Istanbul was the city that most shocked my senses on this trip. It's a very westernised city in Turkey but not quite like anything I was used to. Walking down the main streets proved difficult with old Turkish dudes staring at the tourist I was and people hassling you to eat at their restaurant, buy their turkish carpets or stay at their hotels. This literally happened every second, I could barely take a breath to say no before the next one hassled me. That said, it was all worth it.

I got to see the most amazing two mosques: The Blue Mosque (which is still an active mosque) and the Hagia Sophia (now a museum). They were so amazing, a nice change from the catholic churches we were seeing so frequently. We bargained so much at the Grand Bazaar and other shops alike to get beautiful jewelry and scarves at reasonable prices (it really is hard to get a good bargain here, we worked so hard!). We wondering the tangled streets and mixed in with the locals, ate lots of turkish delight and kebabs, admired the lovely Topkapi Palace where the Sultans once resided and sailed along the Bosphorus seeing how huge Istanbul really is. We mainly stuck to the touristy Sultanahmet and nearby Eminonu which is such a small part of Istanbul but it really is so big that you'd need to be a local to know where to go outside of these areas!


The Blue Mosque

The really exciting part of our stay in Turkey was an area in the centre of the country called Cappadocia. This area is famous for its facinating rock formations which was caused by volcanic eruptions millions of years ago that spread ash everywhere. Over time everything eroded to form these amazing valleys and rock formations. It was ideal for people to carve into these rocks and early Christians lived in caves and underground cities they had carved out in the areas.

That's a bit of ancient history but we did however, stay in a cave too! Most hotels and pensions in the town we stayed in, Goreme, have rooms carved out of caves that keep the temperture cool and give a great experience. We used this town as a base to go on amazing walks around some of the best scenery I have ever laid eyes on. We also went on a bus tour that took us to an underground cave city, a massive gorge which we walked through and a monastry carved out of rock. It was amazing seeing tables and churches carved out of this rock with beautiful frescos painted in archways and on roofs.

The highlight was the hot air balloon. This is what everyone does in Cappadocia and although it's expensive we ended the trip with this amazing experience. I have never been on a hot air balloon before and I can tell you this: please do it once before you die (preferrably in Cappadocia). Rising in and out of valleys coming so close to these incredible rocks was just awesome. I can't describe it.


Goreme and in the background the Rose Valley from the hot air balloon

And that's all folks. I could make a separate entry for Hong Kong but pretty much all we did there was shop ourselves silly and choke on the humidity.

A BIG thank you to everyone who kept up with this blog and kept in touch with me through it. I really appreciate it. It was great to know that people read about my adventures and cared about what I was doing. I hope I have given you all some inspiration to get out there and for those who have, I hope you related to me and I can't wait to share stories.

Thanks again!

This is totally a city I could live in. Barcelona is the coolest city I have been to since Berlin. It is also the first time I have shopped since Berlin which is probably a bad thing but the fashion is really cool and there are great independent jewelery designers (one of which I splashed out on a really gorgeous ring). The cool stuff is mainly concentrated in the old town areas of El Born and the Barri Gottic. Not only were the shops cool but the food and cafes are great! We took advantage of the cheap set price 3 course lunch meals which were imcredibly good value with amazing food. Of course there are also lovely cathedrals and churches and what not but we are a bit over the site seeing and more excited about the fashion!

We did however do a comprehensive tour of Antoni Gaudi architecture, a fresh change from Cathdrals and Palaces (don´t get me wrong, I love those too!). For those of you who don´t know, Gaudi was a really famous architect from Barcelona whose designs were so unusual that he became really popular and was commissioned by the city to do all sorts of projects. The most famous is the Sagrada Familia, an enormous church that still isn´t finished today, nearly 100 years later. We also saw the famous apartment blocks La Pedrerra with their famous chimney´s and Park Guell wıth it´s famous lizard and snake like benches. His style ıncorporated a lot of mosaıcs and was very gothic. It really dazzled me, I have never seen architecture like it before, nothing even matches his creative style in this day and age.
Sagrada Familia
The rooftop of La Pedrerra

The highlight of Barcelona was the 3 day Primavera music festival held in the city at the best festival grounds I have been too. So spaceous and excellent stages with a view of the sea and with the majority of the festival taking place in the night the atmosphere was great (one night we got home at 7am!). The highlights were The Smashing Pumpkins, which really was Billy Corgan reliving his glory days with only half the band but it was still fun hearing the classics, Blonde Redhead, The Melvins(who I´m surprised didn´t make me deaf - loudest band ever!), Modest Mouse, Built to Spill, and Wilco. The most amazing act though was Sonic Youth who played theır break through album Daydream Nation from start to end follwed by some newies in an encore. What an incredible performance, I am truly a converted fan now!

We did a lot of lying around in Barcelona (getting to bed at 7am will do that) so we missed a few museums, including Picasso´s (we didn´t know it closed at 3 on Sundays and had only got up at 2) and a cable car ride up tp Montjuic where the Olympic events were held (We did see the stadium though) but we got to try a lot of excellent food and really emersed ourselves in the city, including the dodgy El Ravel area where there prostitutes hanging out on corners but also some excellent record stores and cafes. It was definately one of my favourite cities.

My next update about Turkey will probably be from home (unless I have time in busy Hong Kong) so you may see me before I update next. Looking forward to June 22, can´t wait to see everyone!