Istanbul, Turkey, Day 3

20120629

The day was a busy one.  I woke up at the up at the ungodly hour of 0400 and may have dropped off a bit before getting up at 0530.  I ended up on my balcony IM’ing w/ Linda back in Vermont, cleaning up some photos and working on this log.  Not to be confused with taking my morning constitutional…

It is now wonderfully cool without a cloud in the sky.  But if I could change anything about my location it would be to eliminate the Laughing Gulls.  They just never stop!  The occasional tram going by is a pleasant distraction….

I went to the Blue Mosque, Aya Sophia, and the Underground Cistern in the morning.  I got to all the sights early enough to beat most of the crowds thankfully.  As I departed the Blue Mosque and Aya Sophia, the masses were really queuing up.  Words cannot do justice to either of these holy sites and pictures seem inadequate also but they will have to do.  I will post up a few in my blog and add more later in my photo album.

One thing that did not really surprise me is the inconsiderate attitudes of so many people going to the mosque.  Everywhere one reads that you should cover your legs and not wear tank tops, mini skirts, and/or sleeve less shirts inside the mosques.  At the entrance was a pile pile of blue clothes that the infidels wrapped around their uncovered bodies.  It was humorous to see grown men in the mosque wearing what was basically a sarong around their lower bodies.

Since I am so terribly out of shape being the lazy, overweight, beer swilling, arm chair computer warrior that I am, I came back to the hotel for a breather then went out for a lunch of Lamb Shish and rice which was quite tasty.  I got it at the Sultan Hostel and Restaurant which is nothing special but serves a variety of food and the local Efes Pilsen.  While sitting there I ran into the Greek couple I met on the Bosporus tour the day before.

After lunch I went to the Museum of Islamic and Turkish Art which is off the Hippodrome.  The museum holds a variety of Islamic arts including rugs, pottery, calligraphy, and Koran’s. Also featured were a few dioramas of Islamic life such as a yurt and classic country and city home living.  Last was a mixture of paintings by modern Islamic artists interspersed with classical paintings in books of Islamic historic tales.

Speaking of being out of shape, even though everything here is within reasonable walking distance, my legs muscles were screaming by the end of the day.  When I got to the museum and walked up the stairs to the display level I was sweating like a cold beer on a hot, summer day.  The displays were either on a terrace, the windows of which were blocked off by heavy curtains, or in close, airless room.  It took me some time to cool down.

I have never seen so many security guards in a museum.  It seemed like their was one guard for every patron. Someone was always watching you which was a bit eerie.

I debated going to the Grand Bazaar after the museum but by the time I left the museum it was about 1600 and I was still hot and tired.  I walked back to my hotel, turned on the AC, and relaxed with a couple of Op-ed sections of the Washington Post.  After feeling rested, I retired to the rooftop terrace to look at and work on the pictures I had taken so far.  They are adding up quickly.

At about 2100 I headed out for beer and some dinner.  I inadvertently stopped at the wrong restaurant but was more than pleasantly surprised.  I had told the host earlier in the day that I would stop in and he hailed me as I passed by so I stop in I did. There I met a Danish guy who was a traveling on business and taking a few days of time on his own after having concluded his business.  He was a civil engineer specializing in hydrodynamics and seemed to have traveled extensively for his work.  He told me he had been at meeting in a town near Dalyan the name of which escapes me.

We chatted for a bit so I ended up having another beer before I ordered my dinner. The dish was what the menu referred to as an Ottoman Special and consisted of lamb (yes, twice in one day), rice, tomatoes, dried apricots, almonds, and a bit of cheese.  Of course in came with the standard flat bread.  It was delicious!  I can hardly remember a dish I have enjoyed so much.  I’ll have to make sure I get the name of the restaurant as well as others I have enjoyed.

It was nearly 2330 by the time I got back to the hotel.  As seems to be normal, the Turkish guys that work in the hotels on the street, hang out together having tea, coffee, soda, etc, and talking the night away.  I chatted a bit with the guys outside my hotel including the desk clerk who is an English student at a university east of Istanbul.  He is on his summer breaking working and making money for school.  Other than the the aggressive styles of some of the merchants, the Turks seem to be very easy going and friendly.

That’s a wrap for the day.  It is now 0700 on Saturday.  I am enjoying the 70 degree temperature with cool breeze of the Marmara Sea.  Time to work on some more pictures and clean up for breakfast.  Oh great, there is a monster cruise ship coming into port. That should make for a few thousand more people hitting the sites today.

Kayaking and Walking, Tidewater, VA, October 2011

I headed off to see my sister Kim and brother-in-law Don on Sunday, 2 October, after working the night shift the previous night and catching few hours of sleep.  I got down there in the late afternoon in time for an early dinner before heading off  to church.  Upon our return to the house we just took it  easy.  Kim was exhausted because she got no sleep the night before.

On Monday morning, I headed off the MacKay Island National Wildlife Refuge on the border of VA and NC.  I never noticed it was there before though I been through it once on a road  trip with Kim and Don.  It looked like there should be some good paddling, walking and wildlife watching opportunities.  Unfortunately, I could  not figure out where exactly I should be able to put my kayak in so I ended up taking the 5.5 mile walk around the inland ponds.

I did have some good bird sightings and saw either a nutria, muskrat, or beaver swimming about working on its abode. As for birds, I saw numerous Great Blue herons, American egrets, osprey, Belted kingfishers, Eastern meadowlarks (cool birds)  and the occasional what I think were Gadwalls or American Widgeons, an American Bittern, etc.  I also saw a couple of smashed snakes on the trail including one that was likely to be an adult water moccasin.  All in all it was a nice day.

On the way home, I stopped in at the Buffalo Wild Wings restaurant near Kim’s for a beer.  There I had a tasty Loose Cannon Ale and a Reissdorf Kolsch.  I also tasted the Aventinus Weiss which was very good.  Hopefully they will still  have it on tap the next time I stop in.  For dinner we went to Cogan’s Pizza, which except for one sub par experience, I have always enjoyed.

Tuesday was a slow day for me.  The mid-watches still take their toll.  I was finally able to get going in the afternoon and headed off to one of my favorite kayaking spots down Suffolk way, Burnt Mills Reservoir.  It was a beautiful paddle but I think I have explored almost the whole reservoir by now.  I always like to see what is around the next bend and there are very few more to go around.

Finally, on my way home and back to work on Wednesday night, I put the kayak in at Deep Bottom Park on the James River SE of Richmond.  That is another one of my favorites.  The river flows straight through the area but also has a huge offshoot loop where the landing is.  I went around the loop all the way for the first time and stopped into this huge lagoon to look for birds.  Usually I see tons of Great Egrets there but that day I was limited to Great Blues.

I had a passenger the whole time I was on the river.  What I gather was grasshopper landed on the prow of my kayak when I put in and stayed there for the whole trip until I landed.  First time in a long time I have paddled with a companion…

Kayaking, New Page Added

I have added a page to my blog specifically for kayaking.  For the moment, the page just lists the places where I have kayaked with links to the access points less that of the Ferrisburg, VT, town beach.  I will be adding over the winter comments and pictures about each location and as I revisit the the sites I will include updated information.  I hope that this page will provide a reference for other kayakers as to good places to get on the water.

Pictures from Vacation in Salvo, NC, on the Outer Banks

It took me longer than I had wished to get all these pictures together.  The downside of digital photography is that we can take too many pictures and look at them before printing or publishing them with minimal  monetary impact.  Nonetheless, I spent the time and put together a set of pictures from our recent trip to the Outer Banks.  Many thanks to my sister who made the arrangements and paid for the place!

Check out the pictures here on my photo album or browse to my photo album from the main page of my blog and look for the Salvo vacation pictures.  The only real downer of the vacation,  other than a couple of trips  to Urgent Care centers, was the traffic.  For one four hour stretch, we averaged 19 MPH!

Greetings from the Outer Banks!

Trips to “Urgent Care” not withstanding (everyone is okay), we are having a great time at the Outer Banks (Salvo, NC).  Thanks especially to Julie for getting the house.  We have nice a house with pool and hot tub and are about a five minute walk from the, very uncrowded, beach.  Of course we are BBQ’ing like crazy!

Traffic was hell getting down here.  It took Kim, Don, and I 5 hours to drive the 125 miles down here.  Julie, Ed, and Ryan had about a 9 and 1/2  hour journey from Centreville.  Dave came down Sunday.  He had the longest drive but made it in less than seven hours.  Locals say the traffic was nearly as bad as they could recall it being.

Julie and Ed took a short trek down to the beach Saturday night but the rest of us didn’t make it out until Sunday.  Unfortunately it was in the mid-90’s with a wicked wind blowing from the south.  The wind was blowing major sand so we didn’t last too long on the beach.

Sunday night we had heavy thunderstorms, the wind switched to the north and abated considerably, and the temps dropped down to the mid-80’s.  That made for much more enjoyable trips to the beach!  This morning has been much of the same.  I headed down to the beach with my coffee, watched the sun rise, and took some pictures.

Here are a few pictures from the trip so far:

Sl “apps” Happy iPhone Users

In the Washington Post article, “iPhone Apps for the Traveler,” dated May 16, 2010, Ross Arbes, endorses 15 apps for the iPhone using traveler.  I will comment on a few of them.

  • Maps – Buy a hard copy or print something out from Google or Mapquest or just access the sites on your iPhone.  Do we really need an app to replace competent services that are available to us on our web enabled device?  Familiarize yourself with where you are going before you get there.  It is generally very beneficial.
  • Cheap Gas (free) – First of all, cheap gas may be cheap but is is not free.  No driving directions to the gas station so what is the point.  What is that $1.50 savings per fill up in the wider scheme of things anyhow?  Especially if you are out of town.
  • ATM Hunter – ATM’s are everywhere…banks, fast food restaurants, convenience stores, gas stations, bars, etc.  Now an app for “Money (free)” would be cool.
  • Sit or Squat, public toilet finder – Public toilets are everywhere…banks (just kidding), fast food restaurants, convenience stores, gas stations, bars, etc.
  • EveryTrail, records route, speed and elevation using iPhone GPS and incorporates photos taken into the route – This presumably requires that you use the camera on your iPhone.  God forbid!  Give my my Nikon D60 any day.  Besides if you can’t remember where you took your pictures then they probably weren’t very good.
  • HearPlanet Lite, locates nearby sites and reads articles aloud from Wikipedia and Wikitravel – Get the relevant real Lonely Planet guide and read about it beforehand.  Bring the book with you to refine the experience on site.  Avoid noise pollution be it by headphone or speaker, especially by speaker.
  • Am I Safe (costs $.99), provides crime states for your area and classifies it as safe or not safe – Bam your mugged or dead. If you can’t figure that out by yourself or haven’t researched it in advance then you are effed.  Sorry.
  • iTranslate, can translate more than 50 languages  and voice translations out loud – Sounds pretty good but how do you input the foreign language?  Do you have to type it in?  Can someone speak the foreign language in and have it output in the desired other foreign language?

Bibimbap..What Is It…Really?

In the Washington Post article, “Eating Well on Singapore’s Seedy Side,” dated 09/27/2009, a particular Chinese dish, no name, is said to be tossed “bibimbap style.”  There is absolutely no indication of what “bibimbap” is in the article.  I know, only after having spent the greater part of ten years learning Korean and living in Korea for seven of those years, what bibimbap is…a Korean rice dish.

Certainly, 98% of the Washington Posts readers won’t have a clue though.  The only similarity to bibimbap that the Chinese dish has is that they are both served in hot clay pots filled with rice.  In Korea, vegetables, sometimes fresh, sometimes slightly marinated, including seaweed, kimchi (do I need to clarify that one?), bean sprouts, shredded Korean radish,  perhaps some meat, etc, are placed on top of the rice.  Oft times, a fried egg will top the whole concoction and always a side  of kochujang, red pepper paste, will be included.

One then adds the desired amount of kochujang and mixes up the whole deal and noshes away.  It is more of a summertime dish but really can be served year round.  My well thumbed Korean to English dictionary defines bibimbap as a “rice hash, boiled rice mixed with subsidiary articles of diet.  Bibim means “hash” or mixture.  Bap refers to a dish based on rice.  Bibim Naeng Myun, for example, is a cold noodle dished with assorted mixed vegetables.

It’s a shame that the Washington Post could put such an obscure reference in an article and then never elaborate on it.  I assume that the writer felt confident that the reference was common knowledge and that the editor didn’t have a clue otherwise.

Trip to Vermont, Early August

In early August I went up to Vermont to attend the Vergennes Union High School 30-year class reunion.  I actually left there after my 10th grade year but have had the privilege of attending the 20 and 30-year reunions as a guest.  Other than the reunion, the trip was for kayaking, birding, picture taking, hiking, camping and visiting with friends.  It was well worth it!

You can read more about the trip by clicking here or browsing under my “Currant News” section.  You can view photos by clicking here or following the “My Photo Album” link on my home page.

The links in the PDF format “trip read” don’t open in new windows as I had hoped they would.  If you follow a link in the PDF document, it will take you forever to reload the PDF file.  Ergo…

All the imbedded  links are replicated below.  Please use them rather than the links in the PDF document if you wish to find out more.  I will have to come up with another presentation format but bear with me in the meantime.

Memories and Melancholy

I got a bit melancholy the other day as I was reading the travel section in the Washington Post.  For some reason, the article I was reading made me think about Canada and places I had been to there repeatedly due to work.  One place is St. Georges de Beauce in Quebec, another is old Quebec City, and the other is Toronto in Ontario.  St. Georges and Quebec City were places I went to for business and pleasure when I worked for Canam Steel and Toronto I went to for business while I was working for DDi…that was a pleasure also.

St. Georges is a fairly small town where Canam’s IT department was headquartered.  I remember fondly (not fondling) being entertained on the town by my Canadian coworkers.  At the end of  trip up there I would usually take a couple of personal days at my expense in old Quebec City.  It is probably not much harder to find an old world, read “European,” environment than Quebec City in North America expect perhaps for Montreal.

My favorite place to stay in old Quebec City is the Hotel Le Clos Saint Louis which is comprised of two old merged townhouses with a variety of accommodations that were always reasonably priced, especially, considering the location and included a free breakfast in the basement of the place, which kind of put me on edge, being in the basement that is.

I have a vague recollection of departing the place very early in the morning one time, waiting for my cab to the airport, and realizing I had left one of my bags in the foyer and already dropped off my key.  There was no one on the front desk that early and repeated attempts to roust someone via the door buzzer were futile.  I had no cell phone at the time but when the cabbie showed up we used his phone to call the hotel to no avail.  Meanwhile, I needed to get to the airport!  Finally, as desperation was peaking, some folks came walking out the door, I ran in, grabbed my bag, jumped in the cab, and made it to the airport on time.

Toronto has supposedly the largest immigrant population of any city in the world…over 50%.  That in and of itself meant good things to me.  I met people from all over the world and ate their food.  The remarkable friendliness and kindness of the immigrants made me question why there was so much strife and hatred in our world.  Toronto’s location on Lake Ontario, thankfully, makes up for it’s unbelievable flatness.  Best of all though were the friends I made at DDi Toronto.  We worked hard together, we had some good times, they had a birthday cake for me in the office one day, and I went out with a few folks who treated me to dinner that night.

So I am a bit sad thinking back.  I have been out of work for so long that I reflect back on the work relationships that so define our day to day existence.  They really did and continue to mean a lot to me.