Source: skylife
Finally, it was winter break. This time I had no tickets booked or even a visual of a place I’d like to explore. Until my mom told me about her latest obsession – Turkey. Not the chicken you eat on Thanksgiving turkey, it’s the country Turkey. Honestly I wasn’t that excited to go there at first, but what an experience I would’ve let go if I didn’t decide to get on that plane and embark on such an amazing journey.
heavy snowfall in Istanbul.
So, on December, my parents and I left Jakarta, my hometown, and got on a 14-hour flight to Istanbul. We were told by our guide that it was going to be cold but we didn’t expect it to be this cold. I was literally in a fetal position when we finally arrived in the tour bus after running really fast from the airport lobby to the parking lot. Our local guide, Palin, was waiting for us in the bus and handing us a bottel of water each. The first thing I noticed about Palin was her sweet scent, which brought me to purchasing a Turkish perfume called Harem when we reached Topkapi Palace. The palace now acts as a museum. To find out more about it, open this link http://topkapisarayi.gov.tr/en. We mostly went shopping and city touring in Istanbul. But Istanbul is not just a city. It is a city that “embraces two continents, one arm reaching out to Asia, the other to Europe. Through the city’s heart, the Bosphorus Strait, course the waters of the Black Sea, the Sea of Marmara and the Golden Horn. Today Istanbul honors and preserves the legacy of its past as the former capital of three successive empires the Roman, Byzantine, and Ottoman while looking forward to its modern future.”
Source: Getty
After Istanbul, we visited lots of other places like Ephesus (the city in the Holy Bible), Antalya (the beach and water sites), Kusadasi, Bursa (hot springs and Caravanserai), Pamukkale (cotton castle – which is SO BEAUTIFUL), Konya, Cappadocia, and a lot of other places. In the end we went to Ankara, the capital of Turkey, and we ate the best onion tin foiled chicken before we went back to Istanbul and got on a flight home.
a picture of me in Cappadocia
My favorite thing about Turkey other than the beautiful scenery and culture is the food. The food is so good that my taste buds just couldn’t have enough. We ate four kinds of kebabs: Doner, Iskander, Shish, and Testi. They were all so delicious but my favorite’s gotta be Shish. It has really tender meat and awesome flavor. Even the pizza here is better than the pizza back home. The unique flavor of Turkish coffee is also a fun flick on your taste buds.
In whole, it was an amazing and unforgettable journey. With all the scenery, culture, food, and coffee, Turkey is a destination to consider.
No comments:
Post a Comment