Day 2: Exploring Sultanahmet

Bismillahirrahmanirrahim. In the name of Allah, The Most Gracious and The Most Merciful.

Salam readers :)

Istanbul Day 2:

Woke up at 6am the next morning to see snow falling outside my bedroom window. Bliss! I'm in love again!! So light and fluffy!

Morning! I'm obviously loving this living room 

The scenery in the early dawn

Snow at balcony macam ais kepal.

  

The dining area. That's some kungfu cat over there

The kitchen. Aunty Azura lovesss orchid.

I wish I have a house with such spacious kitchen like this one day. I love the cutlery set too!

My winter ootd yang end up ke laut bila i step out of the house. Sejuk kauuu nak pakai gini je. Maunye jadi olaf. Oh, I'm wearing Aisya Wrap dress from Love To Dress and Strawberry Marshmellow Orlin shawl from White Melor.

At exactly 9am, Mr Erhan was already downstairs waiting in the car to pick us up and drove us to Sultanahmet Square. I'm really excited to visit the Blue Mosque (or also known as Sultanahmet Mosque) and Hagia Sophia to meet Gili the cat! The morning weather is seriously cold and windy. I didn't expect it would be that cold.

That's the beautiful Sultanahmet Mosque.The mosque architecture in Istanbul look almost similar to one another and being me, i just can't differentiate any of it at one glance except for this one obviously.

And that's Hagia Sophia. Once a mosque turned into a church and is now a museum.

Inside the Blue Mosque. I wonder why are the lights hanging so low.

Just look at the craftsmanship of the wall art

Merhaba Türkiye

Bismillahirrahmanirrahim. In the name of Allah, The Most Gracious and The Most Merciful.

Salam readers :)

Istanbul day 1:

Sooooo we continue our journey from Abu Dhabi to Istanbul for another 6 hours and arrived at 3.30pm local time.

Thank you for the hospitality and smooth flight, Etihad. See you again next week!

Turkey is 6 hours behind Malaysia. Snow was gone during the evening with a temperature of 0˚c but there's still traces of snow on the roof and roadside. It took us about half an hour for our luggage and another half an hour looking for Mr Erhan, Uncle Rahmat's personal driver. We can't contact him since there's no wifi at the airport and we only have a photo of him. But Alhamdulillah, he finally found us!

Our bus to airport the terminal

The immigration counter 

The arrival hall

Waiting for our luggage

Honestly, we don't actually need this much stuff. Sigh

Mr. Erhan is such a friendly, middle aged man with a polite gesture. He's very down to earth and blends well easily. It was hard to talk to him at times because he can't speak English fluently but we're grateful he could understand some simple english. Nak bukak google translate pun takleh sebab takde internet. Nak beli local sim card mahal beb. TL50 ke TL80. Takde maknanya mak nak baziq duit nak oii. 

Uncle Rahmat lives in a beautiful Baylav apartment in Ulus which is stuated in the European continent. He is Papa's cousin on nenek's side. I hardy see him in Kuching. Anyway, I'm so in love with the interior of his house.

This living room area is facing the Bosphorus and Asian Continent. I swear i can sit here all day long watching the breathtaking scenery.

View from the balcony. The after snow effect. Serenity! Can you see the Bosphorus? Rows of building on the other side is the Asian Continent.

Night comes early in winter. By 5.30pm the sky turned dark.

Bosphorus at night. Photo can't do justice. It really is mesmerizing. I'm falling in love over and over again!

Since we're not going anywhere the first day in Istanbul, i decided to borrow travel books from Uncle Rahmat. Tapi haprak satu apa pun tak baca :p Acah-acah traveller tegar la nak baca buku bagai kannn. Mimpi. First day in Istanbul kita tidur awal sebab takleh cope dengan time kat Turkey. Mata masih jam Malaysia weh so pukul 7.30 dah mamai dah sebab Malaysia dah kul 1.30am. So lepas mandi semua, tak dinner trus naik katil tido. Zzzz..

Abroad 2016: The UAE Transit

Bismillahirrahmanirrahim. In the name of Allah, The Most Gracious and The Most Merciful.

Salam readers :)

This would be my first post on my first trip 2016. I went to Jakarta from 20 January (wednesday) until 23 January (saturday) with my aunts and cousin Raziq (who will be back to Queensland from Bali on Saturday) before heading to the middle east with dad. Had nothing much to write about Jakarta plus i didn't took much photos during my trip. Ohh there's this one funny dish i wanted to share with you. We went to have dinner with Aunty Rozie, Aunty Sherry's school friend at Cafe Betawi, Grand Indonesia (located next to Kopi Luwak) and she insisted me to try Mi Tektek and Es Teler instead of nasi goreng. Tipu tak gelak first time dengar nama makanan macam tu. Aunty Rozie went like, "Why ordered nasik goreng when you can have it in Malaysia?). True. At first i'm a bit skeptical but she, being the Sarawakian-turned-local-indonesian is able to convinced me to try. And i did! and it does taste delicious! And i'm definitely gonna order this two again the next time i come to Indonesia and i'm recommending it to you. Dappp!

Ok, i'm not gonna write anything more on Jakarta. it's the same old thing i did there so i have nothing unusual to rant about this time.

23 January 2016

Jakarta-Kuala Lumpur

I was supposed to take a flight at 9.55pm indonesia time with the rest of my family and estimated to arrive Malaysia at 12.55am. But i changed my flight to 11am because i'm afraid they'd be delays and if so, i'd be dead meat. My transit flight to Abu Dhabi is at 2.15am on the 24th so that would be a huge risk. Me and dad will be flying with Etihad airlines again this time bound for Istanbul, Turkey. Dad decided to go to Turkey since Uncle Rahmat is still working there and he had been urging us to come and visit him for several time already before he went back to Malaysia for good. I took a taxi to Soekarno-Hatta International Airport Terminal 2 at 9am. I used the MyTaxi app to call for taxi coz it's safer since we will receive all infos of the driver. Upon arrival, the taxi driver was trying to trick me to pay an extra Rp30,000 (including toll fees). Guess he thought i didn't checked the total toll price. So sorry for u pak supir, i've been to Jakarta quite a number of time recently and i'm not letting myself to be fooled by the locals. Tips: Even if you use the MyTaxi app, whenever your taxi entered the toll area, jot down how much is the toll fees. Or you'll ended up paying more than you should!

As expected, there was a delay for almost an hour to KL by Lion Air. I change my Rp to RM and had my lunch at Old Town Coffee in the international departure. Thank God i bought the book 'Coretan Matluthfi' at POPULAR bookstore in Balakong before. I love the book and i would definitely recommend it to all. I can't help myself to laugh at every page i read.

If you haven't read this, you should.

The plane arrive at 12pm and it landed KLIA2 at 3pm. I was craving for the coconut shake (Ko nii memang tak berubah. Asyik fikir pasal makanan je) so i head to Quizzin (KLIA2 foodcourt) and ordered a glass. i still have another 10 hours before my next flight at 2am so i stayed at the foodcourt and do some colouring.

Bought this colouring book at MPH Mid Valley and finally owned a 48 pieces coloured pencil i've been wanting since primary school (yayyy!) but i'm just not satisfied that it's not Luna. Luna is way more vibrant than Faber-Castell but it's ok though.

At 5pm i took a shuttle to Mitsui Outlet and look for a backpack. My blue backpack i bought in Singapore last year (which cost $9.00 about RM24.30) when i went backpacking with my unimates was torn and has a big hole near the zip. But i ended up not finding anything except food. At 9pm i took a shuttle back to KLIA2 because dad will be arriving soon from Kuching.

At 10pm we head to KLIA and checked in our bags at 11pm. there's a long queue of Etihad passengers waiting for their turn in line to check in and get their boarding pass.

Nampak sikit but it's not like checking in for domestic flight so the procedure took a bit longer.

After checking in, we were informed that our flight to AUH was rescheduled to 4am. I'm like Ya Allahhhhhh, mengantuk giler daa and my handphone battery is in serious need of charging. Cray crayyy!

At 3am we went to the international departure, took a train to our gate and as promised, our plane arrived at 4am.

Departure gate for flight EY413 bound for Abu Dhabi

Passengers waiting for departure calls.

This is my second time using Etihad and i'm satisfied with the service this time better than my first trip to Europe in October 2014. Talking about Europe, yes i haven't write any post on my Eurotrip yet. Europe can wait :p

Inside Etihad Airways:

i like their tagline 'From Abu Dhabi to the world'

I love all the in-flight essential kit Etihad prepared for us. There's a warm wool blanket, a neck pillow, earphone, sleeping socks, and toothbrush.

Comel takkkkkkk??

Ohh did i mentioned that i love Etihad Flight Reimagined TV Commercial feat Nicole Kidman? I love the music and i just can't seem to get it out of my head. It's like Harry Potter soundtrack in arabian version! Been searching for the music but unfortunately Etihad didn't publish the soundtrack elsewhere. Keciwa~

 I woke up again as they serve some light meals and i ended watching Disney cartoon Aladdin on board.

'

5am: They serve this chicken potato pie but i didn't finish it. It's not bad at all. Just that i'm too sleepy to enjoy the meal at that hour and dad keep persuading me to sleep since i haven't enough rest since morning.

Breakfast! I love everything they serve on Etihad. 

Arrived Abu Dhabi International Airport around 7am local time (11am Malaysia) and we have 2 hours before our next flight to Istanbul. i walk to the upper floor to have a look at what they have at the restaurants and cafes. The price is just so overwhelming! I feel like i'm lost somewhere in Europe. Too expensive. Nangis2.

 The shopping area

 Departure gate area

Our plane is at gate 52

Off to Turkey yaw. Meow!

Smurf

Bismillahirrahmanirrahim. In the name of Allah, The Most Gracious and The Most Merciful.

Salam readers :)

I flew to KL last month with mum to visit Baby Fayyad, a bundle of joy to cousin Bee and Omar who was born on 9 January 2016. Alhamdulillah, bertambah seorang lagi umat Nabi s.a.w dalam keluarga. Semoga membesar jadi anak soleh. Cousin bee is having her confinement at her in law's at Damansara since Aunty Sherry's house in Cheras is not in a proper state yet. We came to visit him on the 15th.

Baby Smurf at his best behaviour

...but not for long

17 January 2016

Majlis Tahnik Baby Fayyad

* Tahnik: memasukkan manisan (kurma) yang telah lumat ke dalam lelangit bayi. Biasanya dilakukan oleh orang warak dan berilmu.

It was a relief that baby Fayyad didn't go cranky throughout the ceremony pasal baby smurf ni dah mabuk susu and was sleeping the entire time. Good boy!

Muka manyak sinyum

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