Turkish Furball miu2

A lot of furballs in Istanbul. This one's at the Blue Mosque. Cutely curling due to the cold weather. Nak bawak balikkkkk

Ayasofya

Hagia Sophia (from the Greek: Ἁγία Σοφία, "Holy Wisdom"; Latin: Sancta Sophia or Sancta Sapientia; Turkish: Ayasofya) is a former Orthodox patriarchal basilica, later a mosque, and now a museum.


Haha wikipedia. I didnt have time to enter this world famous piece of architecture. Will come back soon and tell stories about it. In the meantime, nah la gmba se.

For this is a journey that I must take

And I must go alone.
It's all part of the Master's plan
A step on the road to home

Mimar Sinan

This is a story about the Süleymaniye Mosque, opposite Haghia Sopia. The Sultan, Süleymaniye always played himself as the '2nd Solomon' (Nabi Sulaiman, kn die bina istana besa gila). So the story is, when King Justinian built the Haghia Sophia church, he boldly boasted  "Solomon, I have surpassed thee!". To counter this, Süleymaniye ordered the best architect of all time in Islamic architecture world, Mimar Sinan to build a more magnificent mosque, opposite the Haghia Sophia.


In response to this, Mimar Sinan carefully drew the design and he made the minarets taller than Haghia Sophia, by just 1 metre. Shows how humble the thinking of the architect, showing he can actually go further but does not need to do so. =)

Nearing sunset

Ade mcm Alhambra, Granada punye style

Perfect Harmony

Islamic architecture emphasise a lot on geometry. Meaning, every line has to make sense; be in proportion and are responding to other lines. 

The Dome

Blue Mosque, standing opposite to Haghia Sophia like a boss. Considered the last great mosque of the classical age.

Blue Mosque

The Mosque with the six minarets, Sultan Ahmed Mosque. Now the story with nickname the blue mosque, is because the interior tiles and windows was from blue elements. 20,000 handmade ceramic tiles, made at Iznik (the ancient Nicaea) in more than fifty different tulip designs.

6 Minerets

Count how many minarets in the picture. 5? Yes, but its supposed to be 6. Somehow I lost the other one. Its quite an interesting story behind the 6 minarets, as it is usually four minarets. In fact, the world made a big fuss about it as usually there is only four minarets in a mosque, until Masjidil Haram in Mecca added a 5th minaret.


So the story, my friend told me, was that when the Sultan, Sultan Ahmed ordered the mimar, (architect), Sedefkar Mehmed Agha  to build the mosque, he wanted the dome and minarets to be made of gold. Hearing this, the architect did not agree with the idea as he thinks its wasting the kingdom's money. So he designed a mosque with 6 minarets, which 6 in Turkce is  altı , is close to the word altın, gold. So when it was finished and the Sultan asked, why 6 minarets? where is my gold minarets? The architect said, owh gold minarets? I thought u said 6 minarets! Pandainyeee

Move!

So many people. And you gotta move quick. Once, I stopped for one second, and I got a stare from the uncle behind.

Right no left

Still getting used to having to look left before right

HDR

'New' in Turkish timeline

Sixty six domes and semi domes, 2 minarets. Did some research but coudn't find why its called the new mosque. Camii, is Jamik, or big. They pronounce c as J #infoserius

The New Mosque

Yeni Cami in Turkce


The fırst mosque I visited in Istanbul. My friend told me he was taking me to The New Mosque. I was like mm, dtg jauh2 xnk tgk new mosque, nak tengok old mosques. But when I came to the place, I was like ow even if its new, it still uses the old architecture style.


I soon realised the year it was built and what 'new' is in Turkish timeline lol

Thy golden Light came down into my heart

Smiting my life with Thy eternity,
Now has it grown a temple where Thou art
And all iıts passıons poınt towards only Thee

Inside New Mosque

Observe

A Turkish proverb:

Ruzgar eken firtina bicer. -

(It is not disgraceful to ask, it is disgraceful to not know.) Used to encourage people to be inquisitive.

Some basic observations

I will write sum observations that I've noticed so far. Note Emir, I am merely using ur template from ur so called "p/s: i dont write blogs, i write travel notes. peace."

Turkish people's look vary a lot. In general, I would say they look like Arabs with straight hair. But its such a big country and Istanbul being the capital, there is a wide range of Turkish people, from very European looking (blonde, blue eyes) to black hair, the ones from asians looking well, asians.

It is after all bordered by several countries, this info is highly unreliable, I am picking it off from my head; Bulgaria, Romania, Greece on the East, to Russia, Armenia, Georgia, the tans2 country. And sum gulf countries, Syria one of them, because I have a Syrian housemate so this info is correct.

On the streets, people are well dressed. This includes the uncle selling pretzel to auntie selling flowers. To kids selling tissue paper. I think. Betul, jaket die cam style, I feel underdressed -.-

So yeah I'm here

Me ist here! For those who haven't known, (mcm la org update life aku), erm I'm basically doing an architectural internship cum travelling. I have started working but that's for another picture to story tell. 


So yeah, I'l be here for 5 weeks or so. 
Its winter, but so far, I've seen pretty nice days. This is one of them