I'm not sure she'll see many lions in China. :-)

You sound like you're having an awesome week!

Or, that is, that she'll see much China on safari.

Sigh. Sorry. I should go home now.

Ooh! I saw that exhibit when it was in Chicago, and it was *totally badass*.

The museum in my hometown had a permanent mummy installation. It was down this dark sort of hallway--they'd put fake stuff on the roof and walls to make it all rounded and sandy looking and dimmed the lights and had some spooky music playing. And then they had a real mummy in there, partially unwrapped with bad teeth and hair and everything.

I was ten or so before I screwed up enough courage to actually go and look at it. Before that I categorically refused to go in, and one of my parents or siblings had to stay out with me.

I'll never, ever forgive my mum for not taking me to see Tut in the '70s.

*seethes with jealousy*

I totally remember seeing Tut in the 70s at the San Diego Museum of Art. I was so excited to see the sarcophagus in the Cairo Museum, I hope she gets to see it someday. Even more memorable for me was staring at Ramses II up close, though... he still has his hair & fingernails & stuff. So weird to look at him and think "This guy knew Moses."

As for the pyramids, they're amazing to look at but I had a total panic attack trying to go down the tunnel under them. Waaay too many people and too little space. The air started to disappear on me so I got out of there fast. Tiny underground tombs are definitely not my bag.

The Walters, where I used to work, has a couple of mummies. I'll never forget one time, when I was giving a school tour, this little boy, totally fascinated, kept asking, "Is that a real mummy?" And I'd say, yes, yes it's a real mummy, and then finally he asked the question that was obviously really on his mind, which was: "How'd you catch him?"

You worked at the Walters? I dreamed of working at the Walters when I was a kid. Pound for pound, the best museum in the land.

I saw Tutankhamun in DC when I was a kid, and then at the Egyptian Museum in Cairo in the mid-90's. We spent three days in the museum; after the first hour or so, we realized that we'd have to rush through the massive collection of incredibly interesting artifacts if we wanted to see Tut, and that if we did that, we'd miss out on a great deal. So we slowed down, and it took two days to speed through the non-Tut stuff.

We spent about six hours on the third day looking at the Tut collection. Amazing! Totally worth it. It was beautiful, even in the Egyptian Museum, where they seem to not know the first thing about displaying artifacts.