Suleymaniye Mosque, Istanbul

Scattered across Istanbul there’s something like three-thousand mosques, no exaggeration required. From anywhere in the entire city you can hear the call to prayer vibrating in the air five times a day. The Blue Mosque is probably the most frequented by tourists, conveniently perched right next to Topkapi Palace and the Hagia Sophia. However, a journey to Istanbul just isn’t the same unless you venture a little further afield, marvel at yet another mosque’s grandeur and experience a different part of the city. Whilst the New Mosque and the Suleymaniye Mosque are still both quite popular, there are way less tourists than in-and-around Sultanahmet. Alternatively, pick one of the other thousands on offer.

Here’s a snapshot of Suleymaniye, perched on a breezy hill overlooking the city.

Hagia Sophia, Istanbul

The dimly lit corners, worn mosaics and glimmering gold surfaces of Istanbul’s famous Hagia Sophia (Ayasofya) tell an intriguing story. Originally built as a Christian place of worship, which it remained for 916 years, it was then transformed into a mosque for 481 years and in 1935 opened purely as a museum.  Declared a UNESCO world heritage site in 1985, it poses an interesting mix of Byzantine and Ottoman influences, with some of the original Christian mosaics only recently discovered and unveiled. The Hagia Sophia is a must-see on any visit to Istanbul.

Blue Mosque, Istanbul

Peering out over Istanbul the tall and slender minarets of mosques dominate the skyline. It’s a beautiful sight. Once you’re standing right next to one though, attention turns to the finer details of its construction. The Blue Mosque, officially the Sultan Ahmet Mosque, is one of the three most well-known, intricate and intriguing mosques in Istanbul. It’s also the only mosque with six minarets. Inside, 20,000 blue tiles of 16th-century Iznik design line the ceiling. 

A sip of local flavour in Istanbul

Pomegranate is almost a mystical fruit in Australia. We hardly ever eat it, we rarely see it, and I’m pretty sure it’s super expensive. In Turkey it’s a signature flavour. For juices, cooked dishes and even tea, pomegranate is easy to come by. This is probably why I was so drawn to the idea of buying some hand-squeezed pomegranate juice on the street in Istanbul today. It’s everywhere. Waiting for my cup of freshly squeezed goodness, two bursts of bright red juice splatted onto my forehead and one onto my chest direct from the juice press. I wiped them off, took my cup of deep red frothy liquid and handed over five Turkish Lira. I imagine it’s super good for you – they say the most colourful fruits contain the most antioxidants and nutrition. Sipping as I walked to the Blue Mosque I passed another vendor or two that I swear would have been cheaper, being simple roadside stall setups instead of an actual shopfront. I found a park bench and continued to take tiny sips, trying hard to restrain my face from contortion. Pomegranate juice. You could describe it as ‘interesting’, ‘earthy’ or  ’tangy’, but the truth is it’s just ridiculously sour. Nevertheless I drank most of it… slowly… because i’m all for things that are ‘good for you’.

A piece of family history in Bosnia

I have two very special places that i love to visit on opposite sides of the world. Whilst one is the family beach house in Bucasia, on my mum’s side of the family, the other comes from my dad’s side in Bosnia. My dad was born there, his dad was born there, and his dad was born there. Whilst nobody has lived in this house for over 20 years (a new house was built next to it, literally 15 metres away), it catches my eye and my curiosity every time.

It wasn’t long before baba chased me out, but here’s a little snapshot:

I’ll be returning to Bosnia in a few weeks and bound to push through the old wooden doors into the mustiness for some more pics.

NYC: Alternative Proof

I went to the top of New York City. It’s not as tall as the Empire State Building, but nearly. From the top of the Rockefeller Centre in central Manhattan I caught an amazing glimpse of this concrete jungle from amongst, yet above, the swarm of people that looked more like ants below. As a lone traveller I asked a stranger to take a photo for me. It wasn’t very good. That’s the problem when you hand your massive and probably daunting DLSR to someone who’s only familiar with a pocket compact – they just don’t know how to use it. So I set about finding other ways to prove I was there, without the usual ‘legend’ self-portrait shot…

I’m calling this little mini series Alternative Proof:

iCamera: life through a tiny lens

My iPhone is being admitted to the phone-hospital just as my DSLR is wheeled off to the camera-hospital. (My compact camera is in a critical condition after a drunk girl dropped it, then bolted – i know who you are and i know people who know where you live.) Although i love my DSLR, sometimes it’s just not convenient to cart around. An iPhone however you’ll always have in your bag. No wonder i have a whopping 1718 images on my camera roll! Ahh the memories. So many random things i’d forgotten… some which i’m sure i’d have never bothered to capture with my ‘good’ camera. Scroll through this rolling post of the last few years as seen through the micro-lens of my ‘iCamera’. It’s just a selection, i promise.

My camera and me. The history.

Last night was a great night – fun people, great conversation and maybe little slash lot of wine – and it all started at a photography exhibition. No pompousness, just a bunch of people with a story to tell and great images to convey it.  It got me thinking. I felt inspired again. And then i felt a little sad that my baby, my digital SLR, is in the camera hospital and currently out of action. We’ve come a long way together, we have.

I remember when i first got my DSLR back in 2008.  It’d been on my mind for years. I’d stop and ogle in shopfront windows, then ask the salesmen a tonne of questions and walk away (they must have hated me). I ached and pained over which one to get for months. When i finally handed over my bank card in exchange for some precious boxes i was over the moon. Except the camera seemed more like an alien. I didn’t quite know what to do with it. I was so cautious changing the lens and i worried i’d press the wrong button and then not now how to fix it. So i probably didn’t bring it out to play and see the world quite as much as i should have. But

A big plan made up of lots of little.

I’m pretty sure i once cried over losing a dollar. No it wasn’t pocket money and no i wasn’t six years old. I was eighteen and hellbent on going overseas. So, naturally, i cried when i lost a gold and shiny one-dollar coin on my measly 18-year-old salary. If i remember correctly, it rolled into a drain. Let’s blame the overreaction on PMS. But even on my 18th birthday i remember scanning the price column on the menu before checking to see what the actual meal was so i could safely lock in the lowest number. I remember how every week at my salsa class i’d clutch at my five-dollar note as it became an inner-struggle just to convince myself to let it go when it came time to pay (I also brought packed sandwiches for dinner while everyone else bought wedges and drinks). And when my sister and i would  do the weekly grocery shop, i remember hating how she used to always buy cherries. What? $16.00 per kilo!!

Back then i didn’t have a budget. There was nothing to budget. I just paid for the essentials (food, electricity, phone bills), kept an apple and water in my bag at all times (went hungry if i had to), and if i bought anything ‘fun’ I’d feel guilty about it for days. Pretty sucky way to live, eh? Well as much as it sucked to save so hard, it all paid off the day i

RECIPE: Time to bake some chocolate cake.

Cake just isn’t cake in my eyes unless it’s chocolate. That rule especially applies when it’s a birthday cake. The best chocolate cake i remember is one that my kuma (godmother) would make when i was a kid. It’s so moist and rich and tasty. Anyone could make it, so don’t be put off baking from scratch.

Kuma’s Moist Chocolate Cake

2 cups plain flour
2 cups sugar
3/4 cup cocoa
2 tsp bi-card soda
1 tsp baking powder
1/2 tsp salt
2 tsp vanilla
2 eggs
2 tblsp coffee dissolved in 1 cup boiling water
1 cup milk
1/2 cup oil

Method

A little self-Valentines love…

Oh Valentines Day. It’s one of those days that’s probably hated just as much as it’s loved. No doubt the florists and jewellers and people who sell chocolates and giant teddy bears grin with delight each year as February the 14th rolls around. Did i get any jewellery this year? No. Did i get any flowers? No. What a shame, i do love them both (gold not silver and sunflowers or birds of paradise are best – for future reference). Did i get anything at all? Well, no. Not even a fun text from a fellow single lady – but hey, i didn’t send one either. You see, i may be single but that doesn’t make me a Valentines-hater. There are plenty out there, believe me. But i’m just not one of them.

Instead of whining about no gifts or longing for a lover, i simply bought my own present you see.

POEM: Bitten…by the travel bug

I was just going through some old stuff and found this, a poem i wrote for a Creative Writing class taken as an elective during my Journalism degree. It’s an open-form poem exploring the feelings of being unsettled; bored by the everyday; and longing to travel again. They say you get bitten by the ‘travel bug’…well it really does exist – and it bites hard too.

Bitten

Bitten.

It’s itching me, crawling

Uneasy it makes me

Like anxious, anticipation.

 

Delving deeper, beneath

It goes and grows.

The longing gets longer

And longer.

 

I’m asymptomatic

Outside, at least.

But inside it’s lingering,

Yearning, craving.

 

It crawls into my mind,

Makes me question my being

Priority’s order –

What matters?

RECIPE: That’s some rockin’ rocky road!

In my last post i mentioned rocky road. Mmmm… It’s a treat i get only when I come back to Mackay to visit my family, and at that, only if I happen to visit at Christmas time. It depends what day it is as to which I prefer – dark or white – but this visit, I’ve been rather taken by the white rocky road with macadamias and turkish delight chunks. I thought I’d be kind and share this delicious treat with you all – recipe compliments of my Aunty Valerie. It’s easy. So make it for yourself or for someone you care about…

Dark Rocky Road

1/2 pkt (190g) dark cooking chocolate
1/2 pkt (190g) milk cooking chocolate
1 pkt (200g) jelly tots / soft jubes/ or fruit rings cut into 4
250g pkt of pink and white marshmallows, halved
1 cup unsalted peanuts

White Rocky Road

400g white chocolate, chopped
300g toasted marshmallows, chopped
300g Turkish Delight, chopped
1 cup rice bubbles
1 cup (150g) unsalted macadamias, toasted or plain

Cherry Ripe Rocky Road

400g milk chocoalte, chopped
200g dark chocolate, chopped
250g white marshmallows, halved
240g pkt scorched almonds, halved
100g red glace cherries, halved
150g Cherry Ripe Chocettes, halved / or cherry ripe bars
optional: sprinkle 1/3 cup shredded coconut on top before refridgerating

Method

Twas the night before Christmas…

It’s Christmas eve. I’ve put up the Christmas tree (today), done my Christmas shopping (today), and the carols have taken over the TV. We’re all sitting around watching. It’s quite odd really – the equivalent of a rock band are singing soppy festive songs and fancy opera singers keep wavering their voices with way too much vibrato than i’d prefer. Yet still, here we sit watching. I’ve even strung a few bits of tinsel around the house (beach shack, actually) – despite their saddened state after being exploited year after year for their sparkly foil bristles and, let’s face it, that festive feel deep down inside that just the sight of tinsel inevitably invokes.

I imagine right now there’ll be kids laying in their beds so excited they can’t sleep, parents (aka Santa) anxious to put the last presents under the tree, and well, those without kids are probably enjoying a beverage or two. My Christmas this year will be a rather quiet one – I’m the only ‘kid’ in the extended family present and at that, i’m in my 20s.

Pressing photos of the world…

It’s easy to read a news story, be shocked by what it says and then turn and walk away in exchange for thoughts of our morning coffee or today’s ‘hectic’ to-do list. What’s not so easy to forget is an image of human beings – a pack of them – ripping into the flesh of a dead elephant with tin knives and bare hands, its body now stripped of its thick, leathery skin, leaving it almost unrecognisable. The sheer size of its bloody carcass, the dark faces crowded around it and the harsh African landscape in the background are the only things which give away what it even once was…before the gigantic grey creature became a feast for just a miniscule percentage of the world’s starving

My Easter in an ‘overgrown chook shed’…

My mum sometimes calls it an “overgrown chook shed”: the beach house that’s hosted so many of our holiday memories and family gatherings over the years. From backyard cricket to fishing (& eating fresh fish for dinner), card games and stinking hot Mackay summer Christmases, there aren’t too many holidays that haven’t been enjoyed from within the chicken wire and corrugated tin walls of

Purple Valley Heaven in stills

Some images of the wondrous Purple Valley Yoga in Goa, India.

My mediocre attempt at meditation…

On the same day of my first Ashtanga Yoga class, i had my first meditation session. It was optional, but of course i went – I’d been looking forward to it since i found out there was one. I’ve never really meditated before, but again, like yoga, it was something i’d always wanted to try. So after dinner we went back to the Shala (i forgot to take off my shoes and then quickly rushed back outside to take them off) and sat on yoga mats cross-legged on the floor. Inside it was beautiful: the candles by each window

Indian recipes from Vibha’s home kitchen

India is synonymous with spice. Any dish at any time of the day will no doubt be so flavoursome thanks to the wide array of spices that form the basis of any Indian recipe. In every home kitchen across the country you’d find a spice shelf that could easily rival the range found in an Aussie supermarket. From coriander to turmeric, mustard seeds, fenugreek and red chilli powder, your tastebuds would be impressed.

On the streets and in the markets i’ve found myself watching in awe as Indian delights – from sweets to curry and snacks – get whipped together right before my eyes. The smells are just wondrous. I’ve also enjoyed many dishes simply through taste – those created behind closed doors in restaurants and cafes. But what i’ve absolutely loved about my ‘foodie’ experience in India so far has been the chance to indulge in some real home Indian cooking.

While staying in Delhi with my friend Shitika and her family, i’ve tried so many great home-made dishes. Shitika’s mum, Vibha, throws a pinch of this and a bit of that into a pan, plus some more, and seems to just knowwhat to do, no recipe required. She knows what flavours belong and how to balance them out. And i’m sure a special ingredient like ‘love’ goes a long way too!

In search of an authentic village experience…

Gazing out the window, a small cluster of roofs and houses stood out amongst the parched and hilly landscape surrounding the tiny community of Kumbalgarh, in the Indian state of Rajasthan. It was a quiet day back at our room in a lovely upmarket resort with easily the best shower I’d had in India, room service, a swanky pool and two restaurants to choose from. Shitika and I sat sprawled across a cushy daybed nestled into the bay window, bathing in the warm sunlight flooding in as we peered out. We noticed a patchwork of dwellings in the distance. There were no