turkey adventure
8.50pm: Left home. Zhaoqi was so sweet; she volunteered to come over and send me off at the airport and also to lug my luggage. When I was busy searching for money to pay the cab driver, she’d gone to the boot to lift my luggage out (it was 22 kg!) :)
9plus: waited for the rest to come. Zhaoqi kept on trying to make me stay outside and not check in, which roused my suspicions. Indeed, she was attempting a delay tactic so that Cherri could come send me off.
10.10: Cherri arrived (though I wasn’t surprised for several reasons) but nevertheless, both zhaoqi’s and cherri’s actions are very touching… :)
I had a difficult time catching forty winks on the plane. So I kept on tossing and turning.
Arrived in Turkey, Istanbul at around 6.30am (Istanbul time). We caught a LRT to the hostel and settled our tour stuff (we were convinced by the owner of the hostel we lived in during our time in Istanbul on the first day to spend 2 full days in Cappadocia, rather than take overnight buses to check out Ephesus and Cappadocia since that would tire us out.)
Ate breakfast (had rice pudding), walked down the streets, traveled to explore the Istanbul area: the Blue Mosque, Hippodrome, Aya Sofya, the Basilica Cistern.
Day 2:
Captivating Cappadocia
We caught the overnight bus to Cappadocia- (all of us tried to catch some sleep along the way) and alas we reached our destination at 6plus in the morning.
After checking into our hotel, we proceeded for our guided tour to several locations in Cappadocia. The scenery was breathtaking (I’ve never seen anything like this before): the wind and weather had created conical shaped fairy chimneys and mushroom shaped ones out of the volcanic landscape. All of us climbed up the steep slopes leading up to the fairy chimneys (and boy, were the slops an uphill task since we had to watch our steps; should we step on loose sand, we’d lose our footing and slip a little.) Our little conquest to the fairy chimney ended pretty soon once we finished taking pictures.
Headed back to the hotel for lunch; once lunch was over, the tour guide brought us to the cave churches and the open air museum in Goreme (more climbing involved). The open air museum showcased the cave churches- some of the rooms were very well ventilated: in spite of the hot weather outside, the cave rooms were kept cool (and I still wonder why some were hot and stuffy while others were cool. Amazing!) There were several churches with murals painted on the walls and ceilings. Some of the rooms had this black stuff on the walls.. why? Because the people back then cooked in them! J Pam was clever to figure out first that these were kitchens. Other rooms had holes of varying sizes dug in the ground- some of these were graves.
They also carved dining rooms out of the rocks! J
We went back to the hotel, where the horse ranch’s staff were waiting there to pick us up for our horse-riding activity! J At the horse ranch, each of us was assigned to a horse and everyone picked up horse-riding pretty fast (except for me, I almost fell off my horse cos the saddle tilted to the side)! We rode past the Red River, and it was such a pretty sight! J too bad I was busy worrying about maintaining my balance on the horse that I couldn’t focus on appreciating the wonderful greenery around me.
Early Christians seeking to escape from persecution then carved out cave churches and pigeon homes from these rocks that were high and difficult to reach, in a bid to prevent enemies from climbing up. We were shown the cave churches in the Goreme open air museum. There were many murals on the walls and ceilings.
Went horse-riding in Avanos; I almost fell off my horse.. it was really difficult to control and my saddle was slipping off the horse.
Day 3:
Trekking in Cappadocia
There was this sense of dread at first. The itinery stated we had to walk 5km. Oh no.Upon arrival at the Red Valley, none of us were excited yet and the walk downhill was rather tedious (steep slopes again!) and we didn’t dare to think what it would be like if we had to climb the same way back up.. (thank goodness we didn’t)Halfway during the trek, the scenery made our climbing efforts worthwhile! There were dozens of great rocks, carved homes, gorgeous landscape- coupled with a fabulous tour guide who told us stories of history and geology. :) wonderful experience
Explored an underground city where early Christians used to live in while they were escaping persecution - the passages were just so narrow: these were meant to hinder the enemies’ movements. I think it worked splendidly. We seriously had such a hard time walking.
couple of things I've learnt in turkey:
1. eat rice with fork
2. we look jap/korean to them so we always have greetings from turkish people in the form of "annyeong haseyo" or "konnichiwa"
3. no fans and aircons in rooms which the heat gets to us real bad
4. morning- cool, late morning- hot, afternoon- extremely hot, like a boiling cauldron, night-wow, cooling
5. the turkish address customers as "my friend" :)
6. they love eggplant... (which i don't)
7. ...and sour stuff
8. ... and soup with mint (not my cup of tea)
Currently I'm attending the pre-meeting with the AP people, not touring anymore but here it's tons of fun too, just that it's the company that rocks the day now~! We're in the middle of nowhere cos the university is on a mountain and the sightseeing are on the European side of Istanbul. The university is on the Asian side so no sightseeing till the 30th of August. (anyway we've combed most of the touristy places in Istanbul- all that's left is the grand bazaar and the topkapi palace)
Anyway, AP rocks! :)
9plus: waited for the rest to come. Zhaoqi kept on trying to make me stay outside and not check in, which roused my suspicions. Indeed, she was attempting a delay tactic so that Cherri could come send me off.
10.10: Cherri arrived (though I wasn’t surprised for several reasons) but nevertheless, both zhaoqi’s and cherri’s actions are very touching… :)
I had a difficult time catching forty winks on the plane. So I kept on tossing and turning.
Arrived in Turkey, Istanbul at around 6.30am (Istanbul time). We caught a LRT to the hostel and settled our tour stuff (we were convinced by the owner of the hostel we lived in during our time in Istanbul on the first day to spend 2 full days in Cappadocia, rather than take overnight buses to check out Ephesus and Cappadocia since that would tire us out.)
Ate breakfast (had rice pudding), walked down the streets, traveled to explore the Istanbul area: the Blue Mosque, Hippodrome, Aya Sofya, the Basilica Cistern.
Day 2:
Captivating Cappadocia
We caught the overnight bus to Cappadocia- (all of us tried to catch some sleep along the way) and alas we reached our destination at 6plus in the morning.
After checking into our hotel, we proceeded for our guided tour to several locations in Cappadocia. The scenery was breathtaking (I’ve never seen anything like this before): the wind and weather had created conical shaped fairy chimneys and mushroom shaped ones out of the volcanic landscape. All of us climbed up the steep slopes leading up to the fairy chimneys (and boy, were the slops an uphill task since we had to watch our steps; should we step on loose sand, we’d lose our footing and slip a little.) Our little conquest to the fairy chimney ended pretty soon once we finished taking pictures.
Headed back to the hotel for lunch; once lunch was over, the tour guide brought us to the cave churches and the open air museum in Goreme (more climbing involved). The open air museum showcased the cave churches- some of the rooms were very well ventilated: in spite of the hot weather outside, the cave rooms were kept cool (and I still wonder why some were hot and stuffy while others were cool. Amazing!) There were several churches with murals painted on the walls and ceilings. Some of the rooms had this black stuff on the walls.. why? Because the people back then cooked in them! J Pam was clever to figure out first that these were kitchens. Other rooms had holes of varying sizes dug in the ground- some of these were graves.
They also carved dining rooms out of the rocks! J
We went back to the hotel, where the horse ranch’s staff were waiting there to pick us up for our horse-riding activity! J At the horse ranch, each of us was assigned to a horse and everyone picked up horse-riding pretty fast (except for me, I almost fell off my horse cos the saddle tilted to the side)! We rode past the Red River, and it was such a pretty sight! J too bad I was busy worrying about maintaining my balance on the horse that I couldn’t focus on appreciating the wonderful greenery around me.
Early Christians seeking to escape from persecution then carved out cave churches and pigeon homes from these rocks that were high and difficult to reach, in a bid to prevent enemies from climbing up. We were shown the cave churches in the Goreme open air museum. There were many murals on the walls and ceilings.
Went horse-riding in Avanos; I almost fell off my horse.. it was really difficult to control and my saddle was slipping off the horse.
Day 3:
Trekking in Cappadocia
There was this sense of dread at first. The itinery stated we had to walk 5km. Oh no.Upon arrival at the Red Valley, none of us were excited yet and the walk downhill was rather tedious (steep slopes again!) and we didn’t dare to think what it would be like if we had to climb the same way back up.. (thank goodness we didn’t)Halfway during the trek, the scenery made our climbing efforts worthwhile! There were dozens of great rocks, carved homes, gorgeous landscape- coupled with a fabulous tour guide who told us stories of history and geology. :) wonderful experience
Explored an underground city where early Christians used to live in while they were escaping persecution - the passages were just so narrow: these were meant to hinder the enemies’ movements. I think it worked splendidly. We seriously had such a hard time walking.
couple of things I've learnt in turkey:
1. eat rice with fork
2. we look jap/korean to them so we always have greetings from turkish people in the form of "annyeong haseyo" or "konnichiwa"
3. no fans and aircons in rooms which the heat gets to us real bad
4. morning- cool, late morning- hot, afternoon- extremely hot, like a boiling cauldron, night-wow, cooling
5. the turkish address customers as "my friend" :)
6. they love eggplant... (which i don't)
7. ...and sour stuff
8. ... and soup with mint (not my cup of tea)
Currently I'm attending the pre-meeting with the AP people, not touring anymore but here it's tons of fun too, just that it's the company that rocks the day now~! We're in the middle of nowhere cos the university is on a mountain and the sightseeing are on the European side of Istanbul. The university is on the Asian side so no sightseeing till the 30th of August. (anyway we've combed most of the touristy places in Istanbul- all that's left is the grand bazaar and the topkapi palace)
Anyway, AP rocks! :)
