28/12/2023
Comfortable weather. We were leaving to Istanbul Airport.
Plenty of neat looking Turkish Airlines counters. Thousand and one ppl online commented that the crews were not helpful, rude sometimes, but so far (till the end of our trip), every crew in any sector were nice to us. What happened to the others?? Lolxx...
Nothing much in the Food Court, mainly fast food.
Here for breakfast.
Damage: 365TL, the cheese pastry was nice.
No stomach space liao.
Turkiye is a Muslim country, they use Xmas decor as New Year decor.
Not bad, got travellator but didn't use it cos our boarding gate was right in front of us.
For once, our boarding gate was in front of the escalator we came up, didn't need to walk a mile.
I know doggies can board planes, but was our first time to have one going up the same plane together with us. I was secretly hoping it sat beside me, but didn't know where it went after boarding.
Went in the bag and it was ready to board.
Hate ground boarding but took the opportunity to take a couple of nice close up pics of the plane with the sun rise.
Boeing 737.
Small plane with 3-3 configuration.
Nice plane actually, more than enough for domestic flights.
Safety video in cute cartoon.
Love aviation information screen.
Drinks and warm chicken sandwiched was served, it was very nice for a one hour flight, absolutely appreciate it.
The flight flew low throughout and I was very lucky to had a window seat to enjoy the view of beautiful Turkiye.
Landing! I was very excited, heehee...
Izmir Adnan Menderes Airport, wheeeeeeeee......
We took a cab from the airport, our hotel was about 10mins drive away.
Big and pretty: Svalinn Hotel.
We stayed one night in this hotel, it was about S$175. It was the most comfortable accommodation but hubby hated it cos the service was slow when he requested to check on the warmer which turned on automatically. And that we were given a corner room and wifi was really bad.
This room was 45sqm very huge, heehee...
There wasn't any information counter, the mall was super pretty I almost didn't want to leave. I couldn't believe it but at the end we took a cab, haiz...
Alright, this was it. Konak Square with a re-build clock tower.
The original clock tower was build in 1901, destroyed by 2 earthquakes and in between the clock was stolen, took some time to hunt it back and it was restored only in 2019.
Lady selling pigeon food.
The clock tower wasn't too interesting to me, but the coast line was.
Even the cat enjoyed the breeze and scenery.
We walked through Kemeraltı Bazaar to the Agora. It was very very, extremely distracting. Things were so much cheaper than Grand Bazaar in Istanbul.
We reached, only to realize that we were at the back side of the Agora, walked a big round to get to the main entrance, our poor legs...
By this time I was feeling too warm and had to take off my cardigan.
Cut and paste information from google:
The Agora of Smyrna, alternatively known as the Agora of İzmir, is an ancient Roman agora located in Smyrna. Originally built by the Greeks in the 4th century BC, the agora was ruined by an earthquake in 178 AD. Roman Emperor Marcus Aurelius ordered its reconstruction. Excavations started in 1933.
How they construct these arches? How?
Every corner of Izmir was beautiful, amazing country.
The sky was blue and sun was warm.
By the way I saw partial blue sky in Singapore (during work). It was nice at a glance, at one glance. Then almost instantly I thought it better revert back to cloudy grey, cos it was so scotching hot that cooking could be done under the sky without a stove.
Some very distinctive carvings.
I have been feeling very down, looking at these photos doing this blog makes me happier. I have a day surgery waiting for me and at the same time, my baby sis needs a more serious operation... suddenly something is not too right.. I will deal with it... anyways...
back to The Agora of Izmir.
Kittens pics, they were very tiny, too cute...
The set consist of tea, soup with bread, main with salad + noodles + chicken.
We exited the bazaar and was back to Konak Square.
Clock tower looked different at night.
Mini mosque build since 1745, I think can only house at the most 20pax at a time lolxx.. so cute.
We remembered there's a taxi stand, we found it and to our ultimate shock, it was closed. You hear me right, the taxi stand was closed! Where on earth will a taxi be closed??!!?? It was around 8pm, we were stuck. My genius old man decided to walk back through the bazaar, to the main road where the Agora was.
My legs disowned me but for sure the main had plenty of taxi. Back to the hotel in one tired piece lolxx...
The next day was a day tour to world famous historical site: EPHESUS.
