England: Day 6

1) What else do people do in Manchester....visit Manchester United stadium!! A dream come true for my dad and bros. Wished I was a die-hard fan myself.

The Manchester United TrinityHeading towards the old Trafford stadium...wheee!!In the player's changing roomWatching the match from the player's seat! O.M.G.

2) We dropped by my cousin's university, Manchester University to take pictures!3) And took away lunch and ate in the car coz we had 3 hours to drive and a play to catch.

4) Watched the Lion King musical at Lyceum Theatre. It was good :) :) Except the Simba actor had a rather feminine voice. If not, everything else was fantastic!5) Celebrated my parent's anniversary dinner at Covent Garden. 27 years of marriage is no joke and I've learnt that its not always picture perfect... but whats important is the determination to stick together as a family. Ps I loveee Covent Garden! Its a place I would definitely visit again or maybe stay at when I come visit London again.
^8 Cee

England: Day 3

London

Its meet my aunties day! Havent seen them in ages. One of em since like 17 yrs ago.

1) Anyway, we went to Maroush on Argyle. Best Moroccon food! The meat was super tender. But no picture of the food coz I keep forgetting to take pictures.
Lalink, who is already like my mum's other daughter, was at lunch too! :) havent got to spend as much time as this with her for a very very long long time.

2) In between meeting the two aunts. We managed to visit the 4-storeys Topshop, H&M and the likes....But it was so crowded (Monday was a public holiday - ie Bank day). It was suffocating. But we managed to find ourselves a set of awesome dress to camwhore in the dressing room.

Ta-daaah

But seriously, even with the depreciation of the pounds, I still think Topshop is overpriced for its clothes.

3) Anyway just wanted to end this post with these pictures here.


Resemblance, no?

^8 Cee

Turkiye: Day 11

ISTANBUL
Gunaiden! (Oh yes forgot to teach you that thats Good Morning in Turkish)...Hehe sounds like goodnight

1. We rented out a boat to cruise along the Bosphorus Straits.

Usually they serve tea as a gesture to welcome. But this conniving ass served us tea (in fact pushed it towards us) and after charge us all double of what it usually costs.

This is Dolmabahce (remember 1st day) from Bosphorus' view

my 2 lovelies

The yacht to match the 20million houses along the Straits.
Pffft *Cough* only 20mil

One of the 2 bridges connecting Eastern & Western Turkey

2. Next was the Spice Bazaar. Relatively small compared to the Grand Bazaar but its less packed which is yaaay!

A typical spice standYea sure...

Ppl here must really like their viagras (see Day 8)

3. Hagia Sophia.
Was a church (In fact the largest for about 1000 yrs till about the 16th century) -> mosque -> museum. Beautiful.

As you see, the plaque Allah (god) and Muhammad (prophet), coexist with the image of Mother Mary with Baby Jesus in the middle

Christian mosaics dated from the 12th century

Interior

Exterior

^8

Turkiye: Day 10

ISTANBUL
Wooo hoo back in Istanbul. Definitely one of my fav cities :)
1. Blue Mosque. We get to go in this time. Its actually officially the Sultan Ahmed Mosque but was nicknamed Blue because of the blue tiles and painting on the domes and etc. Beautiful.

Inside. The wires leading to the original oil lamps (replaced by electric now of course)Outside

2. McDonalds for lunch. We were so happy not to be served lentil soups and bland kebabs for once. Oh and everything in Turkey is halal. Bliss.
3. When it rains, it pours! The winds were so strong.

4. The Grand Bazaar (Turkish: Kapalıçarşı, meaning Covered Bazaar) is one of the largest and oldest covered markets in the world, with more than 58 covered streets and over 1,200 shops which attract between 250,000 and 400,000 visitors daily. Opened in 1461, it is well known for its jewelry, pottery, spice, and carpet shops. (I wiki'ed). But its like a maze in here. And you can only imagine how hectic and chaotic with merchants it was 500 yrs ago. But its pretty much a tourist place nowdays...prices are damn marked-up that bargaining 50% off is not enough. But still very much worth a check out!

In one of the shops that sells lamps and lights. After this picture was taken, the whole grand bazaar blackout-ed for hours...and boy it was an experience navigating and haggling through the maze...but FUN!

5. Kervansaray. Dinner night show. More folk dance and belly dance. Very entertaining :)

One of the stints. A guy threw knife on the board here from a distance from his mouth blindfolded! Oh and you see the Malaysia flag? Every table had a national flag and one of the entertainer sang each of our home country's song. Malaysia's was Rasa Sayang.

I got called up again to join their folk dance. Do I look like I have a 'pull me up' sign on my forehead or something? Should have called my sister, she's the more sporty one when it comes to dancing in front of a crowdThere were 4 belly dancers each with their own individual skills. But by far Asena (picture) is the belle of em all! Dude it was like an earthquake watching her move. Asena is the best anywhere around the world I've seen so far....aaand I just found out that she is Turkey's #1 bellydancer. No surprise there. Ok more googling have led me to this: She has performed at Mig Jagger's concert,Tina Turner's birthday, Queen Elizabeth's palace and special performance for Bill Clinton. No wonder laaa. But if you're into belly dancing, also google Didem (turkey's latest craze)..both taught by the same master sema (asena's mum).

^8

Turkiye: Day 8

CAPPADOCIA
1. Kaymakli Underground City

It was used as a shelter and was believed to be there since the Hitite period which is probably thousands of years before christ (ie caveman area-ish i guess??). It is called a city because it was so huge. It could fit 60,000 ppl. This underground city is 40m under and about 8 levels down. Tourist were allowed through the first four levels. Its always 17degrees throughout all the seasons in the year and it gets hotter the deeper you go (towards centre of the Earth). There were bedrooms, storage areas, kitchen, wineries, communal centres etc etc...

Stone door to keep the enemies away. Easy to push from the inside but not from the outside.

2. Somewhere around Cappadocia...3. Have you seen what happens when Popeye eats Spinach...click to enlarge
ANKARA

Ankara is the capital of Turkey... not Istanbul not since Ataturk made the sultans leave within 24/48 hours. Thats coz the Sultans were sellouts to The Allies since the defeat of the Ottoman empire in World War I. Location wise, its pretty central in terms of it being crossroads for trade in Turkey. When we arrived in Turkey the bus drove through streets of shopping. Wheee!! After weeks in suburbia... and all the signs had a big fat discount sign on it. We reached our hotel, checked in, ate and left and the shops were closeeeee :(((( So we ended up just walking about their equivalent of petaling st...well more like a pasar malam (night market)

^8 Cee

Turkiye: Day 7

CAPPADOCIA
1. Cappadocia Carpet

Silk worm and its fine threadOnly in Turkey are the carpet double knotted

The carpet that was 12 years in the making. Of course the kids just had to jump on it. Anyway, these carpets are said to last for 3 generations. My cousin bought some and told my niece that she can tell her daughter one day that grandma bought it (thought that was pretty cool)

2. Goreme Open Air Museum.

There used to be civilisation up in these rocks here. Actually the holes you see in the pictures used to be hidden. But erosion (first caused by cracks->snowed on top->melted and goes deeper into crack->freezes again and become ice, causing the crack to expand->etc etc) caused parts of the rocks to fall off and eventually exposing the civilisation inside.

Group shot :)Chapels inside one of the rocks. Chapels in Goreme were said to be built in the 300 A.D. 1300 years ago and see how wonderful the paints still are. Below is the original paint made up of red clay from the river nearby.Later on when they had more money they plastered above the original and did frescoes. If you notice the eyes are chipped off. Some believed that the eye acted as some form of amulet and either carried around with them or mixed it to drink

3. Backstage pottery making.

Pottery making knowledge is traditionally handed down to the men in the family. In this town, if a man did not know how to pottery make he couldnt marry because he would be considered of no profession and unable to support a family. Place we went to visit was in a cave as it has been since 7 generations ago!

The 'intricate-ness' of pottery designI had a go at it too!!

Some display of the works produced

4. Went downtown, 15 minutes walk from our hotel (7 mins drive from Goreme). The town is really something special at night. Dont quite know how to describe it and perhaps closest to it is to imagine living in the Flinstones era!!

^8 Cee

Turkiye: Day 6

KONYA
They use coal to keep warm. A very polluted city.

But we were there because it was town of Rumi, the most famous Sufi poet, mystic and theologian.

Sufism is the mystical side to Islam. It is in which Muslims seek to find divine love and knowledge through direct personal experience of God. Sufis seclude themselves for months and meditate to ends to open up a different way of thinking and reach a different level of devotion and Love for God. Self-discipline and concentration on God leads to the belief that by quelling the self and through loving ardour for God it was possible to maintain a union with the divine in which the human self melted away (ie: state of non-existence). Rumi believed passionately in the use of dance, poetry and music as a path for reaching God. The whirling dervishes, a mystical journey, became a ritual in Sufism because of him.

He not only appealed to the Eastern world but also the Western as he was the "most popular poet in America" in 2007 (800 yrs after his death). Yay! I got hold of his book :) His poetry is an observation of nature around him and Love only for God. My cousin debated that if you were to follow Rumi's teaching then there is no room to love another. True, perhaps. But I want to be in love with another! There must be a way and to which what I discovered gave me goosebumps and a sudden jolt of humility. I reasoned that Rumi believed that God is within everyone and every being. And this justifies one to love another :)

But to follow it in the strictest sense, to love everything and everyone around you and to see God in everything and will to them as you will to God brings you to humility as everything around you is far more divine and strips you of your ego self.

I know I shall be filled with love of life if this is what I breathe but (i) I do not exclusively belief in a higher order/power and (ii) even if I do...even if I do have a leap of faith, this is too much for me to comprehend, too big of a change of how I see life and imaginably too crazy of a life...how do I even start by seeing God in us.

CAPPADOCIA
1. Reached Cappadocia in the evening. Some parts were used in the Star Wars movie! DUH coz its so out of this world!

2. At night, we went out to Yasar Baba to be entertained by some folk dance and traditions and ceremonies

Fire dance outside. So full of energy.Belly dancing. My cousin got pulled up to dance with her and lets just say he was more than eager to go *grins*

^8 Cee