Istanbul (New Year 2010) - A very belated entry

This way to Istanbul

Actually, our year-end holiday plan could be called an Ad-Hoc one because I initially planned to take my family to Tehran. That was my plan from a few months ago. I made a promise to my wife that I will take them somewhere for a vacation when I have a 4 day weekend during the New Year break.

Due to the instability in the Iranian capital, I turned to Cairo. But, unfortunately the Economy Class seats were all sold out. Only the Peak Economy seats were left vacant and at the price that I couldn’t afford.

One of my colleagues suggested Istanbul. I checked the flight tickets, searched for the accommodations... and the rest I will share later... in a nut shell (I am not much of a writer...)

30/12/09
I went to have my hair cut in the morning. All the things to bring with us to the Turkish capital were already packed.

At about 12:00 noon we left the house to catch the taxi to the airport.
We brought:
1. One suitcase of clothes
2. One small bag of food items and
3. Two knap-sacks and my wife’s laptop computer
4. Our Sony H-50 camera and the Nikon compact as a back-up
This was actually considered light for our standards.

Upon arrival at the airport, we checked in our two larger bags at the self check-in kiosk and went on to the passport control and the departure hall.

We performed Jama’ and Qasr for Dzuhur and ‘Asar at the prayer room and walked to the boarding hall for our flight to Istanbul... EK121. We checked in at Terminal 3, but had to walk all the way to Terminal 1 for boarding. But since everybody was in a good mood, nobody complained.

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The flight took us to Istanbul in about 4-4.5 hours. We didn’t have any problems with the immigration and the luggage delivery.... everything went well (except that they didn’t informed us at which carousel our luggage should be collected from).

Coming out from the Arrival Hall, there were so many people around, most travel agents, waving the placards with names on them. I was looking around for my name when my wife said, “there it is...”. In capital letters “HAZA HILMY ZEAN”.

The agent ushered us to a corner as he was also waiting for some other passengers. After about ½ hour of waiting, he took us out to the waiting shuttle bus (a big van, actually). We got the first taste of Istanbul’s weather.... It was not very cold to my standard (I’ve experienced colder temperature when I was in Iran) but not to my family. They never experienced this kind of weather before (which was why I wanted to take them for the winter vacation in the first place).

The trip to the hotel took us from the Ataturk International Airport to the heart of Istanbul in about half an hour’s time.

The taxi stopped a few meters from the hotel, Star Holiday Hotel, just in front of Diva Nyolu Cadesi (or Diva Nyolu Street). It will be our home for the next 3 nights. It wasn’t very cold actually... except when the wind blew.

We checked in and with the help of the hotel staff, climbed three flights a narrow staircase to our room, a quad-room, in the 3rd floor. The room wasn’t that big for a quad-room... there was hardly any space to walk around... but we were not actually planning to stay in the room all day.
The room has 3 beds; 2 in the front and there’s another one, a bigger one, in a small “sub-room”. It’s separated from the rest of the room by a door-way.

Once we were settled in, we went out to see the night-life... It was about 8pm and quite chilly...even at night we could see that Istanbul is a beautiful city.

The night out in Sultanahmet

We walked around the Sultanahmet area... checking out the sights and sites... took some pictures... and went back to the hotel when Apit was beginning to have one of his “Apit penat lah...” acts...

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31/12/09
We were awakened by the Fajr Azzan... from multiple directions... for a country without any official religion in its constitution, Islam is something special here... historically and spiritually. We can see from afar, there were a lot of mosques (camii in Turkish) in Istanbul and when it comes to azzan, every mosque would seem to try to outdo its neighbour. The closest mosque to our hotel was the Agha Firdaus Camii and the Sultanahmet Camii (or the Blue Mosque).

We went to have breakfast at the 4th floor terrace... just overlooking the Blue Mosque. If we panned our view to the left, we would see the Haghia Sophia (or Aya Sofiya), a one-time cathedral, then a mosque and now a museum.

The breakfast was simple... freshly baked bread (the size of a small coconut), hard-boiled egg, cheese, some pickles, fresh olive, thinly-sliced sausages, tea and coffee, fresh milk... but it’s enough to keep us full until lunch-time.

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Inside the boat - Bosphorus Cruise

The agenda for today will be the Bosphorus Cruise. So, we took the tram from Sultanahmet station, past Gulhane and Sirkeci stations towards Eminonu station. We got off and went directly to the Eminonu Port just a few meters away from the tram station. It was about 1045am.

The official Bosphorus Cruise boats were already departed and we chanced upon some people who offered the “mini-cruise” for TL20 per head.... Apit would get to ride for free.

So, off we went... from the quay just adjacent to Galata Bridge towards Bosphorus Bridge... one of the two bridges connecting the European and Asian sides of Istanbul. The other one being Fatih Sultanmehmet Bridge, about 7km up the Bosphorus Strait from Bosphorus Bridge.

The view was ultimately breathtaking... the undulating movements of the small boat were almost forgotten and ignored... the only thing that made us dizzy was the smell coming from the diesel engine. We were with about 20-30 more tourists on the boat... most of them looked European or Caucasian.... I think we were the only Asians on the boat. We saw the Dolmabahçe Palace, which used to be the administrative centre of the Ottoman Empire as well as the Presidential resident of Kamel Attaturk.

On the boat - Bosphorus Cruise

We also saw so many beautiful buildings... seagulls and cormorants were everywhere, feeding in the waters of the Bosphorus, perching on the side of the jetty or simply flying along following the boats.

At Beylerbeyi town park

Our small boat made a u-turn upon crossing under Fatih Sultanmehmet bridge and made a stop-over at a small town of Beylerbeyi, just next to the Asian side of Bosphorus bridge. We spent about an hour there, appreciating the weather and the view and taking pictures.

At about 130pm, we board the boat for the last leg of the trip; a return leg to Eminonu. We arrived about 40 minutes later. Since we hadn’t had lunch yet, I bought a fish sandwich at a nearby stall. A meal of the sandwich and soda cost just TL5. To kill the fishy taste, you had to eat it with some salt and lemon juice. We finished the small lunch and headed to the next destination which was the Masir Carsisi or Egyptian Bazaar or the Spice Bazaar.

It was the 2nd largest bazaar in Istanbul after the Grand Bazaar. We weren’t planning of doing any shopping, so each of us pick a small souvenir for ourselves and a few more for friends and family.... that was it.

We went back to the hotel to take a much needed rest. We were planning to go to Taksim Square that night to watch the new year celebration.

After solat (about 630pm) we went out and have Turkish kebab dinner at a road-side restaurant halfway between the tram station and our hotel. We had our first taste of authentic Turkish cuisines and the aromatic and tasteful Turkish apple tea.

Then, we took the tram towards Kabatas station. Kabatas is the last tram station in the Zeytinburnu-Kabatas tramway. After that, we had to take the Taksim Fenikuler train. It is a train system that connects Kabatas and Taksim Square. It actually runs up the hill towards Taksim Square in an underground tunnel. The train itself was design to tilt at about 40o – 45o.

Taksim Square is located on top of hill.... it serves at the gathering points for Istanbulis.... equivalent to our own Merdeka Square. It is a place where people gather for almost everything from demonstrations to celebrations. But we didn’t wait for midnight because judging by the in-coming traffic of people, we were sure that at midnight there would probably be no place for us to even sit down.

So, after taking a few snaps of pictures, we decided to leave Taksim Square. We went down the stairs to the Fenikuler station to buy the tokens for the ride back. That was when I realized that my wallet was gone.... (but I don’t want to tell sad stories here....maybe another time.... just maybe)... hehehe. Luckily, we still have some TLs because I split the TLs between my wife and me.

So, we went back to the hotel and called it a day.

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01/01/2010

Ain and Apit enjoying themselves at the Blue Mosque ground

I went to settle some issues in the morning and promised to meet my family after Jumaat solat. It was the first experience for me to listen to the Friday sermon and perform solat with tourists all around me, sitting on the outer rim of the square. I guess, on Fridays, they don’t restrict visitors to the Blue Mosque or Sultanahmet Camii for Muslims only.

I rendezvous-ed with the family later, right after I finished doing some errands and the ‘Asar prayers. We went for a tour around the Sultanahmet Mosque and Aya Sofiya. Unfortunately, we didn’t get to enter Aya Sofiya as it was already late and the visitors’ entrance already closed. We just took some pictures and went instead to the Topkapi Museum. On the way there, we stopped by the road-side shops because my wife was looking to buy some souvenirs to bring home.

The museum was also closed by the time we arrived at the entrance, and once again we were only able to take pictures outside the huge museum complex. We walked back to our hotel......the kids were already tired and in need of a rest.

We had dinner in the room... just to finish off the food that we brought with us... When kids were settled down, my wife and I decided to go out and experience the cool Istanbul night, just the two of us.

We took a walk along the tramway towards Gulhane tram station... taking some pictures along the way... while appreciating the wonderful Istanbul night.

We got back at about 1100pm... tomorrow would be our last day in Istanbul.

Me and Hotel Manager, Mr Altin Decko

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02/01/2010
We got up early and started packing our things after breakfast. After bidding farewell to our host, we took the tram to Ataturk Airport.

From Sultanahmet station, we travelled by tram to Zeytinburnu station. It’s a transit station to the airport. From Zeytinburnu, we took the Metro line towards Havilamani (airport).
The journey took us just under one hour.... and it rained and hailed halfway through the tram and metro ride.

We arrived at Ataturk Airport, checked in, perform Dzuhur and ‘Asar prayers (Jama’ and Qasr), had a light lunch at BK and went straight to the boarding gate.

That’s the end of our Istanbul trip... but deep in our hearts, we knew that 2-3 days were not actually enough for us to really experience Istanbul. We made a silent promise that we will return one day, one fine day, InsyaAllah.