Thursday,
July 24, 2014 Turkish time: 8.30am
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. =)
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| 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.
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| 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.
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| Baklava!!!! Yes, I post this pic on instagram! They looked yummy huh? |
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| I am not sure what this is but I want to eat them! |
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| See? the bread.. they have lots of bakery~~~ this is one of the view that I can see from outside..the smell is heaven! |
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| 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.
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| 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
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| 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
