Follow:
Browsing Category:

Travel

    Senior Trip: Kalkan and Boat Tour

    Now that I have some time, I’ll be mixing in a few retrospective posts. (Our last few months in Turkey were crazy full and there’s so much we haven’t shared about yet!)

    I was a senior class sponsor last year. During the June exam days, we drove south to the coast for a 5-day trip. The senior class was tiny with only six graduates and only five were able to go on the trip. There were benefits to having such small group – we all fit in the other sponsor’s van!

     

    Kalkan

     

    I feel like Turkey is one of the world’s best kept vacation secrets with over 7000 km of coastline falling along the Black Sea, Mediterranean, and Aegean. And it’s all stunning.

    We traveled to Kalkan and spent two nights at Villa Derin. This rental was so wonderful! And very modern. It had four bedrooms, a private pool, and an incredible view. We used the kitchen for several meals and ate out on the porch. We drove to the town of Kalkan once and some of us took a ferry across the bay the other evening.

     

    Villa Derin

     

    Villa Derin wall

     

    Pool

     

    Kalkan view

     

    Seniors in Kalkan

     

    Kalkan street

     

    Beautiful orange flowers

     

    Kalkan steps

     

    Kalkan beach

     

    We spent one morning at Patara Beach. (Use the Müze Card for a discount!) I don’t have any photos from there because I didn’t bring my camera, but this beach was one of the nicest I’ve ever been to. There were some ancient ruins there as well, but we spent our time on the beach. It wasn’t crowded and we couldn’t have asked for nicer weather. Some of the kids rented an umbrella and some lounge chairs.

     

    Kalkan at night

     

    For the last three days of the trip, we rented a boat out of Kaş called Dilara. The boat followed along the coast. We stopped in bays to swim and anchored in other bays for the night. The boat had lounging mats on the top deck and some of the kids slept there at night. The scenery was ridiculously beautiful. We played cards and dominoes, kayaked, read, napped, and relaxed. The captain and his wife were very hospitable and the food they made was oh so good. One of the girls said, “I feel like on this trip I’m either eating or sleeping.”

     

    Sitting on the boat deck

     

    Turkish boat rental with flag

     

    Boat deck at morning

     

    Senior drawing

     

    Dinner on the boat

     

    Turkish breakfast spread

     

    Leah swimming

     

    Senior trip

     

    The trip was a special time of bonding for the seniors. It was also bittersweet because by the end of the trip, we all wished it could have happened at the beginning of the year. I’m thankful for the time I got to spend with these students. They are talented with bright futures ahead of them! The trip was a breath of fresh air before the end of the year craziness, graduation, and the goodbyes we all faced.

     

    Share:

    First Days in Seoul

    Here’s a glance at our first few days in Seoul. (We haven’t taken a lot of photos yet. Most of them have been of food.)

    We flew into Incheon Wednesday afternoon. It’s a beautiful, modern airport. Everything was efficient, clean, and quiet. People systematically got into lines and there was no pushing or shoving. Now, I’ve been told that’s not always the case on the street, but it made clearing customs and retrieving luggage easy. We did have a problem that delayed us a few minutes. The embassy put 25 years on David’s visa rather than 25 months. Officials had to change it in the system before they let us through.

    People from the school met us at arrivals. There was a big group of new teachers who were on our same flight. We kept our overnight bags, put stickers on the rest of our luggage to be delivered to our apartments, and went to Hotel Capital for the night. It was nice to not have to worry about getting unpacked right away.

     

    Incheon airport

     

    Luggage truck

     

    Thursday morning, we did paperwork at the hotel, then they took us to our apartment. We live in a nice two-bedroom apartment. (I’ll write more on that soon.) Three teachers showed us around that afternoon. We took a bus to a mall to shop at a department store called eMart for home supplies.

    Friday, David had his first day of new teacher orientation. He saw his classroom for the first time! This photo looks crowded, but there’s a ton of space behind and to the right of the desks:

     

    David's classroom

     

    David had Saturday off. Our friends we met in Turkey (who are Korean) were in country. They were so sweet to drive two hours to visit us! It was a joy to see familiar faces and spend time with them. We walked the Insadong area. We also stopped in front of Gyeongbokgung Palace and visited the (free!) museum of King Sejong, the man who invented the Korean alphabet.

     

    Gyeongbokgung guard

     

    King Sejong

     

    Touring with friends

     

    Sunday, we attended church Gangnam style (in the Gangnam area) at New Harvest. It was an encouragement to worship with other believers and to meet some new people.

    After church, we walked our neighborhood. Our streets are VERY hilly! We also braved the subway and bus system by ourselves. We made it back to eMart only to find it was closed. Several of the large chain stores are closed two Sundays a month to give mom and pop shops a chance. Fortunately, a store called Modern Home was open, so we were able to grab a few essentials like pillows and coffee mugs. We’re hoping to get to Ikea soon to finish furnishing our apartment.

     

    Neighborhood view

     

    Subway

     

    What We’ve Eaten

    No need to worry – we will NOT go hungry in this country.

    • We had our first meal at KKanbu Chicken. We ate some delicious chicken that came with pickled onions.
    • On Thursday, our tour guides took us out to Craftworks.
    • A Thai restaurant.
    • Another fried chicken place. We laughed at their menu. The land of Korea – where technology flows like milk and honey and discarded iPads are recycled into restaurant menus. (They put paper under the screen.)
    • Our friends treated us to our first Korean BBQ! You grill the meat yourself.
    • Patbingsu… Our friends also introduced us to shaved ice topped with red bean paste. It sounds weird, but it was good! The bean paste tasted a little bit like peanut butter. The texture of the ice was different than American snow cones. They also ordered a coffee style version that had granola and ice cream over it.
    • New York Brick Oven Pizza. Made delicious because there is pork in this country. Amen.
    • Boba (bubble) tea! We love the tapioca balls.
    • On The Border mexican. There are a lot of international restaurants in our district!

     

    Friend Korean chicken

     

    iPad menu

     

    Korean BBQ

     

    Patbingsu

     

    Bubble tea

     

    Other First Impressions

    • Holy humidity. Thank goodness for air conditioning and dehumidifiers. Granted, we moved to Korea during the rainy season. We looked it up, and apparently a normal humidity level is 40. Our dehumidifier read our rooms at 81!
    • There are a lot of churches.
    • Even more than churches, there are a ridiculous number of restaurants.
    • Groceries and home supplies are expensive. ($5 for a bottle of hand soap!?)
    • Clothing is super expensive. (A pair of mens pants at H&M in Turkey cost 30TL, which was about $11. Here, they are ₩50,000, which is around $43!)
    • Recycle all the things! Recycling is required and huge here. We could have upwards of 5 trash bags: paper, plastic, glass, food waste, and trash.

    I think I will explore some on my own today. Pray I don’t get lost!

     

    Share:

    17,000 Miles

    It’s been almost eight weeks since we last updated here. A lot can happen in two months. A lot HAS happened in the last two months. Nearly 17,000 miles has happened.

     

    Passports

     

    After we finished the school year, David’s family traveled to Turkey and we toured them around the central and western part of the country for two weeks. We loved showing them our home and visiting a couple of new places as well. It was a goodbye tour of Turkey for us. After the family left, we returned to Ankara to pack up our house and say our last goodbyes. A few days later we flew to Michigan for a week, drove to Arkansas for a week, drove back to Michigan for a week, sorted and packed everything again, flew to South Korea, and landed on Wednesday.

    We’ve been in Seoul for almost 48 hours now. We spent our first night in a hotel and stepped foot in our apartment for the first time yesterday. The weight of it all is still sinking in.

    For now, we’re unpacking, moving furniture around, and getting acquainted with the city and David’s new job. We’re making lists and planning shopping trips for things like tupperware, and pillows, and toilet brushes, and picture frames.

    Please pray for us as we settle into this new place! There are so many things to learn. We know that no matter the challenges that lie ahead, we can trust that:

    Because of the LORD’s great love we are not consumed, for his compassions never fail. They are new every morning; great is your faithfulness. I say to myself, “The LORD is my portion; therefore I will wait for him.” Lamentations 3:22–24

    I will share soon about our transition and first impressions and our travels this summer!

     

    Share:

    Ottoman Bridges and Hagia Sophia Trabzon

    After a cozy night by the wood burning stove, we left our cabin, said goodbye to Ayder, and stopped by three more bridges on the way back to Trabzon. Our flight was supposed to leave that afternoon.

     

    ayderpicnics

     

    Cow in the road

     

    Rize river

     

    Sunny day and Ottoman bridge

     

    bridge4curve

     

    Turkish cay fields

     

    Because we were in the mountains, we drove through a lot of tunnels. The Ordu Nefise Akçelik Tunnel is the longest tunnel in Turkey at just over 2.3 miles:

     

    Rize tunnel

     

    This bridge wasn’t as old as the Ottoman stone bridges, but the wisteria was so pretty:

     

    Bridge with wisteria

     

    Wisteria

     

    Broken bridge path

     

    David walking on an old bridge

     

    David and Leah on a wisteria bridge

     

    This was the Taskemer Köprü. People road zip-lines under its arch!

     

    Ottoman bridge path

     

    Girls on a bridge

     

    Bridge with Turkish flag

     

    Drying plants

     

    Back in Trabzon, we made one last stop at Hagia Sophia. One of our friends visited the 13th century church a couple of years ago. We were disappointed to find that it had been converted into a working mosque. Large panels covered the majority of the frescoes.

     

    Hagia Sophia Trabzon

     

    Women were not allowed to enter the prayer area:

     

    Hagia Sophia Trabzon

     

    A few of the frescoes were still visible. I would have loved to have seen the church without all of the panels.

     

    Hagia Sophia Trabzon

     

    Hagia Sophia Trabzon art

     

    To add to our adventure, we received a text that our flight had been canceled. After walking around Hagia Sophia, we headed to the airport to drop off the car and figure out a new flight. Three other flights had been canceled and there was a mob of people by the Turkish Airlines desk. We finally made it to the front and found out the next flight didn’t leave until the next day, Monday. We didn’t think our boss would appreciate five teachers being out.

    We decided to rent another car and drive the 10.5 back to Ankara. Fortunately, our original flight was early enough that we left Trabzon at a decent time of day and made it to Ankara by midnight. (And even though it added extra time, we ended up saving money from the flight refunds!)

    I will never forget our mountain adventure with our wonderful friends!

     

    Share:

    Batumi, Georgia

    Because we were so close, and because we could, we visited the country of Georgia. We had no idea what to expect. We read an article from someone who crossed from Georgia into Turkey but couldn’t find much information about the other way around. It made us a little nervous navigating a border crossing!

    There was plenty of parking available. We opted for a “closed” lot that cost 2,50TL an hour. (You cannot take a rental car from Turkey across a border.)

    From there, we got in line. This was a classic Turkish experience. I took us around two hours to get through customs.

     

    Turkish border crossing

     

    Waiting in line in Turkey does not follow the Western way of thinking. Lines follow the waterfall principal. If there is a space available, fill it. There was a lot of pushing and cutting attempts. Prepare to shoulder up. Our group of five created a nice wall across the line. Some Turkish people were very irked with us because we left some space in front of us to breathe. I decided to combat people pushing into me by leaning back. If was going to wait in a long line, I might as well be comfortable! Everyone seemed to be either Turkish or Georgian. We got a lot of stares. There was a group of about 10 older men who deliberately cut at the door. We threw out a couple of çok ayıp!‘s with the rest of the crowd.

    Isn’t this border gate funny? It reminded us of Snoopy:

     

    Georgia border crossing

     

    Turkish customs took about an hour and 15 minutes to get through. Georgian customs took another 45 minutes. There were more lines open on the Georgian side. While we waited, there were three ladies who kept looking back at us and whispering. I told David to cross his eyes the next time they stared at him. He did, and the two younger girls had a good laugh and stopped staring so much. The customs lady must have never seen American passports before, because she didn’t know what to do. She called over to a buddy who said to let us through. (We did not have to buy a visa for our short stay.) She was very thorough matching our passport photos to our faces.

    Once across, we exchanged a small amount of money and walked a short ways down to an Orthodox church. (Tip: Don’t exchange money RIGHT at the border crossing. There are other exchanges a short walk away with slightly better rates.) My friend Dale took this photo of a church, the border crossing, and a mosque on the other side:

     

    Church, mosque, border

     

    Church door

     

    We walked back to the border area and hired a taxi for 20 Lari to take us into Batumi. He dropped us off at the flower district. We didn’t find many restaurants, but grabbed lunch at a pastry shop. Nobody spoke English, but we were able to charade and write our way through the exchange. (It’s been a while since we’ve been in a place where we didn’t know at least a little of the language!) One of the pastries had pork, which was a treat.

    We realized none of us had done any research on the city before our trip, so we spent some time walking around. Batumi was interesting. Some areas were VERY modern and nice (some almost European), while others were in pieces. There was an even starker contrast between the rich and poor than what we’ve seen in Turkey.

     

    batumibusstop

     

    Georgian Lari

     

    Georgian flag

     

    Raddison tower

     

    Old building in Georgia

     

    Old car

     

    Batumi park

    Batumi courtyard

     

    We found a really nice park with a beach along the Black Sea. We sat and threw rocks for a while and watched dolphins play.

     

    Georgia Black Sea

     

    Sea glass

     

    Georgia Black Sea rock tower

     

    Black Sea friends

     

    David found a carnival game in the park and was excited he could say he’d shot a gun in Georgia:

     

    Batumi gun game

     

    Batumi buildings, old and new

     

    We bought a few more pastries for dinner. These girls were very sweet and curious about us. When we asked for a picture with them, they said “Ah! Supermodels!”

     

    Pastry friends

     

    Sarpi good luck

     

    After that, we took a taxi back to Sarpi. I like how the sign above says “Good Luck” instead of goodbye. We felt it was appropriate as we neared the border. Re-entering Turkey was a lot easier than crossing into Georgia. We breathed a sigh of relief once we were safely back “home.”

    It was a fun adventure and now we can add Georgia to our list of countries visited!

     

    Share:

    Fırtına River Stone Bridges

    After visiting Sümela Manastırı, we drove through Rize towards Çamlıhemşin and the Fırtına Valley. This Black Sea region is filled with winding roads, lush mountains, and fresh air. Everywhere we looked – even behind buildings in the city – we saw çay field after çay field. (Turkey produces over 6% of the world’s tea!)

     

    Çaykur sign

     

    Çay fields

     

    Rize mountains

     

    Our goal was to see Ottoman bridges. We weren’t sure how to find them, but it ended up being super easy! We just followed the road along the Fırtına River. The bridges were built in the 18th and 19th centuries, but some may be older. The 1700’s are nothing in comparison to other historical sites in Turkey, but we still got a thrill out of finding the bridges and walking across them. There are around 20 bridges still standing. We stopped at three on our first day and three more on Sunday.

    Every bridge felt like a scene out of Narnia or Lord of the Rings. The bridges had high arches and most of the them didn’t seem to lead to anywhere in particular. It was evident herders still used some of the bridges to take their animals over the river.

    This was the Kadiköy (Özenkit) Köprüsü. The sign said it was built near the end of the 19th century by Ahmet and was repaired in 1999:

     

    Ottoman bridge

     

    Ottoman bridge with David and Leah

     

    Plant growing in bridge

     

    Bridge path

     

    Randa in cay plant field

     

    Girls on a bridge

     

    Dale on a bridge

     

    I missed the sign for this bridge… or maybe it didn’t have one:

     

    Ottoman bridge

     

    Arching bridge

     

    Bridge path

     

    bridge2moss

     

    Several of the bridges had mini cemeteries near their bases. We wondered if perhaps the builders were buried close to their bridge?

     

    Gravestone by bridge

     

    The third bridge we stopped at was called the Şenyuva Köprüsü and was built in 1696:

     

    Bridge 3 with steps

     

    River

     

    Bridge plants

     

    Rusted bridge

     

    Rize mountain house

     

    The people in the area made their living from rafting tourism, forestry, farming, beekeeping, and herding animals. There were a few roadblocks along the way:

     

    Goats in road

     

    Goats

     

    Just before dark, we drove to Ayder, a small tourism village within a national park. It was a strange little town set in the middle of the countryside. We did not see any other Westerners – most visitors seemed to be Turks or people from countries east of Turkey. We stayed at Dolunay Guesthouse, which was way overpriced for what it was. However, it had a wood burning stove and an amazing view. (Bring your own towels; they do not have any even for rent.) We ate dinner at Zümrüt Restaurant, which included the most amazing Black Sea cheese fondue called mıhlama. It was SO GOOD!

     

    Ayder clouds

     

    Ayder cabin

     

    More on our day trip to Georgia and a few more bridges soon!

     

    Share: