Tuesday 23 November 2010

Updates: Beautiful Turkey

بسم الله الرحمن الرحيم..
Gami Sultan Ahmet (picture is mine)
I am back Alhamdulilah...I have been busy with so many things..Yes my holiday with my sweet Hubby was to Turkey mashallah,,, 

Where East meets West I can say...Where you have a European Beautiful Nature with an Islamic culture...where you can fall in love with every scene, food, bazaar, masjid and building....

I loved it, loved the cool autumn weather, the pine forests, colourful falling leaves, the Bosphorus,  the markets that sell everything "Made in Turkey", herbs, spices, towels, jackets, household products....I loved the Masjids, reflects the once capital of the great Ottoman empire (Constantinople)..You see their menaras that reach for the sky ... I enjoyed visiting the Topkapi Palace, I learnt a lot from that one visit.

We visited Istanbul, Bursa and bolu (but didn't stay in Bolu exactly, we stayed by lake Abant in Abant).I enjoyed Turkish food, so delicious and healthy (except for the sweets lol)... I will be writing more about it in my foodblog inshallah..

I even thought it was so fascinating that rarely you find someone who speaks English..Hollywood movies in Cinemas are translated into Turkish (yes they speak Turkish). We bought sim cards and the msgs received into the cards are only in Turkish, so you don't know what they are telling you lol.....:O


We had to download Turkish dictionaries into our phones and take it out every time we speak to the hotel receptionist, shopkeeper or anyone :O..I even made up my mind to learn Turkish as it has many words similar to Arabic ones as well as it is a neighbouring country to the middle East so we've to learn it :)..

We went back to Oman for Eid holidays and then now am back with my children to Bahrain...and we're back to our routine..:)

Posphorus (picture is mine)..

I might write more about Turkey in another post......I've so much to tell ..


9 comments:

Rene´s Bare Essentials said...

salaam alaikum!
Welcome back! =) Ive always wanted to go to turkey, it looks beautiful. It´s funny how a lot of people think Turkish people speak Arabic and are surprised to learn that they have their own language.

Anonymous said...

Asalaamu alaikom,

You did you to Turkey! It sounds like you had a lovely time too :) It is neat to think that we have visited a lot of the same places in Istanbul.

Turkish people are always telling me that lots of people in Turkey speak English, but I found very few, and none of them spoke very much. The Turkish language does borrow a lot of words from Arabic, and from English, French, and Farsi as well.

MoOn said...

Rene,walaykum asalaam..
thanks sis. It is wonderful actually, I'll post more pics inshallah in coming posts.
I found it hard to believe that English wasn't used at all although it is a country that attracts tourists from all over the world. I guess they are a proud people of their language, which is good :)

MoOn said...

PurpleFigtree,
I loved it, some things were a bit "different" but I am fine with it lol..

I remember you saying something about the stares, oh those people do stare at you. And what made me wonder is WHY did they all stare at me specially and my husband, is it because I have the brown colour of gulf people? or the wear I wear my scarf (the gulf way?)..but I didn't think I should have been a scene LOOL..

oh and you're right Tirkish language has Farsi, English, Arabic and French fluence...I learnt their phonemes first and that made it much easier to be understood when saying a Turkish word lol

deros said...

Istanbul my love forever!
Bosphorus... Ayasofya... Sultanahmet...
i dream come back..

Katerina said...

I would love to go to Turkey. I want so much to visit Istanbul.

MoOn said...

Deros, inshallah the chance will come for you :)


Katernia, I know exactly what you mean now that I've been there :)

Rushda said...

I was to go as well! on the 2nd of November from Pakistan. But my husband left on 1st and my visa still hadn't arrived by the 4th so we dropped the idea of meeting in Turkey and I came to Riyadh instead when he returned from his meeting.

We were planning on making a holiday trip out of it :(

MoOn said...

Rushda that is sad, inshallah I'll be able to go to turkey soon with ur husband. Ull love it