Today I decided to do what every tourist should do: visit Topkapı palace and Aya Sofya.

I thought I was early, but there were already crowds outside Topkapı palace.

Outside the entrance to the palace (no need to have tickets to enter here)

After walking through a huge garden.....I arrived at the 2nd gate.

2nd gate (need to have tickets and have to go through security checks before entering)
And after walking through another smaller but still huge garden...I come to the 3rd gate.

3rd gate
After the 3rd gate, I finally got to the 3rd court where exhibits such as jewels, swords and Prophet Mohammed's footprint in clay, etc are.

But, long lines were outside every exhibition halls....

It took me a long time to visit all the halls (there were about 5 halls).

And I toured Harem as well. Another ticket has to be bought to tour Harem, despite that the it is in the palace and visitors already paid to tour the palace .

A passage in the Harem; more specifically, the Eunuch's dormitory section of the Harem.

After the palace, I went to Aya Sofya. It was initially built as a church, but was later changed into a mosque.

Before entering the mosque, a boy came up to me and pointed at his camera. I thought he was asking me to help him take a picture of him and his friends, so of course I agreed. But it turned out that he wanted to take a photo with me. Soon, I was taking photos with every single one of his friends (about 6 of them I think). Guess they hardly see any east Asian looking people, and since I was alone, I was probably easy to approach...



Anyway, my camera can't take good pictures in dimly lit places...and Aya Sofya is dimly lit, so I'm not going to post many pictures of the mosque here.

Got this from wiki - exterior of Aya Sofya

I took this picture - maintenance work inside

But if my camera is better and if there is no maintenance work, the inside should look like this (from wiki):

The sign says this marble jar is from the Hellenistic age. Seems to be in pretty good shape for something so old...

After leaving Aya Sofya, I did something really dangerous. An old man came to me and started talking to me. I shouldn't be talking to strangers, but I did. He then invited me to his store which sells carpets. Silly me decided that since he was so friendly, I could go take a look. Turned out that his store was in a quiet alley...and I got scared. But I still went with him. In the store, he showed me many carpets and explained each carpet to me. Well, it was obvious he wanted me to buy the carpets, but I am not interested in carpets. He kept saying he had a good price for the carpets, so I randomly asked the price of a carpet, the size of which would probably just fit under my desk in my dorm., and it cost 120 Euros! Seriously, I think he must be out of his mind to think I can afford that. I told him I am really broke and there is no way I can buy any. He said it was ok because he is my friend. He gave me his business card and said I can look for him anytime.

Well...glad nothing happened, but I should really ignore strangers from now on.

Signed off by Priscilla

Yesterday after work, I had arranged to meet my friend at her school - Boğaziçi University. She gave me directions to the bus stop, told me the buses I can take and where to get off. Unfortunately, I couldn't find the bus stop; not even after checking the location of the bus stop on google map. Well, Istanbul has one problem - streets are very difficult to find. Some streets do not have signs, so even if you know what street you have to be on, it will usually be hard to find. So I approached a lady to ask her about the bus stop. She couldn't understand English, but she seemed very willing to help me. So I wrote Boğaziçi University and the numbers of the buses. She understood what I wanted and called her friend for help. Her friend was extremely kind - he drove both of us to a bus stop. The lady got off the car with me and went with me to the bus stop. At the bus stop, she asked around for help, and there were 2 girls who were going to the university as well. After that, the lady shook my hand and left. The 2 girls were with 2 other girls, and all of them were really friendly too. They tried to chat with me by asking me many questions and telling me about themselves. With all the help of these very friendly and helpful people, I managed to reach Boğaziçi safely and on time :) This experience has proved once again that the people are really very nice :)

My friend brought along other friends, and all of us went to dinner at a restaurant near the school. After dinner, we went back to the school and sat in a cafeteria drinking tea, chatting and playing Taboo. Yes, Taboo was in Turkish, but they were so nice that they decided to play it in English. It was so amusing playing Taboo with them that I soon realized it was probably too late to catch a bus back. Since my friend had room for me in her room, I decided to stay the night in her room.


This morning, I spent my time sitting on a lawn having lunch with friends. After lunch, my friend and I went to Istiklal. We were walking leisurely, eating dondurma and doing a little shopping. When we were about to leave, we noticed some sort of festival in Taksim square (Taksim Square is an open space at the start of Istiklal). It turned out that they were having a bazaar for hand made goods from eastern Turkey.

Signed off by Priscilla

I haven't blogged in the past few days because there really isn't much to talk about work. But I think I should at least write a little about work especially since this is supposed to be a blog about my internship afterall :)

Anyway, work isn't getting much better - that means I'm still not getting a good amount of work to keep me busy. My supervisor gives me work as much as he can, but it isn't a lot. I really like how he is very nice about giving me work though. The work might be as simple as entering numbers on Excel spreadsheet, but he will explain in great detail how to do it, tell me why he needs it and so on. After I'm done with the work, he will thank me and tell me I really helped him a lot.

Anyone has any suggestions how I can get more work? I've been asking whether there is anything for me to do...maybe there is a better way to ask this question?

Signed off by Priscilla

Hi everyone! With help from a great friend, Siu Chu, my blog is now looking different and hopefully more interesting :) After using this template, I realized the comments are missing...my bad, I should have got one that still has comment. Well, instead of comments, you can click on message, and then leave a message on the tag board. Hope this will work as good as comments :)

I'll respond to some comments here!

Zhen Zhen: Yes, I know who Shirleen is :) Hmm...mantı...it is like dumplings; meat wrapped in flour.

Jen Jen: I didn't expect it to be an uphill walk...guidebook wasn't too accurate :D Well, I still need to exercise to stay healthy :) haha...Twining has the best view in winter...beautiful snow covered ground :)

Signed off by Priscilla

Today, I went out with my housemates to the Princes' Islands. I was really curious about the islands as someone told me these islands are the same as the Greek islands. Since I've never been to Greece, it sounds like fun to be in Istanbul and yet get to experience a little of Greece.

It is pretty convenient to visit the islands as there are ferry routes connecting a few places on mainland Istanbul to 4 of the Princes' Islands. We took a ferry and got off at Kınalıada, the first island on the route.


My housemates sat by the beach while I walked around. After 15 minutes, I decided that Kınalıada was too boring. I checked my Lonely Planet guidebook, and after reading the descriptions on the Princes' Islands, it seems to me that the description of one of the islands, Büyükada, is the most interesting. My housemates didn't want to leave, so I went to Büyükada on my own.

I got brief views of the other islands as well, as Büyükada is the last island on the route.





I decided to follow the guidebook's advice and visit the Greek Monastery of St George. The guidebook says it will take at least 1 hour to reach monastery by walking. I could have rented a bike or rode a horse carriage, but at that time I believed I needed a workout.

So I went along the road, passing by many impressive houses with beautiful gardens.


The 1 hour uphill walk proved to be a very tough walk that definitely worked my leg muscles well.

And at the end, I saw the monastery that I walked so hard and long for.


According to Lonely Planet, the monastery isn't the main reason to walk up the hill. The view from the top of the hill should be the real motivation.

I walked a little down the hill, but after that, I decided that I was too tired to walk all the way back. So, I rode a horse carriage back :)

While on the ride back, it dawned on me that I forgot to check the ferry schedule. Luck was not on my side though, I had to take a ferry that brought me to a different place on mainland Istanbul. Since it was already 845pm, I just got into a taxi to get home.

After a day of fun and workout, I realized I have not talked about work at all this week. I'll probably update about what I've been doing at work soon :)

Signed off by Priscilla

Today, I was invited to a Turkish friend's aunt's home. I got to know this great friend in Michigan when she went to Michigan for a study abroad program.

But, I had a very bad start. I took a bus in the wrong direction, but fortunately got help from a guy who helped me back to the place I started. Then, I headed to the wrong place which I believed I was supposed to meet my friend, tried to find a public phone to call my friend but didn't have a phone card to use it, went to office in desperation so that I could use the phone, found out that I need a code to dial numbers out of the office, tried to explain to security guards that I just needed to use a phone (in hopes that they would let me use their phones) but was sent back into the office. Luckily, my troubles ended when one of the staff who serves çay happened to be in the office, and after some miming, he managed to help me call my friend. I then took a train to meet my friend....and I was late for an hour :( I felt really bad because my friend brought along her other friends as well, so a total of 6 people waited an hour for me.

Horrible start aside, I had a great time after that :) My friend's aunt prepared materials for us to make mantı (kind of like ravioli but Turkish style).

Here we are, sitting in the living room making mantı. Four of them are German exchange students studying in my friend's university.

I didn't take a picture of us eating, because my friend took a picture and I was too busy eating :) After the meal, we had dessert.

Dessert was "chicken breast,"which no one knows why it's named as such. Çay was of course present.

While we chatted over chicken breast and çay, I unconsciously drank 3 cups of çay and felt the effects coffee would have on me.

Before we left, our kind host even gave us each a gift that she made herself.

I think it's meant to be used during showers, but I should check again.

I definitely had a great time, though it would be better without those problems at the start :) It was amazing that people were willing to help me; the person who missed his bus to help me get on the right bus and the other person who made an effort to understand my miming. I must also mention that while on a bus, I saw 5 people got up from their seats to help an old lady, who had difficulty walking, into a seat. Aren't Turkish people friendly and nice? :) And of course, my friend and her friends are very nice to have waited for me for an hour without complaining :)

Signed off by Priscilla

Before I officially start this post, I must first give more details. I live in the apartment with two other girls who are from UMich as well. And we would usually go out together on weekends. I also have a host who brought us around for the 1st weekend.

But today, I went out all by myself!:) One of the girls still had to work. I could have gone out with the other girl, but it was already 10am and she was still not up. I stayed home all Sunday watching shows, and got really bored. Since today is a public holiday (according to wiki, it's a holiday to commemorate the beginning of national liberation movement), I decided that I must go out!

The first place I went to was Istiklal Caddesi. I had already went there twice, but both times I didn't get to walk around leisurely. Actually, the main reason I went there was to get lunch :) As most of you already know, I can't cook, so I was really looking forward to lunch and dessert there.

Istiklal is a street with many stores on both sides and trams in the middle.
It took me a long time to reach Istiklal. I took a bus for 20 minutes to the jetty, waited 20 minutes for the ferry, took the ferry for 25 minutes, and then walk for almost 30 minutes before I reached Istiklal. By the time I got there, I was starving!!

I don't really know the name of the food I ate. The restaurant had all the food on display, and so I pointed out what I wanted.

Inside the restaurant. (I realized restaurants in Istiklal tend to have elaborate wallpapers)
After lunch, I walked down Istiklal, observing the stores. There are usual stores such as Adidas, Nike, Levis, etc. There's also 2 Starbucks. After walking down the entire street, I decided to get dessert! I went to Mado (my host recommended it) and got myself dondurma, also known as Turkish ice cream.

My cherry and vanilla dondurma! Cherry was too sour for me :( but vanilla was great! :)

Actually, I already had dondurma last week, but I forgot to take a picture... I got dondurma from another store on Istiklal, where the people who served dondurma wore traditional costumes and they will try to trick you before finally giving you the ice cream. Dondurma is kind of strange; it is sticky and doesn't seem to melt.

Since I still had time, I decided to visit Istanbul Museum for Modern Art. I walked for 30 minutes before I got there...


The museum has interesting art, but I couldn't take any pictures inside. So I got this picture online...the inside looks something like this...
My host suggested that I should go to one of the many nargile (hookah) cafes beside the museum. I couldn't imagine myself smoking...so I decided to head back home :)

While heading back to the jetty, I noticed these creepy looking buildings...

It took me forever to get home....and I'm aching all over now...but it was great fun exploring on my own :)

Signed off by Priscilla

I realize I haven't said much about what I did. Honestly, I feel like I haven't done much. For the first week, which was last week, I worked in the Project Development department of FIBA Gayrimenkul. All I remember doing was reading industry reports, updating those industry reports and reading the company's report. This week wasn't much more productive. My supervisor said he was preparing some data so that I could compile another set of data, but he never gave me that work. I ended up reading tons of old newspapers and updated myself on past current events.

Signed off by Priscilla

Hi Everyone! Thanks for all your encouraging comments :) I don't really know how to blog...so I try to put as many pictures as possible to make it interesting :)

Signed off by Priscilla

Friends have been curious about how the apartment looks like...so I'm posting photos of my apartment! :)








The apartment is located in Üsküdar, which is on the asian side of Istanbul. And Göztepe Soyak is the exact location in Üsküdar. There is a supermarket nearby which I get my groceries from. There is also a mosque close by, which has become a part of my life here - Before I go to bed, I hear the prayer call, and around 430am, I wake up to the prayer call. And, there is a fitness center among the apartment complex that I will be blogging about soon (my housemates can't stop laughing at my experience at the fitness center).

Signed off by Priscilla

Just wanted to share how the office looks like :)





Below are some views from the office - the area the office is in is Levent, a business district in Istanbul:

Labels: work

Signed off by Priscilla