6 days in Konya, Turkey. & Life as a Turkish 👰 experiences and recommendations. ☕

🌼🌼 Life as a Turkish 🌼🌼

Selam aleyküm, people! günaydın !! 😚  it's been ages since i last wrote about " Who am I? (family version) ". if you haven't read it yet, go read it after you read this entry i'm writing right now. 👼☁ nesılsın? (how are you?) if you're doin good, elhamdulillah. if you're not, reveilles-vous bientôt. 😊 (this is french language. 😆)

so maybe most of you readers (most are my friends and fam 👩) knew that i went to Turkey last March. i spent 10 days there, 4 days in Istanbul which is my all time fav 😍, and another 6 days well spent in Konya, the most beautiful historical and cultural place i've ever been. but between 6 days in Konya, i also went to Cappadocia, which filled wth old cavessss and hot air ballon, we went to Sille and Aksaray. 😋

 elhamdulillah, indeed God hears to every du'a. it took me 4 years, i keep praying and praying and praying in every single of my sujood. i know it is impossible sometimes for a girl like me, stepping feet at Europe. yes. i know you guys know that kinda feeling. and it is true after all, God will answer not too late, and not too early. but at the perfect time. 💓 indeed God knows everything, whats good and whats bad for us. elhamdulillah.

no, i'm not going to tell you guys about Istanbul because most of you must knew what i did there. but seldom you know about Konya. some of my friends thought that i went to " Kenya " which is thousand times different than Konya. hee. 😅
Konya is still ancient. so if you wanted to know more about Turkish cultures, go study the Konya people. they are experts.

 There, there will be my parent's good friend. 😄  His name is uncle Mustafa. he ever came to Malaysia with his friend, uncle Ali. and my dad and my mom acted like their tourist guide. 😁 so now, it's time to switch. haha.

In Konya, we will be staying at uncle Mustafa's house. 🏡 actually we wanted to book a hotel because we afraid that we might be disturbing his family. but Turkish is very nice. He and his family welcomed us to feel how it's like to live in their culture.

Uncle Mustafa has 4 children. 👨👩👩👩 the first one is Yavuz, he's a man and already married with his wife, aunt Hülya. they have 2 children name Mustafa jr. and junior Ayşe. 👦👶so here's one of the tradition. the grandchildren should have their elders names. if you can see here, Yavuz's children both have their granpa and granma's names. the purpose is to make the next generation know their great-grandparents. interesting right? 😃

after Yavuz, there are Şükriye, kheiriye & Asiye. 
Şükriye and Kheiriye both are married. Şükriye has 4 children named Fatima or best known Fatmagül in Turkish language, Jacob @ Yaķop, and Mustafa jr. jr. ( <see, it's his grandpa's name. i told you! ). Kheiriye married to an Arab and has 2 stunning boys named Abu Bekir & Umer. and Asiye, she just finished her graduation. 😀🎓

so this is the whole fam 💞 (awh, i already missed them!)

so let me start from day 3 in Turkey which was our last-first-day in Istanbul. we took Turkish Airlines as our airbus to Konya. ✈ we flew at 12 midnight and arrived at 1 a.m. bruh, it was super duper cold at Konya, dude. i felt like i cannot even move my feet. but elhamdulillah, there are some heaters inside the airport. 🔥

at the Konya Havalimanı (translation: Konya Airport) , uncle Mustafa and his wife, aunt Ayşe were already waiting for us. like seriously, they looked like my granpa and granma. 😄 they greeted us warmly and nice. they took us to their house.

the next day, they prepared special Turkish bfast for us!! 🍴

the 1st day, we ate like boiled potato. you need to peel the skin and crunch it with fork. eat it with butter, sour cheese, oregano, dried chillis, and some peppers. i know it sounds weird but believe me they tasted good! 😋

the next bfast, we ate homemade french fries which is yum. well because in Malaysia we are common to western foodie like french fries. we also ate chocolate moist cake baked by Şükriye. and some 2 tastes cookies and ofcoz, Ekmek for sure. 😊

the next bfast is, PANCAKE!!! 😋😋😋😋 made by Asiye. we ate this with apricot jam and blueberry jam. 🍯 also, with some honey and chocolate spread and sour cheese. yummmmmmyyy 

and Turkish black tea is a must ☕.

here we ate chocolate moist cake and onion rings. and some fried egg with filled with meat and cheese yum yum. 🍮😋😋

some pictures of me, umi  harraz, Şükriye, Asiye, Hülya, Mustafa jr.jr, and Ayşe Jr. 😍😍

so Turkish eats Ekmek (bread) every single day. 🍞 totally, their bread is different from our's (Malaysian) that we eat everyday. their bread is more like french bougette means crunchy like, rough, big and satisfying. my favorite was the Etlie Ekmek ( Italian bread or best known as pitza 🍕😍)

Turkish eat ekmek with sour cheese, sometimes chocolate spread. up to them. unlike us, mineral water is every where, but in Konya, black tea is every where. 😆 yes, it took time for me snd my family to get used with the food like every single day we eat nasi lemak kan. 🍛

everywhere is same. no matter at the Turkish houses or restaurants, they'll serve Ekmek.

like what i have here, a gigantic roti keras filled with hot & spicy beef, raw onion, tomatoes, sour cheese, chilli sauce and mayo. (omg i literally feel hungry dh lah bulan pose haih 😰) and drinks, we drank the super sour non-flavoured yogurt.  as for the ekmek, i really recommend for you guys but for the yogurt also. really wanna see how's your face when you drink it. 😜😜 anyway, it's worth it. 

the picture of me and aunt Ayşe, uncle Mustafa's wife, eating Etlie Ekmek. 😋🍕

uncle Mustafa also brought us to some Turkish restaurants.. 

Orange soup ( but they dont taste like orange 😆🍊, they taste good like sour kuah dal? idk lah, my mom and dad picked this soup, but me, i ordered Turkish Mushroom soup. it's nice to have hot soup due to the cold weather and plus, i'm used to mushrooms soup. 🍄😪😪)

When the owner of the restaurant knew that we were tourists, he gave us free special turkish dish as pressie. 🎁 i told you Turkish are all nice. 😋  thankyou sir! the dish tasted like Ubi, i don't know the meaning in English. so crunched ubi mixed with Indian spices. it really gave us a unique and rare taste. but honestly, i don't like it. but my dad and mom can get used to it. so that pink dervish, is made out of strawberry yogurt. 🍓 you need to eat the ubi with that yogurt. yes. weird taste. 😅 anyway teşekkürler again, sir! ❤

so next, we stopped at this cafe. we ate something like churros but wayy more sweet!!! 😂😂

here's the churros. coated with caramel and filled with melted brown sugar. 🍩

here, one of my fav cafe, Osmanly. 😍 the interior design was PERFECT & COZY !! 😵❤

-Osmanly-

                             

-osmanly-

-osmanly-

-osmanly-

-papa & osmanly cafe-

done with the foodies 🍔,  let get into the culture. 🙋

as we all know, that Konya is famous for it has that Sufi or in our language " ulama' " lah. His name is Mevlana Celaleddin Ar-Rumi. you might want to remmber his name for my next entry  will be his selected poems. 😊 he is from Rom. so, Mevlana left a huge good deed in the Konya society. He taught the society about Islam, and spread the daawah. Until now , the society still remember Mevlana. some by visiting his mousoleum and some by having his advices hanged on the wall. some by built a mesjid and name it as the Mevlana's name or his family and friends'. but obviously, the Whirling Dervishes is everything. 💂 <they have like a tall cap like this

and wear white large gown like coated with black gown. they'll swirl and swirl and swirl. in their swirling , they'll remember God, which is Allah, and pray that Allah bless Mevlana with the best rahmah. in shaa Allah. ❤

so this is the Mevlana's tesbih. usually we have 33 beads but Mevlana's , 33 x 33. 😰 that's a pretty much. 

so this is the Whirling Dervishes. 

we went to the Mevlana Cultural what i cant remember. 😅😆

ah, i found the pic if the place where i watched the dance 💃. 

The Mevlana mausoleum. snd some other of his students and relatives and teachers.

so after watching the dance, i don't remember what night, but Uncle Mustafa brought us to his niece's Henna Night. 👸 omg i'm so embarrassed to tell you guys. 😆😆😆😆 but i danced. i mean, i swear this is one of my favourite,qqqqqqq 😍😍😍 .

 So just we arrived, we entered a huge air-conded hall filled with ONLY WOMEN. women and men are seperated. men will sit outside the building and drink turkish teas and chit-chat chit-chat among them ☕😂 while the women inside the building and like YOU CAN DO WHATEVER YOU WANT 😂.  so i observed that the Turkish culture in this Henna Night is like the Arabs'. they dance and super duper loud musics. 🙉😹. totally different with our Malaysian culture. 

As we entered the hall, Asiye's family greeted us and like all the Turkish women there watch us differently. 😆 i know they have that pointy noses, beautiful eye colours like hazel, green and blue.. blonde hairs and tall. they looked like english fellows and some like arabs mixed with english. And we? we have that obvious Asian look!! 😆😆😆😂😂

So Asiye invited me and my mom to dance with other people. like it looked so easy to dance, but gosh it was harder than i thought. especially when the women are better than you. 😂 like seriously, i looked like a dugong ( go translate. it's malay language. ) making some alien moves babeee 👽😂😂😂😂. like, i was the dumbest of all even 4 year ol girl danced better than mee 😆😆. i tried to mix, and everyone kept starring at me. arghhh so shyyy 😂😂😂. anyway it is worth it. i swear i don't know whether i wanna do it again when i'm 20. so while i still young, better make it. 😆💃

so that's me, my mum, Asiye and aunt Hülya. at the right corner is aunt Hülya's son, Mustafa jr. 😇

i don't know lah beside me tu whether the Yeni Gelin (the bride) 's mom or just aunt. Her name is aunt Hatice. she's really friendly. 😘

and yah ikr that iconic Turkish Wrappp 🙈❤

we got some goodiess. it's henna powder. adorable right? 😻

so the next morning we went to Cappadocia. i know some of you knew about this place. yes , this place is like a dream for it's hot air balloons but rarely people know about it's gorgeous, ancient caves. i was so in love and feel like the cave is my home 😆💛

muslim's house.

can you guys imagine how people in this time live in a cave at the same time they also have religion. imagine how they study. imagine how's their lifestyle. i know it is sometimes beyond our mind 😍😍😵😵. look at the windows. look at the door. imagine the people. the family. they created a house just by carve and chisel. i'm so in love!

fyi , i didn't get to see the hot air balloons. it took hours from Konya to Cappadocia. you need to start your engine at midnight and reach there at early in the morning. well that is because the hot air balloons only take action in the morning. if it fly at 10 o'clock for example, apparently it will explode due to the weather which SO HAWTTTTTT. and since i have a baby brother in the family. it's a lil hard. but to me never mind, maybe someday in the future?😙

In Cappadocia or Kapadokya (in Turkish spelling), there a lots of ceramics shops which will drive your mums crazy 🙇🙇😫😫😻😻. i bet you. especially when you're an art enthusiast kind. 

here, some of the shops in Cappadocia i captured. 📷 like a pro eh?  😎 yes. the shops is inside the old caves. so when you entered, it feels like you're inside Merlin. So oldiesss 😍😍😍

In the shops  they sell something like these... 

some of the ceramics can glow in the dark. 😀🌞

so in Turkey, you might wondering what is the Blue Eye means. like it is EVERY WHERE. ya at first  it looks creepy but believe me, when you know what it is, i'm sure you gonna love itt. 😘

so these are the examples about the Blue Eye. omg i cannot resist lah my professionalism in taking those pics hahahahahahah 😂😂😂😂😍😍😍 well the eye, it means GOOD LUCK. many Turkishes hang this eye in their houses. some of them wear as accessories like necklace , bracelets, and pins. so when a Turkish likes you or happy with you, they'll give you this as a present. 😄😄 (masa ni.lah hang taw hang ni baik ke jahat, org suka hang ke dok 😂😂😂 hahahaha gurau sajaa. ) and best part is, they are all for saleeeee. go finish your money here i bet you will mever regret 😈.

so on our way home, we visited uncle Mustafa's cousin in Aksaray. the cousin and his fam are all so kind. they welcomed us to Aksaray. 😍

there are his wife, and their güzel (beautiful) children, Fatima, Elif and Eszza. 💘 the dad is busy chit-chatting with my dad and uncle Mustafa. 😆 so never so mind. 

so Fatima's dad treated us at a restaurant. i dont know what were the names of the dishes, but we ate some grilled lamb 🐏, sour vegetables, Turkish-styled rice. teşekkürler (thankyou) Fatima & fam! 😘 what a lovely night with all of you

there's a night when uncle Mustafa noticed we cannot get used to Turkish food. so he asked my mom and dad to cook Malay food. ofcoz lah aku dgn adik - beradik aku berjimba. lama kot tak makan makanan melayu. 😆

but, some of the ingredients for malay food yang my mom and dad wanted to cook are need to buy.

so here we are. 😆

shoppingggg with Uncle Mustafa, aunt Ayşe, Jacob and Mustafa jr. 😁😁

and here we end up..

ikan masak merah, mee goreng, tempe goreng 😋, fried chickens, fried eggs and fried veggies with sos tiram. 😋

Like uncle Mustafa invited his neighbors to taste our foods. 😂 i met new friends. Her name is Gizem but we called her Shida. she's studying in university. she also has a brother and a sister. i don't know about her brother. 😅 but her sister named Ayşe is 17 years old. 😄😄 it's really nice to meet them. 

so we taught the Turkish family how to eat like us. Like using hands instead if spoon. 😇

So the next thing i wanna share is, we met Konya's mufti , like anything about religious thing in Konya, you can refer to him. his name is Ali Ķoc. it was a pleasure to orang biasa like us to meet a great people like him. He also treated us some Etlie Ekmek. like everyone first keep staring at the president then, they stared us, weird Asian people 😂😂😂😂. He is uncle Mustafa's ex-schoolmate. 

you know what? i've never met even a great people who serve the tea to his guests. usually the personal assistant will do it. but him, i thought that he's the PA. but no! he's the president!!! 🙇

that is my mom and dad. ❤

he even has that power to enter the italian restaurant kitchen 😂😂

barakallahu alaik  president. 😊❤

if you want more infos, you can go search on google about him, Ali Ķoc. 

So the last but not least, Sille Village. 

so cold!!!! 😰😰😰 you cannot imagine i just wear the usual thin shirts i wear in Malaysia and umi's rugged JEANS jacket. ☺☺☺☺☺ 

original 300 year old houses and ripped chair cushion filled with bugs. 

with güzel Anatolian girl 😘