Saturday, 13 August 2011

Transit to turkey

I actually wrote this post the day i arrived in istanbul, but the internet at the "hotel" is so slow that it wont let me upload photos lol.....anyway, here's the post....

Ill start my first post on the trip with my transit to turkey. Given that i have three long haul flights on this trip, i opted to take business class (using points in case anyone was wondering) assuming that the lounges would be pleasing, the flights would be more bearable and i would have less wait time. I would have to say that turkish airlines did indeed disappoint. Obviously, new york is not a major hub for them, considering they do not have a lounge of thier own, but rather, they borrowed the lounge of thier fellow star alliance-er, korean air. I was pretty hoping for some hot foods like swiss air had offered me a year ago, but i was let down ...instead i got cheese and crackers. No lunch for ty today.

I am now on the turkish plane sitting in seat 2A.....



I guess turkish airlines has not yet adopted the pod-style type of seating. Not that i am squished up to my nieighbour, but in the next nine hours, i would have preferred some privacy instead.

...Ooooohhh i just got offered 85% dark chocolate from. Godiva. Yum.

Anyway, as i was saying ...this plane lacks privacy. But i guess i shouldn't be complaining, i do get a comfy bed to lie on during this trip :) 9 hours of full service, a comfy bed and good (airplane) food.



2 hrs later....
Ok, so now its about two hours into the flight and i have finished dinner (nothing really worth mentioning). What IS worth mentioning though is the fact that i am an idiot. So beside the seat is this side pocket where you can store random stuff, like your devices and what not, so i put the ipad there along with my camera and "time out" turkey book. When i was ready to relax and go to bed, i started to push the button that turns the seat into a bed. Half way there, the stupid thing stops. So i think to myself "wtf?"...so i keep pressing it repeatedly with no sucesss. Then i look down, and the thing stopping my seat from lying back is the ipad....i try to get it out, but its wedged in tight. I release the seat, pulll up the ipad and it seemed fine...til i looked at the cable attached, that is completely bend backwards.......



I can just hear coleman saying "you retard!!" ...sigh.

10 hours later....
So that brings me to my first adventure in istanbul. I asked the front desk where there is an apple store, she tells me there are two, one hard to get to, and the other, super hard to get to. I chose the first one. I ventured out into the city and after some confusion, one tram and two buses later, i make it to what seems like a very nice mall, i walk round and round and could not find an apple store...until i found a store that says "authorized reseller -apple"...i walk in excited to have finally made it and asked the guy for the cable...he walks to the shelf rumages thru the inventory then turns to me to say "sorry, i do not have". The words W-T-F went through my head at this point and he directed me to other phone stores. Did you know that ipod cables cost $40 cad in turkey? I decided that it really wasnt worth it to pay that much for an authentic one, so i went ahead and bought one from a random electronic shop for only $20 cad...-____- ...$20 for an ipod cable.....lesson learned, never, ever, force ur airplane seat to go down further than it can. The good news is that i can continue to listen to music, watch movies and most importantly, blog on my trip. Lol

So far, everyone in turkey have been super kind and friendly. Everyone i have asked for directions have attempted to help me find my destination (being accurate with their directions is another story). I am really liking the people here so far and cant wait to meet even more.

Location:Turkish airlines - TK002

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