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Day 6: Istanbul, Turkey

Apparently yesterday I looked tired/not my best/or something, because much like my students in Korea used to do, Memo made the observation aka back-handed compliment this morning of “You look better today”. Haha…why thank you Memo, so very kind. This reminded me of a saying that my well-travelled friend Brian had shown me once, which is ‘in Turkey, I am beautiful’ – Brendan Shanahan. Now, the only Brendan Shanahan I know is a hockey player, so not sure what that is all about, but anyhow, today I look better so, you know, yay.

Today we had a big agenda – Topkapi Sarayi, Aya Sofya, Blue Mosque, Hippodrome, and Basilica Cistern. Well, would you believe it, we ticked ALL of those off our list by about 2:30PM! They are all located quite close to Second Home, within very easy walking distance so we made a loop of it. In fact, by the cistern, we were getting a little grumpy and done with walking around so we actually skipped it, but it’s the thought that counts, yeah? (Sidenote, we have since been told by more than one person that this is actually really cool and we were so totally wrong for skipping it. Oops.)

To be honest, while Topkapi was cool, and I’d probably do it again, it wasn’t quite what I was expecting. You can see the palace as well as some exhibits of old jewels, swords, aigrettes, thrones, etc, but overall I was slightly underwhelmed. There are some great city views from here too however. Beware tho, to go into the Harem, it costs extra.

Next we meandered along and ended up looking at the tombs of Aya Sofya, which are not connected to Aya Sofya, at least for the public. The tombs are free and somewhat interesting. 

Just down from the tombs we stopped in the big open square area where you can see the Blue Mosque, and Aya Sofya together on opposite ends, where we had some cheese toast and a beverage, fresh squeezed pomegranate for me and Turkish coffee for Leah. This was a welcome break! Once refreshed, we headed into Aya Sofya, where a fellow just outside the gate asked us first: “do you want to just see walls and columns or do you want to know things?” We looked at each other and in unison said, “walls and columns!” I think we were headed into info overload!

Aya Sofya was very beautiful, but really, really cold! Marble buildings do not lend themselves to warmth. I lent Leah my gloves to wear around in fact! This building is unique because it has aspects of both Muslim and Christian faiths depicted in the walls. There is some history to this but of course, we were just there for the walls and columns.

Afterwards we headed over to the Blue Mosque, which is impressive in size as well as length of line to get in. They provide scarves and wraps for those who do not fit the dress code and ablution facilities. Without too much delay, we headed in to the mosque, where the small boy rolling without pause, along the floor really stole the show. No joke, this kid rolled from all the way at the front of the mosque to the middle and around to the middle. It would seem he has foregone walking for the foreseeable future. But yes, the ceiling is also beautiful!

Once done, we headed back to the hostel via the Hippodrome. We freshened up then headed out on the tram to the last stop across the river where we caught the funicular up the hill to Taksim Square. At Taksim, we found a Starbucks, where I was most unimpressed to learn that not only do they not have blonde roast, they also do not take gold cards. Come on! You’re killing me here! This trip has really been a coffee detox for me. Maybe that’s why I’ve been having significantly more chocolate…

Istiklal St connects at Taksim Sq so we hooked up with that and perused through the shops. If you follow Istiklal all the way along, you can eventually meet up with Galata Tower, so we did that and meandered down a different street on our way back than the one we had the night before. Hence…we found a cotton towel/soap shop and ended up with purchases and a really neat shop called Dogo, with these amazing patterned shoes, bags, clothes, and accessories. Shopping in hand we stopped for falafel for dinner. 

With that long day behind us, we headed back to plan out our next few days and sleep!

Ahmet and Ali (driver)

We started our day with a delicious breakfast at Atilla’s, again made by Mum: fresh veggies,  delicious fresh toast,  egg,  cheese,  and tea. We were picked up by Ali our driver and Ahmet our guide as the sun and blue sky were breaking through. Onboard, we met two of our other tour companions,  a mother-daughter pair from Germany. We were waiting for 4 more people coming from the airport so we stopped for some apple tea and simit. Once our other group members arrived, we set out for the House of St. Mary. This is way at the top of a hill with views of Ephesus and the Aegean sea on the way. There are many olive and fruit trees lining the road as well, contributing to the Mediterranean feeling.
Our first stop was the House of St Mary or ‘Meryemana’. The house of St Mary is so called because it is believed that she lived there for a short period of time. This site is small and maybe most interesting and significant if you are religious. Still, it is very peaceful there…marred only by the people trying to sell you stuff at the gate…

There is a wishing wall there, unlike the wishing column in Aya Sofya, that you can tie a scrap of something onto after writing your wish onto it. These scraps are widely varied,  ranging from tissues (my parchment of choice), to what appeared to be wet wipes to someone’s very nice looking scarf! I took a moment and included my wish on the wall,  figuring it can never hurt to make a wish.

With that, we departed for Ephesus, our raison d’être for coming to Selçuk. Upon arriving at the gates, Ahmet lead us through the surprisingly large site, on a roughly 2 hour walk consisting of informative talks interspersed with free time. The ruins are slightly more ruinous than I had expected,  but due to earthquakes, things being carted off to various other sites and museums,  and so forth,  this is unsurprising. The library and big odeon at the end of the visit are the most impressive,  with Elton John and Sting having performed in the Odeon which can seat 25, 000! The toilets were also really interesting to see.

With Ephesus done we headed for lunch at my worst nightmare: the tourist buffet. Granted, it’s included and it’s all you can eat, but we still had to pay for our beverage on top of the meal (what?!), and I just hate those massive halls where the tourists just pile in with no choice.  Ugh. Anyhow,  we had a nice meal and conversation with our group. The other 4 were American, a father/son from Cali and a couple from NYC, all quite well traveled and informative people! I just can’t say enough for the amazing humans I meet while travelling. They are one of the main reasons travel is so rewarding. They were recommending the archeological museum and Dolmabache Palace in Istanbul as being two worthwhile places we did not visit.

With lunch done, we headed to the Temple of Artemis. This site is essentially completely in ruins apart from one tower and the base. Also, mind the poop! There is a LOT scattered around from the various critters that inhabit the site now. Still an interesting place to visit.

From there, we drove over to Isabey Mosque, a 14th century construct with bits of Ephesian pieces included in it, making it a very unique site. On our way here, we could see the Selçuk castle and the St John Basilica both of which looked beautiful but we did not stop at.

Lastly we stopped at a carpet making site,  which has a program teaching girls to make these beautiful pieces of work and receiving a government subsidy to do so. Very cool. It was fascinating to see the carpet making and how intricate and unique it is. Some carpets can take 7 years or more to make! Even the border of the carpet (the fringes) mean something: you can tell the marital status of the maker from it! Each style of pattern and the dyes used are specific to each region of Turkey, further making each carpet unlike any other. I now understand the durability and value of these pieces of art! Learning about that was worth the awkward bit at the end where they were trying to sell us on a carpet!

Once we got back home, I convinced Leah to hike up a wee bit of a mountain to get a great view of the valley. With a bit of convincing, she was game. What resulted was some awesome jump shots. Another delicious dinner by Atilla’s mum at the bottom and conversation with some awesome Irish folks, hi Edie and Andy! , and it was off to bed!

Pammukkale: We bid farewell to Atilla’s with another early morning and another yummy breakfast made by his mum. I’d like to think Dusty was even more enthusiastic about us this morning, making leaving more sad!

We hopped on the bus with our new Irish friends, Edie and Andy, and our tour folk, Hakan the driver and Nigar, our guide.  The drive to Pammukkale was most enjoyable,  featuring  blue skies, olive trees,  rolling hills and an old man in rubber boots riding a donkey along the roadside.

Upon arrival to Pamukkale,  we had our lunch,  another tourist buffet. This time there was quite the assortment of desserts, for which I was the appointed guinea pig. We had a time trying to decide about the bright red and blue jello-esque squares set on a thin crust… no dessert ought to be that color. Just no.

From the buffet we then made the obligatory call upon the local craftspeople who have an arrangement with our tour company,  where we learned the basics of how they take semi-precious stones and turn them into things like wine glasses, mortar and pestles and various other objets d’art. As always, I found the demo interesting and luckily,  unlike with the carpets, there was no awkward sitting around or pressures to buy, so soon we were on our merry way.

Arriving at Pamukkale & Hierapolis was spectacular. The white calcium carbonate cliffs with the ruins set behind them are just beautiful.  Nigar gave us a quick low-down on the site,  created by Pergammon, and showed us what some of the buildings would have looked like,  then set us free to explore.  I tried some of the water from Cleopatra’s pool, which is said to have the ability to make you more beautiful. Not sure if it’s true but worth a try!

We wandered about the ruins which are b beautiful much like those at Ephesus but I preferred the wild feeling of those at Hierapolis.  The poppies are in bloom amongst the ruins and it made for quite a beautiful scene. It was actually quite hot out and we shed down to one layer. Lovely!

We began to drift back over to the Pamukkale cliffs where Leah soon found out what happens when you walk somewhere you’re not meant to: you get the whistle!  So yeah, she quickly moved back to the appointed area, fearing further whistle action.

We walked back over to the area you can walk on,  and tried it out. It’s actually quite hard to walk on in many spots and the water in the top pools is a bit cold. There was a large group of ajummas touring the pools at the same time, making me very nostalgic for Korea. One of them I walked up beside was very impressed with my height. She was insisting on taking a picture with me,  which of course I could understand all of,  and I was speaking Korean back to her.  The funny part of it all was that the strange thing to the ajumma was not the fact that this white chick was speaking Korean but that this white chick was so tall! Ah I miss Koreans.

With that, we hopped back on the bus and into town. Our bus for Fethiye didn’t leave for a bit so we did some errands: snacks and the post office! A super nice fellow helped me box up my item as apparently there are not envelopes for sale like in Canada.

Returning back to the travel agency,  we quickly boarded our minibus for the mad dash to the station. No one had told us our bus left from the main bus terminal at 5 and we had to drop off others at the train station on the way!  Luckily we made it and our little minibus,  or dolmus, took off for Fethiye.

The drive through the country was great.  I even saw a horse-drawn wagon!  We had a beautiful sunset and then the ride just started to drag on. We came to realize that perhaps we’d been put on the milk run to Fethiye and our 2 – ish hour ride soon became 4.
Once we got to Fethiye finally,  we’d expected to be able to just “rock on up” as Atilla put it, to V-Go’s but after much confusion and a helter-skelter dolmus ride,  we discovered it was not actually open….
At this point it was like 9:45pm and our kind dolmus driver took pity on us. We drove with him to the end of the line then he sacrificed his break time to drive back sooner,  albeit at like 10km/hr. We saw Fethiye Guesthouse,  which we knew was open,  so got him to stop and we disembarked.  Finally we had a place for the night!

Day 5: London to Istanbul, Turkey

Another beautiful morning in London and a big day for us. We woke up at 3AM to catch our plane to Turkey and attempted to utilize the Uber app which was easy to use but rather unsuccessful in that although it said that our driver was arriving, he never appeared outside Shamsa’s house and it kind of looked like he was just around the corner on the app…then it just told us our ride was cancelled! We tried again but the time of arrival kept jumping around from 11 mins to 9 mins and back to 11. So, we ended up waking up poor old Shamsa again and she called a reliable cab from the company she usually uses. Uber is a great idea and probably works for many people but middle of the night with a plane to catch is an anxious time to be using it!

We flew with British Air to get to Turkey and it was a terrific journey. Excellent service, great breakfast, and kind staff. The plane wasn’t full so we were able to both have 3 seats to ourself meaning nap time!!

We landed and had what had to have been one of the fastest arrivals I’ve ever had, breezing through customs with barely a glance at the visa we had gone to such great lengths to obtain online and then our bags were out super quickly. We had decided to take the subway to Zeytinburnu (sp?) and then tram in to the city as the trip seemed easy and cost effective, which is was, however, carrying massive bags on a crowded tram car does not make me popular, let me tell you! We struggled a bit at first but successfully figured out that the airport being the terminus, all trains would go to where we wanted to go. About 10 seconds after figuring this out, a kind local stopped to offer assistance – a good start indeed.

Alighting at Gulhane stop, in the heart of the old town area, we quickly found our hostel with the help of some other locals we recruited. Other locals attempted to sell us things as we walked along, prompting a discussion we would have again in the next few days, on the topic of “knowing your audience”. Yeah mister, I definitely want to stop and haggle with you over a keychain with 40lbs worth of stuff on my back…said no one ever.

We were greeted most graciously at our hostel, Second Home, by the awesome Mr. Moustache, Memo, and his partner in crime, Can. They welcomed us with apple tea (yum!) and gave some advice about what to see and do. There was also an adorable kitten called Mimi, who promptly curled up on my puffer coat and fell asleep….for the remainder of the afternoon! She was too cute to move, so I left my coat there for her to sleep on.

Our first stop one that afternoon’s explorations was food, of course. As per the recommendation of Memo and Can, we tried a fish sandwich down by the river for TL6. It seemed to be quite popular, as many locals were queuing for it, and it did hit the spot, but in all honesty, eating creatures which come from that grimy body of water is a little unnerving.

Carrying on with our sandwiches we headed up and over the Galata bridge towards Galata Tower. There were a wide array of fisher people packed along the railing of the bridge. I stopped to look in one of their buckets and asked if the fish they were catching was same same as the one in my sandwich to which I received: a laugh, a yes, and the name of the fish, which naturally, I cannot recall now. It was silver and not so big though, for all you taxonomists out there. 

While walking over the bridge, I made the observation to Leah that so far Turkey reminded me a lot of China but the elements of the architecture and peoples appearances made me think of Russia and the Middle East. Hence, the title of this post.

With full tummies we were prepared to put our glutes into gear to get up the hill to the tower. Steep cobble stone streets work up an appetite however, so we stopped part way up at a little coffee shop called Cherry Bean for a cappuccino and a square of delicious chocolate. This cafe was super cute, small, and had wonderful food. The two people working there were a little brusque, even more so after I knocked over a wooden display stand. Not my finest moment, and on that note we continued up the hill to the tower, where I continued my brightest moments hits tour by forgetting to take my 25TL change from the ticket guy. Especially enjoyed the snicker and the eye roll from the lady behind me in line after that one.

The view from the tower is pretty good, but the walkway is very very narrow, so I cannot imagine what it’s like when it’s actually busy there. Another kind of unpleasant thing is the fact that smoking is allowed basically everywhere, even at the top of a historical building, albeit a stone one, so can’t even enjoy the view without inhaling chemicals.

Once we climbed down from on high, we made our way back down to the bridge via a beautiful little jewelry shop called (I can’t find the name but I’ll put the link here layer!). We picked up some beautiful earrings handmade in Turkey and an evil eye necklace made of glass on a silver chain. The girl working at the shop was so kind, friendly, and helpful….thank you! 🙂

After that, you’d think we’d head back home, but lo and behold, we got distracted by bright lights and pretty things and headed through the market near the new mosque. We sampled baklava and Turkish delights and ended up getting some baklava for dessert. That done, we finally headed back for a well deserved rest!

Sidenote: Sorry for sucking about lack of timeliness and lack of photos. I’m having issues with the method I thought would work for uploading photos and because I forgot the charger cable to my iPads Bluetooth keyboard, my typing on the iPad screen is a bit slow. 😦

Day 4: Oxford, UK

Another glorious day in London! We’ve been so very lucky with our weather so far, especially knowing that London can be so dismal! While it certainly hasn’t been warm out, and Shamsa has regularly requested that it “stop winding”, at least it’s not raining!

Our mission today was to visit Oxford and reunite with my friend Hannah and meet her partner Emyr for the first time. Trying to avoid London rush hour, we left about 9, just in time for a 9:50 First Great Western train from Paddington. We hopped aboard and settled in for the approx 1 hour journey. Sadly, at Slough (strangely pronounced ‘Sl-ow, as in ouch that hurt), the train had some sort of technical problem and stopped working. 

This meant we had to get off, and wait in the bitter cold for the next train along to Oxford which was meant to be about 20 minutes later. About 10mins in and freezing, we heard the announcer say something about the next train to Oxford from platform 4 so we decided to hop on that. In the split second prior to getting on, I noticed under the train destination on the schedule board that the train was a ‘local service’ train. However, this did not compute so once we boarded the train and realized it would take us much longer to get to our destination we knew we’d have to get off again. Luckily, once we got off at Reading, we caught another train which went directly to Oxford, where the lovely Hannah and Emyr were waiting for us!

We were treated to a top-notch tour of the city. We had an absolutely delicious coffee at The Missing Bean, then continued on with a tour to places like the library, most of the colleges, the spot where CS Lewis thought of Narnia (including the lamppost itself!), the oldest pub called the Bear, which was so neat and historic, learned many interesting facts, such as why people wear carnations to exams, ate at the Chequers, where Emyr used to work, and then watched some of the action at ‘Torpids’. 

For those of you not in the know, Torpids is the rowing competition including heats between the different colleges. It was so cool to watch and such a great vibe onshore that I was trying to figure out ways to go to Oxford just so I could join the crew! 

Once we’d had our Torpids fill, we got a hot chocolate at George and Danvers before heading for the train. With a stroke of luck, our train was right there at the station and they were able to open the door just prior to departure and let us on!

 

Lastly, upon arrival back in London, we headed to Kings Cross are for some amazing food at Merkato, and Ethiopian restaurant. So utterly delicious. We will miss London!