From Olympos we arrived in Kaş where we stayed with friends, Doğan and Magda and their gorgeous dog
Doğan, Kaş and Magda (Kaş, Turkey)
Preparing to jump off the mountains in Kaş
We're airborne!
Kaş Marina
Birnur and I returned last night from a ten day trip to Hong Kong & China. We spent a whirlwind two days of intense shopping and tropical heat in Hong Kong before getting on the high speed boat to Shenzhen in the Guandong Province of China.
We were greeted at Shenzhen by my Dad who just happened to have been playing in a golfing tournament in Lan Tao Island with 160 other Aussies. We stayed in Dongguan City for three nights where we caught up with Stuart (a family friend) , Tony and Michael (Dad's golfing piers). After three days of meetings in Dongguan City we departed for Shanghai.
Birnur and I met with Sebastian, a friend from Istanbul, in Shanghai where we had a lot of catching up to cram into an afternoon and an evening. The rest of our time was devoted to prearranged meetings we had in Shanghai.
We flew back to Istanbul with a 10 hour Dubai stop-over which made the journey home a total of 28 hours door-to-door, i.e. from the hotel in Shanghai -> Hong Kong -> Dubai -> Istanbul. Here are some shots taken throughout the trip.
Hong Kong Island by day
Dad & I
Birnur.JPG)
View from Stuart's office
Shanghai, China
Birnur & I
Me saving Sebastian's ass again
Haiyin & Birnur
Istanbul is firmly under our feet after arriving last night at 5:30pm. Needless to say the trip was tiring and long but we endured the ordeal quite well. Instead of the normal route - Melbourne -> Singapore -> Dubai -> Istanbul, we totally skipped the Singapore leg. I'm not sure if the captain fell asleep with autopilot on, but it made the trip substantially shorter. Thank you Emirates!
Ahhh Australia, it was great to visit there once again - a total pleasure, particularly Melbourne, what a beautiful city. Generally she wins The Worlds Most Livable City, she certainly lived up to her reputation during our visit! Only visiting Melbourne every six months or so creates such a whirlwind visit, I only wish that we had more time there to take everything in.
During our two weeks there we experienced my sisters wedding to Pieter, my grandmothers funeral (dads mum), The Loreal Melbourne Fashion Festival, a 3 day trip to Sydney including an alcohol related illness, a short but enjoyable catch up with friends, walks on the beach, time with family - all of these moments were divided into precious moments that will keep me going here for the next six months.
Here are just a few of the hundreds of pictures recently taken in Australia...
Me with Nan & Pap
Mum, Dad & I
Torquay Front Beach - (sporting Istanbul Winter tan lines)
Birnur at Torquay Front Beach
Living in Istanbul, a catholic could be forgiven for completely forgetting about Christmas. If it weren't for emails from friends and family reminding us of the festive season back in our native countries, Christmas would come and go in a blink.
In lieu of Christmas we have the Bayram holiday, some of you familiar with my blog will remember my Bayram from last year in Olympos, Southern Turkey (see: Turkish Bayram) Bayram actually means 'Sacrafice' and if you follow my link I provided here, I prepared a sacrafice last year with some villagers, but spared you the images of the whole process. I won't push the topic too much, but I feel that Bayram should in fact translate to 'Butchering', i'm currently in discussions with several translation dictionary suppliers to have this misprint ammended :)
So, no pun intened, let's cut to the chase. Birnur and I are heading to Sharm El Sheik in southern Egypt on 3rd January for 5 days. We're planning on taking some dives in the world famous Red Sea. Keep this page bookmarked, we will be beaming images of our adventure right into your lounge rooms and into the darkest dens around the world as soon as we return.
For the geographically challenged (including myself), you can find a map of our proposed visit site just below. I wish everybody a fantastic Christmas and New Year and I hope that we can all catch up very soon.
