So many things have happened since the last time I blogged, I don't even know where to begin. I guess by chronological order, it begins like this:

Turkey with the family was amazeballs. I think Istanbul was one place I really fell in love with and would like to visit again. I loved the old world charm of the place, the mix of both Europe and Oriental in its style; I loved the mix of people, the mix of old and new; I liked that it was a city but not a modern one, I liked the hustle but also the chill-ness of the place, I liked the old architecture and the history and culture seen all over. I will now attempt a day-by-day itinerary of Turkey, but it's been a month and my memory fails. Still, I must try to preserve the fond memories of this place in my blog.

Day 1: We arrived at the Istanbul airport, where we saw cool-looking people dressed up in kaftans! Still haven't figured out where they're from exactly but omg they're so cool cos they're like this whole other race of people I've never seen before and they cut customs queues shamelessly, which according to my parents is reminiscent of the traditions in communist countries which ZOMG MAKES THEM SO MUCH COOLER. Someday I will be an anthropologist and learn about all the different peoples of the world and their traditions... Anyway, we left the airport and stepped foot onto real Istanbul ground and I fell in love with its strange Turkish charm straightaway. I liked what I think is the old square of the city, which was in the middle of all the places that once held importance in Turkey, eg. the Hagia Sophia, Blue Mosque, Hippodrome. I liked the fountain in the middle of the square, and the old Turkish people who sat around the fountain in their traditional dressing enjoying their leisurely weekday afternoon; I liked the food carts that sold corn and simit and chestnuts; I liked the cobblestones, the blue sky and the lovely Istanbul weather, the views of Hagia Sophia and the Blue Mosque; I liked the generally old architecture that I saw in the place eg. the obelisk, the water cistern, the museum, strange buildings I never quite figured out. We went to the Blue Mosque, which was similar in design to the mosque we visited in Egypt. It was a nice place with nice lights, and God knows I'm a real sucker for nice lights. We went to the Hagia Sophia, which I had biggest expectations for in this trip and of course it let me down. It wasn't as grand and magnificent as I expected it to be but that's probably because it wasn't very well preserved. I wish I could have seen the Hagia Sophia in all its former Orthodox glory. I really like the Orthodox style and someday, I would like to travel to Russia and visit Orthodox church after Orthodox church. Anyway thereafter, I had my first Turkish ice cream in Turkey during lunch and then we left Istanbul to take a ferry to Cannakale, where I had my first taste of Turkish apple tea. Watched Germany get thrashed by Italy in the Euro Cup semis, which I really didn't expect. I think Joachim Loew is one of the coolest football coaches around.

Day 2: Left Cannakale for Troy! Climbed up the Trojan horse which wasn't at all impressive. Visited the ruins of Troy, followed by the ruins of Pergamon, both of which satisfied the archaeological geek in me :-) Travelled to Kusadasi to stay the night, which is a resort town somewhat like Pattaya.

Day 3: Visited Mother Mary's house near Ephesus!!!! What was meant to be a highly spiritual moment in my life got ruined cos I had to pee so badly lmao. But it was a really nice peaceful place and it's the first holy place I've ever visited. Saw a friar walking in which amused me for some reason heh. Then we went to Ephesus which, by golly, was more impressive than Troy and Pergamon! Visting the actual Ephesus was way better than visiting the Ephesus Museum in Vienna. The Library of Celsus looked like the front of Petra and made me convinced that I wanna go to Petra someday. Then we travelled to Pamukkale to stay the night.

Day 4: Visited the Cotton Castle of Pamukkale but while everyone else was having fun at the thermal pools of the Cotton Castle, the family went to geek out at the Hierapolis Museum hee hee. It was essentially a very small museum containing some artefacts from the ancient Hierapolis but still that made me happy. And then! We visited Antalya! Which I've been wanderlusting for since seeing its name at the Vienna airport. The old town was a lovely place~ It was surrounded by the Mediterranean Sea which itself is so lovely. But I really really liked the style of the old town. It's so Mediterranean, for lack of a better word. It's what I've always imagined about the coastal towns of Greece or Spain. And it made me convinced that Greece is definitely one of the top three places I have to visit before I die. Omg we also saw a gypsy woman!!! Who reads fortunes for a living. I was dying of awe and I really really really wanted to take a picture of her but I didn't dare. Still, omg gypsies are my homies~~~~ Anyway we went to the hotel which turned out to be a real disaster. There was barely food left in the dining hall and we didn't get to eat much for dinner. The worst part was that there was only 1 lift working and it was this SMALL-ASS lift that had to serve so many floors and so many guests. And when we finally entered the room, I got creeped out by it for some strange reason. But anyway the good thing was that I could watch my favourite Spanish team thrash Italy 4-1 in the Euro Cup finals AND WIN AN INTERNATIONAL TOURNAMENT FOR THE 3RD TIME IN A ROW. My team has really made me feel like a proud mama all these years :') Their goals were really really good and Torres won golden boot for the entire competition even though he was a substitute and barely played in the entire tournament :O Good for him though, I think he really needed that boost after what has been a really shitty time in his career. Torres will always remain my hot Spanish boy after all these years and I will always root for him even though he left Liverpool for Chelsea, so sue me. And then like, an hour after the match, our hotel floor blacked out. Worst hotel EVER but at least I got to watch my Spanish team win.

Day 5: Climbed all the way to the top of a Roman theatre, which was quite wow. Took a river boat to see the Mediterranean Sea from the loveliest spot ever. Ate some really good Turkish food which meant some really good pastry stuffed with either chocolate or cheese! Meal highlight of the trip I think, apart from Turkish ice cream. Visited a waterfall, a market, and then we went to Side! Which was quite lovely too because it had some ancient ruins and it had this marketplace and the place was really nice at night :)

Day 6: Travelled to Konya, visited Rumi's Tomb!!!! I didn't even know that Rumi was from Turkey and that he was the one who started the whirling dervishes order omg, that makes him so much more cooler. His tomb was really nice and Rumi is someone whose works I would like to read some day when I'm older and wiser. It's people like Rumi who make me interested in Philo, somewhat. I think the coolest thing about Konya though, is the traditional dressing that everyone puts on, especially the old women. Old Turkish women in their traditional dressing are cool, I think the conservatism that Konya still retains is cool too. Had lunch at a caravanserai, which looked like it came straight out of the medieval times. And then we drove through these really nice mountains surrounded by pine trees and there was this nomad with her sheep flock!!!!! Which I thought was amazeballs because nomads are my homies too. Anyway we arrived at Cappadocia - best hotel of the trip because we got to stay at Hilton, which was a nice reprieve from the shitty hotels we'd be staying at.

Day 7: Visited the Underground Cities, which were pretty awesome. Cappadocia was really quite a pretty sight with all these rock formations and the resulting caves that people lived in. I think the coolest part was the church that was created out of the cave we visited. Really wish I got to see more of such cave dwellings and churches.

Day 8: Woke up super duper early to go for a hot air balloon ride over Cappadocia!!!! Omg best experience ever of the trip, I think. It was freezing in the morning and I was feeling so horrible from the lack of sleep but suddenly we were in the hot air balloon and it rose up over the beautiful Cappadocia landscape and we were in the sky with all these other pretty hot air balloons and it was so magical and I felt like I was living my dream. Tumblr has seriously given me all these dreams the past 3 years about being able to go up on a hot air balloon and being able to take lovely pictures of pretty hot air balloons set against the pretty sky over beautiful landscapes and HAH this is part of my dream coming true except that I've yet to seen the photos I took with my mum's old film camera from the 1970s. Praying that my photos will turn out good magically. And I don't think anyone from the family expected to go on the hot air balloon in Turkey but we did so that was awesome :) And then we drove to Ankara, capital city of Turkey. I liked the hustle and the clutter of Ankara, and it really reminded me of Cairo and it's a pity we didn't get to stay over or see much of it. But anyway we then drove to Bolu where we stayed overnight, which is this forest-y place and kind of odd.

Day 9: Drove back to Istanbul! Went on this river boat across the Bosphorus and saw the yali's along the river which I'd been reading about in Orhan Pamuk's book. We visited the Topkapi Palace but sadly we didn't get to go into the harem :( And then we went to the Grand Bazaar!!!!! And I got a Turkish lamp which I've always dreamt of getting but it wasn't that nice :( And I didn't manage to get my djembe which I'd been lusting for. So really, the Grand Bazaar wasn't that impressive but that's probably because we didn't have time to cover most places mehhhhh. Another reason to go back to Istanbul. Anyway we had dinner in the streets and went to Taksim Square which is basically where all the fashion shops are eg. Topshop which I sadly didn't manage to go into, Mango where I spent a long time and bought some things quite cheaply hee.

Day 10: Spice Bazaar!!! Which was actually too small hah. And then it was back to Singapore, mehhhhh. I'd definitely definitely go back to Istanbul to visit the archaeological museum and other museums and spend more time at the Grand Bazaar and spend more time eating street food. I swear I didn't get enough Turkish food during the trip. And I definitely didn't get to see as much of the place as I'd have liked or take as many photos as I'd have liked.

Okay and then it was Hong Kong with Joyce and really all we did was shop in the malls and I managed to get quite a bit of loot and spent lots of money, shit. But we didn't really have time to look for good food, which sucked. Although I did manage to drag Joyce to Tim Ho Wan and luckily we found some Singaporeans and could ask them for help otherwise we would have just queued and not known what to do. But the queue was worth it, their char siew baos were AMAZEBALLS. Anyway it also sucked not being able to explore Hong Kong, which I realised has actually quite a few indie places. But there was absolutely no time and I thought Macau was a waste of time, although Macau was nice in some ways and would have been better if we had explored the streets more. I think the worst part about the Hong Kong trip was when we went to Mid-Levels and saw this apartment on fire, complete with firemen and policemen and kaypoh people drama. And hence we couldn't explore Mid-Levels much :( Mid-Levels is a place I would like to visit again some day, it has quirky-looking shops and restaurants of every cuisine that exists on earth and it has really good noodle stall with the best beef brisket.

I guess the next event after Hong Kong was my History camp where I caught sight of this awkward-looking geeky boy hee hee hee. Hoping that I see him around school but God knows that my luck sucks. And then the next event was me going for a surgery to remove this cyst on my groin at the beginning of the week. The surgery was really going okay for me until they started stitching me up and it's so gross to even think about it. Anyway, I've just been lying in bed this whole week (still lying in bed as I'm typing this) and struggling to bathe without wetting my dressing. How I'm gonna keep this up until my stitches dissolve is absolutely beyond me. Also I am currently in the midst of bidding for all my modules this sem!!! I've managed to get my French module through LPP, the History exposure mod, Soci exposure mod, Anthro mod and all I need to fight for now is the GEM on world religions. Excited to begin learning again but I'm scared of having no friends in school because I stupidly never thought about signing up for orientation or for the Utown residential programme up until now. And it's too late for me to go for orientation and I can't even crash like I planned to because I can barely even walk with the stitches on my groin, mehhhhhhhh. I will end up forever alone in school :( Anyway I also realised that my ambitions of doing a double major in Soci and History could never come true because my French LPP takes up so many modules already :( I was super duper sad about it but then! I think I might be able to do it if I take 5 years instead of 4 to graduate. New ambition to aim for but I guess we'll hafta see how things go.

SNOW PATROL ON MONDAY, I AM BEYOND EXCITED. I've waited my whole adolescence to watch this band live and nothing's gonna stop me even if I have to struggle with my stitches and people at STUPID FORT CANNING. Also, I got myself a new macbook pro but I'm not that psyched about it yet and I hafta wait til' the end of the month to get it so psssshhh. Okat peace out, I'll see you on the other side when I'm officially a university freshman omg.

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