You may remember that I took a couple of days off at the beginning of the month and made my quarterly trek down to the coastal town of Kaş, and across the bay on the short ferry to our nearest Greek island, Meis. This of course was my first time to make the trip since getting a grown-up camera, so I took full advantage. I’ve finally gotten all the photos uploaded, and since the summer is quickly coming to a close I thought this would be a good time to share them.
Kaş is often referred to as the “jewel of the Turkish Riviera”; Meis as “Greece’s most beautiful secret.” In my experience, both reputations are well-deserved. I’m hoping there’s something in these photo sets for everyone— although both places are marketed as sun-and-sea resorts, there’s a lot more to them than that, and I hope it comes across in these pictures. Enjoy.
No, I’m not going to do one of these updates everyday, don’t worry. I might do an end of the week roundup, or maybe just mention when I’m moving up a training level (which would be every week for a normal human, but might be every other or every third week for me). The reason I’m posting today is because I wanted to share “before” photos. This challenge is not particularly about looking better, so I’m not going to go nuts with hundreds of daily photos from a million different angles, as some have suggested, and as some others taking the challenge have done. I’m just going to post these two photos today (you can click on each of them for larger versions if you’re really bored), and there will be two corresponding ones at the end. Theoretically, if there are any visible changes in muscle tone they should be mostly in my chest, but this is not that kind of blog and I’m not going to post those kinds of photos. Sorry, boob lovers!
I’ve actually already done my pushups for today (against the wall), and it was sufficiently difficult. I definitely feel it in my arms and shoulders. I’ll let you know at the end of the week if I’m going to repeat the training week, or move up to the second week.
Did anyone else start today?
Click here to read the next part of the Hundred Pushups saga.
Click here to start reading the Hundred Pushups saga from the beginning.
I’m a morning person, so it follows that most of my photo expeditions are in the morning. But on the rare occasion that I do take some night shots, they always get tons more attention than anything I shoot during the day. Yesterday was no exception. We went out to dinner last night, and I decided to take the camera with me. I posted these two shots to flickr and they proved to be quite popular, with the photo of the brick sidewalk making the Explore top 100 yesterday (#96 at the moment). Looking at some of the other photos in the Top 100, I’m honoured that anyone even gives my work a second glance. Things like this certainly help me justify having bought this camera, and motivate me to try to find more interesting shots to share with people. Antalya is gorgeous, even in the simplest ways.
[Please feel free to click on either of these photos and snag a high-res copy for your own use.]
I think Antalya is most gorgeous first thing in the morning.
Most people sleep through it, except for me.
Well, me and the urban predator.
There are so many places where life is juxtaposed with death, beauty with blood.
Meanwhile I’m just trying to make my mark, like everyone else.
[This is my first real photo post with the new camera, and there will be many more— if ever you see any photo you like, please feel free to click on it and download a larger version for your own use. Everything I create in any medium is licensed under Creative Commons for the convenience of all.]
The Turks are obsessed with rose gardening, and they’re good at it. A friend told me yesterday that it makes sense they would choose roses because there’s a lot of history there, that roses were first cultivated in the area that is now Turkey. I can’t seem to find anything online that confirms or denies this (though admittedly I didn’t spend much time looking). Can anyone fill us in?
In any case, I went out and took some photos of local roses a couple of days ago (small flickr set here), and it’s a good thing I did it when I did— last night we had the mother of all hail storms. It was the first time in four years of living here that I’d ever experienced hail in this country, and it was pretty violent. The streets were flowing with ice pellets. I’m afraid if I go down and look at the roses today, it’s going to be a sad sight.
Considering it’s almost May, we’re having weather more consistent with early March. After having packed away the duvet and the winter clothes a couple of weeks ago, I had to dig it all back out yesterday so that we wouldn’t freeze, and I had to bring the plants inside to protect them. I’m not particularly a global warming conspirator, but something is certainly going on, whether it be global warming, or a strange series of coincidences, or, from the looks of it, a coming ice age.
I always try to keep an eye on most of the major online photo-sharing services, just to see if anything interesting comes up about Antalya. Flickr usually has a decent selection of photos of our fair city, but today there were a few pictures that really caught my eye, and it turns out they’re all by one James E Petts. He’s got a fantastic collection of 25 photos of Antalya and the surrounding region (including the ruins at Aspendos and Perge), and they were just posted today, so they’re probably pretty fresh shots.
I like these photos a lot more than most of the tourist photos I see of the region, and here’s why: nine times out of ten visitors see Antalya as a scorching, sunny beach resort and nothing else, and this bias is reflected in their snapshots, which are usually taken in July or August. But what people fail to realise is that for three-quarters of the year (September through May), Antalya is completely different— the weather is mild and even cold sometimes, and often the whole city gets this wonderful foggy-mountainy thing going on (as James so expertly captured in the above photo).
That’s what I really love about this place, that the relatively short summer peaks aggressively and then tapers off quickly, and after that we’re graced with a much more mysterious and interesting display from Mother Nature. It seems like James got to see some of that, and it really shows in his photos. There are 25 pictures in the collection, and not one of them features kids building sand castles or half-naked people playing volleyball on the beach. Not that there’s anything wrong with those activities, but it’s nice to see a different perspective for a change, one that is more in tune with what I feel is the real Antalya, and definitely more reflective of my experiences here. Sure, we get more than our share of sun, but that’s no reason to stereotype us. Antalya, believe it or not, is more than just a resort for beach bums. Many thanks to James for sharing his fantastic photo work. Link
Yesterday was my quarterly visa day. I have to leave the country and re-enter four times a year. This usually involves either a boat trip or a plane trip, and this time it was a quick flight to Cyprus.
I hadn’t been over to the airport side of town in a while— our city is changing, developing. Antalya can be so beautiful on days like this.
Look who I met on the way to the airport:
He was just wandering around the airport grounds. It’s not surprising, because there are quite a few turtle/tortoise species in this area (the airport is near both a swampy region and the beach). I tried to make friends with him, but he seemed distressed by my presence, kept making this hissing noise and pulling his head inside his shell when I got close (I still think that’s the best trick ever, wish I could do it). So I snapped a photo and then backed off, at which point he stopped hissing and continued on his way.
This particular visa day was a hassle as usual, but it was probably the second best one I’ve ever had. I had some quick-turnaround flights for which I was worried about delays, but they went off without a hitch. I literally landed in Cyprus, hurried through all the international arrivals hoops (immigration officer: “and how long will you be staying here in Cyprus?” me: “twelve minutes”), walked out through customs, and headed back to departures to check in for my return flight. By the time I checked in and got to the gate, the flight was already boarding.
The flight from Ercan to Antalya is 23 minutes, during which time they serve a meal. I’m not kidding. And I’d just had a meal half an hour earlier on the first flight. Basically as soon as the wheels are up they start throwing trays at everyone, and then you gulp your food while they stand there with the trash bag, tapping their feet. It’s crazy. And it’s a big plane, too. But they’re determined you won’t leave the flight hungry. Ah, Turkish hospitality.
Okay, something I never talked about because we don’t have them on this side of town is free outdoor gyms. The Turkish national government got on this thing a few years ago about people getting fit, so they started installing free gym equipment in public parks. It seemed to me, though, that they were only putting this equipment in parks near rich neighbourhoods, which never made any sense to me because rich people can afford to go to the gym.
Anyway, I had to go out for an hour or so this morning, and guess what? Down at our little local park, about two blocks from my house, they’ve put in one of those outdoor gyms— right in time for my new fitness goals. They must have put this in within the past two weeks.
It’s kind of like playground equipment for adults. That sounds like something you’d order from a porn catalog. But people were coming off the machines huffing and puffing and sweating, so I think there’s some real exercise going on here. Not that porn isn’t real exercise, of course.
We have about ten different kinds of machines.
Each machine has a sign on it explaining which muscles the machine works and how to use it correctly.
I didn’t look at the sign for this one, and it didn’t occur to me until I got home that I have no idea what it is. There are no moving parts. Some kind of leg-lift thingy? I’ve asked a couple of my fitness instructor friends and they didn’t know, either.
I make it look like the place was deserted, but quite the opposite was true. People were actually waiting in line for some of the machines, like this two-person cross-country skiing thingy. There were all kinds of people using the outdoor gym— women, men, kids, you name it. I think it’s fantastic, and next time (maybe even tomorrow) I’ll wear more appropriate clothing and have a go myself.
Okay, Wednesday we did a day trip to Cairo, which ended up being a literal day— we were gone nearly 24 hours. It was one of those bus tour things where you go to see the Pyramids and whatnot, and we had a great time.
I guess they’re not as cavalier about smoking here as they are in Turkey— in Antalya you see the airport police leaning against the wall and smoking right under the big NO SMOKING sign. In the Cairo airport, they put them in an enclosure like zoo animals. It always makes me a little sad how people sprint in a stampeding panic from a one-hour flight to go have a cigarette. If they were sprinting off the plane to get a shot of whiskey or a armful of heroin, we’d be appalled and try to hospitalise them and get them the help they need. But for some reason helpless uncontrollable desperation is acceptable if it’s cigarettes.
There is a strong police presence in Cairo. They sit around in the back of trucks a lot, just watching and waiting. The police all carry fully automatic weapons, which made me mistake them for soldiers, but apparently they’re just metro. Yikes.
I wish I’d gotten a picture of the wild traffic, but all I got was this shot, and it looks pretty normal, except… see how almost everyone appears to be changing lanes? They’re not, they’re just driving with complete disregard for the lines. As you can tell, our own bus is straddling lanes as well. I don’t even know why they waste money painting lines on roads in this part of the world. It’s unnecessary.
First view of the Nile.
First view of the Pyramids.
This is the biggest one. I’m too lazy to look up the name.
This is the second biggest one, with Emirhan and a camel thrown in for good measure. Those camel guys try to sell you a camel ride at an advertised price of 50 pounds, which would be about 8 dollars. Then they take you out for a ride into the middle of nowhere and ask for the money once you get out there. You give them the 50 Egyptian pounds, and they say no no no, they meant 50 British pounds (about 100 dollars). The misunderstanding is your fault because you should have asked for clarification before you agreed to the price. If you refuse to pay the 100 dollars, they just leave you out there in the desert, so of course you pay, and of course it’s now 200 dollars because the other thing you forgot to clarify was that it was 50 pounds one way. A round trip costs double.
Okay, this is a view of Cairo from the side of one of the Pyramids. You can see the very distinct line between sun and shadow. I had my jacket zipped all the way up with the hood on and really had to concentrate to keep from shivering while I took the photo. In the sun, though, it was about 18°, and t-shirts were more than enough. On the bus we had to have the air conditioner on.
Okay, this is the view of the Sphinx they never show you in photos. You can see the height of the people standing next to it— it’s just not very big. That’s Emirhan in the foreground. We didn’t get any photos of us together because our tour guide put the fear of god in us about letting other people hold the camera. He said sometimes thieves dress as Egyptian police so tourists will trust them, and then they run away with the camera. We don’t have the kind of income that we can just replace this camera, so we stuck to taking turns with it.
Now you’ve seen a Coke bottle from Egypt. Pretty cool, huh? I had to have it, so Emirhan got it for me. Will this be the start of a collection of Coke bottles from around the world?
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