a good breakfast starts the day well, and i must say that the breakfast buffet at holiday inn bursa is really solid, and boost all our morale. everyone is in high spirts to start the tour after the yummy breakfast!
the first place we went to is Ulucami, which is the biggest mosque in bursa. my sis 学乖了. this time round she wore jeans instead of the black leggings. haha.
after that we went to the silk market, which obviously, is famous for silk products. we din buy anything from the silk market, but instead we walked for a fair bit and for watever reason that god noes, we ended up in a grocery market. hahaha. the vegetables that they sell are very big and fresh, and my parents bought alot of nuts - hazelnuts and walnuts.
the next destination is Cumalikizik, an early ottoman settlement area. the village has maintained its historical character and presents one of the finest example of early ottoman architecture. dun ask me wat is ottoman because i also dunno. hahahaha.
and guess wat? time for LUNCH! no prizes for guessing correctly what we will be eating:
.
.
KEBABS RULEZ BIG TIME!!!
after lunch the coach drove us to Kusadasi, and by the time we reach Kusadasi it was already dark so we check in our hotel and wait for dinner. you would have realised that we spent quite alot of time on the coach because of the super long travelling distance. so if u have severe motion sickness or severe bladder problem, better not go turkey.
as usual, the hotel has buffet dinner. but the buffet dinner at holiday inn is nicer. :p
finally i am back! reached sg yesterday morning at seven plus. the sisters' HAB (husbands and boyfriends) came to the airport to fetch us. hahaha how nice of the both of them. ok lah not husband. boyfriend only.
unfortunately i kenna lao sai on the last day in turkey, and i tell u, having lao sai on the 12 hours flight from turkey to sg is no freaking joke. but this lao sai was more mild as compared to the lao sai i had on the last day of the hk/macau trip last year dec. i remembered that on the flight back to sg from hk, i need to go to the toilet and lao once every hour. but luckily for this time i only went about once per 4 hours. :p
anyway i am feeling much better. yesterday darling came to find me and we went to eat frog leg porridge at the coffee shop downstairs! wow i really miss the delicous sg food. but i miss darling more. haha.
ok i shall now start to blog about the turkey trip! as you all had known, i ran 42 km in the morning, and at night i took the horrendous torturous 12 hours flight to turkey. actually the flight had a short transit at dubai for one hour, but the stupid thing is we cant go out to the dubai airport and have to remain on board the plane. so from sg to dubai is 6 hours, plane stop at dubai airport for one hour, then from dubai to turkey is 5 hours. anyway i was so tired thanks to the marathon, so i slept alot throughout the flight, thankfully i din suffer any cramps throughout the long journey.
this is a funny video clip to share with everyone. when you are on the plane, and the captain is making the pre-flight announcement, i am sure that this is the announcement that you definitely wont want to hear.
finally we reached turkey at seven am local time. i eagerly scanned through the tour group to see if got any chio bus. actually got one lady who is quite gorgeous, but too bad she came with her husband. hahahaha. nvm my darling is more gorgeous than her. anyway that lady is also a teacher and she is teaching in a primary sch located in the east. and i also found out that there were quite a few teachers in the tour group.
so we started our istanbul tour. we walked through the site of the ancient Hippodrome, once the sporting ground for racing of chariots.
and then we went to the Blue Mosque, which is the largest religious complex in istanbul. women need to be adequately dressed in order to go inside the mosque, so cannot wear mini skirts or spaghetti straps or tube tops. but of course now is the winter season and no lady will be in the right state of mind to wear so little. unfortunately, or should i say hilariously, at the entrace of the mosque, the attendant gave my sis a sarong to wrap her lower body because she was wearing leggings.
we took a few nice shots in front of the Blue Mosque.
the next place that we visited is the Topkapi Palace. this is a museum palace with a wide collection of porcelains and treasuries. the palace also have a very nice garden with awesome looking trees of peculiar shapes which u can nv find in sg.
and this is our first turkish meal. KEBABS! it was delicious because all of us were extremely hungry, and because this is our first time eating the kebabs. subsequently we were quite sick of it. bleah.
after lunch, we left istanbul and took a ferry to bursa. the ferry is very big and can fit many cars and coaches. this is a very similar kind to the ferry that we took at japan. on the ferry got one turkish woman keep bio-ing me and smiling at me, and i feel a bit threatened. and then got another pair of female tourists keep walking past me and giggling to each other. but the pair of female tourists were quite pretty. haha.
(if you think that i am going to show the photos of the pretty tourists, i am afraid you will be disappointed. hahahaha.)
the sian thing about going turkey in the winter is that the sun rises very late in the morning, and sets very early at night. at five pm the sky is very dark already and u cant do any sight-seeing. once we reached bursa its already six and so we went to the hotel to relax and have dinner. and our hotel is holiday inn bursa!!! cool!
(nice hotel room! with free wireless provided inside the room!)
the nice thing about this whole trip is that our breakfast and dinner is always at the hotel, and it is BUFFET!!! hahaha. eat until very shuang. for dinner they will have a section for cold appetizers such as salad and other weird weird stuff which i dun dare to try; a section for the hot food such as butter rice, pasta, meat, vegetables; a section for the soup of the day and bread to go with the soup; and lastly a section for desserts comprising of cakes, pudding and many other kinds of sweet stuff!
tonight is finally my last night in turkey. it has been really a great trip. the pple in my tour group are really a lovely bunch, the scenery in turkey is absolutely fabulous, and the food is sometimes good but sometimes bad. our breakfast and dinner is always buffet style in the hotel so we eat until very shuang. our lunches are those typical turkish set lunch, which comes with bread, soup, main course and fruits. the main course is always the hard dry chicken breast meat chunks on satay sticks, and very very salty, so its not that nice. :p
another highlight of this trip is that i got called up by a chio belly dancer on stage to dance with her! hoho. pictures will be up once very soon, dun worry. haha.
i seriously miss sg food, and i cant wait to eat the char kway teow, prawn omelette, chicken rice and hokkien mee!
guess wat? instead of running the half marathon, i ran the FULL MARATHON! hahahaha. i took 6 hours 17 min to complete. hoho. yes the timing sucks, thanks to not enough training.
seriously marathon is crazy. at the 20 km mark i already start to cramp. and from the 36 km mark onwards i was practically cramping and walking. wat a painful experience.
but wearing the finisher's tee and the finisher's medal around my neck really gives me a sense of pride! i completed the standard chartered sg marathon leh! wassup! hahahahaha.
thank you mr leow for running together with me, and thank you darling for supporting me at the finishing line!
ok hopefully i wun have cramps during the 11 hour flight to turkey.
so goodbye readers! i will try to update the blog in turkey, cos got wireless in some of the hotels that we are staying! :)
ok maybe one more picture of turkey to share with everyone. haha.
this is Ephesus, one of the world's most outstanding archaelogical sites.
this afternoon i went to the newly opened city square mall at farrer park, which is also the first ever eco mall in sg! anyway i went there with leow and mak, and the primary reason for going there is to watch someone jump down from the 4th floor!
yup, is actually fen's performance, titled 'magical garden'. if you wanna watch, tmr still have, on 3 slots, which are 1 pm, 3 pm and 7 pm!
the gymnastics stuff are pretty cool. after taking the gymnastics module, i really appreciate the acrobats/gymnasts who can do the gymnastics skills so well. kudos to them!
thanks fen for asking the chio dancers to take pic with me!!! hoho.
on monday i was at darling's house. and then darling noticed that my eyes were glued on to my laptop screen.
in normal circumstances, i should look like this:
but at that point of time, i look like this:
so darling sneaked behind me to see wat i was doing, or wat i was watching. and i din even noe that she was behind me cos i was too focused.
and behold lies the answer...
.
.
hahahahahaha. yes. KILL VERY BIG [杀很大]
and halfway through the clip, i glanced backwards and i saw darling smiling at me with folded arms. and i FREAKED OUT. literally freaked out, with a sense of guilt.
if u got watch that clip, you will understand why i was staring so close to the screen, because the pple dancing are so small! and darling claimed that i was looking so closely to see if 瑶瑶 got zao geng a not. hahaha.
but anyway, here are the advertisements that made her famous overnight.
KILL VERY BIG version 1
KILL VERY BIG version 2
very shallow. hahahaha.
so two morals of the story.
1) do anything you want, but dun get caught
2) 男人是犯贱的.
so i shall dedicate this pic to all the women in the world:
judging from the pics below, i think i can be nominated for best actor in golden horse awards or the oscars. haha.
check out this group picture! got see anything in common? ok they were all doing my signature chinese dance cum wushu pose, in different variations. dunno who suggested it and everyone started to do it. haha damn funny.
i really love to perform on stage, where i can forget all my worries, and just 尽情的表演, and savour the applause from the audience after a wonder performance.
anyway i had completed my last ever assignment for this semester! so this semester is officially concluded!!! yay!!!
dear all, let me present to you my birthday gift that is given by darling:
its the blue color surf berms, not the bright yellow color nike top.
and i also like to present to you the striking pink color cap that darling bought for herself:
if you want to ask me whether is there any link between the blue color surf berms or striking pink color cap, i am sad to tell you that there is NO LINK. hahahaha.
anyway this morning i was at the marina bay floating platform to collect my race pack for stand chart marathon. and i will remain with the decision to run 21 km, instead of the 42 km.
at night i went to my cousin's wedding. my cousin is the bride. and guess who is the bridegroom?! he happened to be my ex colleague at my contract sch. wassup! can the world be so small a not. haha. but he was only in the sch for 3 months and he quit to join the banking sector, if i am not wrong. when i spoke to him, he need quite some time to remember who am i but in the end he still remembered.
oh yah let me tell you about the turkey briefing that i went with my parents on friday. out of so many stuff that the person briefed, the most important and also the most traumatising to me is...... THE TOILET. most of the toilets in turkey have to pay money. and they charge one turkey lira per entry into the toilet. one turkey lira is approximately S$1.07!!! wah biang i die liao lah. i think most of the money that i spend is not on food, but is on going to the toilet. -.-'''
and then there is an optional tour, which is flying to the sky on hot air balloon!!! but it is very ex, which cost US220 per pax. but i very gian to try, and my mum also quite gian, so my father say might as well everyone go and try. woo hoo. and i volunteered to pay for half the total cost of the hot air balloon tour, thanks to the 1.25 bonus.
so i was bored and decided to google for pictures of turkey, so let me share just ONE pic will do:
this is Pamukkale, also known as cotton castle. anyway the white stuff that look like cotton wool is actually calcium carbonate deposits, and the water is actually thermal pools, which you can swim inside, like hot springs! i think this will be an amazing place! :)
watching the pics of the taiwan trip posted by hz makes me super gian to eat taiwan food. so today darling had her last paper! and because of the craving for taiwan food, we finally went to the xin wang taiwan cafe at city hall, which i have always wanted to go ever since its opening.
so we ordered the following:
grilled slice sausage with garlic.
cost 4.80, totally overpriced. sausage only 一条 cut into small pieces, and between each piece giap one small slice of garlic. and the sausage doesnt taste grilled at all. the sausage meat is dry. in taiwan the sausage is hot, yummy, and got the sausage juice oozing out from the sausage the moment u bite it. and cost only 2 sing for one box of many slices of sausage. this grilled sausage in xin wang is a FAILURE. dun order it.
fried-fish paste 天妇罗
cost 5.80, also a bit overpriced, but the taste is really good.
salted pork patty hamburger
cost 3.80, its one of the recommended dishes in the menu, but i think its so-so.
sesame oil chicken mee sua 麻油鸡面线
6.80, the soup is very nice, but the filling is quite small for the price. and the mee sua is a bit too rough. darling prefers the ah zong mian xian type, those sticky stickly gluey type.
ice pearl milk tea 珍珠奶茶
2.80, ok this price is more acceptable, cos the tea is very rich, and the pearls got the 台湾珍珠的味道.
so the verdict is....
.
.
*dong cheng dong cheng dong cheng*
not very satisfying. overall grade isB-. boo.
but i do like the ambience of the restaurant, and the menu.
(darling said she look like she nv wear any clothes. hahahahaa. potential model for FHM!)
after the dinner we went to marina square to watch astroboy! its a very nice movie! but its a bit short, only 1 hr 35 min. will be better if the duration of the movie is longer.
and we went to esplanade to 感染艺术的气氛. went to the rooftop terrace and to my astonishment, there is already a restaurant! wah this means that i really very very long nv go to the rooftop terrace. haha.
ok i haven start on my final chemistry assignment. tomorrow i promise i will start!!! :p
ok the semester has officially ended. i dun need to go to sch anymore until 11 jan 2010!!!
but i still got one more assignment to submit, but the deadline is on 4th dec. haha.
anyway i was bored yesterday, so i did this:
pple said that i am 自恋, but well, it serves as a memory keepsake that i played handball before and nx time i can show my children or grandchildren!
anyway, previously i mentioned that i am going to eastern europe and dubai, but sadly the stupid travel agency played us out cos there were some cock ups between the travel agency and the airline, so we got no more air tickets on that day. however the travel agency offered us air tickets to fly two days later, but we must extend our original itinery from 11 days to 13 days, the 2 nights free hotel stay at dubai is cancelled, and each person must pay an additional 400 dollars.
how can rite? of course my parents dun buy this shit, and my father called the agency and screwed the poor employee big time. i feel sad for the employee cos he so sway sway have to pick up the call, and he was not the employee who served us on the day when we went to buy the package. but anyway yah when my father is angry, you definitely wun want to mess with him. and because our trip to eastern europe plus dubai is gone, during that few days there is a period of GLOOM in my house and i seriously dread that feeling.
but thank goodness 雨过天晴 already! we just bought a package tour to turkey! 2.4K per pax! going for 10 days, all meals catered for, and flying by SQ. leaving on the 6th dec at 2335, coming back on the 15th.
i signed up for the 42km marathon, which is also on the 6th, but because i nv train at all, and if i run the full marathon, my legs will be damn sore, and if i go sit a long distance flight with my sore legs, i think i will die. so i have decided to run 21 km instead of the full marathon.
nvm, i shall try running the marathon nx year. maybe the adidas sundown marathon.
KEBABS RULEZ BIG TIME!!!
(if you think that i am going to show the photos of the pretty tourists, i am afraid you will be disappointed. hahahaha.)
(nice hotel room! with free wireless provided inside the room!)
(darling said she look like she nv wear any clothes. hahahahaa. potential model for FHM!)