Turkey 2017 Day 1 & 2 : Istanbul -> İstiklal Caddesi -> Taksim Square -> Cruise Dinner -> Princes Island -> Heybelida

Day 1 :

Yes it's time to travel again! Heading to somewhere new this time round and I'm totally excited with it! This is actually a very impromptu trip which was only plan last month. 

Taking a mid night flight direct to Istanbul by Singapore Airline. Journey takes 11 hours!!! Time to have a good sleep on board after working for the whole day.

Self printing boarding pass and luggage tag before queuing up for bag drop!

Ready to go! 

Visiting Liyana who is working at the airport before we walk to our gate!

On board supper before I sleeps all the way till Istanbul! 

Breakfast time and which means we are reaching soon! I actually really sleep all the way ( without using any medication ) and this is very good way to adjust jet lag! 

YES! Finally we reach after the 11 hour flight! It's June now so by right the weather should be as warm as Singapore but not sure why, when we reach the average temperature was around 15 degree C! 

Our Airbnb host, Selim was very sweet to come pick us up at the airport and actually let us have an early check in to his apartment! If not, I guess we will have to roam aimlessly around the neighborhood area for quite a few hours if we can only check in at the usual time as now it's only 8am.

While on our way to the apartment, Selim ask if we know Baklava, one of their local dessert and when we say 'No', straight away he drove us to a very famous cafe that sells very nice Baklava.

This Karaköy Güllüoglu is opened since 1949 and was at this location since then! What a rich historical cafe!

I'm not a sweet tooth person but this is not bad. But maybe one piece will be my maximum. Highly recommended for those who love sweet stuff!

Address :  Kemankeş Karamustafa Paşa Mahallesi, Rıhtım Cad. Katlı Otopark Altı No: 3-4 Karaköy, 34425 Beyoğlu/İstanbul, Turkey
Operation Hours : 7am - 12am ( Mon - Sat )
                8am - 12 ( Sun )

And again before reaching his apartment, Selim stop by a place to show us the scenery of Istanbul. Beautiful view indeed! He is actually the nicest host I ever met by far! 

Pass by a beautiful colourful alley before reaching our apartment!

Finally we reach our apartment! 

This elevator is so similar to the one in my previous Athens apartment! Very vintage and tiny elevator ( yes it only fits 3 ladies! )! Haha!

Tada! Welcome to our cosy house for our next 3 day! 

Our living room,

Kitchen area,

Bed room,

Bathroom with washing machine,

And the separate toilet.

Check Selim's apartment out at : https://www.airbnb.com.sg/rooms/3065734

 

 Booked a wifi device at the very last minute (1 day before we fly off ) from https://alldaywifi.com/ and the online staff are very fast in responding to my enquiry and manage to delivery to our apartment ( to Selim actually... haha! ) before we reach!

And Salim left us a local transport card for us too! According to him, all of us can just use the card together at the same time, just top up the cash more then enough for four person and we can just tap in for four.

Settle ourselves, bath and let me have some coffee first before heading out to hunt for our first lunch.

Mini mart just outside our apartment building.

Walk out our apartment alley and here’s we are at İstiklal Caddesi, one of the main shopping street in Istanbul! 

Another beautiful alley!

A cafe sitting inside the beautiful alley!

Randomly walk into Cite De Pera ( Cicek Pasaji ), also known as the flower passage, and the interior is so beautiful 

Address : Hüseyinağa Mahallesi, Hüseyinağa Mh., İstiklal Caddesi Saitpaşa Geçidi 176/6, 34435 Beyoğlu/İstanbul, Turkey 

Operating Hours : 9am - 5am  ( Mon - Sun )

Pass by the Sent Antuan Kilisesi church and went it to have a look.

Address :  Tomtom Mahallesi, Istiklal Cd No:171, 34433 Beyoğlu/İstanbul, Turkey

Wanted to have lunch at '360 Istanbul' because they are famous for their great view at the roof top! Too bad their food will only start at 4pm.

The staff at 360 Istanbul is nice enough to let us in to have a look at the view! Beautiful view isn't it?

Address :  Tomtom Mahallesi, Istiklal Cd No:8 D:163, 34433 Beyoğlu/Tepebaşı/Beyoğlu/İstanbul, Turkey
Operating Hours : 12pm - 2am ( Mon - Sun )

So, we ended up going to Konak for some Turkish food, which was recommended by the friendly staff at 360 Istanbul.

Address :  Asmalı Mescit Mahallesi, Istiklal Cd No:118, 34430 Beyoğlu/İstanbul, Turkey
Operating Hours : 11am - 2am ( Mon - Sun )

The waiter gave Yokie a flower ( made of tissue )!

We ordered a lamb meat ball for sides,

And a meat platter for main. The platter includes chicken, lamb, Turkish pizza, and pitas! OMG! I think we ordered too much for just 3 of us (1 person has not reach Istanbul yet )! Too much meat even though I'm a big meat eater! Haha!

Walk over to Taksim Square for their bazaar. Not sure if this bazaar is permanently of just here for the ramandan ( fasting month ). 

Lots of stalls here selling unique and handmade things!

The only stall that we spend most of the time is this crystal stall!

They are so happily choosing their prefect crystal!
Yokie even custom made her bracelet ( by herself )!

I got mine too but using a much shorter time to choose compare to them because I only choose pendent and not bracelet.

After a happy shopping, time to walk back to our apartment to wait for our cruise tour guide to come pick us up.

Haha, that's our handsome driver!

Saw some duck(?) playing around!

 Waiting for our cruise to arrive.

Yup! That cruise in orange is the one we are boarding for our dinner!

 Cruise dinner is one of the popular activity in Istanbul where we get to cruise around and watch performance in the cruise while having our dinner.
On Board to the Turna Tour cruise now!

Too bad it's raining so we can only stay at the lower deck.

Here come our Starters.

Cheers while waiting for the dinner to be serve.

These is the places that our cruise will pass by while we are eating.

Have you notice the last sentence? Haha! So, single guys atay out of the dance floor!

I decided to embrace the rain and wind to take some picture of the night view! Brrr... It’s cold!!

The bridge there will keep changing its colour! So beautiful!

After a few picture, I have to run back in again to keep myself warm!

Dinner finally served at 9pm! We are all staving!
Choice of chicken,

fish, 

or meatball ( no picture because no one order it ).

Performance starts after dinner being served.

Haha, they took a few picture ( we had to pose as the photographer requested ) of us and wanting to sell back to us at 10TL ( SG$4.50 ) each! Haha! Of course we are not interested!

Dessert time and seriously it taste WEIRD!

And lastly, guest starts to hit to the dance floor! Oh ya this guy in white is our tour guide for tonight! Haha! Trust me, he can dance better then anyone of us!

And I end the dinner with a traditional Turkish coffee!

Back to our apartment. I'm to tired already but the others decided to head to the clubs! So while they went out again and I went back to the bed! Haha!
Good night!

Day 2 :

 Good morning! Everyone is so tired that we all woke up late and so we decided to cook our own breakfast! Yokie brought some spices from Singapore because she knew she will miss Asian food! Haha!

Heading out for a last min added itinerary, which is island hopping because the initial place we wanted to go ( spices bazaar ) is close today. Island hopping is recommended by Selim so we decided to go and have a look.

Walked to Taksim station which located at the Ramadan bazaar that we went yesterday.

 

Topping up our transport card first.

We took the subway to Kabatas station.

We were back to the ferry terminal where we had our cruise dinner yesterday to get a ferry to Heybeliada island. The ferry terminal is located at the opposite of the train station.

Address : Ömer Avni Mh., 34427 Beyoğlu/Istanbul, Turkey

This is the timing for the ferry but we actually miss the hourly ferry and the next ferry is at 2.45pm.

So we decided to walk around the area before the ferry comes.

 We walk to the Dolmabahce Palace which is just 5mins walk from the ferry terminal.

Address :  Vişnezade Mahallesi, Dolmabahçe Cd., 34357 Beşiktaş/İstanbul, Turkey

We didn't want to pay to go in so we only manage to take picture outside the palace.

It started to rain! We run over to the opposite arena, thinking there might be cafe or we can hide in the shopping mall, but not sure why we ended up walking into a museum and of course we are not going to pay to go in.

So we stand outside the entrance to shelter ourselves and the guards is nice enough not to chase us away. 

Since we got nothing to do, we take pictures with the door! Haha! 

Once the rain stops, we decided to walk back to the ferry terminal to sit at the cafe there.

Got our tickets!

Having some Turkish tea and coffee at the small table and with a great view!

Having my favorite sweet corn as snacks! 

Ferry is finally here! 

Staff holding to drinks and we thought that it was free but it wasn't! You have to pay for it so people who are taking the ferry please be careful not to touch unless you are really thirsty and are willingly to pay for the expensive drinks. 

Reached Heybeliada, the second largest of the prince island, after around 1 hr of ferry ride.

Address :  Heybeliada Mahallesi, 34973 Prince Islands/Istanbul, Turkey

 Cute little town! Very different feel from Istanbul! 

Cats and dogs everywhere! Love this place! 

Because it's a Sunday ( same as European countries ) so beside the restaurant and cafe, all the shops are close as well.

And we decided to have a super early dinner at Farkli Bi Yer, a seems to be family run restaurant. 

Address : Heybeliada Mahallesi, 5. Sk. No:2, 34973 Adalar/İstanbul, Turkey

Very nice of the restaurant staff ( or boss ) to lend us blanket because it's really cold outside where we are sitting. 

It's actually so cold that this hot chocolate really save our life!

Their food is good and BIG potion! 

Ha! Look who's there to steal my food! 

Horse carriages can be found here because I get to read about that all prince island is actually motor free! All motorized vehicles car ban to maintain the quietness of the islands. 

 There is actually 3 counter to purchase the ferry tickets back to Kabatas.

We decided to buy at the counter where we alight our ferry just now because they has the latest timing ferry back to Kabatas and of course there is no more ferry back from the other counter.

We still have a little bit of them before the ferry arrives, so we went roaming the town again.

Cute push cart but all are not open on Sunday! Argh!

Locals happily sing on the road!

 

Catching the last ferry back already! Sad... If I ever come again I would catch the early morning ferry and hop around other prince island! The peaceful islands is a good place to chill and relax whole day with fresh air around.

 Bye Heybeliada!

Nothing to do at night so we decide to head back home to rest because we gonna wake up super super early tomorrow to catch a flight to Pammukale! I'm excited for that! 

Yokie is hungry already because of that super early dinner! Haha! There is a reason why she bring so many food to cook while traveling, because she get hungry so easily! 

Anyway good night!