All posts filed under: Travels

Turks go to Korea: Cultural and Culinary Shock, Pleasure, and a TurKo Tie

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I’m back from a long and exhausting trip. The 2 weeks of our time in Korea were divided into two; a road trip and a family affair, which I’ll write about in the next post. But first, I’ll share stories from our trip out of Seoul. For those who are not familiar with Asian culture and who visit Korea for the first time, there are two challenges; first, chopsticks, and second, sleeping on the floor. The first wasn’t a big issue since most restaurants had forks available, and as time went by, the Turkish guests got better and better with chopsticks and even got to love them and bought some to use in Turkey, with some thinking that they will probably lose weight by eating chopsticks, hahah. But everyone refusing to sleep on the floor often complicated things when booking an accommodation. Most Koreans sleep on beds nowadays but there are people who still prefer to sleep on a warm floor like my mum, and many hotels have options for a room with a bed or under-floor heating. The fact is that you …

Delicious Sicily: Part 1- Santa Anastasia Winery and Castelbuono

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**The short film in which I made an appearance, “Romance and Spirit of Sicily” has won awards at several international film festivals. I hope you you’ll enjoy it!** Hello! I’m finally back! Please forgive me for the long absence. For a girl, who had wandered around the world for over 10 years, to finally become Mrs. was a good enough excuse to have a break, I thought. To justify the long break, I had planned to make a grand comeback with a new website but well, this is as much as I could do. But I have many exciting stories to share with you in months to come, and I’ll start with the latest culinary trip to Sicily, the mysterious island that everyone desires. Yes, it was full of wonders and beauty, and didn’t disappoint me in any sense. The people were so generous and friendly, and it was so good to be in a timeless place where everyone says hi to everyone. After a week, I felt like I’d lived there for a year! Cefalu, where Cinema Pasadiso was filmed, was …

massimo villas

Delicious Sicily: Part 2- Palermo Market and Cooking at Massimo Villas

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This is probably the highlight of my Sicilian trip and it’s because of the wonderful home cooking experience. Since the cooking was in the evening, we decided to visit Palermo, more precisely the street market, yipeeee! Before I start, I’ll share the video of the home cooking, Private Chef, Cefalu by Joolzy on for those who prefer to watch rather than to read. Julian did a great job in delivering the true atmosphere of the evening in his short video, and I’m looking forward to seeing more videos  on the rest of the trip soon. So now let’s move on to the market. The market we went to is Ballarò in Palermo. Living in Istanbul, I’m used to the bustles and shouts of vendors but in Sicily they were a lot louder, making strange whistles and tunes! There are so many photos of foods but I can’t and won’t share them all. There was a huge variety of produce and some of them had odd shapes and sizes or were strange like this snake-like long zucchini, cucuzza. What caught my attention …

Antakya Food Trip – I love Antakya!

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Here you go the second part of my Antakya food trip, where I got deeper into the town and food, but no luck with museums and churches. We got up the next day to find out that the archeological museum was closed along with all other museums… Yes, usually museums are closed on Mondays in Turkey and I knew that part, however, I was sure that I’d read ‘Closed on Sundays’ on the museum site. Was I dreaming? So disappointed at the finding and so annoyed by the cold weather, I lost my appetite for food. Take a deep breath…..calm down… Only the fact that the museum was under refurbishment in a new location and currently only half of the site is available to the public made me feel a little better. Alright, then, let’s just eat whatever we come across. I definitely needed food to cheer me up. The cheese bread just outside the hotel was so so good, reminding us a bit of Georgian cheese bread. You must try it when you’re in …

kunefe

Antakya(Hatay) Food Trip – Künefe Secret

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I’m writing this while munching on za’atar chips I made using the spices I brought from Antakya in Hatay province in the south of Turkey near the Syrian border. Mr.O and I were not sure where we were going right up to the moment we landed at Hatay airport, me going “I wanted to go to Antakya, not Hatay, because there’s no food except Kunefe in Hatay!” and Mr.O going “You booked the ticket, not me, well, we are here now, so….” We totally sound like two naive tourists, don’t we? In our defense, the name of the city is quite confusing as is the history of this city, which is better known as ‘Antioch‘ by many, especially Christian pilgrims. There is even a Korean protestant church there, which was founded in 2000, and Mr.O said, “Let’s visit and say hi to practice my Korean!”, but we didn’t go. All I want was food. I couldn’t shake off the guilt for having convinced Mr.O to come with me by saying that the weather forecast said …

safranbolu

Safranbolu, Amasra..and Beautiful Autumn colours

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I know there are hundreds of photos of the traditional Ottoman houses but I’ll still add mine because one never gets tired of looking at these timeless houses with unique characteristics. Mr.O took me around to secret spots where he sat drinking coffee and reading books. He knew this village like the back of his hand, having come here on weekends during the compulsory military service while other soldiers went to the new town for more fun. Nowadays, Korean tourists seem to be everywhere, leaving their traces here and there, a hand-written sign board or message in Korean inviting tourists to certain shops and restaurants for example. Words travel fast in Turkey and when we were going to Sanfranbolu, Mr.O’s ex-commander’s daughter joined us with her friend, who was a huge fan of Korean TV and culture. They study at the local university and I happened to be there. They took us to their favourite cafe, Kuru Kahveci, for the best Turkish coffee as they claimed, but it was closed so we went to Sade …