15/5/25- One day trip in Pamukkale, Denizli

Expenses
Cotton Castle- 25 TL
We took an overnight bus and headed to Pamukkale at 7a.m.
Then, we changed van to reached the main bus station.
I don't really like the people here as I feel that they matter money more than anything (Impression due to the incident that I knocked my head on the TV but the cashier at the counter care more of his TV than my head )

We cleaned ourselves a bit and changed to new clothes

Since we were going to wet our leg to the knee level. I changed to my short.. little did i know that he temperature for the day was 27 degree...

The Cotton Castle was just right behind the office.
It was magnificient. It is made of the carbon carbonate that formed the travonite... It remind me of the hot spring I watched in US. It was the best and it is made of rainbow colour due to the survival of different kind of bacteria in it.

A lot of people wore bikini around. So we asked Jeff to take off his clothes too. Haha, well, and he agreed.. So, we took a photo=P

Then we headed to the theatre nearby. All the way, there were lot of rocky stone.. We took lot of photos with thousands pieces of broken stone originate from the castle I guess.. And under the scorching sun, we felt soooo hot...

So , when it was around 2pm, we were so hingry and we agreed to pay 25 Tl to get a cab and go backbto the pamukkale town. We had our lunch in the rose restaurant..,I ate the fish and I really loce fish, applying the little skills that I just learnt from the murphy law... Press the fish backbone...I recalled the calefe character I played last time in the movie called 新村

There were nothing much to see here so we decided to stay in the office and waited for dinner time... After 4 hours catching the rest of the drama. I abled to finish it...

So, we went to the restaurant next to it and had some tomato omelette for my dinner ( 10euro) 

What a long day.. Now heading to the denizli airport, cannot wait for the next destination, Greece...

15/5/21 Second day in Istanbul, Turkey

Expenses
Topkapi palace- entrance fee for 20 TL
Blue Mosque- entrance fee for 20TL
As usual, I was the last one who woke up. Had our breakfast at 8a.m. at the rooftop.. They served really nice olive for breakfast...
Must-Try-Food-
Menemen

We went to the blue mosque first.. Took a few photos in front of the fountain.
Little did i realize that I dropped my USA cap.
It was a lazy morning  for me...
I watched "Murphy Law of Love"  until 1 a.m. the night before...

There are so many people and since it allowed entrance till 7 p.m.
We decided to come back at 6 p.m.

So , we went to the Topkapi palace aka Cannon Gate.

There are lot of ceramic made utensil from all different countries such as France , China, Germany , as well as swords, horse wear and stuffs.
It is one of the large palace in Istabul and the primary residence of the Ottoman Sultan.
The palace made up of 4 main courtyard and many small building.

After that, we went to Basilica Cistern, is all about the story of one of the three sister.
It is also known as the Sunken Palace.

We even went to the park right above the basilica to do some geocaching but too bad we didny manage to find it.
Then, I had Menemen as lunch

Then, we went to the Grand Bazaar, famous for selling spices and some souvenirs such as the evil's eye, symbolise good luck and charm.

We tried the turkish ice cream there. 10TL each, felt like we were being tricked
Turkish people love to play with it so we couldn't catch it

After that we went for lunch, I get to try the menemen, eggplant with spices.

Then, we went to the blue mosque.
We were not allowed to go in just like that but need to wear head scarf.

Then, we even went on the Bosphorus tour, for 1 and a half hour. We took thousands photos.
The last stop was Galata Tower.

15/5/20 First day in istanbul

Expenses
Avrasya hostel- 56TL for 2nights
Our flight was at 12pm but we started the journey to the airport quite early.

So our tour guide in Istanbul was Jeff.

The flight took an hour.
We still need to take train and bus to the Avrasya Hostel.
It took an hour train and half an hour ferry to the place.
We were so busy taking photos in the ferry that we missed our stop.
Instead we visited the Galata bridge just the moment we arrived. 

After settled down in the Avrasya hostel, we went to the meathouse next door to have our lunner. 

The cashier was friendly enough.
Our plan for the day was to visit the Blue museum.

It was so hilarious that I mistaken the Hagia Sophia as the blue mosque and only get to realise it the next day.

Blue Mosque, also known as Sultan Ahmed Mosque, is a historic mosque in Istanbul.
it is famous for its blue tiles.
It was built by Sultan Ahmed, in order to reassert Ottoman power.
It has one big dome, 6 minrets and 8 secondary domes.

Then, we walked around the town and the river...It is a very happening town.
As well, we noticed lot of small incidence, such as some small fight where people throwing glass, building demolished, car knockdowned...

Another thing, kids here really love taking foreigners' photos.. I guess at least...

5/18-First day in Bucharest, Romania

Time Zone- 2 hours ahead of Dublin

Attraction-
Stavropoleos Church
Garajul Ciclop
Palace of Parliament

Expenditure
Flight with Ryanair- 55 euro
Accomodation in Friends Hostel

Must-Try-Food-
Beer- Ursus 2-4 Lei
Mititei-
Mix of minced pork, beef and lamb

Brief Intro of the City-
Romania earned the nickname "Little Paris"

Jumped out of the bed an hour later than the time I was supposed to!

My Singaporean friend woke up even earlier than I did! She prepared oatmeal breakfast for me *so sweet of her*
I only managed to eat 1 or 2 spoonfuls and hugged her goodbye. 

I ran all my way to the bud stop and realized I forget to take my camera! Luckily I managed to get on the bus after running like crazy! 

My friends was waiting at the airport 's checked in area, we get in an hour earlier, having some chat using broken "Cantonese", updating each other on our summer plan.
Little did i know that Queen and Mann Wei are going for a Romania volunteer programme on 18th July and I recalled how I had a wonderful summer last year in U.S.

Our flight with Ryanair delayed for half an hour time! 

I sat with Julia in the plane, talking about a bit of academic stuff, how we spent our last summer and lot more others, reading book with title  "我怕没有机会过我喜欢的生活".
There is a quote that I actually love a lot which is "人最怕不是改变，而是一成不变".
I slept for a while, woke up after 30 minutes flight.
We arrived at 2 p.m. and straight we took a taxi to go to the Friends hostel.
Queen fell when she entered the gate! The cashier doesn' t seem to be as friendly.

We went to Old Town straight after that for some good food.
It took 35 minutes to walk there.
The most attractive part would be discovering the Ice Cream in McDonald only worth 1 Lei!
We were in rush to get to the Walking tour at 6 p.m. Thus we planned to have it after that.

Walking Tour's Details-
Highlight
*Stavropoleas Convent
Ruins of Vlad's Citadel
Manuc's Inn

Palace of Parliament
Revolution Spots
Victory Blvd
Time- 1030-1800
Spot- Lady in Orange


We passed by the Cismigu park while heading to the Unirii Park.

We were surprised that we were the only tourist.
Luckily more people came after that.

We went to 3 main place which is the University of Romania, Post office whereby they called it palace and right in front of it is a naked statue holding a dog with elephant tail, the Stavropoleos Church

Stavropoleos Church-

The most beautiful church in the capital of Romania

I haver no idea what it symbolise anyway.
I was astonished by the story of Ceausescu moved the building, the church from one place to the other so that communist would not demolished it, even with people inside.
However, it took them months to do so...

Character Intro-
Ceausescu-
Romania's Communist President
He ruled Romania for 21 years and earned reputation as a brutal dictator.

We also visited Manuc' Inn, which considered as the "last caravanasary of South East Europe "

We also visited the well known Vlad Tepes-impaler is statue was surrounded by the pillars
He was known as the hero as his successful military exploits against the Ottoman Turks.
I couldn't wait to know more about him.

So, we decided to visit the Bran Castle, the most famous Draculoa site near the city Brasov. Vlad stayed here fro some time on one of his excursions into Transylvania.

Our last stop is the Victoria Boulevard, where the office towers and the government buildings situated.

Other to visit-If you are interested to see the km 0- all locations on the road have a number depending on their distance from this location. In Romania, you can find it in front of the St George Church.

We had our first cup of Ursus and they have the famous Mizu. I ordered the mackerel Stew! So nice! Love it. 

At night, we went for parliament palace. The best photo of the day with the mountain right in front of the Parliment!

The night is warm and comfy. We reached hostel at 11 p.m. and my head was pounding .. Slept like a pig... till the next morning.

15/5/19 second day in Brasov, Romania

Expenses
transport- bus to and fro Bran Castle-80 Lei
entrance fee to the castle- 15 Lei per person.
We had our breakfast at 8p.m. and we planned to visit Bran Castle in Brasov.

It is a 3-hours trip.

We sat in the last role, chatted all the way there in the bus,

Dracula castle is story about queen Maria who are the daughter of Alexandra in England and another imaginary character Vlad, known to be the cruel king who like to impale people, 

It is definitely an interesting castle as we get to see Strigoi, immortal vampire pictures. There was a secret passage, connect the second and third floor. We saw a lot of armour as well.

Well, we took such a long time to take photos of the outlook of Bran castle even before we entered. It was breathtaking.

I love the weather so much, sunny and windy❤️.

It reminds me a lot of the vampire dairy,Stefan is my favorite character, and we saw " ring" that supposed to protect vampire from the daylight.
I personally super obsessed with supernatural stuffs.

After the visit to the castle, we took exactly the same trail back to the bus station in Brasov and it took us 10 minutes to reach the Black church and the famous council square.

Black Church, also known as the Biscera Neagra is one of the main Gothic style church in Romania.

Council Square, whereas plays the role as the annual market visited b the merchants.

The word Brasov is exactly the same as the Hollywood one, in the middle of the forest, so near yet unreachable.

Then we went to 13 cafe for a quick dinner, hoping to get 1830 bus to go back but it took some time for the food to get served so we didn't make it. 

We spent our sweet time in the cafe, ordered some beer, Ciuc with lemon. I ordered spagetti with 4 cheese aka pamesan, mozarella,gorgonzolla, smantana. It is nice but a bit too cheesey for me...

I started to search for geocaching, the best game to play overseas, find the treasure and leave a track but too bad, it was so near yet so far! I didnt get to search for even it wad just right next to he bus stop! Arghhhhh....

So Julia and I met a weird guy who started to talk craps with us, feeling a bit strange, we left before the guy able to do harm on us as I did have same kind of experience in Dublin and i never want to try it.

We had new roomate while we arrived our hostel, a Brazilian guy named Power. He showed us a photo of sharks whereby he took in Australia, a brave guys with height fear. 

I watched "Murphy Law of Love" before I slept, updating myself a bit on the astronomy news, the sky full of aurora, so colourfull so nice... Good night....

15/5/22 third day in istanbul

Woke up early in the morning, at 8am, as always, after everyone was done brushing and changing.

I jumped out of the bed, being the first to sleep but last to wake up.

We only planned for half a day as we had a night flight to catch at 715pm.

So 2.25 single way of tram, we went up to the northen turkey, taksim square, to see the galata tower...

This is a square whre the water source began and had the parliment...

Also, we went up to the galata tower, getting to know this guy named Hendra, from Indonesia, studied in Australia and currently in exchange programme.

He is an interesting guy I would say

Then, we bought a whole box of baklava, with different flavour such as hazelnut, coca, walnut... Sweet to death I would say...

Then, we went for lunch iv a random shop and I ordered the omelette...

So then we went back to hostel to get our luggage...

And well traffic jam all the way.... =(

The flight delayed for an hour...

We arrived there in an hour time , around 7pm...

We didn't go anywhere after that and went to sleep as the next morning we need to go for hot air balloon trip at 330am😱