Besides 30 kg luggage each, and inflight movies and music, we were given pillows, blankets
and 2 meals (dinner and breakfast) menu, MENU??? below:
This is how I travel, with my walking stick that you can fold our into a chair, and, yes, I sit anywhere, like here, in the middle of somewhere!!!
Because.....daughter had spied Jo Malone!!! where she had worked as a temp at Pavilion shopping mall, and she could not resist popping for a visit
She used to be able to name and sniff out every Jo Malone scent....but she could not afford any!
We are nearing Istanbul after nearly 9 hours.
Getting our luggage...note our fellow tour mates....5 Malaysian Chinese (3 of them us) and the rest Malaysian Indians.
We plunged into the tour proper right away but being driven to the BLUE MOSQUE.
This is Kaan, our Turkish tour guide. He speaks English well, is a Muslim with a Christian girlfriend.
We are soon to find out that Turkey has lots of stray dogs which are well fed, disease-free (treated by the state) and tagged after being declared clean, healthy and vaccinated, neutered, dewormed, etc.
Once we are inside nothing "can detract from the serene calm of
this epic place of worship.
Even when full of people, the scale of the interior can’t fail to
impress.
Supporting the huge structure are 4 “elephant feet pillars”, so called
because of their 16-foot diameters which dominate the interior.
The eponymous blue tiles rise up from floor level and nearly glow with light from the heavens filtering through some 260 windows"
Did you know:
The Blue Mosque tiles were all made in the small town of Iznik. Given that there are over 20,000 of them, the volume of the order was so great that it nearly exhausted the capabilities of the famous ceramic-making town as it was being fulfilled.
"The
large panels of Caligraphy on the inside of the Blue Mosque Dome depict verses
from the Koran and the names of important caliphs (religious leaders). They
were originally the work of the famed 17th century calligrapher Seyyid Kasim Gubari, but have been heavily
restored over time."
Gosh, all that walking and gawking at the immense architecture, got us all hungry and this little cart selling Turkish pastries were our life-line to stave our hunger.
All the Indian uncles and us biting into dough rings and doughnuts!!
Hagia Sophia is a former Byzantine church and former Ottoman mosque in Istanbul. Now a museum, Hagia Sophia is universally acknowledged as one of the great buildings of the world.
Hagia Sophia remained a functioning church until May 29, 1453, when Sultan Mehmet the Conqueror entered triumphantly into the city of Constantinople. He was amazed at the beauty of the Hagia Sophia and immediately converted it into his imperial mosque.
Hagia Sophia served as the principal mosque of Istanbul for almost 500 years.
In 1934, under Turkish president Kemal Atatürk, Hagia Sofia was secularized and turned into the Ayasofya Museum.
Turkish coffee
Turkish tea....Loved the turkish glass, and I bought some home!
Mine had gold rims and embellishments, this one is plain.
Topkapi Palace visit will have to be "done" again on the last day when we come back to Istanbul, We will be heading for Bolu after lunch.
Lunch is at Serbethane Cafe, and it looked very Turkish to me, with cobble stones, brick walls, it had a "Mediterranean feel " !!
Starters...it was to be our staple for the next few days, variants of salad, dips and flat bread.
My bread with all the dips: yoghurt, mashed chick peas etc, etc, I don't know their names!
Main dish, garlic butter rice, potato gratin, bbq chicken or beef.
with bbq beef
for the vegetarian uncle
This is a combo of beef and chicken, the Indians had only chicken.
