Istanbul Day 1

Arrived in this grand city early in the morning Istanbul time. 7.02 am to be precise. That means 1.02 pm Singapore time.

The flight was not too bad, especially after the transit in Dubai. I had the entire row of 3-seaters to myself. The part of the journey from Singapore to Dubai, I'd have had the same if not for one of the Hongkies from the row in front of me shifted to my aisle seat. It didn't cause no discomfort, so I'll quit bitching about it.

I slept through most of the flight save for during the two onboard meals, albeit a pretty "choppy" slumber. On arrival, I didn't feel jetlagged. In fact, I was quite energetic breathing in the cool, fresh air of Istanbul. Haha ... cool is really an understatement. It's pretty cold for an autumn day in Mediterranean weather! Even the locals think it's unusual.

Oh well, maybe it's just today. I don't know how much longer my Disneyland sweatshirt can sweat out against the cold. Damn, I always underpack despite consciously reminding myself that it's safer to bring and not need it that to not bring and need it.

My traveling partner is a nice, intelligent and very fit elderly Indian lady. She's probably around mom's age. She's much more upbeat, I think, raring to go out and explore the city. So after checking into the hotel and grabbing a quick breakfast waiting for our rooms to be ready, we headed out for old Istanbul where the famous Sultanahmet (Blue Mosque), Ayasofya (Haghia Sofya) and the Topkapi Palace stand within walking distance of each other.

The drizzle had stopped when we left the hotel but soon started again when we were at the Sultanahmet. And it got really cold, which was worse because we had to wait between 15 and 20 minutes for teh afternoon prayers to be over before we could enter the mosque for our visit.

We were actually a little confused between the Ayasofya and the Sultanahmet, thinking the latter was the former. We later sorted it out with our Turkish friend.

The beautiful mosque with 6 minarets that we thought was Ayasofya because it appears so often on any literature about Istanbul, and the Ayasofya is all that people talk about, is the Sultanahmet. The Ayasofya is now called the Ayasofya Museum, an unassuming brick-coloured domed building that looks somewhat like a church too, just opposite the Sultanahmet. There, mystery solved.

We had wanted to go to the Topkapi Museum as well, but we had to keep our afternoon appointment at the office for a briefing on tomorrow's work. So after a lunch at a little restaurant at the end of a cobblestone lane leading away from a tram track near the mosques, we headed for Enseteppe. Well, you see, many places in Istanbul have names ending with "teppe" because that means hill. Really, Istanbul is quite a hilly city much like San Francisco.

After the meeting, we headed out to one of the rare modern malls in Istanbul called Kanyon. Apparently, the city has not caught up with modern architecture, its best architecture being those leftover from the Ottoman empire (which is really magnificent!) So when you get something like Kanyon, it's all out mall culture. Everything here is high-end, so after a while, we decided it's time to hop on the tube and return to the hotel. Besides, jetlag is setting in. After all, it's midnight in Singapore already! So here I am at my last activity of the night. Will get to sleep in tomorrow morning since work won't start till 1 pm but that's gonna go all the way till 9 pm *yawn*

That's how my line of work is. Irregular hours. But nothing to complain about; more daylight means more snooping around this gorgeous city. (Psst ... the water is seagreen in spite of a gray sky! It's that beautiful. And it's water all around. If only I own a villa here, down at the marina ... sigh ...)