National Day #4 - Aircraft

National Day #3 - Vehicles

National Day #2 - People

National Day #1 - Forces Parade

Catch up

Right playing catch up with a few bits and pieces. Some things could be a little out of order. National Day provided us with a day off to celebrate a little bit of patriotism. This was apparently the second time they had made an attempt to celebrate the day with a couple of big events. They bought in overseas expertise to support the day. First up a big parade. A parade displaying a range of the service and military groups that are critical to Qatar. So there is a series of images from the parade rather than using words to describe the event.

Yep did it again

Yep did it again..small cultural stuff up!. We were working on producing some certificates and cards and there was a discussion around the correct convention for writing Arabic names. A quick lesson.. first name your name, second fathers, third grandfathers and last family name. No changing names through marriage. Anyway the discussion was about should we capitalize these cards so I asked if I could see Sabeeka’s national ID card to see if it was capitalized. She fudged and fumbled around looking for the card…then I clicked… her photo would show her face uncovered. I apologized profusely for being so insensitive and luckily Hussan came to the rescue with his.

Conveying History in the Modern World.

This cracked me up at first and then I started to wonder if history is being distorted by contemporary media. Our guide at both Gallipoli and Troy used our experience of movies to explain our history. So he would say things like… You know in the movie when Mel Gibson……. (and we would all nod knowingly) Another great one was when he was explaining the change of the geography with the creation of an alluvial plain around Troy and he said, You know when Brad Pitt jumps off his boat and runs up the beach right into Troy in the movie well that was before the river brought all the soil down and pushed the beach out.

I wonder if history will be distorted by this.

Farewell to Istanbul

Really enjoyed my time. I saw a lot in my short time here but am pretty certain there is a lot more to see. May have to come back again

Images of Gallipoli

A Turkish View

We remember Chunik Bear as a valiant effort. The Turkish remember it as a great victory. It was strange spending time on top of the hilltop with more Turks than Kiwis.

Tin Man starts to Rust

The trip to Gallipoli is in some respects a little like the Kiwi Hajj. A form of pilgrimage. This was my main reason for coming to Turkey. It was a highlight as it brought my understanding of history to life. I don’t think you quite get it until you have been there and physically seen the geography that they were on a hiding to nothing . The scale, literally of what they needed to overcome was sobering. We started at the beach and worked our way up the hills to Chunik Bear, the strategic hilltop. I learnt more of the history which I appreciated. While I don’t have a direct family connection to Gallipoli that I’m aware of I must admit it was an emotional experience.

TheTrip

The trip to the Gallipoli is a round trip of 700kms. We did it over two days with the second day visiting Troy. I’m met at 6am and our tour group consists of Aussie sand Kiwis. There was the young couple on a quick trip to celebrate varsity graduation, another young couple doing a big trip before getting married early next year. The middle age couple who had a week in Turkey before back to London then returning home after 4 years away. The Aussie family of four doing a major tour of Europe. Then last but not least little old me. My little cultural sensitivity radar was on high alert after the young kiwi woman said that they had been in Istanbul for two days and she was sick of hearing Turkish as they hadn’t spoken to any English people for two days… I wondered how our English speaking Turkish tour guide took that.. There was only one other major time during the entire trip where we let ourselves down as countries. It was later in the day, admittedly we were all pretty tired. We were heading up to Chanock Bear and stopped off at the Turkish memorial. Some of the group didn’t even get out of the van and a couple of others did a quick oncer around the site. Now our guides are Turkish, they lost over a million people during the war, they are an incredibly proud and patriotic people so I was feeling a little uncomfortable about the lack of respect some of the others were showing. I don’t think it was intentional. So I lingered a bit, last one back to the van. I picked up a few common names on some of the graves and guessed that the alay (sp)and tabir (sp) were equivalent to oum and abu in Arabic (mother of..father of..) So was able to have a conversation with our guide as to whether I had picked it. Part of this was interest for myself and a part was to show that we did care about their history as much as ours.

Went into the Topkapi (sp) palace. Wonderful set of buildings which were a major part of the Ottoman Empire. Wonderful exhibitions..83 carat diamond… a harem. What really took my fancy was the building in the back corner of the complex. It held a series of religious relics. Included in this were the swords of significant figures of Islam.. Mohammed’s and Abu Bakers were a couple. They even had pieces of Mohammed’s beard kept in containers. The oldest relic they had was Moses’ staff. It was funny walking through the exhibits and coming across such a relic. It wasn’t what I had expected . I think I expected something longer than a man as per the movies and imagery as opposed to the short walking stick it was.

Preparing for Prayer

On the outside wall of one of the large mosques in the middle of town the men clean themselves before praying. It isn’t a simple washing of hands. It appears to involve face, hands and feet. It is fascinating to watch this occurring right in the middle of the town with thousands of people milling around.

Karpali Carsi – the Grand Bazaar

If you can’t read the date on the door it says 1491 I think. This is a major tourist attraction with around 4000 shops trading in all sorts. It is probably just as exciting in the streets surrounding the bazaar. Their appear to be more locals trading here. The prices are better. Copyright is not part of the vocab with so much genuine imitation product. Great experience