Yerebatan Sarnici

Last weekend, Mu came to visit. His flight landed on Friday and we headed to Kumkapi to eat fish while being serenaded by small bands who move from table to table accepting requests. Of course you are welcome to sing (as most - especially those who have already downed significant quantities of raki- are more than willing to do) and dance. Some of the women who get up to dance are fairly good at "dans oriental" (bellydancing)... The night we visited, it was a random diner who was really good. She was skinny and wearing rather frumpy clothing, but she actually got up on a table to dance. She was fabulous - a great deal better than the busty lady actually clad in a belly dance costume.

On the Saturday, we actually headed to Sultan Ahmet for sightseeing.
These two pictures are also not mine - I left my camera in a taxi coming back from Polonozköi. Sigh! And after getting it fixed in Erbil just before coming to Turkey. They are of the Basilica Cistern or Yerebatan Sarnici. There was a stiff entrance charge and it wasn't really a highlight in the guidebook, but it was an impressive place. Originally storing all the water for Istanbul's consumption, now it is an eerie atmospheric place to have tea.
Haunting instrumental music echoes off the walls, water drips from the ceiling arches and you can explore the Cistern on walkways which take you to the two Medusa heads (one sideways, one upside down) which support huge columns. While there is a history of Medusa written on placards on the walkway, there is not reason given for why the heads were placed there or why they were so oriented.

After the Cistern, we didn't really do so much as there was a football match on that evening - Mu's team (Galata Saray?) was playing, so after seafood dinner at a restaurant overlooking the Bosphorus, we settled into cushions on the floor of a pub with big screens mounted on the wall for all the many football fans of Istanbul.

Polonozköy

A small picture of what we DIDN'T get to eat in Polonozköy (stolen from the Internet). After being detained by the Jandarma (police) for what seemed like ages at the "gate" to the Polish enclave near Istanbul while our taxi driver waited, we were finally allowed to enter. (Most of us didn't have our passports on us, so we waited while they called and checked up on us: J: "Where were you before Istanbul?" M: "Goreme", J: "And before that?" M: "Diyarbakir". J: "And before that, were you ever a tourist in Iraq?")
When we finally got to Polonozköy, we discovered that while very pretty - surrounded by nature, there was very little Polish about it! Only about 80 Polish families (or was it people?) remained and there was nowhere to get Polish food unless you could finagle an invite to a family home. Although Peter tried, it just didn't happen so we went and atre a very nice meal which wasn't really what we were expecting - no perogies, no bacon (or any form of pork) and no Polish beer. Maybe when I get back to Canada?

HAREM - Topkapı Palace

My trip to Topkapı Palace was entirely spontaneous. Of course I planned to eventually go, but the day we actually went, I had plans to go home from class, change out my ridiculousy hard to walk on platform sandals and go to the gym for some treadmill activity and a class in dance Oryental. However, it didn't take much arm twisting from Peter and Matt to get me to join them for a bit of sightseeing.
I wasn't really prepared for a trip to Topkapı in more ways than one. Not only did I have on shoes that made me live up to my mizmiz nickname, I didn't have my camera. These two are from Peter's camera... I stole them off his facebook account. (Do I really need to sign up?). Unfortunately, although he otook several pictures where the view was cut in half by red tape reading "HAREM HAREM HAREM HAREM ETC", he didn't post those. Anyway, I belive the above photo is from the outside of the harem which is supposed to be the best part (although Time Out Istanbul figures there is a largely overlooked church that is worth a visit). I am afraid I am not including history lessons in the Isanbul section of this blog, so wou will have to look up the history yourself if you want to know about these places.
And I love this picture (I took it) because when I look at it, I can hear these two chatting both in and outside of the Turkish language class:

Matt: Hey Peter, do you think I should go over to that girl over there and say, "Akşamlar, baby"?
Peter: Why don't you use one of these lines in Lonely Planet's Phrase book?
Matt: I know how to say, "I have pain in my popo."

OK. So that's not very funny, but they were both very funny over an Indian dinner on the rooftop terrace of a restaurant with the worst lassi I have ever tasted somewhere in Sultanahmet... at least the view was worth a bundle.

The last 2 weeks in İstanbul

This post is to let all of you know that I am still in İstanbul, but just not posting as I have been busy, busy, BUSY! Basically I came here thinking I would be able to enjoy city life and do everything I can't do in Hawler: shop, eat seafood (and maybe even bacon!- Oh the horror...), go to the gym, dance salsa, read books in cafes, etc. Well, to be honest, I have done NO reading so far as there just hasn't been time. After saying goodbye to W (who usually posts comments on this blog from Tokyo), the first two weeks were taken up with language classes and going ut with my classmates (especially the last week). After the dinner in Beyoğlu (last post), we went out a few more times: I visited Mei Mei at her apart-hotel for watermelon and Chinese tea, and went to Topkapi Palace and dinner in an Indian restaurant in Sultan Ahmet, Polonozköy (Little Poland), a flashy nightclub (Reina) near Ortaköy...

To be even more honest, I also didn't read my Turkish textbook and hence haven't really learned to say much although I have memorized a list of adjectives and can conjugate verbs into the simple present. Since classes ended, there hasn't been too much motivation to review the lessons and try them out. The weekend after classes, Mu (who has been working in İzmir) came to visit, then I have been dividing my time between sightseeing with Trish (also in the last post), going to the gym and atternding salsa classes (I joined a local salsa school in Taksim) so that I could meet local people and practice Turkish (ha ha)... but all we do is dance and use a weird kind of broken English/Turkish baby language. But I am going away with them this weekend, so I will let you know how that goes! Stay tuned for the pictures from the last 2 weeks.

Turkish School

And I thought I was going to come and coast through a couple of easy weeks of Introductory Turkish... just for fun. Ha ha ha! Classes are taught Audio-lingual style, military pace. There are only 5 of us in the class; Peter (a Polish American - not named Peter, but as I called him Peter for the first 3 days of class, leet me continue), Matt (American), "Warrior Princess" from Russia, "Hans" a music teacher intern from Germany and me. The teacher gives us LONG lists of words which we take turns reading and conjugating and then she drills us. The next day we are tested on this. Even more amazing is that we all seem to study at the same pace! Then, the night we went drinking together, I found out why!

One evening after class, we all decided to head off to Balik (fish) Pazari off of Istiklal Caddesi (the 2nd time in these side streets) for a mezze and fish dinner (and raki)... and conversation in a multitude of languages - not a single person in the group was limited to one! In this first picture, you can see Peter (far left) telling a story not in English, Polish or Turkish, but in cartoon-like Spanish to Ella from Peru and Echo (half Thai, half Turkish). Trish (Dutch) lights a cigarette and listens.
The next picture is a quieter one. Y-chan and I smile for Meimei who has been helping us demonstrate the differences between Korean, Japanese and Chinese languages. And the next picture is Meimei being "picked up"? by Peter who hasn't understood a word of the German she was chatting with Matt in! And this is Matt and Trish. Trish is quiet, but not too quiet, she has promised to come along to a salsa club with me and a few others, and a few of us have promised to accompany Peter on a foray into the outskirts of Istanbul to find the Polish community.This last picture is a shot of Echo with all the women. After this picture, we headed off to another little alleyway to drink more raki. I have no idea where or why, but we al had heaps of fun and another such night is planned soon. Tomorrow night I hope to meet Meimei and Warrior Princess...

View from my new hotel

Although I liked my first hotel, I though it wise to move to a little cheaper one as it seems I will be here for a while... good thing too as I have been here almost a week and still haven't seen ANY of the sights! Far in Vancouver would be ashamed as she was in Istanbul fewer days and took no time to get out and explore the city's sights. I planned to see Topkapi Palace today and go to a hamam tomorrow, but seems that neither plan will come to fruition as I got sidetracked by Nike, Mac and Toni & Guy's today and tomorrow Pepe (fake name) had to call off our hamam and beer plans due to unexpectedly getting free VIP tickets to Formula 1 on account of the fact that he speaks Polish!

Anyway, this is Istanbul sight I have seen - the Bosphorus (Bog'az)- from the fire escape of my new hotel. (This is the best part of the new hotel... I gave up clean carpet-free floors and free wireless for a view of the Bosphorus, a mini-fridge in my room and $20 US savings per night.

Istanbul and the Disco Cows

Although perhaps not what comes to mind when you think of Istanbul, I give you.... cows!

I have been here now for about 5 days, but unfortunately have not had enough time to write - busy, busy as usual. On the first day, I checked into a little one-star hotel called Avrupa Otel in a part of Taksim where its modest doorway was almost unnoticable, sandwiched as it was (and still is) between 4 and 5 star hotels. It was very clean however, and the people nice. I have since taken one day to go to the Grand Bazaar to help W (W in Tokyo) find a suitable bellydancing outfit, one day to find a Turkish language school (and begin classes immediately - one day after the start date), a day to check out health clubs, a day to start my exercise regime at my newly found health club, two nights to check out the side streets off of Istiklal Caddesi and today to shop. And although I have not done any sightseeing yet, I have sighted a number of cows!




The first 3 pictures are taken near Akmerkez Shopping Center in Levent... a place somewhere between my Turkish school and my health club (Maya-Uptown). The final picture is special because it was taken by Tf (you may notice these initials from post from Iraq). Tf, like B was also travelling in Iraq and because his passport was stolen he was kept back in Istanbul just long enough for me to meet up with him for beer and mezzes in the little passages off of Istiklal Caddesi - my first foray. Tf asked me if I noticed the cows and he used my camera to take the below photo somewhere near Taksim (sorry it is fuzzy).

Avanos

Story about W in Tokyo and my first visit to a Haman... plus more COMING SOON

For Lucienne & Leila

Real Camel at Cavusin.
Stone Camel at Devrent Valley.

Urgup

Pasabaglari & Cavusin

Hiking in Rose Valley

This is the start of today (August 18th)'s posts. Like the post below, you will have to wait for the commentary, but I can say that the pictures are of Rose valley and Ucisar.

Goreme Open Air Museum

August 18th; Wendy and I changed hotels and then headed out to the Open Air Museum. I will write my comments for this post later, but wanted to let you know where I am and let you see how amazing this place is. Do this pictures make you think of:
a) A Dr. Seuss landscape
b) A city designed by Gaudi
c) Outer Space

(Don't feel pressured to answer now, there are more pictures coming.)

Taxing Trip

I am back! Back to blogging and back in Turkey! After arriving back in Hawler on the 5th, I spent a very busy, but equally rewarding 2 weeks before returning to Turkey. "Why would I go all the way back to Erbil for only two weeks and then come back to Turkey?" you might ask? The truth is, I had committed myself to a program involving local teachers... something exciting since I rarely come into close contact with local people who are not language teachers or taxi drivers. So I now know 8 very special local teachers from 4 different districts of Kurdistan (Germian, Sulemani, Hawler and Dohuk) with whom I explored English education in Kurdistan. At the end of our 5-day program, we accomplished a lot... ande I have plans to meet up with those teachers again when I return.

But more on that later. The point of this post is to tell you about the trip. It was unbelievable. At midnight on August 16th, a taxi met me at the Edge and we drove to the border (Ibrahim Khalil). Unfortunately, the driver decided to take a little break for some food at about 3 in the morning in Shehan (a name you may recognize due to recent violence in the region). The driver went into a restaurant full of men and I waited in the car for 30 minutes! I was getting a bit edgy (and not because all the men kept looking into the car). We reached the border at about 4 and we promtly found another person who needed to go to Diyarbakir and we went through passport control and baggage checks... but it appeared the other guy was carrying BIG MONEY! BIg money = big problem as you have to register this with the police. (That took another 40 minutes). Anyway, after two hours at the border (although there were almost no cars), we were through into Turkey. As you might have guessed, the two men were hungry and stopped for breakfast assuring me that I would catch my plane no problem. In fact, I did... I arrived at 9:40 for my 9:55 flight. From there it was on to Istanbul, and Istanbul to Kaiseri. In Kaiseri, I took another cab and drove the 90km to the Goreme Otogar to arrive exactly at 4:00 (the arranged meeting time). But I am STILL trying to catch up on the sleep lost on this day!

Batman's Tiled Houses

Before leaving for Turkey, I had the rare opportunity of chatting with A in California. She wanted to find the city that I asked her to send my care package to on a map of Turkey; after a moment of searching, she started giggling as it seems she had encountered a place on the map called "Batman"! In fact I have been to Batman (on my first trip to Diyarbakier during Ramadan last year). She asked what was special about this place, but to be truthful the only thing of distinction I can remember is the mosiac work on some of the apartment buildings. Although this building is one found in Dogubayazit, the mosiac is like that found in Batman (although slightly less impressive).

Mardin

Dear Readers, I am sure you have already figured out that I am no longer in Turkey, but have arrived back in Iraq safe and sound (even if this does sound like an oxymoron). My passport arrived without mishap at the hotel in Diyarbakir and I was able to leave the next day for Mardin. I checked into Hotel Bilen next to the bus otogar so that I could make it out as early as possible the next day (to avoid being stuck in a long line in the midday sun up at the border crossing into Iraq).

I then spent a leisurely afternoon exploring all of the stone buildings of Mardin. I think the best views of Mardin are from the bottom of the hill/mountain it perches on top of, but I was unable to stop and take photos there. I also didn't have time for trecking as I arrived late in the day and was exhausted from an intensive morning of shoppping in Diyarbakir. My first stop in Mardin was the museum, at which I met a tourist police officer... I have never heard of such a thing, but apparently they exist. He found me in the ticket office of the museum where the worker took me after I tripped and fell on the stone stairs existing the museum. He asked the owner of this fine donkey to give me a ride.
This is the officer sitting on the balcony of one of the new boutique hotels in Mardin. The building the hotel is housed in is rather old and quite beautiful. I would prefer to stay in one of these the next time in Mardin - the expense seems worth it.
The man above is painting a picture of (___________?). She is a godess who is half snake, half woman. If you know her name, please let me know.
And this man is carving furniture. The end result was very nice - wooden sofa frames carved with fruit and other embellishments.
The final photo is taken from a tea garden across from the post office. It was a nice way to relax and take in Mardin. I wish this was the end of my day, but unfortunately, it was followed with a dinner that belonged ranked with the worst of what I have eaten in Hawler: greasy and full of mutton...

Animals of Lake Van

In Hawler, one of the things I miss is animals. How I would love to have a cat or a dog... but I think I will have to settle for houseplants after my return from summer vacation. However, there was no shortage of animals around Lake Van. In addition to cats and dogs, I also encountered lizards, turtles and plenty of farm animals (cows, sheep, goats, donkey - although granted, these farm stock also exist in Hawler)The guy above was spotted on one of the walls of the ruined castle at Cavustepe.
This turle was inside one of the houses at Ahlat. The museum owner picked it up and threw it out on the grass. I was worried for its health in the hot sun, but then I saw a number of them ambling slowly along the road coming down from Mt. Nemrut, so it would seem the sun is no problem.
I post this picture for Cy because although she is now back in the US, she had a dream of wandering with the shepherds. The man with these goats stopped us on Mt. Nemrut to let his herd pass. He then came up to the car to greet and shake hands with us. Granted I didn't wander the fields with his flock, but I am sure he would have allowed it had we asked.

Diyarbakır again - For how long?

Well frıendly readers, I am most of the way back to Hawler. I took the bus from Tatvan to Diyarbakır and have spent the afternoon running from district to district trying to get some of the things I can not find back home; decent running shoes, clothes made of natural fibers that can actually breathe in the heat (instead of the synthetic ones available in Hawleri markets that make you feel as though you were wearing a plastic bag or exercizing in a sauna), computer screen cleaners, and English news magazines.

Tomorrow I will try to replace the sunglasses that I lost somewhere near Crater Lake on Mt. Nemrut (the ones at Tatvan, not the one wıth the stone heads). What happens after that depends on the safe arrıval of my passport... Yes, I left my passport in Tatvan as well. It is always good to ask the hotel staff to give this little item back as soon as possible. I am lucky there were no police checks along the road to Dıyarbakır or I might have been sent back, but as it is, my hotel is taking care of this. But as ashamed as I am about forgetting to ask for the return of my passport, I am proud that I managed to travel all around Diyarbakır by local bus today. If all goes well, you wıll hear from me again tomorrow... from Mardin.

Swimming in the Crater

I always wondered what the inside of a volcano looked like - perhaps a big gaping hole filled with boiling lava that you can peer into from the ridge of the crater? Perhaps, but the inside of Mt. Nemrut (the one near Tatvan, not the big one with the stone heads) didn't look like that. Instead it was like being in a countrysituated inside a rocky pie crust! The road up to Mt. Nemrut was a small rocky road which, like so many in the Kurdish areas of Turkey, showed neglect - no money from the government for road repairs. In fact, the driving is so slow and difficult, that you will likely have to pay a driver at least $60-80 YTL to take you up here as it takes about a half day for this trip.
To thye side of the lake in the second picture were canvas tents of campers. In fact, it is so quiet and peaceful here that I imagined it must be lovely to have a summer house inside the crater of a volcano... that is until I felt the water in this small lake... BOILING! (OK, maybe it was only just really hot, but the surrounding stones were hot enough that I couldn't touch them).
Below is a closer look at the "hot" lake. If you look at the bottom of the lake, you can see small bubbles coming up from the ground. I expected the water to smell like sulphur or something, but the water was completely odorless.
This picture shows the sun starting to sink over the big lake - the colder one. When I reached this larger lake, there were some young people there from the prior night's wedding. They lend me some men's shorts and we all went swimming. This was definately a highlight. The water was very cool and crisp and again, completely without odor. The water was clean and refreshing instead of sticky or salty... just like mountain streams in Canada.
The final picture is of the view of Tatvan from the mountain.
After descending the mountain, the taxi driver insisted on taking me to his home where his wife and son fed me crab apples, pears and apricots from the trees inside the courtyard of their home. All in all, a very nice evening which ended with a dinner of fish from the lake, cold yogurt soup and coffee with a new friend from the wedding party.

Lamacun

This young man is the man who made the Lamacun I had for lunch... In fact there were 3 men working in this space. One kneading, shaping and rolling the dough, this guy who put it on his paddle, spread on the toppings and arranged it along with the pide in the oven, and finally there was a guy who stacked, cut and arranged everything out of the oven on plates. Although the only women in the place, I wasn't at all uncomfortable as then men sat me on the first floor where all the cooking/serving action took place. They also kept up a lively dialogue with each other which sometimes included me.