The Planning
Destination: Greece & Turkey
Duration: 18 Days 17 Nights (Aug 06~Aug 23, 2012)
Day 1: Penang –> Kuala Lumpur –> Istanbul
On a gloomy Sunday night, we boarded a 9 hours and 55 mins red-eye flight to Istanbul on Malaysian Airlines. *yawn* My brain was totally frosted until I noticed THE greatest discovery of the flight – AVENGERS was one of the in-flight movies!!! My initial reaction? Let’s watch it in a loop during the flight to ogle at Loki!!! The thought itself made me felt hyperventilated, let’s hope my poor heart could handle all the hotness up in the thousand feet altitude!
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| My Heart Stolen away up in the Air... |
MH did not provide a detail hardcopy menu like SG, I didn’t even know what they offered until the flight attendant came to ask “Fish or Lamb?”. This seems funny to me as Malaysian Airlines actually put caution on their peanuts package to tell people that “this product contains peanuts”. So they are concerned about getting sued with peanuts allergy with a peanut packet but not the ingredients in a meal?
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| The Classic "This Product Contains Peanuts" Allergy Information on a "SALTED PEANUTS" Packet on MH |
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| The Fish Set - Quite Nice! |
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| The Lamb Set |
One of the surprises of the night was MH gave out snack pack between the 2 main meals. There were cheese, cookies, crackers and peanuts in there.
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| Snack Pack |
Breakfast was MH typical omelette and Nasi Lemak. Nothing special here. I did feel ashamed to say that I only managed to watch Avengers once during the night as I was simply too sleepy. Sorry my dearest Loki! I’d failed you!
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| Omelette Set |
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| Nasi Lemak Set |
We finally arrived in Istanbul Ataturk Airport on 6.30am and were picked up by our airport transfer to get to Daphne Hotel which was located in the heart of Sultanahmet area. One thing stood out the most during our ride was: Sultanahmet area had very tiny streets with slope with car parked at the roadside (illegally?) which made the road even tinier!
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| Arrival! Taking a Bus to get to the Terminal |
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| Random Fountain on the Way to Hotel |
Daphne was a little boutique hotel with beautiful Turkish deco – we were told that our room was still not available but we could leave our luggage there during our day tour. The reception passed us a folder which consisted of our itinerary and pickup time from our engaged ground arrangement agent - Magnificent Travel (http://www.magnificenttravel.com/).
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| Daphne Hotel - Interior |
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| Daphne Hotel - Reception Area |
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| Handmade Hotel Banner? |
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| Sammy is Enjoying Himself Sitting there... |
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| Daphne Hotel - Exterior |
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| View across the Hotel |
We were picked up at 8.20am by SHE day tour agency – the road around the hotel was so narrow until the bus couldn’t come in thus we had to walk to a wider main street with the agent. We were given tour number stickers once stepped into the bus. We were there for tour 2 and tour 4. A few more passengers were picked up along the way until the bus stopped in front of the SHE travel agency to segregate passengers into different buses by tour number.
We were surprised when we were told it was the Bosphorus morning tour rather than the city tour that we expected. We went along with the tour and clarified with Magnificent Travel after our tour – Mr Nihat told us that this was planned intentionally to ensure that we were able to visit all the important spots in Istanbul with our timing as there were some places closing on Monday (Haghia Sophia) and Tuesday (Topkapi Palace). At the end it all turned up well! Special thanks to Mr Nihat for his thoughtful planning!
Our 1st stop of the day was to the Spice Bazaar – we were ushered into a spice/condiment stall to try out the local spice, tea and sweet delicacy. We were then given free time to roam around the bazaar. Here is a little tip for souvenir hunting - If you had the chance to go to both Spice Bazaar and Grand Bazaar in your Turkey trip, get the souvenir in Spice Bazaar! Or at least that was what our experience was during the trip. The souvenir selection in Spice Bazaar had more varieties, price was clearly stated and cheap!
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| Spice Bazaar |
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| Spice Stall |
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| Beautiful huh? |
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| Spice Bazaar - Exterior |
I didn’t know it at the time but I did take a risk and bought lots of souvenirs there due to the products and pricing. I was so glad I didn’t wait until Grand Bazaar to get souvenirs. The funny thing was we did not have a cent of Lira (Turkish Currency) and were paying in EURO currency but it was still well worth the money. The general calculation for these stalls were 1 EURO = 2 Lira so they actually earned slightly more if we paid by EURO at that time.
After shopping, we took some pictures at the nearby mosque – Yeni Cami. Turkey is very open with their mosques, basically you can go in the courtyard area and just snapped pictures. All the tourists there were just walking in and out. Very different culture from Malaysia – my Romanian friend Raluca and I were once rudely kicked out from the GATE entrance (it’s the GATE! We didn’t even step into the gate) of Floating Mosque in Penang without any explanation by a very rude guard even when she was explaining that she just wanted to take a photo of the mosque as the mosque itself was quite far away from the gate to take a photo. Needless to say this left a bad impression during her visit in Malaysia.
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| Yani Cami beside Spice Bazaar |
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| Courtyard of Yeni Cami |
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| Random Street Stall |
We continued on with our Bosphorus cruise after spice bazaar. What is the significant of Bosphorus? It’s the strait that forms part of the boundary between Europe and Asia. Thus you get to see the European part of Istanbul and Asian part of Istanbul during the cruise in one glance. We were 1st facing the European side, made a turn after passing the 2nd bridge that connect Asia and Europe and continued with Asian side. The whole cruise lasted about 2 hours.
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| The Bosphorus Cruise |
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| Is this our Cruise? Nice!!! Hmm.. what? NO? |
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| So This is the One? *facepalm* |
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| A Mosque at European Side |
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| A Palace at European Side |
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| A Closer Look at the Palace |
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| Turkish Military School |
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| Crossing the 1st Bridge |
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| Buildings at European Side |
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| A Fortress!!! |
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| Here Comes the 2nd Bridge! |
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| Making a U-Turn |
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| Kucuksu Pavillon at Asian Side |
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| Rich People's Houses at Asian Side |
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| More Mosques at Asian Side |
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| Beylerbeyi Palace at Asian Side |
We had our Turkish lunch at Omar restaurant at Sultanahmet area and were given a choice of either Chicken kebab or minced Beef and Lamb kebab. Both were equally nice. The fragrant rice accompanying the dish was particularly drool worthy! Love it! One thing to note was:- meals that were included for ground tour in Turkey normally doesn’t include drink – you would have to buy the drink there in the restaurant yourself and the price was not cheap. A 500ml drinking water would cost you 2 Lira (1 EURO) so remember to budget in the drinks when you plan your tour!
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| Are we having Lunch at Burger King? No? |
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| What about McD? No? |
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| Omar Restaurant - Interior |
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| Let's have some Beer! It's Minty! |
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| Typical Turkish Appetizer! |
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| Chicken Set |
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| Minced Beef and Lamb Set |
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| Beautiful Interior of Ground Floor of Omar Restaurant |
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| The Whole Area is Full of Restaurants |
We continued with our afternoon tour to visit – Küçük Ayasofya Camii - a mosque more often known as Little Haghia Sophia Mosque.
Let’s do a Turkish Religion History lesson for dummy here:-
Pagan – BC period
Christian – Byzantine Period
Muslim – Ottoman till now (majority)
You must be wondering why I bother with this little lesson – well, it ties to the uniqueness of Turkish building architectures! For example, Little Haghia Sophia Mosque here was originally built as a Christian church (Church of Saints Sergius and Bacchus) in 6th century but was then converted into a mosque in the 15th century. Thus you can see the Byzantine style in a mosque.
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| So This is the Little Haghia Sophia Mosque |
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| The Building does look like a church if you ignore the Dome and the Minaret |
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| The Interior |
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| More Interior Shot |
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| Are there any Christian drawings underneath this? |
Topkapi Palace was our last destination of the day tour – by then we were clearly exhausted by the scorching weather. Basically Topkapi Place was the primary residence of Ottoman Sultans during Ottoman period. The place was huge! You have to walk pass the gate, the 1st courtyard, the 2nd courtyard before you can see the main building. Then photograph was not allowed inside the building, what a bummer. =(
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| Mosque near Topkapi Palace |
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| A Building near Topkapi Palace |
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| The Imperial Gate |
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| Church of Hagia Eirene at the 1st Courtyard |
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| The Gate of Salutation - the Gate to 2nd Courtyard |
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| The Tower of Justice? |
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| The Entrance of Imperial Council Hall |
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| A View from Topkapi Palace to Bosphorus |
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| The Hollow Tree |
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| More Pictures! |
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| More Buildings! |
We went back to the hotel after Topkapi Palace to check in and rested a bit – they provided complimentary wifi services and the line was fast! Hooray!
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| Daphne Hotel - Bathroom |
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| Daphne Hotel - The Bed |
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| Daphne Hotel - More Interior |
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| Daphne Hotel - Air Condition!!! Total Life Saver! |
We wandered out again around 7pm and walked around the Hippodrome area which was basically 3minutes walk away from our hotel. There was a Ramazan market (Yes, Turk calls it Ramazan rather than Ramadan in Malaysia) there so we got to try out some of their local specialties such as BOZA! It’s made of fermented millet, sugar and water served with cinnamon. According to the sign - It was full of carbohydrates and vitamins. Well, it tasted like sour flour actually. =p
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| Panoramic View from Daphne Hotel Rooftop, that's Sea of Marmara at the back... |
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| Chinese Restaurant just around the Corner |
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| Mini Market to get Cheap Water! |
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| The Ramazan Market! |
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| Let's BOZA!!! |
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| More Sweet Stuffs! |
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| Even more Sweet Stuffs! |
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| There is a Concert at the Square! |
There was a huge line forming in front of one of the restaurants near the area so we’d decided to join in the queue to buy one of their takeaway packing. Frankly speaking we didn’t even know what was inside! We just bought it for fun and it cost 7 Lira. It ended up being baguette with beef/lamb kebab inside. A bit too dry if you ask me – should be nicer if some sauces were added in.
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| What is this Long Queue about?! |
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| All the Queue for this Restaurant? |
We also finally found a money changer to get some Lira and tried out the local chestnut and ice cream. The chestnut was very hard and dry – I still prefer the Penang chestnut. The ice cream was something special though and the guy made a special show before he presented you with it. Thus this ended our long 1st day in Istanbul.
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| The Chestnut Stall |
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| Chestnut and the Mysterious Object from that Popular Restaurant |
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| So this is the Mysterious Object! |
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| Full of Meat inside! |
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| Wow! They are actually having picnic in the Square! |
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| In Front of Haghia Sophia Mosque with Simit (1 Lira)! We will visit this on Aug 21! |
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| The Turkish Ice Cream! 7 Lira! |
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| Another Mosque in Night View |
Masterpost (Click this to get to day by day link)
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