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Topkapı ve Ayasofya

18th December 2011 - 3 min read

It is called Topkapi Palace (Topkapı Saray in Turkish). This huge building was built in the Ottoman Empire, around 14th century, ordered by Sultan Mehmed II. It is the major historical place in Istanbul as it was the first palace of Sultans, as well the major tourist attraction nowadays.

There is a room attracted me the most. This room was built to keep Sultan’s gift given by foreign ambassador, Kings, Queens, and any important people from around the world. Yet these days, it is transformed with the purpose of keeping stuff with deeply special meanings related to holy relics from Moslem’s history, such as Prophet Muhammad’s hair, beard, sword, cloak, and other things from his body during war back then. As well as other Prophet’s weapon and Moses’s magic cane 🙂 I feel so blessed to able to get the chance to experience this and saw it with my bare eyes, moreover together with my parents. Alhamdulillah….
My dad told me a lot about Moslem history that day.

Ayasofya were used to be a Orthodox church but converted to be a beautiful mosque 1453 when Constantinople was conquered by Ottoman empire under Sultan Mehmed II . On my picture, you could see both Jesus painting on the ceilings, with Allah and Muhammad lettering alongside. This should be a bridge in creating a great perfect relation between Moslem and Christian, and other religions as well.










Europe Turkey

Princess Island (Buyuk Ada)

3rd October 2011 - 5 min read
 
Back with Turkey edition. Yay !
It has been a great time and Turkey has been really treating me nicely in every way except with the bizarre guy situation that followed me the other day. But well, this thing happens, or else I wouldn’t own a Ha-Ha moment to tell my kids. lol
Last weekend was pretty exciting to me. I have been wanting to explore the whole Istanbul which is unbelievably huge with its uncountable historical places.
So me and my so-called erasmus gang that are actually down for the similar passion, decided going on Princess Island (Buyuk Ada, in Turkish) tour by ourself, with 5 of us.
The adventure began with me shipped by ferry to another port, Kadikoy, to pick up another passengers living in another side of Istanbul (Asia side) whilst I’m living in the European part.
There I intendedly met with Svenja, this nice German girl. The ship took 1,5 hour to get us there. We were talking and talking from school stuff and the world’s recent issues. And suddenly it was a conversation with 3 others additional members. They are Turkish guys who happened speak English properly (Good!), because most of Turkish people don’t speak it. We shared our live in Istanbul, so did they. They are super nice, smart and friendly (typical Turkish). I love meeting a new people, it’s called networking. I’m doing business study, so it’s important too 😉
Princess Island contains of 4 different island that has their own uniqueness. We went to the 4th island (forget the name), this one is the biggest and most popular. Polluted transportation isn’t allowed in the Island. Thus, Svenja and I rented a bike for 12.5 TL, which actually we found afterwards that we could even get it for 5 TL. But well, 12.5 is not so much and it’s kind of worth renting.
We climbed the hills up and down. Obviously the down part was heaven, I felt like flying and remind me how I love biking. But when it comes to pedal the bike up, my energy was absorbed. I still hurt my crotch till now of biking 🙁 But all end up very worth it, I met the other 3 girls and we found this fantastic beach that enable us laying and enjoying the sun. Not crowded, very quite and peaceful. Felt like that was our private beach….. 😉 The vibe was just perfect!!
We had a great time.
It is October and we’re laying down the beach. How could you imagine that.
Life is good 🙂 Alhamdulillah….