The City of Two Continents

I am currently sitting on our dining chair writing this post whilst sipping a cup of hot ginger tea from Marks and Spencer. I didn't put any sugar in it so it's tasteless. But still better than a cup of pure green tea though. Anyway, I haven't shared a story about our experience travelling to Istanbul in September 2019. So, here I am, trying to recall all the memories we had in the city of two continents almost four years later.

Just a few months before covid happened, we went to Turkey for a family vacation. Everyone except my younger brother was there. Unfortunately, he couldn't join us because of university commitments. So there were six of us in total including my parents, Nana and her husband. They took a flight from Kota Kinabalu to Kuala Lumpur first and we met at the airport later. Our flight to Istanbul was around midnight. We flew with Emirates and we had to make a transit to Dubai. The journey took us more than 10 hours to arrive. Alhamdulillah I was happy that the flight was so cozy it didn't feel that long at all. I also managed to get a good night sleep.

We arrived at The Sabiha Gokcen Airport at around 1.47 pm. The weather was a bit gloomy that day. From the airport, we hired a driver to take us to the Tria Hotel Istanbul located at the old city. We didn't do much on our first day actually, just resting in our hotel rooms trying to recharge our energy. That night we had a dinner reservation on a cruise that took us around the Bosphorus Strait. The view of the city at night was so beautiful. Subhanallah. When we went there, it was the beginning of autumn so it was still cold at night time. By the way, the food was really good. I had Yaprak Dolma for the first time in my life that night and it was so delicious! I fell in love with Turkish food in an instant. After we reached the jetty, we went back to the hotel to rest.

The next day, we had our breakfast at the hotel. The view was even more beautiful in the morning. From the hotel restaurant, we can see the Bosphorus Strait and a glimpse of the legendary mosque — Hagia Sophia. It was one of the most fascinating views I've seen in my entire life. Subhanallah. After breakfast, our tour guide came to pick us at the hotel. We went to all the historical places including visiting Hagia Sophia. It was amazing to see how well they preserved the building. We also went to The Blue Mosque and the museum where they kept Prophet Muhammad's beard and sword, Prophet Musa's cane, Fatimah and Hussein's robes, and many more. After finishing the tour, we went back to the hotel. We were so hungry so we decided to go out again that evening to find something to eat. I think I had a Lamb Kefta that night at the nearest restaurant we went to. It was so good.

We went to the Grand Bazaar of Istanbul and the Arasta Bazaar on our third day in Istanbul to shop for souvenirs. The weather was less cold that day so I took off my poncho and carried it around with me the whole time haha. We also took the hop on hop off tour bus to see the Bosphorus bridge. The bridge connects Europe and Asia so from where we took the bus, we were leaving Europe to go to Asia haha. That evening, we went back to Hagia Sophia to take more photos.




The following day, we accidentally found a Malaysian restaurant called the Nur Muhammad Istanbul Restaurant. My dad was so happy and excited haha. Good news is they are still open until today. So if you are visiting Istanbul soon, you can come to this restaurant and worry less about missing our Malaysian food.

On our second last day of staying, we went out to buy souvenirs again. This time we bought a lot of Turkish delight to give to our friends and families. It was so delicious! The Turkish tea was also good. Thinking about it makes me miss Turkey more. Oh well. Anyway, we made it home safely the next day alhamdulillah. It was one of the best trips for me. I had so much fun and would love to visit Turkey again soon inshaAllah.

Thank you for reading. I hope you enjoyed this post as much as I enjoyed writing it. Lastly, take care and stay healthy everyone.


Much love,
Ieka.