I couldn’t sleep. O.o haih.. I think I was excited. Well, since Istanbul in by the sea side. There were seagull. The sound of seagull is quite clear in Turan’s house. So it actually kept me awake. I was up at 7am in the morning. But the seagull was not a problem, it was really cool for me because it reminded me that I am not in Malaysia. AT ALL. Since Istanbul had 2 sides, the Asia side and the Europe side, Turan’s house is on the Europe side. So the seagull, the colour of the houses and the structure really made me felt like I am in Europe ( and the food too as they do eat cheese and bread.. :p) The moment QB woke up she asked what time I woke up I told her at 7am she was groaning ‘early early….’ Haha.. ah well, the time difference do affect me as well. So 7am is actually 12 pm in Malaysia. So that’s the other reason as well. Anyways, we started off the day by well.. Qb cleaning the house (see.. cleaning? ) and then, Asle brought some fish bread. This fish bread is special as the fish was caught from the bridge ( the ones that was in Istanbul aku datang..wiii~~) and then the fish was served inside the bread with onion and salad. The fish was really fresh so the taste was great. I skipped.. hahha… ah well. Anyways, so for the day we need to go back to Qb’s house but her brother wanted to have iftar at the seaside before we go back. QB packed some leftovers and some spinach dish and off we go to have iftar at Balat ( the name of the seaside). It was really beautiful. I can see the blue sea, the houses on the other side and the water plane..eerrr.. not sure what it is..ala. the ones that uses water float and is a plane as well.. you know what I mean? Hahha.. we saw it took off to the sky. Really a great view. Ahh..it was amazing to see that this was happening in the middle of the city. Cool right? So we took pictures and pick a spot to have the iftar. A picnic for iftar, how great is that? We even bought some tea after that and chatted for a while and went back home. That marks the end of 3rd day. Wiii~~~ check these pics~~~
The fish bread! this is famous apparently in Istanbul
lemme give u a selfie~~
ahh.. tht's us! From the left side QB, Asle (QB's sis in law), Turan(QB's bro) and well..me (if u dont know me yet by now. hahah)
“Walter Mitty: To see the world, things dangerous to come to, to see behind walls, draw closer, to find each other, and to feel. That is the purpose of life.” ― James Thurber
I ate in the morning and QB were doing her cleaning (u will see how much I
will repeat this word and the sound of vacuum, literally when I am writing this
post somebody from other houses is using vacuum and I can hear it. Hahaha see?
). Okay, here is the thing, women in Turkey clean a lot.. like a lot, a lot!
Their house is clean and neat. They do not have much stuffs in the house.
Everything is compact. So they need to arrange stuffs accordingly. In order to
do that they need to clean so that the house won’t look as messy. After QB
cleaned the house, we went to Turan’s house (QB’s brother), finally the
internet (forgot to bring charger for lappy haha) , went to Javahir the mall
with the security check, bought some éclair, and went back. Got some scenaries
footage for that too. Asle (Turan’s
wife) trying hard to speak in English to entertain me so it was really funny..
adoiyai. Just to actually get me watch the tv. I got to say she really tried
hard. As there were the use of internet we actually translate each other’s word
(let’s get Asle to actually speak English ) hahaha~ . Anyways, we watched
Walter Mitty while trying to have a conversation. So haha.. the tv was not even
necessary actually. I got to know that Turan and Asle wanted to have a baby so
Asle had IVF so that is why they are at home and taking a break. Qubra was
cooking for iftar that day, she cooked kofte, which is meatball and some
tomatoes and cheese. Each meatball were wrapped in slices of eggplant. It was
really delicious. QB can really cook~! waHHHH… there were also some tomato salad
and yogurt soup with rice ( I know right? How weird was that? Well, for me the
taste is actually great. That is, if you like yogurt. You know what I mean?
) After Iftar we had chit chat, and QB
made some Turkish tea. We drink it with some sweet snacks that was in the
house. With you know one of those tiny glasses that Turkish people use for tea.
It just made the whole thing kinda special. So that marks the end of day 2 in
Turkey. J
Eclair~!! I like these.. only 1 Turkish Lira!!!!
The flavour that I pick. Choco chip and Pistachio.. Nice. they tasted like ice cream for me. I ate it in 1 bite. haha~
The Kofte that QB cooked! DELICIOUS!!!
Turkish tea in those little cup! cute!!
Me and QB at Javahir Mall.. Wiii~ See the coat colour on QB? Bright red~!!! woahhhh~~~
Lemme just
refreshed back what happened since the last I wrote (my diary that is…so that I
won’`t forget but now so lazy to write back. I think I am gonna do the video
for that). So I stopped at Doha for the transfer and wait for a while in the
airport to Turkey. I got to say that the journey from Doha to Turkey was a bit
unexpected. I was hoping nobody would seat next to me just like the previous
flight. But, somebody came in the last minute. She was rushing in and the first
thing that she asked was ‘Are you a staff, crew member?’. I was laughing my ass
off because of this, like imagine I am really a crew member .. hahahha~~~~ but
of course not in front of her, instead I said no and smiled. Since the flight
was pretty long. We got to know each other. She actually was the flight
attendant of Qatar airways who was on the way back to Turkey for holidays. We
talked a lot and ask about each other’s’ culture. It was pretty fun. The four
hours flight didn’t feel as long as it supposed to be. I was quite lucky to
have met her. Needless to say, she helped me in the airport when we arrived in
Turkey. We passed by the immigration very fast and we found the luggage belt
immediately after that. It was easy as she knows what to do. I think I got out
of the airplane and out of the airport in within 15minute. It was fast thanks
to her. We say goodbyes and I headed to the arrival hall and there QB is
already waiting for me. =)
The view from the seat that morning. Cool huh?
Let me
trace back the story a little bit, when I was in the airplane I got to see some
sceneries of Turkey from above the air. It was really beautiful. The sea was
blue, there are several boats and I saw the structure of the houses surrounding
the area. I got to say, Istanbul is huge. There were houses everywhere. The
airport was really near to housing area. And at one point I even saw a sail
near a port. It was really a nice view.
As I got out of the airport, the sun was shining and it was hot. The weather was hot like in Malaysia (that was what I thought back then… >.<..haha). QB picked me up by car and we headed to her house. On the journey to her house, I saw a lot of things. Everything is different here. They have a road just for the buses. It was cool to see. I can’t wait to try it. Simple things that made excited. Haha. Anyways, as we are entering the neighborhood of QB’s house, I realized that people is actually everywhere, literally. Not like Malaysia, we have a lot of people but not this kind of ‘a lot’. They were walking on the bridge, on the sidewalk, crossing the road. God, everywhere. Then, QB told me a fun fact, the population of Istanbul is the whole population of Malaysia. So imagine, the people of Malaysia cramped into 1 place. It was amazing to see. So we arrived at her house. QB is currently living in a flat with her family. It looked small on the outside but it was quite spacious on the inside. The flat in Turkey for me is different than the flat in Malaysia. They kinda looked nice, at least for me. I met her mother and her niece, Hanne. Her mom hugged me, as I am being ‘qila’.. haha.. as usual I surrender. But it was something like a culture I guess. If we malays ‘salam’ the elders, in Turkey they hugged twice with each other. Even when QB’s big sis and sis in law came afterwards did the same thing. I had to learn that. Moving on, funny things about the turkey houses, they don’t own a fan. Bukanlah takde, they have, but a portable ones. They don’t own them in every room. Like seriously, they don’t. I was thinking on how did they survived? Well, remember I told you the weather is hot, well…after I took the bath I changed my mind. The shower was cold, not that it cannot be changed to hot. But the natural state of the water is cold. And I didn’t really like hot showers so I had the cold shower. It was nice since I was sweating from the running around for transfer. I kinda understand why they didn’t need the fan after that, one of the things is that the wind blows from the outside to the inside of the house. The wind that I am talking about is the cool ones. It was different, like air conditioner ‘kind of’ wind. Hahahha. If that make sense to you. So fan was not really a need.
The view from QB's house~~!! Awesome.. The flat are all colourful and cute. I love it~!!
We went out to pick up some stuffs after a while. I need to change the currency and get the adapter as mine cannot be used. So off we go walking on the street at around 4pm. The sun shines and the wind blows. The air felt different here. The smell of the food was really tempting. It was awesome to walk in the street with people bumping each other, the sound of the honk and people talking and chatting while walking. That was the first time I kinda trying to take it all in. The shop lots are endless. So I guess the shops can survived because people are walking. They buy stuffs while walking and sightseeing. Moving on, let me tell you about the food. The bakery do looked nice here. I felt like I wanna buy everything~!! The kebab, the nut, the baklava shops are like everywhere. They showcase their dishes on the window so I get to see them. Seriously they looked delicious. They even arranged it properly to make it look nice. As we walked down the street, there are people cueing for the atm. Like in the middle of nowhere. Seriously. That was interesting for me because can you imagine you walked and suddenly there were people cueing in front of you. And there it was ATM. It was different so that’s why I noticed. We finally arrived at the money changer. I changed only a little bit, just for the day. So apparently, 30 US Dollar is 60 Turkish Lira. Oh, in Malaysia we cannot change from Malaysian Ringgit to Turkish Lira directly. So what we need to do is to change it to Dollars and change back to Turkish Lira when you arrived to Turkey. After counting (with a few mistakes here and there, if you know me, my maths is not that great >.<) , 1 Turkish Lira is equal to 1.5 Malaysian Ringgit. So the currency is not that bad.
Baklava!!!! Yes, I post this pic on instagram! They looked yummy huh?
I am not sure what this is but I want to eat them!
See? the bread.. they have lots of bakery~~~ this is one of the view that I can see from outside..the smell is heaven!
This is the mosque near QB's house. It is beautiful. and can you believe that there is actually a supermarket beneath it? weird but true...
Ok, so we went back home and I got kinda felt sleepy because of the time difference. Malaysia is 5 hours earlier than Turkey. So when we went back it was already 5pm in Turkey and around 10pm in Malaysia. Top up with the flight journey I was asleep in within few minutes we got home. QB woke be up when they are breaking their fast as her mom already cooked delicious food. I couldn’t take a picture because I felt that it was err.. not nice… (haih.. being paranoid… T________T) Anyways, so her mom cooked some chicken with potatoes and rice. Plus tomato salad, eggplant and yogurt soup. Yes… yogurt soup. I have a story to tell about this later on..haha. wait for that post yeah? J Anyways, the fooodddd~~~ it was crazy deliciousssssssssssssssssss~~ god, the chicken!! Writing it makes me drool..haih.. food… and the rice, the rice was really nice. They put oil, salt, and hot water and some er… sehriye like some kind of pasta. Macam mihun kot tapi pendek-pendek and tak byk dalam nasi uh. Just a little bit. But god, it was really delicious. I kinda ate the same thing in the next morning so I do had the picture of the rice and chicken.
Chicken and rice~!! wohooo... this is deliciousss!!! her mom can really cook..
After that we had a chat in the balcony at around 11pm I think. Something interesting happened. Haha. Well, when I was waiting for QB in the balcony, there was a basket like came out of nowhere in front of my face. Then I realize the basket was coming from upstairs. Remember I told you that people here lives in flat? So Qb’s house is in the 2nd floor, so there were people living upstairs. So inside the basket there were something. QB explained that the basket contained money, and then when the basket was on the ground a kid put something in the basket and the people upstairs pull it up. The point of this whole thing was actually to buy stuffs. Meaning the basket was used to buy things because the people living upstairs didn’t wanna come down. QB explained that they can call the people in the shop and that person would put the things that they want in the basket. So we just need pull it up without having the fuss to go up and down the stairs. How interesting was that? Things that are not in Malaysia. J
I got to take the pic several days later. so here it is the hanging basket with stuffs inside to be pull upstairs. cool huh? :)
So that
marks my journey of the first day. It was awesome, great, cool and all the nice
words that can describe Istanbul. It was really a good day to start off my
journey. That’s all for now. There will be other posts coming up as this is
just the beginning. Wait for it yeah? =)
Xoxo,
Q
p.s: nak
bajet macam Lisa Surihani dalam ‘Istanbul aku datang’ boleh tak? Hihi :DD
Have you ever wonder if there are other people who have the
same name as yours? I’m sure everyone googled their own name before. If you did
not do it yet, please go and do it now. I’m sure you will find some interesting
things out there. The typical findings would be:
Your university Id, facebook, twitter, blogs, email, and of
course, other people who have the same name as yours.
Well, for me, I googled my name a long time ago. (This was
before I have a gmail account. If you google now, you end up having to find my
g+ acc. ) I couldn’t find anything except for a blog which have the exact name
as mine with the title "From Kota Tinggi with Love".
Funny thing is that, I actually don't own any blog at the time. Pretty
excitedly I clicked the blog and read through. The owner actually was a girl.
Her name was Anis. She actually had a lot of followers. She wrote about her
life, what’s going on and stuffs. The name, Nadzirah Aqilah, actually was the
mash up of her sister’s name. She made it as her pen name.
So, from then on I
would check out her blog. Truthfully saying, I did not check it except for when
I have the ‘needs’ to search for my own name. Then I would remember about her.
Oh well~! So it is not that frequent. I always have the urge to tell her that
there are other people using her pen name as a real name. Even more, I wanted
to tell her that it was a privilege because she seemed proud of the name.
But,
you know, the things that you always wanted to do, always been the things that
you wanted to do. It has never been done. I guess you can never know the
future. Little that I know, a couple of months back, I have the urge to search
for my name again. So her blog pops out and it was a post about being in UTM. I
was quite excited. I wanted to comment and stuffs but I felt that something was
wrong. I already type a looooong post (abt being in utm and what’s she’s doing)
to comment, but I at last did not click the button to share. The blog wasn’t updated
quite a long time. I scrolled to the newest post. It was a post from her
sister. Anis met an accident and passed away a few months back.
Seriously, I
have never thought things like this would happen. It seemed like she was loved
by all of her friends and family. I’m very sure the whole family missed her so
much. Funny when we think about time. It moves forward and never goes back. We
can reminisce on our past but we can never look into our future. Until this
day, if I type my name, her blog would be the first thing to show up. And for
that, every time, I would always remember her. In memories, Anis Hj Sukarti.
Here's the thing, I seriously forgot about this blog. Haha. k, not funny.
Anyways, What's up people? I know for the students of UTM, you all must have been busy studying for exam. Well, for those who wanna take of your mind to the outside world. YOU are welcome here. :)
So, the title explain it all. I wanna tell about my experience when I was in Semarang , Indonesia. I was there for 1 month. It was AWESOME! I get to teach the students of SMA Negeri 1 Semarang, meet the exchange students of IKIP PGRI and let me tell you it was the best 1 month that I could ask for my practical teaching.
1) The Place
Semarang is located at the central of Java. That's all. haha.. Kidding..
Let me just give you my opinion of the place. For that 1 month, the sight seeing place that I gone to was Simpang Lima, Matahari Mall, Lawang Sewu, Pasar Johar and Masjid Agung. We went to the beach as well, but I forgot the name.. haish... >.<
Anyroundup, since Semarang is just 3 hours away from Solo and Yogyakarta, we actually went to Solo and Yogyakarta as well. Solo we went there for shopping, pasar Klewer. As for Yogyakarta, we went to Burobudur, Prambanan, and of course, shopping at Malioboro.
At Pasar Johar together with IKIP students.
Lawang Sewu
Borobudur :)
2) The people
Let me tell you, my first thought when people mention about Indonesia was....."PEOPLE ARE GOING TO SHOUT AT ME!" Let me tell you why? We are so caught up by the telemovie/drama/whatever TV3 is putting on the afternoon. We always see people are being rude and shouting at people and stuffs. Never once that I thought that the people is going to be....well...here it goes..... " N.I.C.E. ". The people there were extremely NICE! Can you believe it? Seriously!
For example, that one time when we went to Lawang Sewu, we actually couldn't get a taxi/angkut(I tell you later about angkut). So there's this one IKIP student, Oscar, who actually wait under the pouring rain to get us a taxi. He went barefoot for us because his shoes were already soaking wet. That went on for 2 hours! He waited there for 2 hours. Can you imagine? TT
Even the teachers, they always ask us stuffs. Like, do you had your breakfast? Once, the teacher actually treat us outside of the school. SUPER NICE! Always being polite. Seriously. When we were in borobudur, the lecturers met a few German tourist. So,since they were heading to Malioboro, the lecturers actually invited them along in the bus to Malioboro. YES, that is how nice the people there.
One of the Germany girls.. haha
Nih la Oscar, the guy can actually play guitar, piano and drum! He's SUPER talented!
3) The experience
So, of course, there were tonnes of experience when we were there. If I were to tell you all, it would be more than just a story. It would definitely be a book! Hah! oh...well.. hahaha~ To continue, the most memorable thing when I was there was definitely going to school and teach. Surprisingly, the students in that school was really good in English. I was quite surprised. In fact, when I wanted to play games, they were excited and can listen to the instructions very well. One of the things that I cannot forget was the lesson where I played the guitar and they sing. That was seriously fun. To add up the fun part, we were actually filmed by the faculty and some media for that day. That was one of the moment that I could not compare with other things. :)
Other than that, we get to go around the city. I especially liked the one day that we went to the Bali festival. We went to the Bali festival then to Paragon Mall, the parade, and lastly to the beach. The festival was interesting, we get to see a model who wears a traditional clothes and the parade. The parade actually was fun. They were wearing the traditional clothes and stuffs. They were also carrying the 'Ogoh-ogoh'. Tio, the IKIP student, told me that along the parade when they were carrying the ogoh-ogoh, they were spirit who controls the ogoh-ogoh. So, when the ogoh-ogoh will get heavy and the people who carries them need to follow the weight. All the people in the street were running away from it. All of us were laughing because it was actually fun and interesting.
So, you must be wondering, how the hell did we go around? We were not using taxi, instead, we used 'angkut'. Angkut is kinda like a taxi. But, it is a modified Toyota Unser. So 10 people can actually fit inside the angkut. This in fact was one of the things you should try when you are in Indonesia.
There was also the performance, never in my life I would think that I am going to dance in front of 200-300 people. hahaha. We need to make a performance and we did. We danced the compilation of chinese, malay and indian dance. The crowd actually go wild and in 'aww'.. haha. Can you imagine we were dancing infront of our supervisor teacher and students... hahahha. Then, we did a short story of 'Achik-Achik buka pintu'. We made them laugh because we transform one of the guy into a girl. Can you imagine? hahaha... >.<
The Balinese Festival. The huge statue at the back is the 'Ogoh-ogoh'.
The students and me singing nervously. haha.. God knows how my heart beats like crazy... TT
Me and the cross dresser of the day, Cik Khai.. haha :p
The performance. Dance-dance! move your feet! huh!
To sum up, I actually made a video for an event at the end of the exchange program. It was broadcast during the event as a montage. So please watch as it explain some of the things that I told you previously. :)
Overall, I can say that when I was there. I seriously felt that I was in the Indonesian drama or something. haha. The people, the crowd, the motorcyclist everywhere. I enjoyed my time there very much. It was a really interesting trip and I believe that it had made me learn more as a person. So, to the people that I met there, Thank You Very Much! You have made Indonesia a country that I would visit again in the future!
I am very sure that all of us are in our holiday mood obviously. The same routine of getting up late in the afternoon, eat whatever that our mom cook for us and same old clicking refresh button non-stop on Facebook and Twitter. oh~!!! and for UTM students, for sure, you will be clicking the Aimsweb's refresh button like crazy to check the display list. I do. hahaha..... >.<
I do enjoy this routine however. I become a lazy bum for sure when it comes to holidays. But, somewhere in our heart we would always remember that all this is going to end when the new semester starts. haish T.T
So today I am going to talk about You tube videos~! wahhh~~ Well, recently I kinda hook up on some videos on you tube. all of them are mixture of music, education, jokes and etc. Pretty much everything that I like I guess. So, to you guys out there that are bored like I am, here are some of my suggestions:
1) Alex goot's music.
I really like his voice and he is very talented. You can go to his youtube channel.
Here's the link to one of my fav vid of him:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9wqpfFI3EVEa
2) TedTalks
I know. From music to some serious crap. Don't worry I am not gonna let you down. I seriously like to surf TedTalks. All the techno, education and etc stuffs sometimes inspire me. I really like this one that I link below. It is funny. But it does make you think though. All my friends who are taking education, please watch. Entertaining and yet, he is right in some ways. :)
From serious stuffs to hair tutorial. Haha. Anyways, if you are a hair junkie like me. You will definitely like her vids. I like that she do all kind of hairstyles; wet, dry, curls, straight and stuffs. She also talks about hair products and etc. Plus, tips on how to care of your hair. So, yeah, here's the link :
http://www.youtube.com/user/LetsMakeitUp1
4) Promise Phan
Well, here is a You-tube channel to make you believe that make up seriously can change a person's face. I particularly like this one vid where she transform to Adriana Lima. I was like O.M. G~~! Anyways, browse through her channel. There are lots of other celebrities that she transform into.
So for all of you out there, browse through all these vids if you are bored. I am very sure you can a lot of things through all these channel. If you have other suggestion, please comment and give me the link too yeah? Taa~~
It has been a long time since I write in a blog that is for my own benefit. Well, this holiday break I am hoping for a new journey to begin along with a wonderful year ahead. ^^
So, as to why am I starting a blog? There are several reasons to that, let me lay it out one by one:
1) I want to improve my English. As I am going to be teaching soon, I am sure that writing in blog would help me. (although I am very sure that I am going to ramble on random-don't-know-what topics :p) Non-related to educational stuffs would be more than the educational intention. Haha.
2) Well, if you are one of my friend, you would probably know that I make a LOT ofspelling mistakes or should I say TYPO. I am very sure that someone is laughing away now since usually I do this typo thingy a lot in twitter and facebook . The reason to this is because of the laziness to read back whatever I type. Plus, I am not a fast typer. But, I wanted to post things fast. Haha. So I end up sending weird spelling to everyone.Then pressing the edit button repeatedly.... non-stop....like crazy....to edit the post. >.<" I am sure a lot of people out there had this incident.
3) To improve my grammar. I suck at grammar. Seriously. But, I am very sure that I am improving day by day. I hope that by writing in this blog will help me to do so. :)
4) Since I have a lot of time this holiday, why not spending time writing right?
So that is all for the reasons, I am sure I am going to be fun doing stuffs this holiday. I'm going to make sure that I post it here. Till then, 'May the odds be ever in your favour' ~!Tata~ :)
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