bits and pieces of me...

updates...

2013-07-01T16:35:00.000+08:00

ok, i know i've not been updating very consistently. one of the many reason is due to sheer laziness... hehe. anyway, here are some very quick updates on what's been going on for the earlier half of this year.

1. i went to france (paris and toulouse) in march, the "west-est" country on the globe i've been to thus far. this is also the first overseas trip with the significant other (to be known as "SO" henceforth). yes, there's a presence of an SO for quite some time now... hehe *blush*

2. i was going to go to greece in may, but had to cancel it due to point no. 3.

3. i applied and got transferred back to m'sia. so i'm officially not living in the land of the shimmering sands anymore, but on an island now.

4. things have been rather crazy with all the packing up of my desert abode, flying home, moving up north to the island, settling into my new job, looking for a new apartment... i finally moved into my new pad last weekend! yahoo!!

5. oh, and in between spending a few days back home and moving up north, i also managed to squeeze in a short getaway to the banjaran hotsprings retreat... a heavenly place! it's a belated birthday treat and pampering from the SO :)

ok, that's all for now!

jordan day 4: petra

2013-04-29T21:10:00.001+08:00

the reason i'm in jordan! since the very first time i saw a picture of the siq in petra, which is a narrow gorge that winds its way 1.2 km towards the ancient ruins of petra, i've always wanted to go there. so this is one item off my bucket list!

set off early in the cold morning, even before the sun was up!

after getting our tickets, we met our guide, samera who is actually a lecturer in a university and does guiding work on a part-time basis... he's quite good!

quite a long walk in, about 20 minutes, to the entrance of the siq

we have a voucher from our tickets, that allowed us to go on horseback for an additional fee (forgot how much extra), but we chose to walk coz that would give us the opportunity to listen to samera's explanation on the sites we passed, such as this ancient grave or shrine...

smells - frankincense (the yellow stone-like thingy) and other natural fragrant sources that was traded and passed through this area in the ancient times...

finally, arrived at the opening of the siq! so excited neh...!!

but first have to listen to explanation from samera...

irrigation system of the ancient times...

for those who're too lazy to walk, can take the horse-drawn caravans through the siq...

the walk through the siq took about 40 minutes, with frequent stops for samera to explain things and for us to take photos...

it's quite a surreal experience walking through here... some of the spaces were very narrow (but still enough for the caravans to pass through lar). we can just imagine the ancient people passing through here to get to the ancient city of petra.

some of the shrines carved into stones along the siq...

there are other carvings on the wall along the siq... here lanky leila is comparing the size of her foot to the ancient man's! LOL

the irrigation used to be covered, but most parts have collapsed...

at the end of the siq, our first glimpse of the khazanah (or treasury)!

the characteristics of the facade includes roman, greek, islamic etc. it is unknown as to why or exactly when it was originally built, probably between 100 b.c. and 200 a.d. its arabic name "al khazanah" derives from one legend where bandits or pirates hid their loot in a stone urn high on the second level. significant damage from bullets can be seen on the urn. local lore attributes this to the bedouins, who are said to have shot at the urn in hopes of breaking it open and spilling out the "treasure" within. however, the decorative urn, turned out to be solid sandstone. another legend is that it functioned as a treasury of the egyptian pharaoh at the time of moses.

one for the photo!

one of my favourite shots from my camera...

from the al khazanah, we continued walking some more... petra was first established in around 6th century b.c. by the nabateans, a nomadic tribe who settled in the area and laid the foundations of a commercial empire that extended up to syria.

there were a lot of caves carved into the walls of the hills, with elaborate facades... these were all graves, belonging to rich families of the ancient times, as they believed in the afterlife. so by being buried in these elaborate caves, they're preparing for their next lives...

an example of a family burial ground. it's said the holes are much deeper than shown here, hence the believe that some were recycled, with bodies stacked on top of the previous decayed bodies...

a lot of nomads offering these "taxi" services...

a roman theatre, proof that the romans were here too!

royal tombs in the distance, on top of a small hill. we didn't go there, coz we were on our way to another site...

it was quite a long walk, and the sun was shining really brightly in the midday...

nearing the end of our long walk, here's a shot of the way we've just came from...

a syrian style building in ruins...

after an hour, we arrived at the starting point of our next leg of the visit...

lotsa climbing to do! now we understand why the "taxi" services were so much in demand!

it's up all the way...

a very long and difficult way up, but we still sucked it up and adamantly refused to take the donkeys!

further up, we kept looking behind us as the view was spectacular!

only sissies go up on donkeys! :P hehe...

some parts are narrow and on stone steps...

while others are on dirt and sand...

the awesome views NEARLY made up for all our hardships!

after trekking for about an hour, the vendors along the route will start telling us, "10 more minutes, 10 more minutes". and i'd mutter under my breath (due to me being out of breath, not from being polite), "liar, i heard that 10 minutes ago!"

we were walking for so long and were so exhausted that we had to stop to catch our breath after just a few steps! at one point, we passed an ang-moh couple coming in the opposite direction from us and i asked them how long more before we arrived. the guy answered that we have some 30 minutes more!!! lovely lily and i (my 2 other travel companions, lanky leila and sweet sheila were far ahead in front of us coz they had better stamina) groaned a loud, "WHAT?!?" but the ang-moh girl said, "he's just kidding. don't listen to him. it's just ahead."

we didn't really believe her, but continued walking. then we turned a corner, looked up...

...and THIS loomed before us! we were speechless and just went like :O

ad-dayr (arabic for "the monastery") - deeply carved into a cliff face of the jabal ad-dayr, the facade represents one of the largest monuments in petra. it was built on the model of the khazanah, but here the bas-reliefs were replaced by niches to house sculptures.

the monastery was probably used as a biclinium for meetings of religious associations and certain rituals may have been conducted here. its construction likely dates to the early 2nd century a.d. during the reign of king rabel II, and an inscription found nearby suggests that it may have been built in memory of the divine king obodas II. the hall was re-used as a christian chapel and crosses were carved in the rear wall, thus the name "monastery" (dayr in arabic).

a lil' cafe just opposite the monastry, with seats in a cave...

a little hill further up, but lovely lily and i were too beat to attempt it! so we just sat at the cafe and waited for the other 2 to finish their exploration.

going down...

i think the donkey wanna buy a postcard...

one last photo of the khazanah before going further into the siq again. the afternoon lighting was better than the morning light for this shot...

back in petra town, our driver brought us to this spring, said to be one of the springs created by moses when he struck his staff on a rock. nothing much to see actually and we weren't impressed. so we just took some quick shots to satisfy our driver and left after 2 minutes.

i was practically begging our driver to bring us to buy fresh fruits, as we've not been having much fruits this entire trip! so he brought us to this market... all fresh from the land!

we were so excited that we couldn't wait to eat them! so this was how we washed our fruits LOL

see all the happy faces! :D

giant pomegranates... very sweet too!

on the way down hill (we took the regular route this time, instead of through the desert!), our driver made a detour to show us this abandoned fortress.

then our driver made another detour, to his friends' shop. nothing much to see or buy there, so we just sat around drinking tea and tried to get their anti-social cat, miki, to come out to play with us. its very curious, but refused to let us pet her!

with no luck. but their other cat was very friendly...

back in amman, we realized we've not had dinner. so lanky leila and i bought a falafel each from a shop near our hotel. our last dinner in jordan before our flight the next morning.

so that concludes my jordan series! *phew* sorry it took so long. lotsa other things to post, so will try to update more often. stay tuned! ;)

jordan day 3: dead sea

2013-03-11T14:33:00.004+08:00

from mount nebo, we descended right down to the lowest point on earth to one of the highlights of our trip, the dead sea. even though it's called "dead sea", it's not really a sea, but is actually a really big lake.

first glimpse of the dead sea! palestine is just beyond the mountains there...

our package included the use of the private beach at the dead sea hotel and spa, which is better than using the public beaches. for a fee, the hotel allows guests to use their bathroom and shower facilities and their beach is cleaner too.

while waiting for our driver to make payments at the counter... here's the private pool for in-house guests only.

and these are for the use of outsiders who paid for the use of their beach. but we didn't come to the pool here, coz we were dead hungry after frolicking on the beach and salty water that we were dying for lunch!

floating effortlessly in the salty water! in fact, don't even try to swim, coz you're so buoyant that you'll loose control and risk dunking your head into the water. the water is super salty and you'll start tearing coz the saltiness will get into your eyes.

and it's said that we'll never get sunburnt here, no matter how long we stay in the water coz lowest point on earth also means furthest away from the sun. hence the uv rays are the lowest here.

we only get black from doing the mud spa! lol... the dead sea area has become a major centre for health research and treatment for several reasons: the mineral content of the water, the very low content of pollen and other allergens in the atmosphere, the reduced ultraviolet component of solar radiation and the higher atmospheric pressure at this great depth. each of these qualities have specific healing properties.

crystalised salt on the beach! the salt content is said to be so high that no fish nor any water organisms can survive in it.

after an hour or two at the beach, we were dead tired and our stomachs were growling! so our driver took us for yet another arabic buffet. no photos this time, as we were really exhausted and too hungry...

after a late lunch, we were on our way again... going further south.

still in the vicinity of the dead sea area... the drive was awesome!

then our driver stopped at the roadside so that we can take this signature shot of the dead sea. see the crystalised salt at the water's edge!

then right opposite the road, our driver pointed to that brown "formation" and told us the story of sodom and gomorrah from the bible.

from wikipedia (coz i only caught snatches of the story from our driver, as i was bz photographing the crytalised salt in the pic above!): In Genesis 18, three men came, thought by most commentators to have been angels appearing as men, to Abram (Abraham) in the plains of Mamre. After the angels received the hospitality of Abraham and Sarah, his wife, the LORD revealed to Abraham that he would destroy Sodom and Gomorrah, because their cry was great, "and because their sin is very grievous."^[Gen 18:20] In response, Abraham inquired of the LORD if he would spare the city if 50 righteous people were found in it, to which the LORD agreed he would not destroy it for the sake of the righteous yet dwelling therein. Abraham then inquired of God for mercy at lower numbers (first 45, then 40, then 30, then 20, and finally at 10), with the LORD agreeing each time.^{[Gen 18:22-33]} Two of the angels proceeded to Sodom and were met by Abraham's nephew Lot, who convinced the angels to lodge with him, and they ate with Lot.

Genesis 19:4-5 (KJV) described what followed, which confirmed its end:

4 But before they lay down, the men of the city, [even] the men of Sodom, compassed the house round, both old and young, all the people from every quarter.

5 And they called unto Lot, and said unto him, Where [are] the men which came in to thee this night? Bring them out unto us, that we may know them. (NRSV: know them, NIV: can have sex with them, NJB: can have intercourse with them).

Lot refused to give his guests to the inhabitants of Sodom and, instead, offered them his two virgin daughters "which have not known man" and to "do ye to them as [is] good in your eyes".^[Gen 19:8] However, they refused this offer and threatened to do worse to Lot than they would have done to his guests, and then came near to break down the door. Lot's angelic guests rescued him and struck the men with blindness, thereby revealing to Lot that they were not ordinary men but angels, and they informed Lot of their mission to destroy the city.^{[Genesis 19:9-13]}

Then (not having found even 10 righteous people in the city), they commanded Lot to gather his family and leave. As they made their escape, one angel commanded Lot to "look not behind thee" (singular "thee").^{[Genesis 19:17]} However, as Sodom and Gomorrah were destroyed with brimstone and fire from the LORD, Lot's wife looked back at the city, and she became a pillar of salt.^{[Genesis 19:23-26]}

that longish "formation" is said to be lot's wife turned into a pillar of salt...

dusk... this is still the dead sea, but not so pretty anymore. these were the black mud that a lot of the jordanian pharmaceutical companies use to produce facial mask, scrubs and a host of other beauty products from.

after driving along the straight main road for some time, our driver turned into a side street, stopped by the roadside and fiddled with his tires.

earlier, he asked if we want to take an alternative route that's not in our itinerary, which is said to be really special and bla bla bla, for an extra fee (i forgot how much he asked for). he said it's really spectacular, but wouldn't tell us how spectacular it is from the usual route. but as we were so tired and exhausted from being out in the sun for so long, that we declined and told him to just stick to the itinerary. in the end, he said he'll still take the alternative route, as a "special gift" to us, because it's just too spectacular and we shouldn't miss it. whatever lar...

anyway, as he was fiddling with his tires, i opened the car door to see what he's doing and saw that he's letting out air from the tires. having been camping in the desert, i knew immediately that we'll be driving through the desert and confirmed it with the driver. he said he'll be taking the back route to our next destination, which is "far more spectacular and special" as compared to the usual route. and it'll cut about 1 hour from our traveling time.

the drive through the desert was beautiful...

but it got bumpy and bumpier, as there weren't any proper road... and it's quite tiring bumping along for an hour on this kinda road that i felt as if all my bones were rattled loose!

after awhile, we began to climb up a long, narrow and treacherous dirt road on the side of the mountain. it has turned dark by then (it was the beginning of winter and the days had gotten shorter) and there weren't any street lamp on the road. we caught glimpses of the drop below us (the road didn't have any railings) and was praying real hard that our driver won't miscalculate the turnings!

the "spectacular" surprise that our driver had in store for us...

halfway up, our driver stopped at a clearing and showed us the above sight. he said we were too late for the "most spectacular" view, as the sun had already set. but if we'd arrived just half an hour earlier, we'd be able to see the whole of the desert glow up in the setting sun. luckily we didn't agree to pay him the "extra fee"!

it was another half an hour ride before we arrived at our destination, where we were all dead tired and just can't wait to check into our hotel, take a hot shower and go to sleep! but our driver tried to sell us a "very good and spectacular arabic dinner, with dance performance bla bla bla". we declined because we were still full from our late lunch and also i was suffering from slight car sickness. furthermore, it's not like we've not seen any arabic dances before. we're from dubai, for god's sake! he kept trying to get us to go for the dinner and we guessed it's because he gets to eat for free. during all the meals he's brought us, the proprietors only ever collected money from the 4 of us (usually JD10 per person ≈ RM45), but never him. so if we didn't go with him, maybe he'd need to take care of his own dinner and not get free meals! we stood our grounds and just went up to our rooms to retire early for another long day the next day.

jordan day 3: mount nebo

2013-03-07T20:59:00.002+08:00

(from wikipedia) Mount Nebo (Arabic: جبل نيبو‎, Jabal Nibu. Hebrew: הַר נְבוֹ‎, Har Nevo, ) is an elevated ridge in Jordan, approximately 817 meters (2680 feet)above sea level, mentioned in the Bible as the place where Moses was granted a view of the Promised Land that he would never enter. The view from the summit provides a panorama of the Holy Land and, to the north, a more limited one of the valley of the River Jordan. The West Bank city of Jericho is usually visible from the summit, as is Jerusalem on a very clear day.

the stone commemorating pope john paul II's visit in year 2000

just fooling around...

the brazen serpent

the sculpture of the brazen serpent, which has become a symbol for mount nebo, is a modern replica of the biblical brazen serpent. during the exodus journey, god sent a plague to kill the rebellious israelites. god also instructed moses to erect a bronze serpent on a pole to stop the plague and all who looked up at the raised serpent survived the plague. thus the curative serpent around the staff became the symbol of pharmacies until today.

viewing platform erected for pope john paul II

if you stand on this platform, you can enjoy the panoramic scene that moses apparently saw more than 3000 years ago. and if you're lucky and the weather permits, you will be able to see the dead sea and several cities on the west bank of jordan river. at sunrise, even the streets can be visible and by sunset, you can also enjoy an amazing view as the sun sinks behind the mountains of jerusalem.

the panoramic view...

then moses climbed mount nebo from the plains of moab to the top of pisgah, across from jericho. there, the lord showed him the whole land. then the lord said to him, "this is the land i promised on oath to abraham, isaac and jacob when i said, 'i will give it to your descendants'. i have let you see it with your eyes, but you will not cross over into it."

and moses the servant of the lord died there in moab, as the lord had said. he buried him in moab, in the valley opposite beth peor, but to this day no one knows where his grave is. --deuteronomy 34:1-6

on our way to our next destination, we saw many bedouin camps around. some of them have brick houses, but as they love the outdoors so much, they'll still have tents as well and would live in the tents when the weather is good.

day 3 to be continued...

jordan day 3: greek orthodox church of st. george in madaba

2013-02-25T16:20:00.001+08:00

first stop for our 3rd day was madaba, about 1.5 hour south of amman. it's known as the "city of mosaics" in jordan, due to the the 6th century byzantine mosaic map of israel that was unearthed on the floor of the greek orthodox church of st. george.

at the entrance of the church. need to buy a ticket to enter this archaeological site, even though it's a functioning church.

those people with their heads bowed were not praying, but were actually looking down at the mosaic map on the floor.

parts of the map that they managed to preserve, with detailed information of the ancient cities and important landmarks, including the earliest representation of byzantine jerusalem, marked as "holy city".

this was how the full map looked like...

after visiting the church, our driver said he has a surprise for us and will show us something that is not part of our itinerary but something amazing that we should see, at no extra charge. he said this is the latest archaeological site that was just unearthed recently and not known by a lot of people. but as the land belonged to his friend, he is able to show it to us. however, it would be good to give his friend a small tip after seeing it. not knowing what it was, we agreed.

we arrived at the top of a hill, with some abandoned bedouin settlements dotted here and there.

our driver's friend brought us to an shed and threw open the doors. inside, we saw a big mosaic picture on the floor, with a burnt mark in the middle. according to our driver, before the mosaic was unearthed, some bedouins were having a bonfire out of doors and it was directly on top of the mosaic, hence the black burnt mark on the mosaic.

anyway, we were not really impressed with the mosaic picture, as the whole thing seemed dubious. so we just stayed for a few minutes (didn't even bother to take photos) and then moved out.

then we saw this adorable baby donkey, just 4 days old! we were more interested in taking his pictures than that of the "archaeological site".

upon leaving, we didn't even bother to give a tip to the owner, but our driver gave him JD 5 (≈ RM22!) and then "reminded" us that we've forgotten to give the tip and said he's paid on our behalf. so we had no choice but to pay him back! yeah, we felt kinda cheated there!

anyway, on the way to our next destination, our driver made a stop at one of those roadside tourist traps and said we can spend a bit of time looking and shopping around for souvenirs there.

first they gave us some introduction to mosaic making... most of the people who worked in mosaic making are disabled and is a government-supported industry.

very detailed work and some masterpieces can take up to 3 months or more to complete...

we spent about 30 min there, where i bought a small square mosaic (like coaster size) for a blardy cut-throat price of JD 10 (≈ RM45). even that also i was conned coz i think it's only JD 7 (≈ RM 31) and they overcharged me! whatever...

day 3 to be continued...

airport drama

2013-02-19T21:27:00.002+08:00

i started this post some 2 weeks earlier, before i flew back home for the chinese new year. so it will not include the airport drama that i encountered for THAT trip home... will save it for another post (if i kuasa to write about it!).

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i think i've mentioned before that i'd be going on a short trip. that place was here:

3 hours flight from the desert...

even though this was only gonna be a 3 day trip (technically 2, minus the traveling time), i was quite excited coz we won't be engaging the service of any tour operators, but planned things out ourselves. or rather, i planned everything, coz lovely lily said for me to plan everything and she'll just tag along.

i did my research, read thru the lonely planet book, surfed the web and came up with such a detailed plan!

print screen of the notes in my phone... reason for including the local writing is, the majority of the people in georgia don't speak english, and according to a colleague who've been there, they can't really understand our pronunciation of place names too! so it's better to write the local language and show it to them when asking for directions and stuff...

anyway, our flight was scheduled at 2.15am, so lovely lily and i arrived at the airport at 12am. we checked-in and went thru immigration but when we got to the departure hall, we were shocked to see it was packed! lots and lotsa people, all sitting around, some in groups on the floor and some even sleeping on the floor! we were shaking our heads and thought, "this is the price of flying budget". an ang-moh colleague, who grew up in india, told us later that that's exactly the scene in most public places in india...

so anyway, we wanted to get some mcD, having skipped dinner due to last minute packing, but the queue was horrendous, with people (mostly men) queuing like this:

literally sticking to each other!

so we gave up on mcD and went to costa coffee instead. the queue there was long too, but not as horrendous as mcD. and since it's over-priced gourmet coffee, the crowd there is more erm... different.

after getting our sandwiches, we went to look for a seat and settled down for the wait. at 5 minutes before boarding time, we heard this over the p.a. system: "passengers for flight number xxx, kindly make your way to the information counter for more details of your flight status". puzzled, we went to look at the screen and found that our flight has been canceled! WTH?!? in fact, most of the flights on the screen were shown as canceled.

slightly panicky, we went to the information counter and asked the airport staff there but they just told us to go ask the airline staff. some information counter! so we made our way to the counter near the departure gate and saw that a crowd had already gathered there. i tried squeezing to the front, but couldn't find a chance to speak to the staff there because a lot of people, staff and stranded passengers, were all speaking at the same time. so we hung around, trying to listen in on the various conversations on what was going on. alas, we can't gather anything and were still in the dark.

after a while, we went to sit on the bench and waited, hopefully there'll be some announcement or change of status for our flight. we saw a group of ang-moh looking passengers and gathered that they must be georgians. so we sat near them coz then if there are any changes, we'd know as well.

we slept on and off sitting down on the bench. luckily my camera backpack is tall enough that when put on my lap, it comes up to my nose and i'm able to rest my forehead on it and doze. now we know why there are so many people sitting and sleeping around there!

after and hour or 2, we heard some commotion and saw that some of the georgians were gathered around a man in uniform. so we rushed over as well, and again, couldn't get up front to find out what's really happening. i asked a georgian woman standing in front of me if she knows what's going on, but she just glared at me, pointed to her ears and shook her head, indicating that she don't speak english. not very friendly, huh lady?

anyway, the man in uniform took down our names and then went away. another man, i think the tour leader for the georgians, spoke english and i asked him, "what now?". he said they're going to try to put us on another flight to doha, and then on to georgia from there. so more waiting...

sometime around 6am, i was woken up by some loud talking and shouting. some of the passengers have had enough and were arguing with the airline staff. but the fact remained that our flight was still canceled, so i went back to sleep.

after a while, some airport staff came to distribute sandwiches and water, but didn't come over to the section where lovely lily were sitting. we also didn't go over to get it coz we didn't wanna leave our seats, which may be taken up by someone else when we come back, with the airport so crowded! and we weren't interested in eating anyway, so we went back to sleep.

at about 7am, lovely lily woke me up to say that another lady from the airlines has come to speak to us. as usual, a crowd has already formed around her, but this time i managed to squeeze to the front. she said that they still have no flights for us and is sending us away from the airport. her staff will arrange hotels and will inform us of the next available flight. i asked if we can get a full refund for our tickets, since we're not georgians and have decided to cancel our trip. so she got one of her staff to arrange for us to go over to the arrival hall to have our "exit stamp" canceled and promised that we'll get a full refund.

while waiting for things to be sorted out, i asked the staff who were handling us about the cause of the flight cancellation. she said it's bad weather. puzzled, i mentioned that we saw some flights taking off and dubai's weather were excellent that day. she said the problem was not the weather in dubai, but at the places where the aircraft were coming back from. the flights were not able to come back, so there aren't any aircraft to take off to the next destination! haiz... that's how budget airlines work...

long story short, we arrived home at 9am, totally exhausted and feeling icky from sitting in the airport the whole night. what a disaster! and at about 3pm, we received an sms informing us that there's a flight scheduled to georgia at 7pm and for us to make our way to the airport immediately. but we ignored it coz we've already lost one full day and it's not worth the trip anymore. furthermore, we've already canceled everything. luckily the proprietor of the b&b that we've booked was understanding and said he won't charge us for no show, as it wasn't our fault.

oh yes, the airlines did give us a full refund, including the internet fee of dhs 8 that they charged for credit card transaction during booking. and it only took them a little over 2 weeks to make the refund, even though they said will take 1 month.

jordan day 2: ancient greco-roman provincial city of gerasa

2013-01-14T20:16:00.002+08:00

the last item on our itinerary for the day was the ancient ruins of gerasa in jerash. actually it was already 2pm when we arrived there and was supposed to have our lunch first, but as the skies were really dark and gloomy, our driver thought maybe it was better for us to finish touring here first before going for our lunch as he feared we'd have to miss this site if it rained.

however it did rained, even before we went in but we still waited around for the rain to subside, since were there already.

started our tour from here, the outer south gate, which is about 5 minutes walk from the ancient town centre of gerasa.

started to pour again... not good!

the colonnade (sequence of columns) at the oval forum, a trademark in many roman cities. the oval forum functioned as a marketplace as well as gathering place of great social significance, and often the scene of diverse activities, including political discussions and debates, rendezvous, meetings etc.

cardo maximus, or main street, that normally runs through the city and lined with shops and vendors.

corinthian columns... all the roman columns were made up of sections and were never one whole long piece of stone.

if you stuck a key between the sections in a column, the key will move up and down, especially when there's a wind blowing. this explains how some of the structures were able to withstand the wind, rain, the flow of time and even earthquakes.

at the north theatre... the guy in red behind there is our guide for gerasa.

it's a big complex and lotsa walking involved! (i know gina will be commenting about how tiring my trips are! :P) here, we're walking up to the temple of artemis, where the columns are.

the ruins of temple of artemis.

ruins of a church.

original mosaics on the floor of the church.

walking towards the south theatre.

bagpipers entertaining the visitors at the theatre.

view of the oval forum from the top.

some original stones on display.

this was how the original temple of artemis looked like.

back at the south gate

by this time, we were famished! we were practically begging our driver to bring us for our lunch, at nearly 5pm! more like dinner, huh? so he brought us to this arabic restaurant some minutes' drive away.

oven baked arabic bread.

typical arabic bread.

hummus, a kind of dip for the arabic bread, made from chickpeas.

tabouleh, also eaten with arabic bread, made from parsley, couscous etc.

fatoush, a kind of arabic salad. very yummy!

arabic pickles... very salty, but appetizing.

the main, a combo of grilled meat. of course this wasn't mine. i asked for only chicken meat... :P this meal came up to JD10 (≈ RM43) per person.

when we got back to amman, our driver asked if we want to have some desserts. since it was quite early, we said ok. so he brought us to this famous sweets shop, habibah sweets.

the lower floor is the shop part, where they sell arabic sweets, baklavas etc by the kg.

the upper level is the restaurant part, with waiters in vests and all.

this was what our driver recommended we order, hot and cold kunafa. it's cheesy and very sweet! to be honest, too sweet for us, so we were having some trouble finishing it. i forgot how much we paid for this... probably JD2 (≈ RM8.50)

after stuffing ourselves with kunafa, we went to this souvenir shop next door. it's a shop targeting tourists and we're sure the prices were marked up like crazy. so we didn't buy anything, other than a cake of dead sea mud soap.

even tho' jordan is a muslim country with about 90% of their population are muslims, but given their jewish and christianity origins, we often see these paraphernalia sold in shop run by local muslims. this is definitely something we'll never see back home!

it was a long and tiring day, so we retired quite early that night.

jordan day 2: pella and ajloun castle

2013-01-02T17:19:00.002+08:00

first of all, happy new year!!! hehe... i'm STILL posting about my jordan trip from 2 months back, so sorry! will try my very very best to get it out of the way, as there's another short trip coming up soon *yippee* :D

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after gadara, our next destination was pella, also located in umm qais.

as gadara was situated on higher grounds, we had to travel down long and winding roads by the cliff...

on lower ground, the air was slightly warmer, but it's much greener compared to the barren hills...

sort of like the entrance to the pella site.

pella has been continuously occupied since the neolithic times and is a favourite for archaeologists as it is exceptionally rich in antiquities, some of which are exceedingly old. besides the excavated ruins from the greco-roman period, including odeon (theatre), pella offers visitors the opportunity to see the remains of a chalcolithic settlement from the 4th millennium bc, the remains of bronze and iron age walled cities, byzantine churches and houses, an early islamic residential quarter and a small medieval mosque. this was also where the battle of fahl, part of the arab-byzantine war, took place.

our driver brought us to this coffee place/restaurant on top of the hill.

at the back part of the restaurant, they have this open terrace...

...that overlooks the entire ancient pella site. there are a few ancient ruins dotted all over in the distance, but can't really see anything from our position, just some columns and tumbled-down buildings...

on our way again... as it was the eid al adha (a.k.a. hari raya korban back home), there were many goats, sheep and camels for sale everywhere, even at road intersections...

next on our itinerary was the ajlun castle, located up on a hill. this coffee/tea seller claims himself to be a bedouin (the official kind). his coffee/tea pot is very unique, with burning charcoal sticking up on top to keep the contents warm (it was a rather cold day).

ajlun castle (qal'at ar-rabad) was built by one of saladin's generals in 1184 AD to control the iron mines of ajlun, and to deter the franks from invading ajlun. ajlun castle dominated the three main routs leading to the jordan valley and protected the trade and commercial routes between jordan and syria. it became an link in the defensive chain against the crusaders, who, unsuccessfully spent decades trying to capture the castle and nearby village.

going into the castle...

some parts in ruins...

it's quite huge, with many sections and chambers and wings...

at the end of our 1/2 hour tour, there's a small museum in one of the chambers near the entrance displaying some wares and stuff found in this fortress. these are the coins used in the ancient times... so small! imagine the ancient people dropping one of these in the dark rooms and chambers (coz no electric lighting then!). no wonder there are so many on display here... must've been found in the dark corners throughout the castle! :D

on our way again, we passed by many olive oil factories as the soil in the northern region are really fertile. so on a whim, i asked our driver if we're able to pay a visit to one of these factories as i was really curious as to how they extract the oil from fruit. so our driver made a u-turn to this factory that we've just passed and spoke to the proprietor.

bags of olives were left out in the open, but placed on wooden platforms to prevent the damp from the ground.

unfortunately, the factory was not in operation that day due to the public holiday. so the owner just brought us on a short tour and explained the process step-by-step.

at the end of the tour, we were even given a taste of the pure olive oil. very flavourful and yummy! my driver said even though he lives in amman, he gets his olive oil by the barrels from this northern region (irbid) as they're much cheaper and pure here...

to be continued...

brown paper packages...

2012-12-09T23:16:00.001+08:00

read recently in kennysia about borderlinx, so decided to give it a try, since amazon dun ship to sandland. maybe they just don't trust the desert camels?

anyway, i managed to get a good deal for a wireless headphone that i've been eyeing during the black friday sales on amazon, so i had the item sent to my US address for free. but when i wanted to forward the item from the US to me, i found out i can only ship the item to m'sia, because it's where my billing address is.

their cost calculator showed that shipping to the sandland is much cheaper than to m'sia, but since i've already registered myself as in m'sia, then i can't change that. ok fine, pay an extra of about RM40 to have it shipped back home. i can live with that... no choice also, right?

but then i found out that i'd need either a maybank credit card or a visa card for the shipment. what?!? i only have 2 m'sian master cards! so how? my item is stuck at my "suite" in the US. i can't send it back nor forward!

so i created another account with borderlinx, but this time registered my billing address under sandland. i was thinking maybe there's a way for me to merge the 2 accounts, but no such luck. so i tried contacting their customer service via online chat (i'm a great fan of this feature!). this person at the other end, greg, was really very helpful. he checked why i wasn't able to make payment with my mastercard, as it wasn't stated anywhere that only visa is accepted. it seems that this is because i'm registered under the maybank cluster, so they only accept maybank credit cards and visa cards. i forgot, but i must've clicked on the link from kennysia, which was an advert! so of course the link will bring me to the maybank cluster, whatever that means! duh!

anyway, i explained to greg that i have also created another account but registered under sandland, and asked if i could have the item moved to my this other suite. he did some more checks, and maybe because other than the country, all the other info were the same, so he said he's able to do that. yays!

the next day, i saw that the item has been moved, so i made the (cheaper by RM40) payment for the shipment. i'm also able to pay using paypal here! *boo to maybank!!!* and like 2 days after that, i received a call from dhl enquiring about my location!

these are a few of my favourite things!

yays to greg, whoever you are! :)

jordan day 2: gadara

2012-12-09T20:01:00.003+08:00

ok, it's very obvious that i'm getting lazier in updating. so to make it less tedious, i'm gonna post by place of interest, instead of by day... hehehe...

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a hearty breakfast from the hotel's buffet line before setting out.

our first stop was to the ancient town of gadara in umm qais town, about 1.5 hour's drive up north from amman. along the way, the landscapes changed drastically, from a crowded city, to hilly landscape, to totally flat landscape etc. very interesting to see the obvious changes, but too bad we didn't take any photos while in the van.

umm qais is situated at northwest of jordan, sharing the border with israel and syria.

gadara is an ancient town upon which many civilizations have been built upon. this was also said to be where, according to all three synoptic gospels, jesus healed the demoniac and sent the demons into a herd of swine which ran into the sea of galilee. anyway, the most obvious ruins here are that of the romans (who else?).

entrance into the west theatre.

west theatre, built entirely of basalt.

the church terrace

during the byzantine and early islamic periods, 2 churches were built on a terrace which had been constructed on the western slope of the acropolis during the 2nd century a.d. the churches replaced an earlier roman public building, probably a colonnaded hall or a market basilica. during the first half of the 6th century a.d., a church consisting of a square building with an octagonal interior was erected in the approximate centre of the terrace.

the finds of 4 tombs and 5 reliquaries in the churches indicate the importance of the complex. probably this was a site of pilgrimage, in which the tomb in the middle of the earlier church may have been the grave of a venerated martyr. like the west theatre and many other buildings in gadara, the churches were destroyed by earthquakes in the middle of the 8th century.

a quaint lil coffee house on top of a small hill, overlooking the sea of galilee.

view from the coffee house. the sea of galilee is to the extreme left (not very visible)

at the top of west theatre

in the 2nd century a.d., the west theatre was built against the western slop of the acropolis. its auditorium offered space for approximately 3000 visitors and, like the semicircular orchestra, is built entirely of basalt.

the auditorium (cavea) is built in 3 storeys, which are subdivided into wedge-shaped sections of seats. underneath the second storey runs a vaulted corridor (crypta). 4 entrances (vomitoria) gave access from the corridor to the upper part of the auditorium. most of the entrances to the theatre collapsed during the earthquakes. likewise, very little remains of the former stage building (sceanae frons), which once blocked the view of the surrounding landscape.

theatres in antiquity served various purposes. not only were tragic plays and comedies staged here, religious and political festivities were also conducted in the theatre.

the so-called west theatre, which was destroyed by an earthquake in the 8th century, was only 1 of 3 theatres used by the gadarenes. there was also the larger north theatre and a 3rd smaller theatre at hammat gader in yarmouk valley.

view of the gadara from the direction of the sea of galilee...

we were only allocated about 30 min here, but actually there weren't that much to see also lar...

jordan day 1: arrival in amman

2012-11-01T18:48:00.002+08:00

as many of you know, i went to jordan last weekend during the eid holidays. we get 3 official days off for this islamic celebration, and since it's over the weekends, it totaled up to 5 days. so yeah, my colleagues and i planned this jordan trip to coincide with this public holiday.

it was a lil risky actually, for us to plan anything on islamic holidays, coz the actual day is only determined after some moon sighting. but as our company made us finish up our leave days in summer, we have no more leave days hence no other choice. we went ahead to book our flights and tour, and kept our fingers crossed that the public holiday would fall on those chosen dates. this time, we were lucky! :)

anyway, there were 4 of us this time round, with colleagues lovely lily and sweet sheila, and my friend lanky leila who flew into amman from germany to join us.

breakfast before boarding...

the 3 of us from sandland arrived at around 2pm and were greeted by our tour representative, who assisted us through immigration and introduced us to our driver, issam. he would be our driver for the duration of our visit in jordan.

there were no activities on our arrival day and we were planning to go to town to do some exploring on our own. another colleague who've been there said we should visit a "fort" up on a hill in the town centre, where we can catch some stunning sunset over the whole city. but while on the way from the airport to our hotel, i asked issam about the fort in town. he was puzzled for a while, when it dawned on him that i was talking about the amman citadel! so he said he would make a detour to bring us there, as a special gift for us! how very nice!

unfortunately, by the time we arrived at the citadel, visiting hours were up (they close at 4pm) and they were closing the gates! so sad... so we could only take photos from outside the gate. i'm not gonna bore you with the story and history of this roman ruins, so if you wanna know more about this place, click here. it was rather cold and our jackets were in our luggage, so we didn't stay for long.

the remains of the temple of hercules taken from outside the gates...

view of the old section of amman city, one of the oldest continuously inhabited cities in the world.

view on the other side of the hill, all golden and shining in the sunset... amman is a rather hilly place. all the buildings were not organised and the streets between the buildings were narrow and winding...

then we piled into the van again and issam drove down a series of narrow and winding streets to a gazebo-ed spot to show us this view below...

...a roman amphitheater right smack in the middle of the city. this is the most impressive legacy of roman philadelphia (previous name of amman) built under emperor antoninus pius (138-161 ad). *click on photo to enlarge*

at the lookout point, with our driver...

street of amman. not very clean and quite chaotic, due it being the eid celebration, hence it was a lil crowded...

...but they have quite a lot of policemen around making sure everything was in order.

then issam very generously treated us to dinner! this side-street stall is quite famous, as even the king and queen of jordan came here to eat before! so down to earth right, the royalties sitting at the plastic table and chairs in a side-street, among the commoners?

mint leaves, tomatoes and onions, and a chili dip for our fries...

authentic arabic meal of hummus and moutabal, eaten with arabic bread... the meatball-like stuff are falafel.

happy faces...

then sweet sheila wanted to get the local sim card so that she could go on the internet, as she would die if not connected to the internet for even one day. but it turned out, she was still not able to connect to the internet even with the local sim card, so it was a total waste of money (jd 5 for card + jd 12 for top up; 1 jordanian dinar ≈ RM 5). oh, and she didn't die also from being disconnected for 5 days in jordan :P

flags of middle eastern countries on the rooftop.

finally we arrived at geneva hotel, a 4 star family-owned establishment in the heart of amman. you can read my review for the hotel here in tripadvisor (but it'll only appear in a few days' time, as i just submitted the review and tripadvisor needs a few days to approve and publish it).

i shared the room with lanky leila who arrived quite late, after i've fallen asleep at about 9pm jordanian time. i think she arrived at the hotel after 10pm, as issam also brought her on a short tour of amman city after he'd picked her up from the airport.

to note: our timing in jordan were a bit confusing, as it was supposed to be one hour behind dubai time, but they also have daylight saving time, which was supposed to happen on the day after our arrival. BUT, their government decided at the last minute not to change the timing, so it's still one hour ahead of dubai. however, when i changed the location setting in my phone, it still showed the daylight saving timing, which is 2 hours ahead of dubai. couple that with our watches still in dubai time, and sweet sheila's phone timing which went haywire completely (probably reverted back to china time), which made us a very confused bunch indeed!

*more photos on facebook, for those who are my facebook friends.

what is this feeling...?

2012-10-23T23:08:00.001+08:00

been feeling not myself lately... and i dunno how to describe it, nor why i'm feeling like this. wish to talk to someone but dunno who to talk to, nor what to talk about!

whatever it is, hope it goes away soon!

the 2 year mark...

2012-10-16T20:14:00.000+08:00

it was a few days after the date that i realized... i've been here in the sandland for 2 years! time really does fly. so just thought of penning down something to put a mark on the timeline.

so... 2 years. i feel this 2nd year has gone by rather quickly, as compared to my 1st year here. i've fallen into a routine, and the days and weeks and months run by like clockwork most of the time. looking back at my 1 year post, i think most of the sentiments still stand. but as with all of my previous jobs, i've been getting rather restless and ready for change. i've never gone past the 3 year mark in all my previous jobs!

actually, i've been sorta looking around a bit to move. the good thing about my current company is that the group has many properties and we're encouraged to move around within the group. in fact, i've applied for 2 or 3 positions, all back in asia. yeah, i've been looking to move closer to home, and my most recent application was within home itself, tho' further north. but the thing is, the moment i applied and realized that i have a good chance of getting the position, i started regretting it! i even panicked a bit, enough to go speak to my immediate boss to ask for his advice on how to reject an offer if ever one was made! LOL...

i guess deep down inside, i'm not really ready to leave here yet. here're a few reasons why:

1. location - it's really great being in the middle, between asia and europe. i'm so much nearer to europe that it's opened up more traveling options for me. looking to venture more to the west in the near future!

2. money - ok, i admit that money plays a big part in my decision for now. if i go home, i don't think i'll ever be able to get what i'm getting here, with all the added benefits and remunerations, not to mention tax free income. need to put aside more for my retirement fund! :P

3. job - tho' i always tell people that this is not what i want to do in the long run, but i guess i can live doing this a little while longer. also, there has been some slight change in my job scope, where i have the opportunity to branch out into a slightly different function (which is handled by a different position for other bigger properties, but since my company is quite small, the function falls under my jurisdiction). so in the future, i'd have the option to move to a bigger property to solely handle this function in my current level or higher, and don't have to start from bottom (in order to enjoy the benefits of this level).

4. people - no, i don't have anyone that i can't leave behind here. by people, i mean the lack of a significant other to spur my desire to go home. other than my parents, of course. being single gives me the freedom and opportunity to explore more of the world out there. in a way, i only have myself to answer to. on one hand, there's the issue of my clock ticking and time running out. of course the idea of a more settled life back home is tempting, but that can come in due time. i do see myself settling down with a man (?), kids (?) and a dog perhaps, in the near future, but if that doesn't happen, at least it's my choice. i chose this path. tho' i'd always regret not having a kid of my own, at least a dog or two would never be out of the question later on, right?

phew, this is getting a tad jiwang, huh? well, these are the 4 that i can think of at the moment, so better leave it here for now. and would i be able to hang on for more than 3 years here? we'll see... ;)

homemade pearls for bubble milk tea

2012-10-06T16:41:00.001+08:00

have not been blogging much lately, just updates on my travels. hehe... been getting quite lazy. so today, i thought i'd share with you what i made a few weeks back.

as mentioned previously, i was on home vacation recently and while back, i took the opportunity to fill my stomach with all the yummy goodies that's so hard to come by here in the desert. one of my favourite is the bubble milk tea. this trip home, i found that so many outlets have sprung up, and so many brands too! every time i go out and see a stall, i'd be sure to join the queue to buy one.

fav brand of milk tea so far...

after my vacation, of course there's some sort of withdrawal syndrome from suddenly not having my fav drink in my system. actually while back home, i did wonder if these pearls are sold in the dried form, where i'd just need to take them out from the freezer and boil them up, much like those glutinous rice balls (tang-yuan) that's being sold here. then i remembered reading something in kel's place about homemade pearls. after putting it off for sometime, i finally decided to give it a try.

but first i need to go to the chinese grocers to get the tapioca flour and black sugar (or "red sugar" if translated directly from chinese). our typical grocers here dun really cater to east-asians, so it's quite difficult to get the ingredients we need.

so following the instructions in kel's place, i started kneading the flour with the melted sugar. i missed the part about having to pour the sugar mixture into the flour while boiling hot, so not sure if that's the reason for the difficulties i faced later on.

anyway, i found out that tapioca flour is SUCH A BITCH TO KNEAD!!! it's not like our typical flour at all. when kneading, it'll turn hard and powdery, as if it's too dry. but when i held a big lump in my open palm for a while, they'll melt all over my hand, like really watery mud! it's like putty! argh!!! so frustrating... so i wasn't really sure if i've used the correct ratio of sugar water to flour (i used the "agak-agak" method).

the worse part is when i was trying to shape it into balls. that's when the real nightmare began. first i pinched a small amount of dough and started rolling it with my palms. but it very quickly crumbled and disintegrated, very much like trying to roll dry sand into balls! ggggrrrr... not sure how to salvage the situation, i ended up pinching and squeezing and compacting the tiny dough with my fingers first before lightly rolling them into a ball. so means i had to do it all INDIVIDUALLY! luckily i only prepared a small amount, as i managed to get about 20+ balls out before my fingers couldn't take it anymore and i decided to throw the rest of the dough away.

anyway, the boiling part is also a headache. according to kel, we only need to cook it in boiling water for 5 minutes and then turn off the fire and let the pearls sit in the covered pot to let it continue cooking. well, maybe it's because she used potato flour and i used tapioca flour, but my pearls seem to take forever to cook! i think i cooked it for 20 minutes over the fire, but when i tried one, they still seemed quite hard in the middle. i also let it sit in the covered pot for about 10 minutes, but that didn't seem to soften them.

looked ok, though a bit pale coz i used less black sugar to avoid consuming too much extra sugar.

verdict: should have cooked it longer, and way too much work! may not attempt this again, as SO not worth the effort!

day 7: random walking around on last day in istanbul

2012-09-17T21:47:00.000+08:00

even though we checked-in and subsequently went to bed so late the previous night, we still dragged ourselves out of bed early, coz lovely lily missed the istanbul part of our tour and i'd promised that i would be her impromptu tour guide for half a day before flying back to dubai.

buffet breakfast at the hotel before setting out. the breakfasts here were the best we've had while in turkey...

of course the first stop would have to be the icon of istanbul, the blue mosque... i did my best to remember what my guide told me, to tell them to lovely lily. but in order to save time, we didn't go into the mosque.

next, i brought lovely lily to the hipodrome... the weather was quite overcast that day, and as istanbul is situated to the north as compared to the other places we've been, it's still quite chilly even though it was well into spring...

very cool tourist police!

next i wanted to show lovely lily the hagia sofia, but queue was too long! tips: always engage a guide when visiting touristy places, because they get to skip the queues at the entrance by showing their tag.

then i thought we could go to topkapi palace, as it wasn't in my tour itinerary (it being closed every tuesday, the day of my tour in istanbul). but omg, look at that queue! it's a sunday, so everywhere's filled with tourists!

in the end, we decided to join the queue outside the basilica cistern, coz it looked to be moving quite fast. i've not been here too, so i don't really mind paying for the entrance ticket (which i think was 10 turkish lira = RM 17).

ok here, read about it yourself, but it doesn't give much info about what the cistern was used for in the olden days. so if you wanna know more about the basilica cistern, it's better to click on the link of the photo above.

view of the underground cistern from the top of the stairs we descended...

whoops, photo lopsided a bit...

the head of medusa at the base of a column. no, i didn't forget to rotate the photo! according to legend, since anyone who looked into medusa's eyes will be turned into stone, the head will be placed upside down so that they don't end up with too many stoned tourists in the area! :P

another medusa head at the base of another column, but this one was placed sideways...

tear patterns on a column... the other columns are plain without patterns.

next, we wanted to go to the grand bazaar, but i forgot that it's a sunday and the grand bazaar is closed on sundays! luckily we found a side street nearby that has lotsa stall selling knick-knacks...

a cute lil evil eye pin that one of the stall owners pinned onto my camera strap...

when we got back to our hotel, we saw that the van for our airport transfer was already waiting there. as it turned out, there was a cycling event that day and a lot of roads will be closed. so in order for us to arrive at the airport on time, the tour agent sent over their van earlier. but we were out and they couldn't get hold of us. luckily we've already packed and just needed to go up to get our luggage from our room!

we made it to the airport in good time, with enough time for a quick bite as we were starving! here's my last meal in turkey, popeye's chicken, while lovely lily had burger king.

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*phew! finally i concluded the posts on my trip to turkey! sorry it took so long... will try to do better for my next trip, which will be happening in october! *excited*

day 6: more walking in cappadocia

2012-09-17T18:54:00.002+08:00

after a very cold night in our cave room, we woke up to this sight!

hot air balloons dotting the cloudless blue, blue sky!

we felt a tiny bit of regret for not booking a hot air balloon trip, but just a tiny bit lar... coz it's quite expensive and it being our 2nd final day in turkey, we're sorta low on funds. also, we'd need to wake up rreeeallly early if we were to go for the hot air balloon ride, coz we'd wanna catch the sunrise. so tho' we were sad for missing it, we were also quite glad for the opportunity to sleep in a bit.

we had our breakfast outdoors on the terrace one floor beneath our room. quite a standard fare... i simply love their fresh bread eaten with assorted jams... yums!

as we were sitting outdoors, tho' the air was chilly, the sun was shining quite brightly. so the hotel people pushed of the huge umbrella for us to hide under. when i looked down, i discovered that they used marble slabs to weigh down the umbrella! marbles really so cheap in turkey, that everything is made of marble?

after breakfast, we were picked up by our tour guide for the day's tour.

walking tour along the red valley, which took about an hour plus...

panoramic view... can you spot a horse at the far left corner? cappadocia actually means "land of beautiful horses", so maybe in the ancient times, this place has lotsa beautiful wild horses...

old men and women tilling the land to plant grapes the traditional way! what backbreaking work... i seem to have been transported back to the olden days...

arriving at the edge of the red valley...

panoramic view from the top of red valley...

going down to the red valley... a rather hot day to be trekking :(

we saw more pigeon houses along the way...

a couple selling nuts and dried fruits along the way... they were very gracious and kept asking us to sample their nuts and fruits. a welcomed break from our walk!

some of the places we passed...

some of the paths were formed by wind and some by water...

sometimes we passed through these jungle-ish places...

this is another stall we came across... this one even has a carpeted sitting area with shades!

that's a bottle of turkish wine i'm holding... in turkish, wine is called "sharap", which sounds very much like "shut up"! now how can we ever forget that, right?

i was wondering what these cute lil earthen wares were for... can you guess?

off we went again, after a short break...

it was a bright and sunny day... which explained me getting sun-burnt on my scalp, coz i forgot to pack my hat along!

we came to another cave dwelling, this time belonging to a nun. a few of my tour members went up (via a back entrance) but i decided i ~~am too lazy~~ have seen enough cave dwellings for this trip.

at yet another stop, this one selling a mixture of pomegranate and grape fruit juice. really sour and yummy, tho' a tad expensive!

we arrived at this place at the end of our walk. this is cavusin (pronounced "chausin"), the oldest cave settlement in the area. there were people still staying here till as late as the 70s, with the last family moving out in 1976 after the government ruled the place unsafe for habitation due to erosion. some parts are still open for tourists, but some of us decided not to go up, choosing instead to sit in the shades of one of the many coffee shops while waiting for the group of japanese boys to finish exploring the place.

after lunch, we went to kaymakli, an underground city that spans 8 floors! but only 4 floors are open to the public now. this city started out as early as the hittite times and has expanded over the centuries where the locals used it as their living quarters when various marauding armies passed through here.

see that big round slab of stone on the left? that's a stone door, where it can be rolled over the doorway to close off access from the enemies

the inside of the cave city is surprisingly cool, due to these air tunnels that spans all the floors to ensure that the dwellers do not suffocate...

the walkways between sections are really narrow, where we can only walk bent in single file! the people in the olden days must be really small...

next stop was to the jewelers... just a short stop coz none of us were interested in buying anything.

tree of evil eye. the evil eye has a deep-seated tradition in turkey, which is said to originate from medusa's eyes in greek mythology.

at the end of the tour, we were brought back to goreme, where we decided to take a walk into town in search of an early dinner. this is a doner kebab, different from the kebabs i had on my 1st and 2nd day in istanbul.

saw this cute display on our walk back to sarihan cave hotel & pension...

walking back to our hotel... the weather got quite chilly towards the night.

on the upper terrace of our cave hotel, waiting for our van to come pick us up to the kayseri airport for our flight back to istanbul that night...

awesome sunset over cappadocia!

we got back to istanbul in one piece, but i had to pay for excess luggage coz the allocation was only 15kg and i was only like 2-3kg overweight! wth... and they were quite strict, no negotiating at all. they just tell you straight, "please go over to that counter over there and pay for your excess luggage. then come back here to get your boarding pass."

anyway, we got back to istanbul in one piece and checked-in again at yusuf pasa konagi, at about midnight.

bento #27: the first one after 2 years!

2012-08-22T18:37:00.002+08:00

in case some of you have not caught on, i just got back from my 3 weeks of home leave. and as usual, i came back with a box full of food and goodies that couldn't be found in the desert. among the items in my luggage, was a bubee insulated container that i bought from a stall in midvalley. it was an afterthought buy, as i was actually helping my colleague to buy one and at the last minute, thought it'll useful for me too.

anyway, yesterday being my first day back to work, i kinda lost my appetite at lunch time when i saw the food in the staff cafeteria. well, who can blame me, after all those yummy food back home?! so i decided to make use of my newly acquired bubee container...

i used the two small containers from this termos set...

preparation:

1. put 3/4 cup of rice to soak overnight

2. wash and chop up some dried mussels, refrigerate

3. wash some kei-zhi (wolfberries), refrigerate

4. scoop out some pickled szechuan vege into small container, refrigerate

5. scoop out some fermented bean curd into small container, refrigerate

this morning, with only 5 more minutes before the 8am staff bus is scheduled to leave, i drained the rice and put them into the bubee container, threw in the dried mussels and wolfberries, and brought everything to the office.

upon reaching the office, i poured hot water onto the rice in the bubee container and screwed on the lid tightly. and by midday, voila! my porridge is ready!

this was how it looked like when the lid was first opened. i thought i'd put in too little water, not enough for it to become porridge. but upon stirring, i found that the bottom was quite watery after all.

for continuous improvement:

1. need to use boiling water and not just hot water, as some of the rice were still hard in the middle

2. must remember salt or soy sauce

a simple meal, but yummy all the same! :)

the art of matchmaking...

2012-08-15T17:10:00.003+08:00

being a single gal at 30+ of age, it's inevitable that i'd fall prey to the kaypoh intentions of friends and family members to try to matchmake me with someone they know. everyone has one (or a few) relative/friend/acquaintance who is single that's "just the right match" for me.

whatever...

for me, i don't really care much about meeting "the right match" through such activities but i don't really repel these intentions either. i know my friends and family members (and sometimes even friends' friends, or their mothers, or the vegetable seller in the market that they frequent) meant well. some people have the misconception that singles are sad lonely people who need rescueing.

whatever...

anyway, like i said, i've nothing against them. so most of the time, i'd go along for the arranged meetup, sometimes just to humour the matchmaker, even when i am already seeing someone secretly on the side. ok, this fact may or may not be true. i'm just saying...

i don't really see it as a matchmaking session, but more like meeting a new friend. no harm knowing another friend, right? that being said, however, there were some awkward moments that could have been avoided had the matchmaking party been more tactful about the whole thing.

as an experienced "victim" to matchmaking, i've been to my fair share of such sessions. while some were disastrous (ok, most were disastrous), i'd also like to point out that i met one of my good friends this way too. so it's not all bad... that's why i've decided to make a compilation of some do's and don'ts for all those aspiring matchmakers out there. note: some of these incidents may not be from my own experience.

it's just a meetup, not meet-the-parents marriage proposal
there's no need to go on and on about the guy's family background, how his mother is really nice and understanding and there's no need to worry about the in-laws after marriage. like, seriously?? we've only met the guy (along with his mother) for 5 minutes and you're already talking about our future marriage life together? geez...

too hard-sell
yeah, we know you're really excited for the two of us to meet and you really hope to see us take to each other and all that. but before the meetup, there's no need to fill both parties in on every tiny detail you know about the other party. what do you expect us to talk about when we meet? the weather? if we already know everything about him and him us, then there's no need for all those "getting-to-know-you" conversations anymore, no?

guy: i just drove down from penang, where i work
girl: yeah, i know
*crickets chirping*

girl: i'm in the drugs business
guy: yeah, i know
*crickets chirping*

whisper-whispering and making eye signals behind our backs as if we're not there
look, if the guy you're trying to introduce to us still needs behavioural coaching, why the hell are you introducing him to us?!? and trust me, though we pretend not to notice all those subtle raised eyebrows and eye signals, we do see them.

also, there's nothing worse than being made to feel like an outsider, when two or more of your friends are whispering (not so softly too!) right in front of you, on the strategies they should employ in getting the two subjects at the table to warm up to each other. like hello, we're still here and we can seeeeeeeee and heeaaarrr yooooouuuuu!

teasing us about the guy we've not even met
now i find this one totally immature. ok, so you know someone great you want us to know. fine. but there's no need tell everyone in the group as well, and then start teasing us for our every action and words, as if we're so hard-up to meet this great and amazing guy friend of yours!

girl: let's go over there by the lake.
friends: aiya, he won't be there lar. why you wanna go there for?

girl: wait, let me have that seat. the wind from this direction will mess up my hair.
friends: why? here has a better view of him? where is he sitting by the way?

gosh please, we're not in school anymore!

the way i see it, the best way for a successful matchmaking session is to let nature take its course. sure, we sometimes need a little nudge in the right direction, which is the reason for the matchmaking, or maybe i should use the term "introduction". but after that, just let things be. we've met the guy, he's met us. so now let's just have a totally normal meal/drink while we talk about normal everyday stuff in a normal ordinary way. if he's interested, let him take the initiative. he's a big boy, there's no need to hold his hand all the way. if there's no interest, then just move on. and sometimes in place of romance, the seed of friendship is sown, which is a good thing too!

by the way, i'm kinda traditional in the sense that i still believe that a guy should always be the one to make the first move. yeah, i'm difficult like that, but that's just me :)

day 5: uninvited breakfast guests and getting stark naked in cappadocia

2012-07-22T20:56:00.001+08:00

after a nearly 10 hours overnight bus ride, we finally arrived in the lil town of goreme in cappadocia at about 8.30am. that's 1.5 hour later than what was written in our itinerary! but wait, there wasn't anyone to meet us at the town square where the express bus let us off!

looking like a lost puppy and didn't know where to go nor what to do!

luckily there is a tourist information booth there and we got the nice man behind the desk to help us. i showed him our itinerary and told him that we were booked at peri cave hotel & pension. he placed a call to the hotel and told them about their 2 stranded guests. and within 10 minutes, a car from the hotel came to pick us up. then it took us a total of 3 minutes to get to the hotel! lol... if we'd known the way, we could've walked there!

when we got to the hotel, more confusion ensued. they couldn't find our booking! again, i showed my itinerary and told them the name of our tour agency. they said they will check and of course they have room to accommodate us, but in the meantime, would we like to have some breakfast? after the long and tiring bus ride, of course we tucked in!

outdoor breakfast in the nice and crisp weather.

we were very excited that we would be staying in a CAVE!

while we were eating, the hotel people came over to tell us that there's been a mistake. we were actually booked for another hotel and the driver is already here to pick us up! what the...?!? we complaint that he should've met us at the square, then this stupid mistake would not have happened! anyway, we said thank you to the nice ladies in the kitchen of peri cave hotel... you know, for the free breakfast. i hope they charge it back to the other hotel! or to the tour agent! hehe...

another 3 minutes car ride bought us to sarihan cave hotel & pension. luckily it's also a cave hotel.

the space in the cave were hand carved out, so it wasn't a natural cave. that explained the shape of the room, electricity and all the modern fixtures.

they even carved out a space for the tv!

a spacious and modern bathroom...

we were just settling down and getting ready for a nice warm shower when the front desk people called up to say that our tour van is waiting at the front for our 9.30am tour! what the...?!? we've not taken a shower since the morning of the previous day (the cold outdoor shower without shower gel in pamukkale does not count!). that's like 24 hours without showering! we were really looking forward to this freshening and cleansing up, and they tell us we've no time?!?

we told them we're not ready, but as there were other people in the tour, the driver said he'll go pick up the rest of the people from the other hotels around the area and be back to get us... IN 10 MINUTES! heck, i'd need more than 10 minutes for me alone! we just had time to brush our teeth, splash water on our faces and change our clothes! damn, damn, damn!

first stop was the monks valley, or pasabag. the whole of cappadocia is known form these rock formations. those rock caps are known as fairy chimneys.

inside one of the caves, said to be the living quarters of a monk named simon who came to live a hermit's life a long time ago.

turkish ice-cream!

view from the van... woolly sheep! i nearly broke out into the baa-baa black sheep song, but thought better of it :P

next we went to the devrent valley, or imagination valley, where the rock have weird formations... do you see a turkey there? a camel?

next, a visit to the pottery shop in avanos (another town in cappadocia), the centre for terra cotta work since 3000 bc.

first, there's a demonstration of how potteries were made the traditional way. in the olden days, a man can only win over his bride if he shows that he has the ability to make pottery. this is to prove to the girl's parents that he has the means to make a living and can provide for his bride and family.

next, they asked for a volunteer from our group, which gave some very hilarious result! someone from our group commented that now we know who's responsible for all those phallic formations in the area! LOL...

we were served tea and coffee in these cute and unique cups. took some will power on my side not to slip this into my bag! :P

next, we were shown how the wares were hand-painted and coloured in the typical turkish design. this particular shop has their own "family design", which is passed down through the generations (it's the 6th generation now) and is said to be quite famous throughout turkey.

then we were brought down to the shop part, where all their wares were displayed. it's underground and quite cold down there!

this is how the wine jars are held. for bigger ones, you slip your whole arm in and support it with your sholders.

didn't buy anything, coz they were freaking expensive and it's not like we'll be able to tell the difference between "unique family design" and "mass-produced-made-for-tourist" wares. so we waited till we got back to istanbul and bought cheaper ones from the roadside stalls :D

see what greeted us outside the restaurant at lunch time? our guide joked: "you know there are some restaurants where you get to choose your fish from the aquarium? now here, you get to choose your own mutton. take your pick!" lol...

as starter, we had tandoori soup with bread. quite nice, but some ang-mohs in our group didn't like it.

our main dish: chicken cooked in claypot. the top was covered with some pastry stuff on top, like shepherd's pie, but the chicken was cooked in spices.

oh, see what the non-english speaking driver gave me? *blush* hahaha... lovely lilly and i was sitting up front with the driver, coz the van was kinda full and there's no point for the guide to take up 2 seats in front when he only need one seat behind.

after lunch, we were brought to yet another carpet store...

by day 5, we were getting a tad tired of carpets... even though they were "flying carpets" :P

after sitting through the carpet talk and smiling politely while sipping yet another cup of apple tea, we were brought to the goreme open air museum, where these caves served as religious buildings in the middle ages (goreme was an important centre of christianity at that time).

pigeon houses on the rock formation created by people in the olden days, where the dropping were used as fertilizers.

with a bunch of school kids on an excursion here. they were all very eager to introduce themselves to me, probably cherishing the opportunity to practice their english!

we were getting quite tired by now, so we didn't go into each and every hole in the rock, but just hung around outside while those still with stamina did their exploring. i was expecting to get really cranky from not getting to shower, but surprisingly i was ok. must be due to the cool weather, that i didn't feel so sticky and uncomfortable even after walking around so much!

our final sightseeing for the day was to this hill that overlooks the uchisar castle.

poor camel!

back at our cave hotel. this is on the 2nd floor terrace, one floor below us.

the other cave hotels around the area... some parts are added on, obviously.

since it was still early, we decided to explore the town of goreme a bit, which is just a 5 minutes walk from our hotel. i recalled our tour van passing by a hamam (turkish bath) place earlier, so we went out in search of it. seeing that we've not showered for more than 36 hours by then, a turkish bath sounded like an exquisite idea!

lotsa stray dogs here, but it's good to see that they've all been tagged, meaning they've been neutered. that is so much more humane then just shooting them down or rounding them up to the pound. so impressed with their efforts!

after some walking around getting our bearings of the place, we finally found the place. the basic hamam bath is 60 turkish lira (≈ RM103), so that's what we took. i tried to charm the proprietor to give us a discount, but it didn't work. need to work on that department more! hehe... but he did throw in a disposable g-string bikini for us, which he claimed to charge other people an extra 10 turkish lira.

after paying at the counter, we were shown downstairs to the ladies' floor, where we were given a locker each to put our stuff. after donning our disposable bikini, we wrapped ourselves in the towels provided and went out to see one of the hamam ladies, who applied a seaweed facial mask on our faces and lead us into the sauna. as this is our first time, we didn't know what to expect. and the non-english speaking service staff were of no help. so after sitting in the sauna for a while, we were at a lost. do we go through the other door to the next stage? do we continue to sit and wait for someone to come get us? so i went out again to ask the staff, not that they would understand what we were saying and vice versa. but while we were trying to make sense of what the staff was saying to us, we heard a bell went *ding*. ahhh... so that's what we were supposed to be waiting for!

so the staff pointed us to another door, which was a shower room. again, with no instruction. we went in, saw the shower cubicles and a flight of steps leading up to a small indoor pool. since this seemed like the "next stage", we assumed that we were to go have a dip in the pool. so we went into the shower cubicle to wash off the mask on our faces and went into the pool. that was when we saw the sign with images that showed we're not supposed to be wearing anything in the pool, not even our bikinis! opps...

we quickly got out, and went through another door, where there's a big slab of marble platform thing in the middle of a big room, something like this:

pic copied without permission from here.

there were naked girls lying around on each edge of the marble slab, each being scrubbed by a service staff in black 2 piece swim suits, while more naked girls were sitting around at the side where the marble water basins are, waiting their turn. some were stark naked, while some (the shy ones like us, even though we were in our disposable bikinis) were wrapped up in towels. it was quite awkward for us, trying to avert our eyes away from all those nakedness, but didn't know where to look as there were naked women in every direction!

when it was our turn, we were scrubbed long and hard with some special cloth. the service staff doing this part of the job were all quite big sized, so there were really some pressure going. i joked with lovely lilly that they looked like amazon women (from our crash-course in roman mythology at ephesus just recently)! soon, we can see little rolls of grey grime and dirt on the marble around us. i felt so light after that! imagine carrying all those dead stuff on our skin the whole time! yucks!

after being scrubbed nearly raw, we were washed and sent back to the shower room with the pool. NOW only we're supposed to go dip in the pool... totally naked! so we decided to forgo this part (the getting naked part), and just showered and went to dry ourselves and change in the locker room. we were feeling so squeaky clean that we were quite reluctant to put on our dirty clothes again, but there's no other option around it.

upon stepping out of the hamam house, it started to rain. so we quickly found a restaurant to go into for our dinner. dinner was pizza and from the menu, it looked like it was on some baguette. so we ordered one pizza each. imagine our horror when we saw that the pizzas were quite big! we could've shared one, especially since both of us ordered the same kind of pizza! =_='''

in the end, we packed half of each of our pizzas to go, and on the walk back to our hotel, there was this dog who kept following behind me. no prize for guessing who ate the remainder of the pizza slices.

view around our hotel at night...

day 4: pamukkale, the reason we're in turkey!

2012-07-05T16:51:00.002+08:00

we woke up all buzzing with excitement, coz we'll be going to pamukkale! one more item to cross off my bucket list! ok, i don't really have a bucket list. just saying it for dramatic effects :P

the hotel breakfast was nothing great, so again, no photos taken. we checked-out and were picked up from the hotel by our driver at 8am. the bus ride from kusadasi to pamukkale took about 3 hours, going through denizli with their vast landscape of strawberry and pomegranate plantations...

...and the snow-capped mount ararat in the distance

everyone was excited when we caught our first glimpse of the white hardened calcium on the sides of the hill...

but first, we had to do the practical like eat lunch first! it's another buffet of arabic fare in the town of pamukkale, included in the tour package. oh, did i mention that i love their rice? slightly sticky and tasted something like calrose rice...

after lunch, we're finally there! but before getting to the calcium terraces, we need to listen to our guide telling us about the site, where the ancient romans have built a city around it due to its natural spring source bla bla bla... which was rather frustrating, coz we just couldn't wait to get to the calcium terraces!! shaddup and let's get going already!

site of the ancient roman school...

the main road of the ancient hierapolis, found and excavated less than 6 months before!

finally, we got to the highlight of our trip! here is the source of the natural spring, known as the cleopatra pool (tho' we were quite doubtful if cleopatra was really here!). this pool is said to posses rejuvenating effects, something like the pool of eternal youth lar, and we had to pay 30 turkish lira (≈ RM60) if we wish to go for a dip here.

not exactly clean like a swimming pool and lovely lily and i had some initial qualms about dipping ourselves in a pool full of green algae and other natural stuff! so city slickers of us, right? :P

but we went ahead anyway, coz we've come all this way here. and we'd have seen the calcium terraces of pamukkale, so even if we were to die from some weird bacteria in the dirty water, it would have been worth it. lol!

anyway, after dipping in the pool and getting all wrinkly, we decided it's time to go out to the calcium terraces. we can't step onto the white calcium with our shoes on, so after much discussion, we decided to leave our shoes in our lockers (included in the 30 lira payment for cleopatra pool), instead of leaving it out in the open at the top of the terraces. but that means we had to walk barefoot on the pebbles and sand, as the terraces are about 200 metres away from the cleopatra pool. so for those of you who're planning a trip there, remember to bring slippers! and a big towel, coz...

...we also had to walk half naked in our swim wears! luckily i didn't decide to wear a bikini! :P

up-close shot of the dried up calcium from the natural spring water. but they can't be completely dried, coz then they'll turn brown...

ahem... now THIS shot would look good if i'd decided to wear a bikini, right? :P

the parts with water...

...parts without water. now they have a water management system, where they control the water flow to different parts of the terrace in turn, to let the calcium sediment a chance to harden so that they don't erode away from being stepped on by so many tourists

muddy calcium sludge...

my favourite pic from the trip! natural infinity pool...

after frolicking in the hot turkish sun for nearly one hour, we thought we'd better get back to the pool for another soak. luckily the tickets that we paid for were not for one-entry only. there's lovely lily getting some water back massage in the pool...

as we were going on to capadocia from here, we didn't have to stick to the schedule of the rest of our tour group, who were going back to kusadasi at 4pm. so we were able to take our own sweet time in making the most out of our 30 lira, soaking in the cleopatra pool until we're all wrinkly and sun-burnt (coz tho' the air is crisp, it was pretty sunny), and with blue-black bruises on our legs, as the floor of the pool is full of big boulders, marble columns, stones and pebbles - easy for us to loose our balance and scrape and knock ourselves!

our tour guide had showed us the way to pamukkale town, which is just a walk down the calcium terraces. so just before the cleopatra pool closes at 5pm, we got up, took a quick cold rinse at the shower (the water was really icy cold - we were literally jogging in place under the shower!!) and got dressed. i guess we didn't think this through enough, coz we didn't bring any shower gel, shampoo nor skin lotion with us. so after all those exposure to the sun and the calcium in the water, our skin felt all dry and icky.

walking back down the calcium terraces, this time carrying our shoes with us...

in pamukkale town, we quickly went to the tour office where we had deposited our luggage earlier and got out our toiletries bags to try to salvage our skin as best we could. still, we've not taken any proper shower, so we were still feeling icky.

after making sure that our transfer to our next destination has been arranged and everything is in order, we decided to look for dinner. as this is already my 4th day in turkey, i'm quite ready to have some other food that's NOT turkish. so lovely lily and i decided to split up and have our dinners on our own, since it's really a very small town and there's not much chance that we'd get lost.

i decided to try this japanese shop just next to the tour agent's office... which served korean food. here's my bibimbab... and they were not expensive at all (tho' i've forgotten the actual price now)!

inu-chan, the big friendly goldie belonging to the japanese lady who ran the restaurant... "inu" means "dog" in japanese, so its name is something like "little dog". how cute!

after dinner, i went to look for lovely lily (who was still eating her turkish kebab) and we took a walk around town, popping into shops etc. then we went back to sit around at the tour agent's office before transferring our luggage to a small b&b from where our van will pick us up. they have free wi-fi there, so we spent our time surfing the web and updating facebook (only me, as lovely lily doesn't have fb) before the van's departure.

we were brought to the denizli bus station, where we had to sit around for some 2 hours before our bus finally arrived, inhaling all the cigarette smoke around us. i tell you, turkey must have the largest smoker population in the whole wide world! everyone seems to be smoking, from old men and women, to young teenage boys and girls barely of legal age! we were watching in disgust at a young couple saying their goodbyes. both took a long drag from their ciggies and even before they exhale the smoke, they were already locking lips with each other! urgh!

oh, they're also very liberal and open, for an islamic country, with plenty of PDAs around - must be a european influence. anyway, in our itinerary, it was stated that we will depart for capadocia at 9 or 10pm. but our bus only arrived at the bus station at 11pm and departed at 11.30pm. so you can just imagine how many times we changed our seats to get away from them smoke!

but our bus was quite alright lar. it's an express bus, air-conditioned (thank god, no smoking!) and they even served us hot drinks and cake! we were on an overnight bus to capadocia, a journey of about 8 hours. so i declined the coffee/tea, coz i intended to go straight to sleep and be fresh and ready for the next day's tour. (was also looking forward to a nice warm shower when we arrive at our hotel in the morning!)

day 3: off to izmir/kusadasi

2012-07-02T22:30:00.000+08:00

ok, i know i've been really lazy in updating. it's only day 3 of my turkey trip! *sweat* will try my hardest to get it done as soon as possible, so that i can blog about other stuff...

------------

so as mentioned, lovely lily arrived around midnight. after quickly filling her in on what she's missed, we went to bed at about 3am. but we had to drag ourselves out of bed again at 4.30am, coz we had to check-out at 5am! we're flying to izmir and our flight was at 7am.

it's just a short drive to the airport, especially it being at such an unearthly hour. we arrived at the airport in good time, but when we found our counter, there weren't anyone there. the whole airport seems to be dead, with people at only a handful of counters. so we thought we were early and sat around waiting for the counter to open.

after a while, we went over to ask a staff at another counter and he said the people for our flight don't come so early. we thought this weird coz don't we have to check-in at least 1 hour before our flight, even for domestic? ok, maybe it's how things work in their country, so we sat around some more.

but then we've only a 1/2 hour left before departure and STILL the counter remained close. we got a bit worried, so we went over to the airport information counter to ask. imagine our panic when we found out that we're actually in the international airport, when we were supposed to be at the domestic airport! man, did we run like mad women over to the domestic airport, which thankfully was just in the next building. but it was still a long way away and between our panting and huffing and puffing, we were cursing the driver for dropping us off at the wrong airport! who would have thought to check if the driver sent by the travel agent knows where to drop us?

upon reaching the domestic airport, more panic ensued when we saw that there's a rather long queue at our counter. we were praying hard that they will not turn us away (and in between praying hard, we were also still cursing at the driver!) luckily after a while, an officer came over and started asking "izmir? izmir?" to those of us in the queue. lovely lily and i, and 2 or 3 others, quickly raised our hands and we were asked to jump queue to be processed first. *phew*

and we felt further relief when we got to the gate, as there is still a very long queue of people moving slowly through. i think they just opened the gate! *phew*

we were picked-up by our driver at the airport in izmir, together with a family of 3 singaporeans (parents and their adult daughter) and a chinese mother-daughter team from united states. then we went about fetching more people from 2 more hotels including our tour guide, before proceeding to our first tour site 2 hours' drive away from izmir, the house where the virgin mary is believed to have spent her final years.

lovely lily made me light a candle too, tho' i'm not a believer. but i dun see any harm in doing it, so here's me caught in the act...

drinking from a natural spring source... ok, just a tiny sip, as i wasn't so sure drinking uncooked water.

attaching my wish to the wall of wishes...

wishes in various forms...

wc stands for "water closet", meaning toilet. a widely used term in europe?

next, we went to the ancient city of ephesus, the famous greco-roman city that's said to be the most well-preserved example of its kind in the world. toured the place the rest of the morning...

by the time we arrived at ephesus, it's already 11am and the sun was really shining bright and hot! izmir is known for getting 300 days of sunshine. here i'm at the main street of the ancient city...

restoration work is still going on...

snake and staff symbol - an evidence that this section was a hospital

the public toilet. marble seats are the original and stone ones are reconstructed. in the ancient times, family slaves would be sent over to warm up the marble seats in winter, tho' they're not allowed to use these toilets. our guide warned us not to touch the marble ones, coz they've been used by a lot of romans and have not been sterilized! lol...

the oh-em-gee site, according to our guide. this is the entrance to the ancient roman library, said to have held the 2nd most scrolls in the ancient world, the first being the library in egypt.

another theatre... the crane at the top right kinda spoiled the view, doesn't it? :(

it's 1pm by the time we finished the tour and everyone was hot, sweaty, tired and hungry! lunch was included in the package, so we were brought to this restaurant that served turkish fares in buffet-style, tho' drinks were not included. talk about preying on tourists to make money!

chicken and some vege stuffed with spiced rice...

after lunch, we were brought on a detour to this huge shop selling leather jackets, where we were first treated to a fashion show catwalk-style. then we were encouraged to browse around the shop and try on their leather jackets. dun worry about the price printed on the price tag, coz we're a special group and we get 50% discount! *rolls eyes* of course this wasn't in the itinerary! but their jackets were really top quality, really soft and fine, from the best sheep skin in the region. didn't buy any tho', coz these were not in our budget.

next destination was ephesus museum... just took a quick walk around, as i didn't really have any patience for museum. not the boring ones, anyway...

then we went to the site of the temple of artemis, which was once one of the seven wonders of the ancient world but is now in ruins. see its actual structure in the previous photo, taken from the museum. nothing much to see here actually, only one column left standing. i think they threw this into the itinerary coz there wasn't really anything else worth visiting in this place!

before dropping us off to our hotels, we were again brought on another detour, this time to a carpet factory. actually i don't really mind visiting these factories and shops, as they reflected the local culture and the industries of the place. and they were so much nicer than those in china, where they'll try to con us into buying their stuff. here, the proprietors were very passionate about their industries and proud of their work. they didn't really try to persuade us to buy anything.

extracting silk from cocoons in a boiling pot...

carpet weaving... the turkish knot is different from those used in persian rugs as well as those from other regions.

my first glimpse of the aegean sea! but my dream is to see it from the greece side :(

this was when our driver dropped off a few of our tour members to their hotels by the sea...

our hotel in kusadasi, the worst one we stayed in on this trip! see my review on tripadvisor

initially we wanted to try out the hamam (turkish bath) and tried to book through the hotel, but the front desk guy couldn't locate the hamam owner...

...so we decided to just take a walk to the beach / aegean sea.

dinner was included in our hotel booking, but it was nothing to shout about, so didn't take any photos.

like a true chinese!

2012-06-21T22:48:00.001+08:00

boss: i like your new hairstyle. you look like a ninja. when your enemies approach, you just pull out the dagger from your hair and throw at them!
stargal: =_=''' boss, this is not a dagger!
boss: no? oh, then it's a pencil?
stargal: no, not a pencil also... it's a... a... a chopstick!
boss: aahhh... then you can just pull it out and eat at anytime!
stargal: yeah, like a true chinese! :P

day 2: sightseeing in istanbul

2012-06-07T20:59:00.001+08:00

my tour of istanbul began at 8.30am, when my tour guide came to meet me at the lobby after breakfast. we walked over to another hotel nearby to pick up another couple and we were good to go.

first stop was the blue mosque. as it was a functioning mosque, we had to remove our shoes and wear modestly. the other lady in my group wore a sleeveless top, so she had to cover up with a shawl, which was provided at the entrance.

plastic bags provided for us to carry our shoes in.

the blue mosque got its name not from its exterior, but from the mostly blue hues of the tiles used in its interior.

the restricted part of the mosque, for prayers.

at the outer courtyard of the blue mosque... that's my lady guide, named gul (sounds like ghoul!) and a half of the couple in my tour group.

next on the itinerary was the hagia sofia (pronounced "aya sofia") mosque. this is not a functioning mosque, hence no carpeting and flash photography is allowed.

it was originally a church which was later converted into a mosque, so this is not something you see everyday - the image of the virgin mary flanked by the arabic letters of allah and prophet mohammed.

this is probably the only mosque that has human form images... having human form images on the walls of a mosque is akin to paganism, hence forbidden. when the church was first converted into a mosque, all the faces of the seraphims (god's protector angels with 6 wings) were being covered up with plasters and was only revealed again 160 years later.

going up to the upper story... in the olden days, the queen will be carried up this long and winding passage by monks to watch the coronation of the king below from the upper balcony. this passage goes round and round, as if going up to a tower, which reminded me of those fairy tales where the princess is being held prisoner by her wicked stepmother or other evil villain!

the remains of a wall mosaic on the upper floor, showing the virgin mary and father joseph asking forgiveness from jesus for the sins of humans. these mosaics were also hidden in layers of plaster and were only revealed when hagia sofia became a museum. part of the mosaic was damaged during the removal of the plaster...

another wall mosaic with virgin mary holding the baby jesus (jesus's images always have a halo with a cross on them), flanked by empress zoe and her husband. empress zoe had many husbands, so every time she remarried, they would just remove the head part of her previous husband and redo the mosaic to show her current husband's face... how clever and convenient, right? :D

the baptism tub for adults in the courtyard, which was not used after the church was converted into a mosque

hagia sofia was the end of the tour for the husband and wife team in my group. so we parted ways, and since it was still early for lunch, gul suggested that we walk over to the spice bazaar. it's quite a long walk, and even though the weather was sunny, the air was cool and crisp. so it wasn't a particularly tiring walk, and besides, it gave me plenty of opportunities to take in the sights of the city.

they noticed that i was snapping their photos, so they turned and smiled into the camera for me. how friendly!

some of the stuff sold in the spice bazaar, clockwise from top left: turkish glass lamps, spices, handmade soaps, teas, gigantic cheese, dried fruits and turkish delights

after spice bazaar, we took the tram back to sultanahmet (where my hotel and the blue mosque is) for lunch. lunch was included in my tour package and i chose the chicken kebab again.

after lunch, the tour agent arranged for me to join another group to go for the cruise up the bosphorus. but before that we were brought to a carpet shop, the first of many that i will visit during my trip. there, we were being served coffee/tea while they introduced to us the art of carpet making as well as the difference between turkish carpets and those from other countries. then, of course they tried to sell us their carpets but i dun think anyone bought any.

after the stop at the carpet store, we were driven to the spice bazaar again! zzzZZZzzZzz... if i'd known the spice bazaar was in the itinerary, i'd have requested my guide to bring me to the basilica cistern instead. even though it's not part of our itinerary, i think she won't mind bringing me there if i pay for the entrance fee. furthermore, it is very near the hagia sofia and we won't need to walk so far as compared to walking to the spice bazaar!

on the cruise ship up the bosphorus.

the bosphorus is the turkish strait that separates turkey into the european and asian parts. first, the cruise brings us up the strait along the european side where we can see the sights (houses and buildings) with a more european influence. then halfway up the strait, the cruise made a turn and cruised down along the asian side. the whole cruise was very scenic, but it got quite cold after a while that everyone was desperate to get off towards the end!

the dolmabahce palace along the bosphorus. i wish we had stayed an extra day in istanbul so that we could include this into our itinerary. guess i'll just have come back here again... ;)

the bridge connecting the european turkey and the asian turkey. according to my guide, in the early years when the bridge was opened, pedestrians were allowed to walk across it. however, due to the high suicide rates, pedestrians are not allowed anymore. so now, anyone who wishes to jump down the bridge would take a taxi during rush hour, where they could just open the door and jump down when the taxi was caught in the jam!

next, we were driven up the pierre loti hill, a popular weekend destination for the locals here. the air was quite cool up here, with a magnificent view of the golden horn, an inlet in the bosphorus.

from pierre loti hill, we took the cable car down to where our van was waiting to bring us back to our hotels.

back at sultanahmet, i ventured out again in search of dinner... a friend on fb recommended that i try their fish, as istanbul is just by the marmara sea, hence seafood is really fresh here. there are a lot of establishments selling fish this way, with an ice box right outside their shop displaying the assortment of sea creatures they have to offer that day.

no, that's not the fish i ordered. the guy was just being drama, wanna take a photo with me! and that's his uncle behind there, giving us horns on our heads! (>_<)

it's quite a nice restaurant, with their waiters in jackets n ties! i sat outside to enjoy the lovely weather...

my dinner, clockwise from top: sea bass were only served one way - grilled, dessert of baklavas and seafood appetizers. oh, and apple tea, which was not photographed.

dinner was quite pricey, considering it was just my 2nd day there and i still had to budget my expenses for the rest of my trip. luckily i didn't order wine (who drinks wine alone in a restaurant anyway?), so i could still live with the bill :P

i just happened to look out my hotel window that night, and this view took my breath away. the photo just doesn't do justice to the amazing sight that i saw! here's what i posted on my fb status: "omg, i'm looking at something totally awesome while typing this! pulled open my room curtains n saw the blue mosque all lit up in its majestic splendour. but dat's not it. there r birds (too far away to tell wat kinda birds) juz flying ard overhead n they too r lit up by the lights! at 1st i thot they're fireflies, yes they're dat bright!"

lovely lily finally landed at istanbul in the early hour of 1am, so my sleep was interrupted when i had to drag myself out of bed to open the door for her :)

2nd birthday in sandland...

2012-05-30T22:14:00.000+08:00

taking a break from travel blogging (ok, i know i've been lazy. will find the mood to continue with my turkey trip soon! hehe), i guess i need to record down this annual event of my life lar: my birthday. last year was nothing special, just an ordinary weekend in my ordinary life. this year, i'd LOVE to say that it was very special, but hehe... it's quite ordinary as well :P

the greetings started coming in at the stroke of midnight, or rather, at the stroke of midnight m'sian time! so touched that my buddies and friends remembered, especially since i've removed my birthday from facebook :")

anyway, had a mini meltdown for a while, right after i sent an sms to my mom to thank her for everything. another year away from my family and loved ones! but all is good, so pulled myself up, regrouped, and went about the rest of my day as per normal.

as it was a working day, my colleagues prepared a cake for me. it's actually quite standard lar, as we have a departmental budget for these kinda things... but it was quite sweet just the same.

cake pic with instagram...

with my departmental colleagues...

haha... look at that long knife! and i didn't realize my colleague was posing behind me like that! :D

the cake was so chocolaty and thick (as in consistency) that it was so difficult to cut into!

stargal: boss, what is this? *showing the photo*

boss: omygad, who is that?

stargal: boss, u're the only one wearing blue today =_='''

boss: i dunno what u're talking about. so many people wearing blue today *pointing at my other colleagues whom none of them were wearing blue*

with our director. this other colleague's birthday is this coming weekend, so we sang her a song as well... :)

well, that's another year in the bag!

day 1: airport drama and first glimpse of istanbul

2012-05-13T21:19:00.000+08:00

the day before my trip, i received an sms from my travel companion, lovely lily, that her flight was delayed and she might have to meet me at the airport for our departure. she was on her yearly vacation back to fiji and was supposed to arrive back in dubai one day before we're to depart for turkey. but her flight from nz-hk-dubai (there're no direct flights from fiji, and she was in nz for a visit to her cousin) was delayed due to some technical problems, so she'll only be arriving in dubai on the morning of our departure date. the problem is, our departure time for turkey was also in the morning! so i was kinda stressed out the night before, as she did not communicate to me what time she'll be arriving in dubai. i stayed up till quite late coz she said she'll give me a call when she reaches dubai and i expected her to arrive in the wee morning hours. but when she's still not called (and her phone remained off when i tried calling her) by 2am, i decided that i need to get some sleep for our morning flight! i had a fitful sleep, waking up a few times to check my phone to see if there's a missed call or an sms or if my sms to her went through.

my sms finally got thru to her when i was on my way to the airport at 6.00am, so i called her immediately. she said she's just arrived and will go to the check-in counter directly after clearing immigration. i reminded her that our flight is at 8am and the counter closes one hour before.

sitting patiently (at least TRYING to be patient!) at the check-in hall... 15 more minutes before the counters close, where the hell is she lar???

one thing you need to know about dubai airport is, the lines at the immigration are always long regardless the time of the day. even if you arrive at 2am, you'd still be standing in line for up to 1 hour! so you can all guess correctly that lovely lily didn't make it to the check-in counter in time. she only called me when i was walking along the aisle of the plane looking for my seat, that she was refused from checking-in. it's no wonder, as it was already half an hour before departure.

actually i went to the counter people and explained my friend's predicament, begging them to wait a bit longer but they said lovely lily should've gone to the transit/transfer desk, instead of going thru the immigration, which would be wasting so much time! however, by the time i conveyed this to lovely lily, it's already 1 hour after her arrival and her luggage would've been out by then. in the end, i had to fly alone to istanbul and wait for her to arrange another flight to join me there. so the moral of the story is, don't plan your flights back-to-back as there's no guarantee that things would run as expected, especially flight schedules! so much airport drama...

checked-in at our hotel in istanbul, yusuf pasa konagi, a little hotel of only 24 rooms right smack in the touristy sultanahmet area. very clean and cosy hotel, with nice and friendly staff.

the room comes with a hamam-styled bathroom (hamam = turkish bath)! who needs to go to the bathhouses when you have one right in your room? but sitting on the marble slab to scrub yourself definitely took some getting used to...

they even provided several types of handmade soap that turkey is famous for, as well as a few other amenities for your hamam needs...

as it was still quite early in the evening, i decided to venture out to get my bearings and for some familiarization...

passed by a lot of stalls and shops...

it was quite safe walking on the streets here and the people were really friendly. i was even dragged by a few shoppers into their shops to be served apple tea, and i didn't feel threatened or afraid for my life or worried i'd get conned into buying their carpets/ceramic wares/knick-knacks etc. they just loved visitors and it's just their way of showing us the turkish hospitality, at the same time explaining to us about their trade. of course, it'll be nice if we bought something but if we didn't buy anything, that's ok too!

following the direction and map given to me by the hotel concierge, i made my way to the sultanahmet camii, or blue mosque. didn't go in tho', as i would be having my official tour with a guide the next day. anyway, as i found out from my guide the next day, when turkey was a monarchy previously, the sultan used to go to the mosque on horseback. but even tho' he's the sultan, he would still need to show humility when entering the house of god. hence these chains were placed at the entrance here and at another gate so that the sultan had to bend down (bow) when going in. now of course, turkey has no sultan anymore but these chains were left here to remind all visitors to enter with a humble heart, even tho' we don't need to bow coz we're entering on foot.

at a square next to the blue mosque, saw this candy seller. the candy is called "osmanli macunu" and the way the seller twirled it was quite interesting, tho' i didn't try coz it looked quite sweet!

met this uncle at the square too, who stood there everyday in the sun earning money from people who wanna take photos with him. luckily he didn't ask money from me for snapping this photo!

there were many street vendors at the square and as i was feeling slightly hungry, i decided to try this for 2 turkish lira (about RM4). not as tasty as it looked tho'. it's just bread sprinkled with cinnamon powder and peanuts. tasted quite bland and it's hard!

view of the blue mosque from the square...

next, i wanted to go to the hippodrome, but have no idea where it is. so i just walked about aimlessly, going up side streets, looking into shop windows, talking to friendly vendors and shop owners... basically just getting lost and whiling away the time. it's great coz i felt so safe and knew that however lost i get, i'd still be able to find my way back to the hotel.

this is their tram! very modern looking, like the metro in dubai. when i was doing my research on istanbul and read about this tram, i thought it's gonna be those old and antiquated trams, so can just imagine my surprise when i saw this! :D

there were lotsa such sidewalk cafes dotting the area... very european style!

the many sweets, desserts and food shops i passed by...

i even wandered into a little cemetery! lol...

freshly squeezed pomegranate + grape fruit juice seemed to be very popular here, as you can see a lot of vendors and shops selling them...

after awhile, walking along the street going nowhere in particular, i found myself in the fatih district, right in front of the famous grand bazaar! didn't take any photos, but basically it's just a big covered building with lotsa stalls inside (5,000 stalls according to their website!), selling stuff like spices, earthenware, ceramics, tea, turkish delight, baklava, soaps, jewelleries, carpets, souvenirs etc etc. after awhile, all the streets looked the same and selling the same stuff, that i just wanted to get out of there! also, my feet were beginning to ache, so since i've no desire to buy anything (as it's just my first day here and i'd be flying off to other parts of turkey for the rest of my vacation and didn't wish to lug so much shopping with me), i just looked for an exit and made my way slowly back to the hotel.

april is the tulip season in istanbul that they're dubbed as the 2nd holland. so many colourful tulips around, in the park, gardens, roadside etc.

it was already quite late when i got out from the grand bazaar but as they're on daylight saving, the sky was still bright. this pic was taken at around 8.15pm...

coming from the other side of the street, i finally found the hippodrome! it's actually just right at the back of the blue mosque!

there's not much that remained from the hippodrome of the constantinople, only 2 obelisks and a half-broken serpent column. originally, this hippodrome was where the chariot race took place, and it's the only place and time where the common people get to see their (roman) emperor once a year.

photo of the ruins of hippodrome from the late 15th century, copied from wikipedia. today, the structures surrounding the racetrack and the many columns in the middle were gone.

on the way back to the hotel, i stopped at an outdoor restaurant for dinner. here's my chicken kebab and apple tea. quite yummy, tho' the chili was so charred! :D

the apple tea that i kept getting served. i must've drank half a gallon of these! but they were quite nice, tho' a bit too sweet for my palate. at the end of day 1, i learnt to ask them to hold the sugar and just place a lump on the saucer in case they come unsweetened.

the restaurant had a stage for the whirling dervish performance. i find that they whirled a bit slower compared to those "carpet dance" we have in dubai... they seemed almost like in a trance! and unlike those in dubai where the dancer wears layers upon layers of cloth on them (hence the "carpet" reference! :P) and will take them off, put them on again and also make them into various shapes and sizes, these whirling dervish dancers just go round and round and round...

it was about 10.30pm when i got back to the hotel, so after an awkward self-hamam bath and a short check-in on facebook (free wi-fi, woo-hoo!), i decided i better retire early for the next day's tour. stay tuned!

*more photos on my facebook, for those who're in my friends list :)