Trip to Şanlıurfa.

Keeping up with our project's goals of discovering Turkish traditions and culture we went quite spontaneous to a city located 140 Km away from Gaziantep, in the Eastern direction. 

Modern Şanlıurfa presents stark contrasts between its old and new quarters. The old town is one of the most evocative and romantic in Turkey, with an ancient bazaar still visited by local people to buy fruit and vegetables, where traditionally dressed and scarfed Arab and Turkish villagers arrive in the early morning to sell their produce. Much of the old town consists of traditional Middle Eastern houses built around courtyards, invisible from the dusty streets, many of which are impassable to motor vehicles. In the narrow streets of the bazaar people scurry to and from carrying trays of food, which is eaten on newspapers spread on low tables in a corner of the little shops, many people drinking water from the same cup. This very oriental atmosphere is bewitching but below the surface parts of the old city are very poor indeed, with people still living in cave houses (built into the side of the rock).




Şanlıurfa's newer districts are a sprawl of modern concrete apartment blocks, with many surprisingly tidy leafy avenues, containing modern restaurants, sports facilities and other amenities with air-conditioning.
Wikipedia description.

I quite liked the city and the stories associated with it, and just by chance we were in the city when theis soccer team won a place in the first Turkish league, so every one was celebrating :)

Mosque of Halil-ur-Rahman 

An awesome place 

The legendary Pool of Sacred Fish (Balıklıgöl) where Abraham was thrown into the fire by Nimrod. The pool is in the courtyard of the mosque of Halil-ur-Rahman, built by the Ayyubids in 1211 and now surrounded by attractive gardens designed by architect Merih Karaaslan. The courtyard is where the fishes thrive. A local legend says seeing a white fish will open the door to the heavens.

And some more images from the city :

Hope you get a chance to visit it !

Take care, Dan !

A trip at the Gaziantep Zoo 

The Zoo in Gaziantep is one of the largest Zoo's in Turkey, it has a wide variety of animals, reptiles and fish. The entrance fee is about 1.5 (for students) and 3 Turkish Liras for non-students, so a little more than 1 euro. İt is a great experience and there are a lot of things to see ... İ think you need at least 3 hours to quickly see everything. And now here come some pictures :

The aquarium 

The have the only elephant born with a in vitro procedure in the world

Me looking at the map to figure out where to go next

Group picture :)

So hope you like our little trip and that you had a great week!

See you guys , take care \ have fun !

Dan 

 When ice cream is the goal...
you go to Kahramanmaraş.
You probably take your friends and visit the castle and wash your hands in every old drinking fountain that appears along the way.
After all that (including a small climb on the aforementioned castle) you ask for famous dondurma (ice cream) and eat it using a knife and fork.

And, after a month, you repeat the whole trip. :)

Greetings,
Monika

       1927- Turkey becomes the first country to celebrate Children's Day as a national holiday.

The 23rd of April is a day of celebration, but schools make events earlier- this time it was at Friday 20th.
I had the opportunity to visit one and try different desserts :D, watch children dancing and take a bunch of photos of children.

               Tatlı! (Sweet!)

DIFFERENT DANCES, DIFFERENT INSTRUMENTS, DIFFERENT PERFORMANCES EQUALS

FUUUN!

If children are our future, our future looks colorful!

Greetings from Monika

Keeping up with our project's theme we went to explore more cities and taking advantage of 3 free days.
Here are some pictures of our exploring  :

Tuşucu Beach and seaaaaa <3

Fish cooked directly on the boat

Tuşucu Harbour

Saint Thecla Churh

View from Silifke Castle

Super castle in the sea

strawberry fields :)

Mersin

Street in Tarsus

Tarsus Adana ( Adana is a food that I really like )

So, hope you also had a fantastic week-enddddd

Dan

The week between the 15th-22nd of April is "Gaziantep Tourism Week".
Cultural centres prepared different events for this occasion. Our organisation planned inter alia:

- a traditional HALAY dance, performed by Gaziantep Folklor Kulübü - the children were dancing amazingly, with discipline AND fun at the same time.
This dance is mostly performed at weddings. There is a moment when the young couple dance together, and the man dances solo when he has to show how happy he is to be marrying his woman.

- Aydi Baba performance, lyric and Ney playing

- listening to old vinyl records

- also traditional cuisine and melengic coffee degustation (....melengic kahve....)

Bedriye and Fevzi (here wearing traditional clothes) prepared excellent coffee, I excellently drank three cups :)
Looking forward to the next Tourism Week.

Greetings!
M.

Hey guys I hope you are all okay
.. Just wanted to share some photos from our amazing trip that we took on sunday in a place called Kokluce Canyon.

A little canyon dancing :)

Group pictureeeeeee ! :D

Amazing view

And we had to cross the river of course :))

Hope you liked it and that you also had a fantastic week-end. Take care \ Have fun

Dan