Okay...we have 11 days left until our trip is over so we're obviously VERY behind on this blogging thing. Truthfully, I think we underestimated the responsibility of blogging during our trip. I mean, who wants to sit in front of computer blogging when you could be out seeing the world!
Anyway, I kind of wanted to give up on the blogging thing, but T insists this is something we'll want to look back on. He's probably right. Ugh...I hate when he's right. So... here goes Turkey and Greece.
After Egypt we flew to Istanbul, Turkey. Egypt was great but I was ready to get out of a place where it's CRAZY hot and where I am also strongly discouraged from wearing shorts and tank tops.
As soon as we landed we headed for a ferry to take us to Bursa,
the 4th largest city in Turkey. It's also known for their silk but
that's not why we chose to go there. Bursa is the home of the donor
kebab!!! We didn't do much the first day expect eat donor kebabs and wander around the city looking for a coin laundromat, which btw doesn't exist in Bursa. After roaming around for an hour or two with T looking like Santa (or a hobo) with a full white laundry bag over his shoulder, we found a drop off laundry/dry cleaning place. Yay. However, they were going to charge us $250 for a load of laundry. Boo. We ended up taking our laundry back to the hotel and doing some handwashing. Double Boo.
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| Our first doner kebab experience in Bursa. So good. |
Oh, T also got a much needed haircut. I know...who cares if T got a haircut, but for me, it was quite entertaining watching the barber give T a euro douche hair cut. AWESOME.
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| Its hard to tell in the pic how euro T looks after his haircut. Spiked, waxed, and parted to the side. LOVE IT. |
The next day I unfortunately still had a bad case of Tut's trots but that didn't stop me from enjoying a great meal at Uludag National Park. The park itself is just aiiight, but the draw for me was of course the eating. The park hosts open air restaurants where you buy meat by the kilo and then rent a little bbq to grill. The restaurant also provides yogurt, spices, bread, vegetables etc. It was definitely a yummy experience.
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| Our mini table side bbq |
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| Our steak, chicken, and lamb kebabs for grilling |
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| T the grill master |
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| Deliciousness to be eaten with onions, tomatoes, and yogurt. |
Full from our meal, we took a little walk through the park. The trees were pretty cool and greener than anything I've ever seen.
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| T playing "The Sound Of Music" soundtrack on his phone to set the mood. (not kidding) |
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| Cable car to the top |
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| The hills are alive..... |
After Bursa we took the ferry back to Istanbul where we met up my cousin Jung-Hwa who visited us all the way from Seoul! It was awesome to have someone other than Ted to talk to. Sometimes you just need another girl to hang out with.
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| Girls night out! |
Istanbul is a lively city with a lots to do and see. However, I must say that I was a little underwhelmed by some of the historic sights like the mosques and palaces. I think that's mostly due to the fact that we were recently in India and saw the mother of all mosques, temples, and palaces. Anywho...here are some pics from a few of the famous sites.
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| Basilica Cistern used to store rain water for Istanbul in the 6th century |
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| Posing with Medusa in the Cistern |
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| Ayasofya, first a church, then a mosque, and now a museum |
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| AyaSofya at night |
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| An Egyptian obelisk! Pretty cool to see one after coming from Egypt and seeing how they were made. | | | |
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Outside of the sightseeing and city hustle bustle, Istanbul also seems like a cool place to relax. There are tons of places to smoke hookahs and just relax with some beers. Oh and I also visited a relaxing Turkish bath in Bursa. Good, but nothing compared to Korean bathhouses. Overall, I give Turkey a thumbs up.
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| Great place to relax on the Asian Side |
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| Carriage ride through Princes Island |
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| T finding out what his life would be like if he were Amish |
After a great 7 days in Turkey, our next stop was Athens. After checking into our hostel we stopped in for lunch at a family run hole in the wall joint. We didn't know what to order so the nice grandma behind the counter gave us a little bit of everything. My kind of meal.
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| Forget what this is called but it was delicious. Zucchini stuffed with minced meat |
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| Stuffed peppers. We also got Moussaka too which was amazing but can't find the pic. |
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Our Athens experience was definitely a touristy one so can't say we learned much about local culture. Nonetheless, the touristy parts were pretty amazing. Visiting an acropolis from 500BC is just absolutely mind blowing. As we visited the sites I kept trying to imagine what daily life was like back then, but all I could imagine were togas...which eventually led to me thinking about beer. weird.
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| View of the Parthenon |
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| Odeon of Herodes Atticus |
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| T sitting in the Theater of Dionysus Eleuthereus |
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| T jeering |
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| T withstanding the crazy heat and sun well |
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| Me, not so much. It was SO. HOT. |
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| They used legos back then too! haha. |
After a long 2 days of touring Athens in the heat, we decided to get a drink at our hostel bar. Turned out the bar was having a 3 euro special on all Bacardi Breezers and Gordon's bottle drinks. Honestly, I can't remember the last time I had a Bacardi Breezer, but hey, for 3 euro...why not.
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| T after a few breezers. |
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| Me after a few breezeres. hahaha. I look so bad...and cross eyed. |
Santorini was our next stop and it was AWESOME. It's definitely a touristy island, but I can totally see why. It's gorgeous.
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| View of Santorini from Oia |
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| Our hostel...the cutest place EVER run by a cute man with chubby hands named Stavros |
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| The pool at our hostel |
After check in we drove our rental car to Oia to see Santorini's famous sunset. I'm not much of a sunset person, but I have to admit the sunset in Santorini is very pretty.
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| Pretty colors |
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| All the tourists who came to see the sunset. |
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| T rudely squishing us btwn his fingers. |
For our first full day in Santorini we booked a boat tour to see Nea Kameni, a volcano island, and Palia Kameni, thermal hot springs that you can swim in. To get to the port where we board the boat we had to walk down 20-30 minutes worth of stairs. Normally this would be no problem for me. EXCEPT no one told me going down these stairs would involve going against the traffic of hundreds of tourists riding on donkeys going up the stairs. It was my worst nightmare and it actually didn't look that fun for the tourists riding the donkeys either. I saw one woman on a donkey crying because she was so scared!
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| Smelly donkeys lined up. |
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| Me and Jung-Hwa hiking up the volcano. And yes, the water in the background is really THAT blue |
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| We jumped off our boat and swam (or in my case, doggy paddled) to the hot springs |
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| Its amazing how blue and clear the waters is |
The next day was Jung-Hwa's last day with us before she headed back to Seoul so we squeezed in a visit to the Red beach before she left. It's definitely the most unique beach I have ever seen.
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| Red beach from afar |
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| Quite a hike down to the water |
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| Red rocky sand, crystal clear blue water |
Sadly, after the beach we drove Jung-Hwa to the ferry where we had to say goodbye. :( Thanks for visiting us, Jung-Hwa. Definitely was a trip of a lifetime!
The next island we visited was Naxos. Not much to write about because all we did was lay by the beach, eat, and drink. One of the days (despite my fear of ATVs), we rented an ATV and rode all around the island. Definitely an experience for my butt.
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| Proof that my skin is capable of turning brown. |
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| T and his maniacal eyes and transition glasses. HOT. |
Well, that's it for now. Warning...we're going to try to catch up on our blogging before we head back home because realistically, once we're home we won't want to blog. Next up (hopefully in the next few day) is our awesome time in Rome and Croatia!
