Istanbul - Paris of the East

Bosphorous River near the Dolmabahche Palace
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More photos of Istanbul can be viewed here!

Day 0 - On Emirates, Transit at Dubai Airport

Outside Dolmabahche Palace
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Had a free breakfast as we had a 9 hours transit (but we were really fed up with this particular waiter with poor service standard & hence left), washed up at a secluded toilet that we found near the business center (yay!! as it contains body lotion & soup which we spreaded very generously on our bodies due to air dryness) and eventually concussed at the waiting area, to quote my fren "we slept like shit". Haha! We are like how crude! I was checked as I failed the metal detector test. The perpetrator is my fisherman sweet. Seriously! Apparently the aluminium lining inside the sweet caused the metal detector to sound. Lesson learnt : never bring fisherman sweet on in your pocket or hand carried bag. Wanted to go on a City Tour but to be told that we need a VISA to get into Dubai. Realised on our flight back to Singapore that we were given the wrong information!! We do not need a VISA at all!! Damn!

The kids who are always smiling and greeting us Konnichiwa! They were really excited about having a picture together!
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Day 1 - Arriving at Sultanamet

We officially reached Istanbul Airport around 7 pm & took a taxi to our hostel, Antique Hotel! We tried to have a conversation with the caddy but not to much avail due to our tired selfs & communication barriers. After a 30 mins ride, we arrived at Sultanamet (the area that we resided for 4 days!). Though tired, we were excited and walked around this town, looking out for the beautiful attractions as well as dinner! We stayed near the Blue Mosque, Hagaia Sophia (Saint Sophia). Hagaia Sophia was a church, which was turned into a mosque and today is a museum. Sophia means wisdom by the way which I learnt at Ephesus, The Celcius Library. And the Blue Mosque has 6 minerates. Learnt from ignar (Tour Guide in Kappadokya) that if a mosque has 1 minerate, it is built by ordinary people. If it has two or more minerates, it is built by the Sultan! Interesting!

Having Fish at a restaurant at Kumkapi!
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The Turks are indeed hospitable people as written in the guide books, never failing to greet you with a friendly Konnichiwa or annyoung hasaiyou (Korean, not sure on the spelling). I learnt eventually at some point in our trip that the Turks fought in the Korean War and they are thus quite attached to Koreans.

Our first turkish meal!!!! Eventually we settled for food at this restaurant which served as Mixed Grill & Bread (which is the Turks staple food, in place of our rice here in Singapore).Anyway on the mixed grill dish, I though they served orange butter rice just to realise it's barley after bitting into it! First time having turkish beverages too. I ordered Turkish Tea which I thought tasted like Tie Guan Yin. Vivien ordered Apple Tea which we thought tasted like hot zappel and Twm orderd Orange Tea which we thought tasted like hot diluted fanta orange.. Anyway first impressions are rarely accurate and we fell in love with the teas eventually, especially Turkish & Apple Tea!

The restaurant at Kumkapi!
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Day 2 - Dolmabahce Palace & Taksim

First time having breakfast today! Was quite appalled by the breakfast as all on the plate was cucumber slices, tomato slices, olives, orange slices, a hard boiled egg and spreads (normally we are given 4: Butter, Honey, Cherry Jam & Cheese). Given lots of bread and tea. We thought that the hostel is being a cheapskate by serving such food to realise later at Dilek (Pasta Restaurant at Taksim) that this is the Classic Turkish Breakfast which costs around 5 Lira!! Wow... truly a healthy breakfast! I have never eaten so much tomatoes and cucumbers in my life. In fact, I used to detest eating them but I decided to love them as I thought that I might be having such fare for the next 20 days to come! (I was right... I had this for 20 days! Almost!)

Fruit Juice Seller
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Learnt that Sultanamet is pronounced as su-ta-na-met and not Sultan Ah- Met.. when we were on the tram to Kabatas pronounced as Ko-bo-touch. *I think.

We went to the Dolmabahce Palace which is constructed at the Bosphorous River! There is something really interesting about this river, once you cross it via the ferry, swimming etc, you reach the Asian Side! Apparently, part of Istanbul belongs to the European Continent and the part from the Bosphorous River on belongs to the Asia Continent. Also, there is this bridge near the Bosphorous River that reminds us of a hint of the San Frans Golden Gate Bridge! Till today, we have no idea what is the name of the bridge and promptly call it the San Frans bridge. heheh. We explored 2 parts of the Dolmabahce Palace, the Selamlik & Harem. Harem means polygamy in btw.. so the Harem section in this place houses the many wives of sultan wives. The first guide at the Selamlik was interesting and could speak many languages! The second guide was utterly boring, coupled with our hunger...I was actually jumping into air with joy to hear that the tour lasts for just another 1 hour!

Hagaia Sophia
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After constant reminders from our hunger pangs, my dear chums decided to buy a 50 cent Lira Simit just outside the palace. It was so tough that we told ourselves that we will not have another simit again but eventually when we met twm's turks friends, something dawned upon us.. read the entry on Cyprus!

We head off to Taksim.. it was a really long and ardrous walk! But it paid off! This is definitely the highlight for me in Istanbul as I simply enjoy shopping & observing people! Taksim is a wonderful street where you can see both modern & archaic architecture on the same street! Also I see many older men playing backgammon (a middle eastern game apparently! Learnt it on Emirates) at cafes and sipping turkish tea from the tulip-like glasses! I bought some. Here we get to see americanisation & globalisation that is almost devoid in the other parts of Turkey like Starbucks, Macdonalds, Gloria Jean's, Adidas.. etc! Our first time paying sky high prices for turkish ice cream - 5 Lira per scoop!!! We went on to this street which sells really expensive seafood (forgot the name..I think it's Neverda) and continued to Galata Tower! We got there through bashing streets while eating cherries at the same time. The cherries were really cheap. 2 Lira for a bag of cherries! Yay! Galata Tower is a beauty. However, we did not enter the place though as we found it too pricely! Afterwhich we bashed our way back home!

Typical Simit Seller
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We walked across the bridge where many were fishing! They kept gazing at us and we felt like superstars (super yi zu..that's what the dear chums say). Eventually we went to this extremely remote place for the pursue of the "GON" in a bid to cook maggi mee. But we wounded up at a cafe to rest our feet. We had turkish coffee (our first & last time). Really really bitter!! It can be served as sweet and normal if I am not wrong. We chose normal. Maybe that's why.  Had chips too (the guy did not understand when we said fries). And I think there wasn't such an item on his menu but he was flexible enough to decide to cook for us. Cool! We ordered 1 plate and were happily finishing it. At the precise moment when we finished it, he came up with another plate! Astonishing! I suspect a CCTV planted somewhere. haha.

Garden outside Topkapi Palace!
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Had dinner at this fastfood restaurant place serving kofte (meat balls that look like nuggets instead as proclaimed by vivi) & lamb shish! Met some really well built asians. They looked really exotic and seemed to be able to devour a whole lamb.. SK says that they should be from Nepal or Mongolia. I kept staring at them as this is my first time seeing Asians who look so different from the others I have seen.

Day 3 - Topkapi Palace, Blue Mosque, Kumkapi

Inside Topkapi Palace
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Today is photo whoring day as we realised we have not been snapping enough! The photos taken today totally outshine the total amount taken in the past few days. haha! Yes very skewed photo distribution. We went to Topkapi Palace & the Blue Mosque today via walking..! We saw this traditional fruit seller at the Blue Mosque. He was dressed in traditional costume and sells cherry juice in his container. He spotted us gazing at him from a distance and asked unexpectedly asked if we wished to take a picture with him. Unsuspecting we took a picture and he handed us a cherry drink. He wanted us to pay a whooping 5 lira for it but I can't quite remember what happened and we ended up paying 2. I thought he was really smart btw. Today we had lunch at the green cafe! Took a photo with the turkish Jude Law! He looks really handsome.

Beautiful kids at the Topkapi Palace
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Had dinner at Kumkapi today! Walked along the highway which has trucks, vehicles that are driving so quickly that i feel that my life seemed threatened to end at any instance! Kumkapi, the seafood area where we had our dinner at a reccommended was an expensive place. The food was alright. We wanted to try the Reki which costs $45 that deterred us a lot, to realise that a Reki costs a mere $9 at a supermarket. As you can see, it is a really rich man area at this stretch of restaurants at Kumkapi's! Poor vivi fell ill so we wanted to order fish soup but to be told that we must order a minimum of 2 servings. We don't understand why and frankly I found it really crappy. Somehow when we finished our last dish and were about to call for bill (hesap lutfen meaning bill pls in Turkish).. they presented us with the fish soup. Deja vu from the chips experience from the prior day.. Hmms. Took a cab back and I experienced the roller coaster ride of my lifetime. Never ever try to drive in Turkey. First, it is left hand drive. Also the drivers have fantastic driving skills like overtaking another car by having half the car bumped up the pavement and the other half rested on the road... woah. I am impressed albeit shaken.

We are inside a tree! We thought that this is pretty cool!
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Day 4-5 - Grand Bazaar, Spice Bazaar, Basilica Cistern, SK's 24th Birthday

Grand Bazaar sells everything. Carpets, food, imitated goods, jewellery.. etc. But the prices there are not exactly very reasonable, very touristic in fact! The Spice Bazaar has the same things at lower prices so I did most of my shopping there!

The Basilica Cistern is my favourite place of interest in Istanbul!Truly remarkable, this underground cistern was built in the 6th Century and has water which is transported via Aquaducts from the belgrade woods. Also at the end of this cistern, it has the stone head figurine of Medusa! A place that I will highly recommend to go when you are in Istanbul!!

Green Cafe & Turkish Jude Law!
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SK's Birthday on the 10th of May! HAPPY 24th mate!!! We had a wonderful dinner at Dilek's, a breakaway from Turkish Cuisine! We spent the night with Vivi's polaroid (took so many pictures and gave us some, thanks dear gal), writing on the photos (brought by vivi.. she is really prepared for the photo taking session!!). Singing to old songs played by Dilek like "Hello" by Lionel Richie, If god is one of us (first time hearing the song for me).. haha. It was a fantastic night! Too bad my ear was giving me problems today. Vivi explained that I might have air bubbles in my ears due to the changes in altitude when I climbed up the streets to reach Taksim.. A whole load of shit. haha! SK told me to stop infecting her.. to become lame shit like me. This is how untrue!!! Annd SK is really kind, he treated us to this meal!!! Thanks man!!!