Sights and Sounds in Istanbul

No sounds though!

Some pictures taken during our walkabouts.

Aya Sofia

It costs 20 Turkish Lira to enter. It used to be a church built during the Bryzantine Empire to rival the churches in Rome. Later when Istanbul or Constantinople was conquered by the Ottoman Turks, the Sultan ordered the building to be converted into a mosque. Mihrab and minarets were added. It served as a model for of the mosques during the Ottoman period. A good example is just across the square where another great mosque was built called the Sultan Ahmed mosque or the Blue mosque. We also saw a similar one in Cairo.

The inside of the Aya Sofia is really enormous. It remained as a mosque until 1935, when it was converted into a museum by Attaturk. Many books have been written on Attaturk the founder of the Republic of Turkey. He was a great reformist but he was also responsible for almost completely destroying the Islamic heritage and faith in the country. Indeed Turkey became a secular state. Nonetheless, there have been a strong resurgence of Islam in the country over the last few decades.

A Day at the Palace

To find a reasonably priced hotel is easy from the internet. The hotels are not as expensive as in Western Europe. Our hotel is ideally located for visiting as well as if looking for meal.

The famous Topkapi Palace is just a few streets away about 200m from our hotel. We were quite surprised to see a huge crowds of tourists today, indeed it is Sunday. There were long queues everywhere. We decided to do a self tour rather than following any organised tour as we are quite familiar with this part of the city.

One thing that has changed is the Turkish Lira. It used to be 5 million Lira for US$100. But nowadays the Lira has been revalued and is almost on par with Brunei dollars.

To enter the Topkapi Palace cost 20 Lira per person. We spend over three hours inside visiting the many interesting buildings and collections. One of the best place is the collections of the Prophet's and his Companions' relics. These are the relics that were brought from Mecca and Medina to Istanbul during the Ottoman Empire. The Ottoman Empire was the ruling empire over much of Middle East including the Arabian Peninsular back then from 1300 to 1900 AD.

Much of the power resided behind the gate of this huge palace. The concepts, customs and palace hierarchy of Sultanate were born and evolved in this very place. These were later replicated everywhere where ever a sultanate is established, from Oman to the Far East.

Another interesting part of the palace is the Harem or the 'forbidden' where only the Sultan and his family could enter. This is also where concubines were kept. But it is so ironic that such things exist during the Ottoman in what was always protrayed as a true example of great Islamic Empire and leadership. Indeed the walls were clearly and beautifully decorated with many Quranic verses and yet all the information plaques on the wall clearly explain the role of concubines and attitudes of the rulers there then. I could imagine what would be in the minds of foreign tourists who are visiting this place - Islamic artichitecture and caligraphy but here they also kept concubines.

Dervishes Dance

In the Bazaar

We headed to the grand Bazaar in the afternoon. It was about 20 minutes walk from our hotel. The bazaar is no doubt the largest in the world with over 4400 shops. Compare to our last experience here, the bazaar is a lot cleaner and busier.

The only things that have not changed are the friendly nature of the shop keepers there. We had a few funny moments, especially when haggling or bargaining stuff. In one of the shop we met this very chatty shop owner named Kadri. He told us he is also a part-time model and proud about it. He gave us a website where he was a model for a cloth-line. Later we checked it out and indeed that is him!

Start of the Journey Home

Left Holland for good this morning. We are doing a 'jejak rasul'. We are doing a series of stopovers on the way home. It is one of those things - if you don't ask you won't get it.

We took off early on Turkish Airlines heading for Istanbul. Our last time to this historic place was 12 years ago when the kids were still small. The Turkish Airlines had a bit of bad reputations lately due to a number of accidents but then they have amongst the newest fleet and is a rapidly expanding airline.

We are staying at a hotel in Sultanahmet which is the prime location for visiting the historic sites in Istanbul. I could not figure out what Sultanahmet means until now - it actually is originally a garden area built by one of the famous Ottoman's Sultan called Sultan Ahmet hence the name.

Our first impression of the city is it has made a major transformation since the last time we were here. The airport is modern and the surroundings are generally quite clean without any visible rubbish on the roadsides. This is quite a contrast to some of the Turkish 'ghettos' or housing areas in Holland where rubbish seems to be everywhere.

Istanbul has many more modern buildings and a new tram system that rivals any European cities now services the city. Indeed Turkey has been making a big effort in trying to elevate herself economically and trying to raise the standard of living and quality of life to be more in line with the rest of Europe. Alas a few attempts to enter the European Union has not come into fruition. It might just be because some EU members don't want an Islamic country to be a member of their union.

Visiting Nemo

Another day spent in Amsterdam. This time we went to the Science Centre known as Nemo. I always thought it was some sort of sea life centre because of the name and the building has the shape of a large ship. But it actually is a science centre.

It took about 15 minutes to walk from the Central Station going through a series of walk-bridges across the river.

Inside there was a lot of activities for the kids to do, we ended spending two hours there. The entrance tickets are a bit expensive though. There seemed to be a standard entrance fee for most centres and parks here in Holland. Nemo costs 12.50 Euro per person.

The Gay City

Today we left The Hague and moved to a hotel at Schiphol airport. In the afternoon we went to Amsterdam and Fiz was our guide for a walkabout to a part of the city that we have never been before. It was a two-hour walk, everyone were constantly complaining as our legs were aching.

The weather was also very hot at 30 Degrees and was quite unbearable. Amsterdam is famous for its many water canals and so the humidity is also on the high side. It feels like we were in the tropics. It was hot and sticky. Everyone were desperate for drinks and rest.

Nonetheless we did see quite a lot of things. We passed through many canals and saw plenty of tourists on canal cruise tours. The cruise operators definitely had a real busy time to cater the loads of tourists descending onto the city, mainly Japanese and Americans.

We dropped by one of the more famous museums - the Tulip Museum. Close to it is the Anne Franklin House. Everyone should know about it so I won't talk too much on it. There was a long queue. But like everything related to the holocaust, things like these are well set up to act as constant reminders for everyone. I just wish we have similar houses or centres to remind the current holocaust - the plights of our Palestine people.

Mee Laksam Kelantan

Kak Noriah graciously invited us for some mee laksam and nasi dagang at her house last night. Thanks to Kak Noriah and her family. It was quite nice and very thoughtful of her. And again this time something different, another of those traditional Kelantan dishes.

We are moving to Schiphol to today for a couple of nights stay before catching our flight.

As for yesterday, the weather hit the 30 Deg. C mark. Definitely it felt unusually hot and sticky. The beach was also crowded, so much so that people have to be asked to disembark the trams as there were too many passengers.

Fill to the Brink

All done. It took about two hours for the workers to arrange the 401 boxes properly. At the end the amount was just about right to fill up the 46-foot container to the brink. The stuff wwould then be driven straight to the port of Rotterdam and the ship is expected to leave tomorrow night. Sounds great!

It was then time for the house to be given back to the house agent. It has been a hard week clearing and cleaning up the house. At the end the agent was satisfied. In the meantime we have been staying at Novotel in the centre of The Hague, which is an ideal place to leave the kids as everything is just a step away. They have been keeping themselves busy while we were at the house with the packers. Don't know what they have been up to...

2nd Day Packing

Almost done except for a couple of big items. Labeling of the boxes still not finished though and it had already reached 362.

First Day Packing

The packers were already outside the house at 7.30 this morning. There were three of them, all of Polish nationality, another reminder that cheap labour from Poland are very much required everywhere in Europe to fill those labour-intensive jobs that the locals do not want. And off they started working. By 12 they have done the garage and the kitchen.

It will be three days of packing, but by the look of it will be done in two days. These guys are super quick. They were packing anything that stand in front of their eyes. As such we have to asked them to open one of the boxes as they have packed few things that were not supposed to.

Apples in our Eyes

We have an apple tree in our compound but never eaten even one single fruit. There are plenty of apples though, at one time a Dutch couple came over and we invited them to pick everything. It's just not the same when eating an apple from a tree compare to buying one from the supermarket. Funny...back home we always pluck any fruit from any tree and eat them straight. May be we are just not used to seeing apple trees. On top of that we not really apple lover.

Today the kids had a round of badminton game on the street in front of the house. It's very quiet today with hardly any car passing by even though it is Saturday. Just a few days ago I saw a car specially equipped with 360 degree view cameras passing by our street - it is one of those cars taking photos of street view for Google Earth and Google Maps. Nowadays one can 'walk' and view streets on Google before even visiting the places. That's what we did on a couple of occasions in the past to plan our trip to a number of cities. Sometimes people are caught in awkward situation when the street views were taken - so it is good if one sees this car passing by to stay indoor. It will probably take weeks or months before we could view our street on Google. Most of the main roads in Holland have already been done.

Friends and Neighbours

There are only few days left to meet up with our friends and neighbours to bid good bye. First and foremost is our 80 years old next door neighbour who lives on her own and is still very active. When we met her today, she said she was sad that we are leaving. She is such a lovely neighbour.

Then there are the Dutch and expatriate neighbours along our street who are very friendly.

In town, there is this very chatty guy called Barry who runs his father's "Will's Pancake House". We always enjoy eating the poffertjes or small pancakes at this shop. And every visitors that we managed to bring there were never disappointed with the poffertjes and were always amazed as to how tasty the poffertjes are. Barry was also willing to teach us how to prepare the poffertjes, quite simple actually, and hopefully we could replicate that when are back home.