21 Mar 14

To keep to hold to be golden

Rewind back to end January, beginning of February, we celebrated Chinese New Year. My grandfather and I made ngoh hiang for our usual second day lunch. It was both fun and frustrating! When the beancurd skin wouldn’t seal…

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After that I went snapping around the living room.

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On the fourth day, my brother and his girlfriend, Jean, came to visit!

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We weren’t the only ones excited for visitors, Fatboy joined in the fun too

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And Indie really stepped it up by emerging from the bedroom and showing her face!

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(Sometimes people forget we have a second cat and we don’t blame them, she can be so anti-social. So I’m very proud that this year is a little different and that she wants to be included!)

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7 Mar 14

Your shadow follows me all day

I know everyone feels like this from time to time, when there’s too many things to keep up with. When that time comes around for me, the first thing I neglect is this blog. #guilty

Now allow me to flood your screen with one last wave of photos from Istanbul!

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While riding the nostalgic tram on Istiklal Caddesi

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A street vendor peddling bubble blowing machines

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Sitting down with a coffee and looking up

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Evening time at the Galata bridge

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Around Taksim Square

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Exploring the side alleys along Istiklal Caddesi

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This is what the nostalgic tram looks like from the outside

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Here’s Ben with a flight of colourful stairs right before we said goodbye to this lovely city

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21 Feb 14

You look like a screensaver

On our last day in Istanbul, we took a taxi out to Rumeli Hisari. It is right next to the Bosphorus and because we were greeted with amazing sunshine and perfect 18-degree weather, we had a really good time there.

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We made our way there to eat at Kale Cafe (photo on the left). Made popular and known to me from an episode of No Reservations! We ordered the usual Turkish breakfast spread and it didn’t disappoint!

After breakfast, we took a slow walk toward the Ottoman Fortress of Rumeli Hisari.

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The view was beautiful although some points were scary to hike up to. Looking at these photos now, I’m getting excited about our trip to Beijing in April. I booked us a hike to the Great Wall, like an 8km hike. Ha! I’m just thinking about getting nice pictures and not thinking so much about the distance…

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16 Feb 14

You can watch from your window

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A month ago, Ben & I bought our first car!

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27 Jan 14

Go Dance Dance Dance

Dreaming about island life. Thinking back to our day spent in Heybeliada in Princes’ Islands.

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We ate at Heyamola and of course I ordered some menemen – which is scrambled eggs. It quickly became one of my favourite foods.

After lunch we walked around the island.

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Then it was time to head back to the city via ferry.

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On a techie note: We purchased sim cards for our iPhones at the airport, to have 3G on the go. On the 7th day, our 3G got cut off even though we paid for our entire 11-days stay. Turns out, the country requires you to pay taxes for using their service. The service staff at Vodafone didn’t breathe a word about this at the airport, so imagine us – cold grumpy and lost without Google Maps and Instagram – first world problems. So there’s a tip from me to you! We didn’t pay taxes because it was a Friday and it was past 5pm. The tax office was already closed and would be closed over the weekend too. I think we left Istanbul on Monday so we decided, screw it, no internet no biggie. (it WAS a BIGGIE).

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