A quintessential city.. Traces of Pagan, Christian and Islam religions are all imprinted all over. While dwelling in The Great Constantinople (Istanbul) of Byzantine Empire, I am seeing the Past in the Present, cus a beautiful disaster can’t be forgotten, even if it turns someone into salt. I identify myself with Dan Brown and I feel ablazed that he included Istanbul in his novel Inferno.

We fly back from Cappadocia to Istanbul, the last day before our flight to at least visit Istanbul before we leave the country. Our legs hurt & hardly slept but it’s okay. Were still hyped for you Istanbul! This is the kind of thing where u can be exhausted and at the same time happy!

DOLMABAHÇE PALACE

The Treasury Gate. Very mesmerizing indeed.

Dolmabahçe Palace has been the house of 6 sultans and of the 1st President of Turkey Republic, Mustafa Ataturk. It’s where he did some of his works until he died. We toured all the rooms in all floors, we even saw the President’s deathbed. My favorite room was the library, the smell of the books are so delicious, felt so good, sad thing we cannot touch any, the rule when you enter the palace is ‘for your eyes only.’ It’s fine. I respect all of it cus I love everything of it. No pictures allowed inside. But believe me, everything is jaw-droppingly amazing! Just imagine yourself that you’re the Belle in Beauty & The Beast. That’s exactly how it feels when you tour inside the Palace. An mp3 with an earphone will serve as your tour guide, it can detect where you are, explains the history of every location inside the Palace.

Clock Tower of Dolmabache –adjacent building of the Palace

Gate to the Bosphorus– through here, the Sultan had a good view of the famous Bosphorus, the boundary between Europe and Asia

The style is kinda baroque & neoclassical..I took Drafting as my course for 3 years during my hi school…I didn’t excel on the practical part, so I focused on the theories. Now I am able to appreciate the Baroque & Neoclassical Architecture, so amazing and breath-taking.

Yep, he’s not allowed to smile..& that’s the hardest job for me- to be serious.

‘Tale as old as time’ 🎶🎵

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BOSPHORUS

The boundary between Europe and Asia. There’s lots of tale of war & commercial exchange between tribes here.

 

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HAGIA SOPHIA, “Holy Wisdom”

It’s the only structure who served 3 religions Pagan, Christianity & Islam. The emperors of Byzantine empire were crowned here. It was once the largest church of Roman Catholic until St. Peter Church of Rome was built.

“Cerca Trova” [Seek and Find]

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BASILICA CISTERN

People who watched Inferno must be familiar with this. Even James Bond movie with Sean Connery was shoot here.

The BASILICA CISTERN is located underground, it provided water filtration system to the Great Grand Palace of Constatinople during the Byzantine Empire.
The supply of water came from the Black Sea thru aqueducts.

 

The Visage of MEDUSA–  At the latter end of the cistern, monuments of Medusa can be found. They are inverted sideway and upside down to counterfeit the petrifying gorgon’s gaze (Medusa is one of the Gorgon Sisters). It was believed according to myth that when you look at Medusa you will turn into stone.
From the movie Inferno, the virus that would cause plague and wipe out mankind was kept and found here near the upside down monument of Medusa.

Hahahaha. Just because I love Mulan. I look like a boy.

She’s really the conservative type. Love ya sistah! 😙

There is a booth for picture taking where in you can dress up in medieval costumes. It’s 200 lira (almost 200dhs) including 1 printed scrolled photo & another picture in a photoglow backlit frame lol plus a disc with all of the soft copy of 100+ photos taken. As usual out of those 100 pics I only got 2 nice pics. I look awful & funny..I look like a flower boy. I’ll never be serious my entire life. Even the other tourists were laughing cus i cant serious. But still it was a great experience, I wanna try it again next time, with my brows fixed and better poses. (I’m not really photogenic huhu)

I think this is a nice idea for prenup photo shoot. Dressing up in Byzantine costumes. Just a trivia, when Turks get married, all of their gifts are gold, also in India. In the Philippines, mostly are appliances, linens, housewares. Same story with U.S., I have a friend when they got wed, he shared an online site wherein the guests could just pick& buy a home appliance then deliver to their new home.

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TAKSIM SQUARE Monument of The Republic

There was bombing here last year according to ate florence. I hope terrorism would stop. Why can’t we just love each other? Why can’t we just admire things without exploiting nor harassing them? Sic. God bless their souls.

Just walking towards the Taksim Square

Wondering what’s for lunch…

She’s too curious to taste the hard bagel with nutella. It’s crunchy and it tastes nice. Thanks Lolo! 😁

TRAM. Ate Florence took a picture of us with the tram, since we dont have it in our country. The first tram was used to be horse-drawn. So imagine a big calesa.

All of the colourful drama of Istanbul, we may not be able to experience it all in one day but still were so grateful. A reason to come back again. Swear, I hope everything goes well next year. It was really a dream for me to come to Turkey but I was afraid cus the airport was bombed 2x. I was afraid to die. Not ready yet. Not now. My sister was more confident to explore turkey and her incessant liner ‘if it’s your time to die then you die. God is in control of everything.’ kinda convinced me. And we are that happy that we came home alive. Some stupid mistakes were made & money has been unnecessarily wasted but still we’re grateful for the gift of life on the new years eve.

Thank you to vfs global for assisting us with the visa processing, Ms. Farah have eased my anxieties and I knew she shared with our happiness when we get a hold of our turkey visa. She laughed when we let go of our screams cus we can’t contain our euphoric state that time.

And to our ate Florence, who’s more excited for us than us, who constantly updated us and wished us well, and tour us to Istanbul. You have such a very great heart, your husband is so lucky & blessed to have you. Thank you for treating us like a family since day 1. And when I say day 1, that was when we were in hi school hehe. I still can’t forget the Graham cake you shared with us on Christmas Eve back when I was 13 years of age. We feel like you’re an angel heaven sent to us. Thank you for the free tickets to those amazing places! 😉 You will be blessed doublefold!

I’m happy to let some steam out of the kettle. I’m really talkative. My love in playing with words took me to different bounds of curiosity. I’m longing to seek more, learn more & ponder God’s magnificent creations. And that would be my goal 2018. Thank you for reading, either you skim or scan, I really do appreciate.

#turkey #istanbul #hagiasophia #basilicacistern #dolmabahçe #bosphorus #taksimsquare