Item number two

ITEM NUMBER TWO - DONE
"pet a random animal"

So aparently there are tons of stray cats and dogs all around turkey, so finding an adorable dog to pet was not hard. These animals have mastered the art of acting adorable to get food from strangers. So i was in the middle of petting an adorable dog.....


When a super adorable cat (i usually dont love cats) came up to me and pawed my leg for attention...


Contrary to what the travel doctor said, i dont think i got rabies. Lol
Adorable.

Location:Istanbul

Instanbul in a day

Day #2 - istanbul

So we started off today with a walking tour of istanbul, its a great city with so much culture and history. Everyone is very friendly and welcoming.

We started off our morning walk through the streets going to a local square, hearing about the hisotry. We also stopped by a spice market where a whole entire street only sold spices....the smell in there was mezmorizing...


What was amazing was when we stopped by a nearby turkish delight shop...ive never had it before, but this stuff is ammmmaaaaazing.


After our morning tour, we broke off for lunch...me, candice and rick opted for the fish sandwich. It was ok i suppose, a bit tooooo fishy for my liking and wayyy too much bread....


After the just-ok lunch, we headed over to check out the sultan's palace. This place was massive...but i think if i had to use a few words to describe it, it would be "over-indulgence"...


Absolutely stunning grounds tho, very ancient trees and expensive furniture, ornaments and jewerly.



After the palace, we went back for a nice siesta nap. At around sundown, we set off on the istabul tram......


And made our way to an area called takism...which is basically the shopping/westernized part of istanbul...



This area was just like any major busy square in the world, lots of big shops, flashy lights and tons of people. After searching for a while, we found a place where there were lots of locals chowing down on kebaps and pida. I ordered the doner kebap which was delicious and only cost 11tl.

Its amazing how so much of istanbul architechture is made of old and new. Just a few steps from the restaurant was a beautiful tower brightly shining...


My hopes after dinner was to go to an authentic turkish bath, but my plan falled and instead, i went with my roomate, sarah (a photog nut) to go take pics of hagia sophia and the blue mosque at night...









We started hearing this loud turkish man screaming something (we hear this very, very often) but we weren't sure what he was saying. Aftrr most of the people there started clearing out, we realized it meant it was time to go. Right before i was kicked out of the mosque, i maanged to squeeze in one last shot of the empty area, so peaceful....



After sarah and i got our fill of pics of the mosque and hagia sophia, we headed back to our "hotel" where we were stopped by some random turkish guy in a shop. At first we just thought that it was another guy trying to sell us something, but it turns out he wanted to practice his english with us. He offered me a pretty flower made of tissue....



After a few minutes of conversation, i asked if i could take a pic with him, he said sure, so we get up to get sarah to take a pic. As i posed standing and smiling, he randomly gave me a kiss on the cheek, nicely caught on camera by sarah. Too bad "getting kissed by a turkish man" wasnt on my list! Lol



It was a fun day in istanbul, and people are clearrrrly very friendly.
Dont worry, coleman isn't the jealous type. Lol.

Posted using BlogPress from my iPad

Location:Istanbul

JFK to IST

So when i was on the plane just taking off from jfk, the clouds looked amazing and i just had to take a pic. I used my newly learned phtography from ed ...the one third rule. Lol thx ed...



Unfortunately, when i arrived in istanbul, i was greeted by rain and tons of it. Hopefully weather clears up for the rest of the trip!



(originally written on the 11th)

- Posted using BlogPress from my iPad

Location:turkish airlines - flight tk 002

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

T minus one hour

After my one year of planning and anticipation, the day is finally here. I am less than an hour from boarding and hopefully just over an hour from flying my first flight (1 of 18).

Im all decked out in comfort gear to make my way to my first stop of istanbul, turkey. The air canada lounge at pearson kind of sucks but hopefully star alliance doesn't let me down at jfk.



T minus one hour

Location:Pearson airport

my to do list

70 days away from home is a very long time. My expectations for myself, in addition to an amazing tan, is to achieve a few things that I normally wouldn't do. Thanks to the brilliant idea of my dear friend bert.....

(who will undoubtedly miss my sametime presence), I have come up with a list of 25 things that I want to do during my 70 days - you'd be surprised how hard it is to come up with these random things.

Hopefully I'll be able to update it once in a while to actually cross things off :)

1. Eat something weird/gross


2. Pet a random animal


3. Learn 10 words in


1. Turkish


2. Greek


3. Khmer


4. Thai


5. Malaysian


4. Watch the sunrise/sunset in an ancient civilization


5. Ride an elephant


6. Go in a hot air balloon


7. Steer a hot air balloon


8. Feed a homeless person


9. Take a photo with a stranger


10. Eat by myself and enjoy it


11. Eat dinner with a new found friend


12. Go one day without complaining


13. Do a shot of ouzo


14. Walk everywhere for one day


15. Ride a motorcycle


16. Dance into the morning


17. Spend less than $15 CAD in one day


18. Don’t use any electronics in one day


19. Dance in the street


20. Make someone smile


21. Make someone laugh so hard they pee themselves (or come close to)


22. Climb a mountain


23. Eat a new fruit


24. Sleep under the stars


25. Find myself + be happy

t-minus 2 hours!

too much stuff

Packing

Holy crap, who knew packing for two months could be so difficult. Coleman says it's because I am just bad at packing, but I personally think it's because 2 months is A VERY LONG TIME.

I managed to pack in everything in my massive backpack and weighed in at 33lbs. That's 33lbs that I will have to carry on my back on this trip - talk about work out? :S I'm sure I will complain about how heavy it is at some point on my trip, and wishing I had packed less...but at this moment in time, it just doesn't seem like anything can be removed.

That big black mountain in the middle is my pack. I just have to remind myself - DO NOT BUY ANYTHING. Let's see how long that lasts :)