I-S-T-A-N-B-U-L

We braved the metro/tram system to get from the airport to our hotel which sounded complicated to begin with. you have to buy 'Jeton' tokens (one for each mode of transport) and then catch the underground metro to a station with a very long name starting with 'Z' and then change to a tram to get to the station closest to our hotel. turned out to be pretty straight forward and the few times we had slight issues their were always helpful Turkish people around. after getting to our hotel (at about 6pm) we had a rest and then went out to dinner at a restaurant just up the street from our hotel. i had meatballs and rice and potato chips.... weird!! the meatballs and rice were very nice, potato chips with this meal but strange though. after that we went straight to bed, tired after our day of traveling.
next day we set off to explore Istanbul, we got the tram into the center of town (as we are now experts at local transport here) and had a late breakfast/early lunch, i had pizza and Ewen had a fruit plate as he was still feeling a bit sick. after this we had a wander around before ending up at the Blue Mosque, we took some photos of the outside and then tried to go in but it was Prayer time so it wasn't open to the public for another hour and a half. we went for a walk looking for a mosaic museum but never found it, instead walked along the ocean wall for a very very long time, as once we got down there there was a fort wall blocking off the other side and thinking surely the wall would have to end soon, we walked for at least an hour I'd say.

Below was our first sighting of the Blue Mosque

Here is a guy sunbathing in his underwear on some rocks, he then proceeded to go swimming, it says in our guide book to only swim in the Bospherus if you have a death wish...

After this Ewen was feeling even sicker than before so we went and got some juice (the freshest yummiest orange juice i have EVER had and at only 1.50TL a bargain!!) and got some supplies for Ewen from a pharmacy (after a bit of help from our phrase book) then went back to the hotel where Ewen had a nap for a few hours. later that night we ventured back into town for some dinner and a walk around the shops.
we were up early the following morning to take a cruise along the Bospherus, i had read in our guide book that its best to get to the dock 45 minutes early so you can get a good seat on the boat, we got there over an hour early and already their were at least 30 people waiting. we stood in line waiting to get on the boat for about half an hour, by the time the boat arrived and we were allowed on there was over 100 people queued up and people actually ran to get on the boat! luckily we got two seats on one of the sides on the top level so we had a good view of the coast line, unluckily i was sitting too close to Ewen so a rather large man sat in my seat meaning me and Ewen had to share one seat. after about half an hour though the man left (the people on the other side of him told him to leave and then when he stood up to take a photo i sat back in my own seat thinking he would go away, he didn't, he sat on my lap! he then proceeded to pretend he didn't speak any English despite speaking English earlier when he stepped on my foot). once he left i spread out all of my stuff so no one else would steal my seat!
this fort/castle was built in less than 80 days which would be astounding now but in 1452 would have been a world record I'm sure.
here is a mosque in prime location with lovely waterfront views
i'm fairly sure this is Dolmabahce Palace but it was hard to follow the guide book and take in everything at the same time so possible it's just some billionaires summer house.
the photo below is just one i though looked nice, a fisherman going about his business :-)

Ewen with our boat in the background

the views were incredible and we took over 100 photos on the one and a half hour cruise. we got off in a small town and had a seafood lunch (i got calamari thinking it would be battered but sadly it wasn't)

here is Ewen's lunch, i really don't like it when they keep the heads on the animals you are about to eat...
and then walked up a very steep hill to have a look at a castle, we made it nearly to the top but then had to turn around so we would get back to the dock in time. we got back to the dock about 45 minutes before the boat was supposed to leave and already nearly everyone from the boat was lining up, this time we got seats on the bottom level sitting outside facing the water which was good, although for the first part of the trip the sun was very hot.

me and Ewen on the journey back

this house had a couple of these creepy, very realistic statues...
when the boat got back to the dock in the city we walked through the town for a while, had some dinner and then came back to the hotel.
the next day was our shopping day. we started with a trip to the Grand Bazaar, first having lunch at a cafe outside the bazaar, i had yummy cheese pide (kind of like a pizza but on Turkish bread) and Ewen ordered watermelon but it never came (poor Ewen was still a bit sick). the Grand Bazarre was incredible, it has over 4000 shops, 1500 of these sell jewelery. we walked around for a few hours but neither of us were really in the mood to buy much, i ended up getting a pashmina and a mosaic lantern and Ewen didn't buy anything.
we had kebabs for tea and they had potato chips in them!!!!! potato chips are served with friggen everything here it is so weird!!!
the following day we set out for the bus station (Octagar i think its called here) to book our tickets to cappadocia. this involved a tram and then a train to get there. the bus station was sooo big, it was basically a very large car park (probably the size of the car park at rocklea centre, maybe bigger) with shops all around it, each shop a different bus company selling tickets to not only places within Turkey but international destinations as well. after trying one company that ended up not going to Cappadocia we walked to the other side of the lot and tried a company called 'metro turizm' and got two tickets on the night bus to Cappadocia for the 5th of June. we leave at 10pm and i think its a 12 hour bus trip. i cannot wait until Europe when we wont have to catch any more night buses!!!
it was 1pm by the time we made it back into the city and i was starving so we had lunch at our faithful juice bar, more kebabs with MORE POTATO CHIPS IN THEM! i haven't had a kebab better than Bendigo's Turkish kitchen kebabs yet, the kebabs here are quite dry, they don't put any sauce on them. i miss BBQ sauce kebabs!!!
after lunch we went and sat in a park to discuss what to do for the rest of the day, we sat watching a man feed a stray cat for a while, he was feeding it meat from his kebab and the cat was attacking the meat like it was a mouse, it would pounce on it and drag in into the bushes, was very funny to watch.
there are hundreds of stray cats here in Istanbul, you see them everywhere! I'm starting to think maybe cats aren't considered to be pets here, rather more like bird, just left to their own devises.
this is where we sat and ate fresh watermelon before going into the museum, that is the Blue Mosque behind me.
The beautiful views we had of the Blue Mosque during our watermelon break.
we decided to go to the Haghia Sophia museum (also called Aya Sofya) this is Istanbul's most famous monument. it is a church built in 537 another thousand years later it was turned into a mosque and five hundred years after that it became the museum it is today.

there were two cats asleep in the museum, both infront of lights like this one.

there were some incredible mosaics on the walls, although not in the greatest of conditions, and i was astounded to see some morons had carved their names and love hearts into one of the banisters, we saw this when we were in Cairo at one of the pyramids, some people have no idea!!


this is the Weeping column, the legend is that if you put your finger in the hole and it emerges moist your ailments will be healed. you can see where the copper has worn away from hundreds of years of people testing this theory. my finger wasn't moist at all but Ewen says his was, i think that had more to do with the big sweaty tourist who put their finger in before he did.

once we finished at the museum we decided to get a drink so went to a cafe, after been seated we looked through the menu and saw that drinks were about four times the price they were at other cafes we have been to so we got up and left, the waiter asked Ewen if it was too expensive so clearly people must leave all the time. the cafe IS in a good spot, opposite both the Blue mosque and the Aya Sofya museum but 10 TL for a orange juice that is 1.50TL at other places is a tad ridiculous!
we ended up getting drinks from a news stand in front of the cafe. we sat in a small square behind the cafe and watched a large magpie have a bath in a fountain. we also watched a crazy lady, Ewen thinks she was a gypsy, have a very long, animated in-depth conversation with a statue. she then walked over to the news stand and started yelling at the guy working there, he got very angry and yelled back at her. it was pretty entertaining to watch.
we walked over to the Blue Mosque after this deciding we would try to go inside, hoping this time it would be open. turned out it was prayer time again but it would be over in 20 minutes so we decided to wait. we sat in the square inside the mosque walls with a lot of other tourists watching some children run around. we also got to watch all of the people coming to pray enter the mosque as the call to prayer sounded over the loud speakers.
when we were finally allowed inside we had to take off our shoes and put them in plastic bags, i covered my shoulders with my new pashmina and we were allowed in. there were still some prayers going on, one man was sitting on the ground with about 20 people in front of him, he was obviously pretty insightful because one guy sitting with him was taking photos of him on his mobile phone. we had to stay behind a rope so couldn't get close to the people but it was interesting to watch, and the inside of the mosque was incredible. i was surprised (although i don't know why) to see that the woman had to remain right at the back of the mosque where all the tourists walked to pray while them men got to be at the front of the mosque protected by a rope so tourists couldn't go anywhere near them. the women were behind a small wall but tourists could go directly up to this if they wanted to.


we left the Blue Mosque and got the tram back to the hostel. we had dinner at a restaurant near our hostel and i ordered ravioli, it came out covered with yoghurt. im sorry but some things just are not meant to be served hot and one of those is yoghurt! i managed to eat some of it and made Ewen have some too. one good thing about this restaurant was that we got complimentary watermelon margarettas when we got there which were delicious!
we have decided to stay three extra nights in Istanbul and when we talked to our hostel about this yesterday they said we can stay here but they don't have any private rooms left after tonight so as of tomorrow we will be in a dorm room BUT we get it all to ourselves, it has an ensuite and we only have to pay the same price we have been paying for a private room without a bathroom so this sounded pretty good to us!!
today we went to the Spice Bazaar where shop owners offered to 'help you spend your money' they also offered free samples of Turkish delight. we spent an hour or so walking around the spices and souviners and ended up in the market area aimed at locals which seemed to be selling a lot of feather boas, juicers, and reams of materials.

i got some lollies from a shop in the Bazaar and 4 tea light holder lantern things with a mosaic pattern on them. they are really nice so hopefully they survive the trip home! after this we went to the basilica cistern, this was built in the 6th century and was originally a water filtration system. the columns used to support the roof were taken from unused building so none of them match and three have interesting aspects, one if engraved with lots of tear drops and two others are of Medusa heads. there are 336 columns holding up the roof!

me pretending to be a ghost

Apparently one of the James Bonds movies was partially filmed inside the cistern.
the bottom 50cm or so of the cistern is still full of water and hundreds of carp swim in it, some of them frighteningly large! The cistern is lit with spooky lights and they have dramatic music playing to add to the effect, it was really interesting to see inside it.
wow this has been a mammoth post, I'll make sure i update it more frequently from now on.