, and that'll be it for the day.
Peace!!
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