Istanbul Trip Part 3: Blue Mosque Sultan Ahmed

 Woke up the next day and found the breakfast place really crowded... Decided to quickly take photo of our food.. wahahaha.. actually the breakfast is nothing much.. just simple stuff...

 I am however very intrigued by the hive and honey machine:) haha

 This is all vegeterian Ace can find to eat... so he is not too pleased:) But Mr silly discovered they also have boiled eggs and went egg crazy after tat..

 Found this fruit that looks like a pipa.. just try lah... it tastes little sour..

 These are the seeds...

 Took some fried eggs and also these two things that look like dessert... one is chocolate flavour with walnut.. the other one is sesame flavour one.. actually tastes like those peanut cake we chinese have.. but this one is very sweet.. so cannot eat too much...

 This is the view from our breakfast place..

 Istanbul is hilly and all the houses are colourful and on the hills.. so scenery looks really pretty!:)

 Saw this and took one to try.. turn out to be fried cheese stick... here in Turkey, i think they eat alot of cheese..

 For the fun of it, Ace mixed all the juices and had an Ace's drink... hahaha

 A better picture today....

Today at this place, alot of people selling things again.. but this time, they all sell different things!

Today they are all selling guidebooks and this top that Ace kept asking us to buy for him..

This picture comes with a story...

Well, one of the guys selling guide books saw us taking pictures and came to talk to us. We told him we are not interested to buy and he started doing self intro and making friends with us.. saying that he loves Singapore... shaking hands and all that. Because most of the Turkish people we met are friendly, we did not find this odd..

And then, he suddenly say want to give us the guide book for free.. and also give Ace some postcards for free.. we were a little surprised and overwhelmed but well, people give, we take lor...

And that was when he started to ask for a little donation because he is our friend now and his business is poor and he said that the book costs like 45 euros (I later found out it costs only 5 lira which is less than 5 sing) and he giving us free blah blah blah.. Max told him then we dun need the book and can give it back to him...

Then man started saying that.. he doesnt mind if we don't have LIra and give him Sing dollars. Max told him we dont have any sing dollars and the very innocent and naive little boy went and exclaim, "I have got sing dollars!"

But me and Max just told him we can give him back the book and quickly pulled Ace away. I think that man was rather mad we are so cheapskate:) Toooo bad.. wahahaha...

I had to give Ace a quick prep talk on being a little more alert and careful when you are on a tour and dun believe everything that people say.. most importantly, never let other people know that you have money on you!

Din know that Turkey so eco friendly...

These are the flower ringlets I was talking about... This one sold by young man but most of the time, I see old ladies selling them..

Finally time to visit the Blue Mosque.

The Blue Mosque is actually called Sultan Ahmed.. because it was built by a Sultan called Sultan Ahmed. And it is built actually  built on the site of the palace of the Byzantine emperors, in front of the basilica Ayasofya (aka Haggia Sofia ,at that time, the mosque the most worshipped in Istanbul)..



Once you walk in through the gates main gates of the grounds, you will be greeted with a nice little garden..

Main entrance of the Sultan Ahmed..

I wonder why is there so much detail on the towers....  If you go close, you will realize the whole building is made of marble! I mean, this mosque was built in the 1600s... imagine the technology then and how much money and how much effort it must have taken to build this magnificent building.

In fact, the mosque was built from 1609 to 1616. Almost 400 years old... And the King had to empty his treasury to build it...

Seeing that it is so old, I feel a little sad that it seems to be quite run down... and I was a little afraid I might be disappointed... cos you know how I was so moved and impressed with the Grand Mosque of Oman... But well, it has been my dream to visit this place for the past 20 years.. so I decided I will just take in whatever I can...

This is the courtyard of the mosque...

My photo doesnt do it much justice.. here is another one I found in Wikipedia...

A bronze model of the Sultan Ahmed.. probably a gift from someone..

This one.. I will never get to go lah.. it is inside the royal lodge.. that is where the sultans will go and rest when they come here to pray..

They had an interesting exhibition of sorts.. where they showed pictures and also quotes from the Quran..

Another pic from Wikipedia..



After we finished taking pictures of the courtyard, we walked out into another area where there is a small garden and we had to queue up to go in to the main prayer hall..

When we were queueing, they asked us to put plastic over our feet and we also had to take out our shoes and put them into a plastic bag.. they had a few people who will lend you scarfs or sarong to wrap yourself up if you are not considered dressed appropriately...

The door... reminds me of the mosque in Oman.. almost similar door design..

The floor carpet in Sultan Ahmed

Ace took this one.. I think he was fascinated by the lamps..

I think my pic does do the roof of the dome much justice..

Here is one i found on wikipedia..

Here are my pictures again...

Love the windows here... so pretty...

That is Max trying to listen to the tour guide of another group explaining about the grand building.. wahahah:)

This group of Korean tourists so cute.. sit on the floor to listen to the story given by their tour guides:) Like school students!

This is a gift from the Shiek of Saudi..

Lovely photo of the city of Istanbul..

THe exit leads out to another garden...


I was a little disappointed that the visit did not last very long and as most of the area is closed and it was very crowded.. it was not as enjoyable as the Oman Mosque..

Saw this tree with a hole in the middle like it was split.. I later found out these sort of trees are common here and that this tree is called a Plane Tree or a Sycamore Tree and they just split like tat by nature..

Ace trying out the top... cos we saw someone selling those when we came out of Sultan Ahmed..

Weather and lighting looks good so took another shot of Haggia Sofia..:)

Next, Max said we should visit the Tokapi Palace and so we walked over.. We found out later it was right next to the Haggia Soffia.. and that we took a long long way to walk there.. wahahaha:)

The good part about us taking the long way though was that we discovered where the tulip garden was and how to get there because we walked the long way.. and also found out where the museum was too :)

Anyway, I noticed that many buildings in Istanbul are yellow. I wonder if this colour has any special significance here...

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