The view of the dome through the chandelier.
Jill’s and my journey continues.
You would think that one blog post about the Hagia Sofia would be enough.
However, it isn’t even close to enough.
I’ve got hundreds of pictures that I could post but I’ve decided to limit them.
I’ve cut it down to about 40 or so and they barely even touch the surface of the amazing Church/Mosque/Museum that is the Hagia Sofia.
The dome. Notice how it is not perfectly circular.
Jill and I continued our tour around the Hagia Sofia.
We were both in awe and could barely talk.
I know, this doesn’t happen that often.
Enjoy the moment.
A mosaic of Mary and Jesus.
This might take awhile.
So, I’m going to keep it short and sweet and let the pictures speak for themselves.
The Hagia Sofia is mind blowing.
There is no other way to describe it.
From the outside is it monumental and awe inspiring.
From the inside it compares to anything I’ve seen in my travels around this Earth.
I’m planning about four days of posts on the Hagia Sofia because there are so many pictures and a video or two.
For starters, the history of this museum is amazing.
It was build in 537 and was an orthodox church until 1453.
It was then a mosque from 1453 until 1931.
In 1935 it became a museum.
It was the focal point of the Eastern Orthodox Church for nearly 1,000 years.
The amazing dome has collapsed at least once and had to be rebuilt.
The other domes have also collapsed.
It has been ransacked and almost totally destroyed through the years but somehow survived.
It had many Christian mosaics on the walls that were then covered by the Muslims who took control of Istanbul.
Luckily, they didn’t destroy the mosaics, but instead, were plastered over and, therefore, saved to be renovated and shown as they are today.
It was a joy, and a wonder, to stand underneath the dome of the Hagia Sophia and just take in the history, the art work, and the power.
The best way to explain it is to click the wikipedia link and then look at my pictures.
Cheers!
After stopping by the Blue Mosque, Jill and I decided to grab some lunch.
We walked around a bit of Istanbul and found a few restaurants that looked nice.
One, in particular, had a rooftop area that allowed us to look out over the Bosphorus.
We decided that would be the perfect way to spend our first lunch in Istanbul.
We climbed up the 4 flights of very steep stairs and found the place almost empty.
There were two other Canadian couples sitting there, but that was it.
We talked with them for a bit and found out that one was a psychiatrist and ran his own department back in Toronto. Small world.
They were on a cruise and only in town for a day.
Jill and I thought of how we had a week and were grateful that we had so much time.
The view from the rooftop terrace.
There is so much to see and do in Istanbul that a day, or even 3 days, wouldn’t be nearly enough for us.
Honestly, we could spend a month in Istanbul alone, if we had the time, and still feel like we haven’t seen everything.
They were nice enough to take a few pictures of us and we enjoyed meeting them.
When they left, we had the whole rooftop terrace to ourselves and it was incredibly peaceful and serene. And the food was fantastic.
Just watching the clouds, the Bosphorus and the ships go by as we enjoyed our meal and our time together.
In case you were wondering, the mosques have speakers attached to them so that is how the sound is projected for the followers to hear and know to come to pray.
Happy!
Jill and I wanted to see the Blue Mosque, since it was free, and we knew the other sites we wanted to see would cost money.
The reason this matters is that we could buy a discount pass to see all the other sites but it is limited in regards to time (3 days total) and we didn’t want to start at this point since the lines were pretty long.
We figured out that we’d see them, starting tomorrow morning, when there were less people and shorter lines.
Also, July and August in this part of the world is incredibly hot so there aren’t as many tourists, which is nice, and the sites are usually less crowded.
The negative is that some places are closed and others may have shorter viewing hours.
We didn’t notice this on this trip but it has happened to us in other places.
It is a chance we take to get away from the crowds and lines.
To us, it is worth the trade-off.
So, we walked up to the Blue Mosque and prepared to get in line.
I had shorts on so I had to pull them down to below my knees (it is respect in the Muslim culture to have your knees covered if you are a man).
Jill, on the other hand, has to put on a head scarf and also put on something covering her up down to her feet.
This makes it incredibly hot and uncomfortable.
To be honest, I’m not sure how women do it.
I’ve been told that some don’t wear anything underneath their robes but most seemed to be wearing leggings, at the very least, and I could not imagine the heat and dehydration that would accompany such clothes.
When we arrived, we realized it was in the middle of one of the prayer sessions and, as we aren’t Muslim, we wouldn’t be allowed inside.
We decided to just take some pictures from the outside, grab some lunch, and then see what else we wanted to do.
It was a bit anti-climatic to not be able to go inside but since Jill and I have been there before, it wasn’t a big let down.
We knew we’d be seeing it in a day or so and wouldn’t have to rush.
Isn’t that what a vacation is all about?
The view from the Galata Tower.
Jill’s and my true vacation, and about 100 future blog posts, starts now.
We woke up, had a nice breakfast in the little cafe right around the corner from Andac’s apartment, and headed out to see the Galata Tower, or, Galata Kulesi if you want to see the Turkish name for it. It used to be called Galatea, which is Gaelic, because the Welsh people originally settled there, built it, and named it.
Jill had been here before, since she’s now been to Turkey 4 different times to my 1, and she thought it would be a good starting point for our adventures.
We walked in and paid for our tickets.
I think it was about 9 USD or something like that.
It was worth 100x that for the view alone.
We went in the elevator and headed up.
The elevator was empty so we took a few pictures and I loved how the elevator buttons were set into a replica of the tower.
When we reached the top, we walked up a flight of stairs, and then out onto the tower ledge.
It was truly amazing.
There were only a few other people there so we had it almost to ourselves.
The Galata Tower was originally built in 1348 and is about 200 feet tall. The walls are about 9 feet thick. Just stop and think of that. It is almost 700 years old. But that is nothing compared to what we will see later on during our vacation. It is truly mind blowing to think of the history and what has happened in this part of the world.
It was used to make sure the city wasn’t attacked and also for a few crazy inventors to jump off of with either a glider on their back or strapped to a rocket. I imagine Wyl E. Coyote would have approved of this idea. Supposedly, both inventors survived and proved their products were reliable. Have to be impressed with their salesmanship if not their sense of sanity.
It was a truly wonderful way to start the day and see so much of Istanbul in one simple tower.
We stayed up there for an hour or so and just breathed in the fresh air, watched the seagulls, and remembered what it felt like to be alive, free, and have the world at our feet.
After 7 months in China, we had forgotten a lot about ourselves.
We had become somewhat unhealthy, both physically and mentally, and both seemed to be coming alive again.
Just the feeling of the people, the culture, the architecture, the country, and the ease of everything was settling back in and it felt like we were home.
Jill had lived in Turkey for 3 months, at one time, and I’d visited for 3 weeks, and it seemed like everything was just right the second we arrived.
That feeling would continue for the next month and only become more evident and more true.
A beautiful view of the mosques in Istanbul.
I hope you enjoy the next week or so of blog posts because I won’t be able to update them much since Jill and I will be in Turkey and Greece.
We leave today and return on August 15th so we will be gone for exactly one month.
We have been in China, non-stop, for 7 months and are extremely excited to get away and have some peace and quiet.
Istanbul will be busy but we will be hanging out with friends, and some family, and just enjoying it for the first week.
Trust me, compared to Beijing, nothing is busy and anywhere is quiet.
Jill has been to Turkey three times and I’ve been there once so we have some familiarity with it and the people.
We have always loved going there and meeting with people who are very open and friendly.
We will start, and end, our trip in Istanbul.
We are going to go to Cappadocia and do a balloon ride through the Fairy Chimneys.
Then to Pammakule to see the perfect blue waters and natural white thermal pools.
We are also going to other parts of Turkey but those are the highlights.
We will then go to four different islands in Greece including Naxos, Paros, Santorini and Mykonos.
We will spend about 3 days on each island and Jill will be able to celebrate her 41st birthday on Naxos.
Last year she celebrated in China and we think this is a very nice way to celebrate Jill.
Who knows where we will celebrate her birthday next year? The world is our oyster!
We will head of Athens for two days and see the sites and then head back to Istanbul to finish off our trip and grab our flight back to Beijing on the 15th of August.
I’ll do my best to post a few pictures of our travels and hope you enjoy them.
I’ll be doing more full blog posts when I get back to Beijing and have time to sort through everything and figure out what I want to write about regarding our trip.
Here are a few pictures from Jill’s past visits to give you an idea of what we will be seeing and doing when we arrive in Istanbul.
Jill, Dipesh and I were walking around Melaka and just having a great time when we wandered upon a professional photo shoot.
I’m intrigued by fashion and how the Western belief of fashion has taken over many places and being intertwined with local fashion in some instances.
We watched as the photo shoot continued and I appreciated that angle the photographer used for most of his shots as he was laying down and shooting up to highlight both the clothes and the tower from the mosque behind the models.
After this we continued on our way and kept walking around the backstreets near Jonker Street, which is a very famous street and I will be blogging about in a future post as it is quite beautiful and full of life.
As Jill and I were leaving the Masjid Selat Melaka, we noticed a group of women and their kids hanging out.
The kids seemed to be distracted and were playing among themselves while the mothers were chatting and laughing.
As we walked by them, we noticed why they were laughing.
One of them was blowing bubbles and the others were enjoying the moment.
Moments like these are why I love traveling: They dis-spell the myths of what we are told about other cultures by the media. We see, for ourselves, the commonality of all humanity. I’m sure there are cultures that would think this strange and silly but I’ve yet to come across one.
I’m thinking buying a bunch of bubble liquid and bringing it wherever I go to help make connections and remind people that we are all, in our hearts, little children full of joy.
The Melaka straits and the mosque.
As much as we enjoyed walking around the masjid, we were also a little concerned.
Not for our safety or anything like that since we never felt, even once, concerned for our safety in Malaysia. The people are friendly, outgoing and are incredibly helpful to any tourist that needed assistance.
There is a point of realizing that the fear we create is only that and nothing more. The fear of the other, the fear of being taken advantage of and the fear of seeing people for who they really are, instead of a stereotype or a simplified version of a group is deadening to humanity and the world. The more we see people as individuals, and treat them as such, the better the world will get along and the more we will all be able to deal with each other.
I have noticed that Jill and I tend to have very disparate groups of friends. We often hang out with people in their young 20s, and get along great with them, and then hang out with people in their 50s or 60s and get along great with them. We are both interested in meeting the person inside and getting to know what makes them tick and how they view the world. This allows us to connect with people and find commonalities that others might miss.
I used to be a psychotherapist/social worker back in the San Francisco bay area. I worked for 5 years with elderly clients dealing with any diagnosis ranging from simple depression to psychosis. I then moved to work with 18-24 year clients dealing with first or second episode psychosis. I was able to effectively work with all these clients, and their families, because I took them for who they are, doing the best they can with what they have, and then tried to support them with empathy and skills that I have learned that have helped not only others, but myself, in times of need. I didn’t look down on them because they were having difficulties.
I was also honest in the issues that I saw and asked if I could give input. They almost always allowed me for it, and when they didn’t, I wouldn’t give it until they asked for it later.
In this case, I am giving an unasked opinion of a concern I have that became very evident when we walked to the Masjid Selat Malaka and back to our apartment.
Most of the buildings around it are desolate and decaying.
This may not be a sign of much but it seems as if they were all built within the last 5-10 years and yet none of them are occupied. It is like walking into a ghost town and one gets the feeling this would be what a town feels like after it is dead.
There is a massive bazaar type building right beside the masjid and it is utterly empty and fenced off. The windows have not been finished and the wiring is exposed in many places. It doesn’t look like there is any intention of finishing it and it seems as if it will get worse.
I see this happening here also and it worries me. Building for expansion is okay but building to keep an economy going, when the majority of people can’t even afford to live there, is a house of cards.
I see this house of cards starting to get wobbly and I’m worried.
Not only for Malaysia, but for the rest of the world as when one card falls, it starts knocking down the others until they are all flat on the ground.
