Category: travel

After many years of passing through Istanbul on my way to other places in the region for work I finally made it out of the airport to explore the city. Istanbul was always a destination that I wanted to see, more exotic (in my mind) than Athens, or Rome but just as important in western history — maybe more important. Finally making it I was only able to see the old city itself, the Bazaar and Sultanahmet areas, but that includes most of the major sites; Hagia Sophia [wikipedia.org], The Blue Mosque [wikipedia.org], the Grand Bazaar [wikipeida.org], Topkapi Palace [wikipedia.org] and the Basilica Cistern [wikipedia.org], as well as many other important and historical sites. Unfortunately this was just a visit to Istanbul and I did not make it other places in Turkey that I would like to visit; Ephesus [wikipedia.org], Cappadocia [wikipedia.org], Mount Nemrut [wikipedia.org] and Troy [wikipedia.org]

But enough Wikipedia links. Lets talk about the city; amazing. The site that has been on my ‘must see’ list for years was Hagia Sophia. It did not disappoint me. My hotel was only a block away and my room had a view directly on Hagia Sophia. I arrived early, checking in at 8AM, well before the room was ready, so I immediately headed over to Hagia Sophia. I spent about three hours just wondering around and exploring the details of this grand building, which started life as the church, was converted into a Mosque and is now a museum. I think it is these layers of history that gives Hagia Sophia an elegance making it more than just a decaying building. It’s older and not as architecturally beautiful as the Imperial Mosques which were modeled on it. Yet, for me, the Imperial Mosques, lack the sense of presence that Hagia Sophia has. They have a single purpose, where Hagia Sophia has been many things to many people.

As for the Imperial Mosques themselves; I visited three of them; The Blue Mosque [wikipedia.org] aka Sultan Ahmet Mosque, The New Mosque [wikipedia.org] and the Süleymaniye Mosque” [wikipedia.org]. Outwardly I thought that the Blue Mosque was the most beautiful. Fitting that it is the closest to Hagia Sophia, and was the first mosque built with Hagia Sophia as the architectural inspiration (as were all the Imperial Mosques and most of the mosques in Istanbul that came after). The inside of the Blue Mosque is overwhelming in its use of tile, particularly the İznik tiles [wikipedia.org], though there are many less exquisite tiles due to the demand the construction put on production. At the other end of the spectrum is the Süleymaniye Mosque, where the use of tiles is much less. The effect is more serene and the extensive and peaceful grounds around the Süleymaniye Mosque are wonderful. I read in the Süleymaniye Mosque is considered the ‘height’ of the Ottoman style, but it was not my favorite of the Imperial Mosques I visited. Somewhere between the Blue Mosque and Süleymaniye Mosque is the “New Mosque” or Yenni Mosque. I’m not sure why I preferred the New Mosque, outside it is similar to the Süleymaniye Mosque though there are no grounds to speak of and inside it has every square centimeter covered in tiles but somehow the overall effect is not overwhelming as it was in the Blue Mosque. The sense of peace of the Süleymaniye Mosque is achieved while keeping the beauty of the tiles. I don’t know why, I just preferred the New Mosque over the others.

Away from religious buildings the two major attractions I visited were the Basilica Cistern and Grand Bazaar.

The Cistern was very cool. Maybe because I read a lot of fantasy books as a teenager but the setting of an abandoned cistern on the scale of the Basilica Cistern is fascinating. The seemingly endless columns disappearing into the darkness and the sounds of water. Very Dungeons & Dragons.

The Grand Bazaar on the other hands was a let down. I expected some sort of medieval market but, while the building itself if mostly old, the feeling is not of a genuine historical site but more like a touristy strip mall. Maybe my expectations where unfair but I don’t think they were too off; I expected something more like, but better, grander, than what I found in the old city of Jerusalem [confusion.cc]. The Grand Bazaar is a random collection of the many clones of the same 5 or 6 basic shops and cafe’s — the same ones you can find selling tourist nick-knacks on all the streets around the Grand Bazaar. I was not impressed.

Overall Istanbul as a great time. I wish I had more than a few days, more time to explore more sites and enjoy life in general in a great city. It was actually refreshing that there are not too many Greek or Roman (Byzantium) ruins in the city. Having been around Italy and Greece I’ve seen my share of temples to Zeus or Jupiter and columns and arches. The Ottoman style was something I am much less familiar with. The most obvious Ottoman architecture is the Blue Mosque — or more properly the Sultan Ahmet Mosque which sits almost next to Hagia Sofia.

You can see the full Istanbul, Turkey, September 2011 photoset on Flickr [flickr.com].

I had a day to take some quick shots around Jerusalem while in Israel for work this July. Not a lot of shots. unfortunately the main thing I wanted to take new shots of — The Dome of the Rock — is off-limits, along with the entire Temple Mount or Noble Sanctuary, to those not worshiping on the weekend. Second best option: climb up the Mount of Olives to take sunrise photos. However… it takes a lot longer than I estimated to climb up the Mount of Olives, so they didn’t turn out to be “sunrise” photos as much as mid-morning photos. C’est la vie.

You can see a few more photos in the Jerusalem, Israel/Palestine, July 2011 photoset on Flickr [flickr.com].

That photo may be the last time I ever see a sunset from my grandparents farm. They are not getting any younger and given the cost and time to make the trip to rural Minnesota from halfway around the world I don’t know when I will get the time and change to do it again. I’d like to do it again. My daughter — the driver behind this trip — really enjoyed the farm and the whole trip. And it would be nice for her to spend more time with her great-grandparents. Especially since she is the first great-grandchild.

When I was growing up I spent a few weeks every other year on my grandparents farm. A lot of things have changed, or at least my perception of a lot of things has changed since I stopped going on family vacation when I was a teenager.

The most obvious change is that my grandfather does not farm any more. He rents the land out. So gone are the cows and tractors that dominated the daily routine when I was a kid. Other changes that I see; a lot less crop diversity than I used to see. Everything was corn and soybean. There were not even that many cows, just a sea of corn and soybean. Interestingly my uncle, who still makes a living farming, says that most of their soybean crop is shipped to Taiwan and Singapore. It’s a small world when you consider that the soybean that turned into my stinky tofu in Singapore might have been planted and harvested by my uncle halfway around the world.

The other thing that you can’t help but notice is that windmills. Everywhere. I do remember there being one, or two power generating windmills off somewhere to the east the last few times I visited the farm as a kid. Now they are everywhere. And trucks carrying 100 foot blades are all over the roads. Seeing all the windmills gives me a bit more hope that despite the blowhards in Washington and their inability to move beyond the “did we cause it” to the “how to stop it” discussions on global warming (or climate change) that the world is moving on without them. The exploitation of renewable energy sources is proceeding apace in the commercial world; let the politicians blow on.

You can see the whole Pipestone, MN, USA, September 2010 photoset on Flickr [flickr.com].

Candice an I went to Athens for a weekend in March. Why a weekend in Greece? Job interview. But the job is in Boston — don’t ask why the interview was in Greece it’s complicated. I did get the job, I’m in a hotel in Boston as I write this.

When we arrived in Greece the taxis were all on strike, luckily the train from the airport was still running so we could get to our hotel. But given that the city has gone from strikes and protests to riots and firebombs in the bast two days I guess it could have been much worse.

Flying in on Thursday night and out on Sunday afternoon makes for a short trip and throw in an afternoon for a job interview and we didn’t see too much. But our hotel was within walking distance of Monistiraki, the heart of the tourists sites and the Acropolis. Which was good because the Acropolis was the only “must see” on my list.

I’ve been to Athens before [confusion.cc], a bunch of the people I knew in London were from Athens and I spent a week there in the winter of 2001 [confusion.cc]. I have a lot of film photos from then. I’ll have to dig them out and take a look but in my memory they are actually better then the shots I have from this trip. For some reason the sun was just harsh and the scaffolding was everywhere!

Anyway, we visited the various sites on and around the Acropolis — the Parthenon [wikipedia.org], the Erechtheum [wikipedia.org]. The ruins of the Agora [wikipedia.org] or Market from the ancient Greek and Roman eras. Which includes the best preserved ancient Greek temple in the world; the Hephaisteion [wikipedia.org] aka the Temple of Hephaestus. We even went to see the Acropolis Museum [newacropolismuseum.gr] which was lacking given that the best of the Parthenon marbles are, um, in London. (Oh yea, it’s like picking at someone’s open wound.)

Really that’s about all the sights we saw. The rest of the time we enjoyed the local food and wondered around the tourist shopping areas of Monistiraki and Syntagma. That’s all the time we had. One day I’d like to see more of Greece than just Athens; the islands and the other big ancient cities of Delphi, Sparta and Olympia. One day. It’s all on the list.

You can see the whole Athens, Greece, March 2010 photoset on Flickr [flickr.com].

Another [confusion.cc] trip [confusion.cc] to Japan in the middle of winter. More specifically a trip to Kyoto.

This trip was precipitated by a visit by my mother and sister to Singapore to see my daughter. Since their flight was via Tokyo, they decided to take a stopover and visit the land of the rising sun, a new destination for them to check off. Candice, Tori and I decided to join them.

Even though the flight was to Tokyo we spent the whole trip, sans train rides to and from Narita airport, in and around Kyoto. This was my planning—Kyoto has the highest density of places to see. And while I’d like to see stuff I’ve never had the chance to see it made sense for my mother and sister to see the ‘must see’ sites in Kyoto on their first trip. It also made sense to go to some place I was familiar with to make it easier to get around with Tori. So Kyoto it was.

We only had 5 days, so we focused on the big must see sites: Nijo-jo [wikipedia.org] the Shogun home, Ginkaku-ji [wikipedia.org] the Silver Pavilion and Kinkaku-ji [wikipedia.org] the Golden Pavilion. Fushimi Inari-taisha [wikipedia.org] and Kiyomizu-dera [wikipedia.org].

In addition to temple and shrine hopping, we spent our evenings wondering the streets of Gion [wikipedia.org] where we spotted not one, but two Geisha. We spotted both Geisha on the same night walking along one of the tea house lined streets. In fact as Tori was playing in a small water fixture next to a door we almost got run over by one of the Geisha when she came out of the door on her way somewhere. No pictures of Geisha though, it was dark and flashing people in the face is not something I am good at.

It was a good trip with the family, Tori had a lot of fun and I have a lot of photos of her. But overall I did not take a lot of good photos. The winter weather and focus on Tori were not conducive to taking photos. I took a lot of snapshots but few turned into good photos. There is defiantly a bent towards good photos in the morning, less time and attention to the shots as the day went on. Still, I did take a lot of shots and some turned out good.

You can see the whole Kyoto, Japan, January 2010 photoset on Flickr [flickr.com].