So, what's new?

It's been two years since I last posted. What's new?

I have...

• Bought a new house
• Got engaged
• Visited some cool new countries
• Filled my passport
• Taken some exams and am on the way to being a qualified Chartered Tax Accountant
• Damaged my ankle and have been unable to play football for nine months
• Kept up with the gym in the meantime
• Tried a couple of new blogging platforms and have come to accept that I am far too lazy and will never stick to writing as much as I'd like

Maybe 2016 will see me rectify fix the last item in that list.

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Istanbul, Turkey - Day Two

True to form, it's taken me a little longer to get around to posting day two of our trip to Turkey. Sorry about that.

Day two essentially revolved around a quest to find one food that we were desperate to try in Turkey - falafel. Whilst Falafel isn't your stereotypical Turkish dish (it isn't on the menu in a lot of the restaurants we visited) we figured that the middle-eastern community would have a few decent restaurants in Istanbul and we just love falafel so we had to go and find the best one.

After some digging online, I discovered Falafel'ci, a small, family run restaurant in the Moda district of Kadıköy so on the morning of day two we jumped on the tram down to Eminönü using our Istanbulkart (a little more on this later) then took a ferry to Kadıköy. The quest begins.

Falafel'ci - Not on Google Maps but definitely worth visiting

Today was our first trip on the ferry and we were both pleasantly surprised in how efficient, cheap and all round awesome they were. There are a number of terminals in Eminönü each labelled in big writing with their destination and an LCD display which tells you when the next ferry is departing. You pay for your jeton and put the token in the barrier to pass or swipe your Istanbulkart to enter the waiting area. Once the ferry arrives, the other passengers exit around the side of the terminal and, once the ferry is clear, you board. For every journey we took on a ferry in Istanbul we always chose to sat facing the sun on one of the sides of the boat (like in the photo above). It was late September when we visited and the warm sun was welcome after we'd started to see the English winter close in at home.

A 30 minute journey to Kadıköy followed and upon our arrival we walked around the bay in the direction of Haydarpasa Train Station.

Haydarpasa was once the busiest rail station in the whole of Turkey but a fire in 2010 which burnt the roof down has now made the station semi-functioning and a lot of trade that once flowed through has now ceased. In the past, it was the origin point of on the Istanbul-Konya-Adana-Aleppo-Baghdad line and the origin of the Istanbul-Ankara route.

Since the fire, the building has been beautifully restored and the ceilings in the waiting hall are stunning.

Hydarpasa ceiling

After exploring the main concourse and the platform area, we double-backed on ourselves and headed in the direction of Moda walking the two or so miles via the coast road.

My girlfriend and I are always keen to explore the places people live in the cities we visit as the "old city" tends to be the "tourist city" and quite often not representative of what a place is actually like. Once we found our way to Moda we both said that this is the place we'd like to live if we were ever to move to Istanbul. It has a really cool vibe about the place and there were plenty of young people about, due to the proximity of Istanbul Kadıköy Lisesi, the local university.

After following the map to we eventually found Falafel'ci and sat on one of the tables outside and waited for our order to be taken. The lady who served us was clearly lovely (and, I think, the owner) but given that we didn't speak Turkish and she didn't speak English, we had a little difficulty in getting our point across! In the end we saw some students next to us who ahd a big plate of falafel with some finely diced salad and beans. Two of those please!

When the food came it really was delicious. Perhaps it wasn't the best falafel I've ever had but it hit the spot and was well worth the walk. We paid the bill (about 13TL for two lunches and a couple of Cokes) then headed back up the hill to get an ice cream for another place I'd scouted in advance - Ali Usta. This stuff blew us away! We're both massive fans of Italian gelato which is completely different to your standard ice cream served in other countries (it's kind of chewy rather than creamy) and this place served gelato almost as nice as what we'd had in Rome last year. The sun was blazing and we sat outside munching ice cream whilst soaking up some rays. Superb.

After finishing the ice cream we headed back down the hill towards the water's edge and found a little café/restaurant called Tariha Moda Iskelesi Restaurant located perfectly on the end of a pier. Again, we sat down, chilled out and enjoyed the late summer sun. I couldn't help but think we'd timed our holidays well this year since we'd enjoyed the best english summer in recent memory, managed to grab these few days in Istanbul and, once the weather really gets cold in the UK, we're flying out to Central America for three weeks in November!

Summer sun

Tariha Moda Iskelesi Restaurant

A nice little tip if you visit this café, chuck a little bit of bread in the sea and the fish come swimming right up to the edge and devour it in front of your eyes.

I started to notice Gabi getting a little too comfortable in this (admittedly idyllic) setting and we still had one more sight to see before calling it a day - the view from the hill in Eyüp. So off we set, back towards the ferry terminal and on a ferry bound for Eyüp.

The ferry crossed us back over to the European side of Istanbul and after a 40 minute (or so) journey up the Bosphorous we reached our end destination. By this point it was getting a bit late so we made the decision to take the cable-car up the hill, admire the view then head back within the hour. It was a little bit rushed and, had it not have been so late, I'd have liked to have walked back down the hill through the cemetery but I had a girlfriend to keep on side! ;)

After a quick pitstop to pick up some candy floss (can't resist that stuff) we took the cable car up the hill and admired the view from the top, out across the city. From here it became apparent just how sprawling Istanbul is.

The view from Eyüp - the ferry terminal is visible in the background, jutting out before the bridge

Once we'd taken a few snaps and soaked up the views we headed back down by cablecar and then caught the ferry back towards Eminönü  We were sat next to a Turkish man and his wife who bought and extra wafer/marshmallow snack from a vendor and gave it to us, a very kind gesture indeed. The sun began to set on the way home and I managed to catch a few nice snaps of the mosques by night which I always think turn out very well with my Sony TX-5 camera.

New mosque by night

After a short tram journey back up towards Beyazit we reached our hotel, absolutely knackered by this point but I had a trick up my sleeve - a visit to the one of the best restaurants in Istanbul with a view to die for - Imbat Restaurant.

We got there for around 9:30 (we ate very late in Istanbul partly due to us doing so much in the day and wanting an hour to chill out in the room before heading back out again!) and took a table on the roof terrace which has fantastic views across towards Beyoglu and beyond. I forgot my camera but you'll have to take my word for it - it's spectacular. We shared a borek starter to begin with then Gabi had veal whilst I went with a grilled chicken and steak kebab. Both were fantastic - Gabi went as far as to say that it was the best veal she'd ever had which is high praise indeed.

Half way through the mains we felt a few drips of water and noticed lightning in the distance - a storm was brewing! A few less hardened diners elected to move indoors but us tough Brits stayed outside and braved it. Luckily, the heavens only opened once we'd left the restaurant and were browsing a shop on Hudavendigar Cadessi. We sprinted for the tram, took it back up to Beyazit and collapsed on the bed, exhausted. The rain was practically apocalyptic in it's heaviness but by the time we'd woken up, 99% of it had evaporated in the morning sun. Certainly beats Manchester!

Tomorrow would be a trip out to another of Istanbul's districts - Uskudar.

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Istanbul, Turkey - Day Zero & Day One

So, things didn't quite turned out as we planned. Plans to head to Croatia for some summer sun were replaced by a late summer trip to Istanbul. I certainly wasn't disappointed!

The Blue Mosque by night

We had a total of four days in Istanbul after finding some bargain flights online with Turkish Airlines (£120 pp return from Gatwick). It turned out that this amount of time was probably about right for us. We perhaps could've had one more day to visit the beautiful Princes' Islands but alas, it wasn't to be.

Day Zero - I'm calling this Day Zero since we only got to the hotel at around 10PM so didn't have much in mind aside from finding somewhere to watch the Liverpool vs Man Utd game! I say 'we', I mean 'me' with my girlfriend Gabi dragged along.

After walking (well, more like jogging) around multiple bars in the Sultanahmet area we eventually found an Irish pub adjoined to the Amisos Hotel which is right next to Gülhane tram stop. This place had all the Premier League matches on so if you find yourself in Istanbul and are looking for somewhere to watch the football I'd recommend it. The only shame is the price of the drinks which were extortionate by Istanbul standards. This visit, we ordered a couple of Diet Cokes which came in at 19TL for the pair. £3 for a can of Coke irked me a bit and this was compounded by a 79TL bottle of wine in another visit later in the week. An Aussie woman at the bar paid just shy of 40TL for a couple of beers so be warned - it's not cheap!

After the match had finished, we wandered back up to the Hotel for a good night's rest before beginning our first proper venture out the next day.

A little on the hotel; we were staying in the excellent Hotel Niles which is located five minutes walk from Beyazit Mosque and the Grand Bazaar, see my TripAdvisor Review of the hotel. Suffice to say, the hotel is lovely with well-appointed rooms in a cracking location. The windows are very close to being sound-proofed so the local calls to prayer at ungodly hours (pardon the ironic blasphemy) didn't affect us like it has in past visits to Muslim nations (Morocco, Egypt and Jordan are the ones that spring to mind as regular early morning wake-up calls). The roof terrace is beautiful with views across the Sea of Marmara.

Hotel Niles

Day One - Perhaps this should be known as "Mosque Day" since we ticked off the four big ones in Istanbul in one day!

The day began with a nice breakfast on the terrace at Hotel Niles. One thing I was really looking forward to on this trip was the food. I didn't expect to be eating some of it for breakfast though! When we visit out local Turkish restaurant, Turkish Delight, in Chorlton, Manchester, we love the meze dishes and usually have about eight of them between us. One of the dished we love are the boreks, which are a kind of spring roll but stuffed with various fillings; cheese, spinach, mincemeat, vegetables, - you name it. I found myself eating Sigara Boreks filled with goat's cheese. Not the usual breakfast fayre for my English pallet but delicious nonetheless. On the side I had some nice chunks of sausage (sucuk, I guessed) in a tomato sauce. A few of these bad boys and I was set for the morning!

When we headed out there was only one destination - the main square with the Hagia Sofia mosque/museum and the opulent six minaret Blue Mosque.

Hagia Sofia (or Aya Sofya as it is known in Turkish) 

Coming down the hill from the hotel Hagia Sofia was the first building we sighted and what a sight it was. I'd read a little about the history of this building and it was brilliant to be able to see it with my own eyes. Directly opposite the Hagia Sofia is the beautiful Blue Mosque. We headed over to here first.

The Blue Mosque

The Blue Mosque is a stunner, it completely takes your breath away and apparently is second in splendour to the Grand Mosque in Mecca. I might be wrong but I believe that these are the only two mosques with six minarets.

We wandered over the the Blue Mosque's main courtyard and took in the atmosphere. What we didn't enjoy the look of was the queue to get in which had snaked around the courtyard and I estimated would take nigh on half an hour to navigate. Let's move on, we thought, and so wandered down to see the hustle and bustle of Eminonou ferry station after stopping at the Red River Café and Restaurant for a delicious kofte (meatball) sandwich.

Eminonou is mental. Like, seriously mental. There must be about ten different destinations you can head to from any one of the ferries (and we used a few of them later on in our trip!) but the dominating presence over the harbour is the so-called New Mosque. At this point, it's probably worth clarifying that only in Istanbul can a building that was completed in 1665 be considered 'new'. Anyways, we wandered up the steps of the mosque and went in. What struck us was how quiet and peaceful the mosque was. There's a massive area for Muslim men to pray, a small section at the back for the ladies (more on this later) and a section between the two for non-believing heathens like us to stand/sit and take in the atmosphere.

New Mosque

I really enjoyed sitting, relaxing and taking the time to sample the atmosphere in the mosque.

Upon leaving the building we noticed a hulking presence in the distance - Suleymaniye Mosque sitting on a hill overlooking the city. We tightened our shoe laces and set off on a quest to find it.

On the way we stumbled across the Spice Bazaar and picked up some Iranian saffron (saffron rice- delicious with a curry), sweet paprika (a gift for somebody) and some cinnamon sticks (home-made mulled wine at Christmas, baby!)

Eventually, after wandering through a busy shopping district (and picking up a knock-off Galatasaray shirt) we reached the Mosque. Again, I took copious snaps of the exterior and interior and we took some time to chill out and soak up the atmosphere indoors whilst perusing Lonely Planet and deciding where to go next. I'd probably say that this was my favourite of the four we visited this day.

Suleymaniye Mosque

A little tip - it seems that every Mosque in Istanbul has toilet facilities available for a small fee. If you're caught short and have got to go (it happens to all of us!) then the nearest mosque is probably your best bet.

We wandered back towards the hubbub of Sultanahmet and bought a couple of tickets to see the Basilica Cistern. This is an underwater cavern which was used to house fresh water for the Basilica on the surface. It was covered up and forgotten about for years until it was "rediscovered", renovated and opened to the public.

Cistern

It's a stunning place, the ceiling is supported by over 300 columns and is eerily lit - adding to the atmosphere. Well worth the 10TL admission fee. 

Our final visit for the day was Hagia Sofia. After paying the expensive entrance fee (I think it worked out at about £8 pp) we had a wander around the interior (both levels) and I snapped a few shots, some of which turned out very well.

Hagia Sofia

It's an impressive building, without doubt, but I think we were a little underwhelmed with the interior of the Hagia Sofia given;

a. The entrance fee;

b. The comparison to Suleymaniye Mosque and New Mosque which were both free and;

c. The fact that half of the interior was covered in scaffolding for restoration.

I suppose I can't blame anyone for the third of the points given that if these places aren't regularly looked after then they will crumble but still, it was a shame.

We headed back up to the surface and began trekking back to the hotel, our feet well and truly aching at this point.

After a shower and a change, we jumped on the tram and headed off to the Beyoglu district which was supposed to be a nice area for a meal and a few drinks afterwards. We wandered around trying to find a restaurant I'd heard good things about - Babel Cafe but, despite our best efforts we just couldn't find it. Shame really as, from the reviews, it looks like a great place. Instead we found a bar/restaurant that sold kebabs which was absolutely heaving. Following the logic that a place this busy must serve good food we found ourselves a table and I ordered a mixed kebab whilst Gabi had a lamb one. Both were absolutely excellent and a good indicator for the standard of food we were going to experience for the rest of the holiday. Sadly, despite scouring Google Maps and TripAdvisor I can't seem to find the name of the place.

After the meal, we walked over to the coast and shared a bottle of wine at a bar called Unter. The place was nicely decorated and the Turkish wine we had was delicious. I think it cost around 80TL.

We caught a tram back to the hotel and went to bed, exhausted from the day's exploring. Tomorrow would be a new day and we were planning on catching a ferry to Kadikoy.

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Holidays 2013

This year is shaping up to be a good year in terms of holidays.

Fortunately, due to a number of changes with my contract in work, it's looking like I'll be getting an annual entitlement of 28 days for the leave year 2013 (which starts on 1st April 2013 and runs until 31st March 2014). This is in addition to rolling forward 8 days from 2012 which leaves me with 36 days for the year!

Earlier this year, my girlfriend surprised me with a trip to Dortmund for my birthday, incorporating a trip to see the mighty Borussia Dortmund at the Signal Iduna Park. So that's Germany already visited this year. Ironically, my last two trips abroad have been to Germany and the next will also be a visit to the Fatherland when I go on this stag do in May.



The 'yellow wall' - Borussia Dortmund

 We're hoping to pick up a cheap flight for a week away in June and at the moment, funds permitting, Croatia is the front-runner. I'd love to fly to Dubrovnik and do a little bit of island-hopping, perhaps going to visit Hvar. Thsi would be another stamp to the passport too ;)

Dubrovnik, Croatia.

Then comes the big one, the summer holiday. At the moment I'm busy planning a three week trip to Central America which should take in three countries - Mexico, Belize and Guatemala.

We'll be flying in to Cancun, Mexico and some of the highlights of the trip will include Chichen Itza, one of the New 7 Wonders of the World (which will take my tally up to four out of the seven), Caracol and Caye Caulker in Belize, Tikal, Semuc Champey and Lake Atitlan in Guatemala and then flying home from Guatemala City.

It's an optimistic schedule and there will be plenty of miles to cover in three weeks. Hopefully we'll manage to see it all!

This trip, combined with Germany, Croatia and Turkey will see me visit six countries in 2013, five of which I've never visited before. It promises to be an exciting year.

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Cloud Music

I've been a subscriber to iTunes Match, Apple's online music hosting/streaming service (for want of a better moniker) for a year now and my subscription is up for renewal a week or so before Christmas.

For anyone who has never heard of iTunes Match, the service essentially offers you the ability to listen to all your music from any Apple device regardless of whether that music is synced to the device. The only caveat being that you must have Internet access (WiFi or cellular) to download or stream the file.

When you first subscribe to the service, iTunes will scan your library and match and songs that you own with a corresponding copy that they hold in the "cloud". The main advantage of Apple's service is that they hold - if memory serves correct - over 60 million songs in their database. The chances are that a lot of your albums will also exist in the Apple catalogue and these songs will instantly become available to you to stream.

For any more obscure tunes that iTunes can't match, the software will upload them to the Cloud so you have a copy available.

The whole process can be a bit time-consuming to begin with but once all of your tracks have been matched or uploaded, any incremental changes should only result in a quick scan and match/upload.

The key word in the last sentence is 'should'. I find that iTunes Match causes iTunes to hang when scanning my library for new songs. My library consists of around 13,000 songs and at any one time there might be a new album or two. iTunes seems to take ages to identify these and upload or match them.

There are a couple of new kids on the block since I first bought my subscription to iTunes match - Amazon's Cloud Player and Good Music.

As far as I can tell, the pros and cons of each are as follows:

iTunes Match

Pros:

- Integrated with iTunes so no need to download a media scanning app.

- Integrates with the Music app on my iPad.

Cons:

- Slow to scan my iTunes library. Does it every time I load iTunes.
- I will soon no longer have an iPhone so no access on my phone when out and about.
- No web browser based access.

Amazon Cloud Player

Pros:
- Android app for my phone.
- Web browser based access for when I'm out and about.
- 200,000 track storage (not that I'll ever get close to that, mind).

Cons:
- No iPad app (yet).
- Not as big a catalogue of tunes to match against (so more tracks will be uploaded which takes a lot of time).

Google Music

Pros:

- Free!
- Available across all my devices and via the browser.

Cons:

- No matching feature. All music must be uploaded.







With Amazon Cloud Player being priced at the same level as iTunes Match, I think I'll be going with the former and hope that they release an iPad app sooner rather than later.

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Nexus 4

Decided to upgrade from my iPhone 4S to a Nexus 4 today. Estimated ship time of 1-2 weeks - I can't wait to get my grubby mitts on it!

 

 

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Holiday Idea #2

Burma. And more specifically Bagan.

 

 

 

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Species extinction

Since my last blog post, I've been thinking and reading more and more about different types of endangered species. It depresses me to think about the massive expansion of the human population across the planet and the complete disregard for any other species.

I stumbled across this article today and started to read more about the big cats; jaguars, leopards, tigers and lions. Perhaps my recent holiday to Tanzania has sparked a bit of an interest.

It should come as no surprise that every single one of the cats listed above are endangered to some extent. What did surprise me was the numbers of surviving animals.

Take the jaguar, the third largest cat on the planet (after the tiger and lion) and previously indigenous to a good proportion of North America and all of Central and South America.

It is now estimated that there are between eight to fifteen thousand animals left in the wild.

I've seen the human population rise from six to seven billion people in my lifetime and I find it an absolute disgrace that so few of these animals now survive. It doesn't sit well with me.

I read an article a couple of years ago which described how people who had recently watched the film Avatar felt a kind of depression that the world they had seen on screen didn't actually exist. If you've seen the film, you know the scene I mean - the one where the lead character first becomes an Avatar and runs in to the forest whereupon he stumbles across an incredible array of flora and fauna. Sooner rather than later, we will all be watching documentaries on TV showing what an amazing array of beautiful animals once roamed the planet and we'll all feel that same sense of disappointment that they're no longer with us.

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Tigers of India

I'm just watching a program on the BBC about the tigers of Ranthambore National Park, India, a place I visited around eighteen months ago.

It's sad to see how so few tigers survive in the wild. I'd imagine if you were to conduct a poll, few would know that there are less than 3,500 surviving in the world.

Take a look at the image below, yellow shows the historic roaming range of tigers, the green shows the current day range.

If something drastic isn't done sooner rather than later these magnificent creatures will become extinct. What a shame it will be for future generations to know that these animals which once flourished were wiped out on our watch.

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Central America 2013

Planning a trip to Central America next year. Top of the list of destinations to visit are the Mayan ruins at Chichen Itza, Mexico and Tikal, Guatemala. Is would mean I've chalked off four of the New Seven Wonders of The World.

I love planning future trips!

Chichen Itza

Tikal

Posted with Blogsy

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