September 2011

We’re currently on a Turkish Air (“Europe’s Best Airline”) flight from Seoul to Istanbul. It is the middle of what will be a very long day. Our flight left Seoul at midnight Seoul time and arrives in Istanbul at 6am Istanbul time. Our flight to Rome leaves at 10pm and arrives in Rome at midnight Rome time.

During the flight from Seoul, I asked the flight attendant for wine with my meal. She asked if I wanted Turkish wine or French wine. Not having had it before, I asked for Turkish, which was really quite good. She asked me later if I liked it and when I said I did, she brought me another.

Not sure how energetic I’m going to feel, but we plan to go into Istanbul for a few hours.

Friday, late afternoon

The Turkish Airways lounge in Istanbul is the best airport lounge I’ve ever been in. Freshly made hot food, including Turkish pizza made in front of you, pots of Turkish coffees and teas, a barista making coffee drinks to order, fresh fruit and juice and the best selection of whiskeys and wines I’ve ever seen in a lounge. Only odd thing is beer. I couldn’t find any. I finally went up to a juice bar and asked the lady where the beer was. She reached under the counter where they had hidden the beer and said that all they had was this (rather bad) local beer. I guess that’s why they hide it.

Oh my gosh, yk just arrived with a freshly made apple strudel.

Took the train into Istanbul this morning, arriving at the Hagia Sophia, Blue Mosque area about 7:30. Nothing, including restaurants, opens before 9, so we walked around for a while, eventually going into Hagia Sophia. We couldn’t go into the Blue Mosque because yk didn’t have a head scarf, but we did go into Suleman’s mosque some time later when a scarf was provided.

We then walked through the Grand Bazaar and the Spice Market. Had lunch at a restaurant above the Spice Market, walked around more of the very hilly city and eventually took the ferry across the Bosphorus to Asia.

If any of you would like to take the ferry, I have an extra ferry token, due my mistakenly believing that subway tokens and ferry tokens were the same (same dispensing machine, same price.)

The immigration, money change lines, in fact, all lines are crazy, so I was dreading airport security, but wound up going through it without realizing it. After we left the subway and entered the airport, we had to go through a single x-ray machine. It took just a minute and I thought it was some kind of supplemental security, but, it turned out, that’s all there was.

We’ve got a few hours left in the lounge which I will thoroughly enjoy. Our flight leaves a little after 10 and arrives in Rome at midnight.

Update – my initial concern about security lines turned out to be correct. We went through security again at the gate and the one and only x-ray machine broke down and no one seemed to know what to do. Eventually, two technicians and a supervisor came and got things rolling again.

September 2011

 

 

Ephesus is awesome. It blows away anything we saw in Israel.

We’ve been to Angkor Wat in Cambodia, ruins of dozens of temples spread over a large area. Very impressive, but no sign of the people who lived there. Gods’ houses were made of stone, people’s from wood and have long disappeared.

In Ephesus, you see the city, remains of the agora, stoas, theaters, the library, the public toilet, the brothel. Everything a city needs.

 

 

We met our tour guide at the boat and he took us around in a minivan. He was efficient but thorough. In a little over three hours he had taken us through Ephesus and up the mountain to the house of the Virgin Mary, pointing out additional sights along the way. Much more efficient than being in a big tour group.

One annoying note, I seem to have lost my small camera. I didn’t use it today, but had it in my pocket and it wasn’t there when we returned to the ship. Must have fallen from my pocket in the van. Fortunately, I have all the Ephesus pictures.

Odd, somehow. On the anniversary of 9/11, we find ourselves in a Muslim country.

 

 

December 2007

The biggest impression we took away from our first trip to Berlin was:

Not this:

 

 

Or this:

 

 

Or not even these:

Here’s Pat’s take on it:

We left LA on Christmas Eve, arriving in Frankfort on Christmas Day. From there we drove to Gottingen and had Christmas dinner with YK’s 3 cousins and their families.

From Gottingen we planned to go to Dresden for two nights, then on to Berlin. Yk has been using Priceline, the travel bidding site, to make hotel reservations. With a little bit of research, she’s been able to get good deals. From Gottingen, she set out to make Berlin hotel reservations for Dec. 29 and 30. Her research told her that $80 a night usually worked, so she tried $70 for a 4-star hotel. No go. She tried a higher price, changed areas, still no go. Finally, she dropped to a 3-star hotel and dropped the price to $50. Bingo! Courtyard by Marriott. I thought we were home free, but apparently she had also dropped the request to the night of the 29^th. When we tried to extend to the 30^th, not available. Higher bids and wider searches turned up nothing for the 30^th. Apparently the entire country descends on Berlin to celebrate Silvester (New Year’s Eve). Abandoning Priceline and searching hotel websites, yk finally found a downscale hotel for the 30^th for 80 euros, a far cry from $50. It did include breakfast, though.

May 2014

My cousin’s graphic designer daughter took us around the ethnic neighborhoods of Berlin.  The cousin’s young professional son and daughter were attracted to the vibes of these areas, and they chose to live in Tempelhof, a multiethnic area. The most popular kebob sandwich place was only a 5-minute walk from my cousin’s apartment. The line was long, but the wait was worth it.

 

May 2015

My cousin was out of town, thus, we took over the apartment and played locals for a couple of days. Walking from the central station to the parliament(Bundestag) then onto the Brandenburg Gate was a nice introduction to the historic center of the city. We then checked out some art museums and galleries.

August 2016

My cousin and his children took us to a Korean fusion restaurant in Berlin city center. It was quite artsy in the interior design and the food presentation. Tasted pretty good, too. Considering all that, the prices were not too high.