I wonder if I will get to see the opening of the Olympics today? Tokyo 2021 (Est.2020) starts today.

I had a great night sleep, the other way around compared to Cappadocia - bloody freezing this morning under just a sheet with the A/C on. Woke up in a the blue light district… when you turn the lights on they turn on blue and then you have to turn them off and on again to get the normal colour - very bizzare.
Breakfast on the terrace over looking most of Istanbul the sea and the neighbouring islands, very relaxed. Good spread delicious breakfast oat mix, wasn’t sure why people would want want Turkish delight for breakfast mind you.

Going to chill this morning and go out for the walking tour this afternoon and then try to get into the blue mosque later in between pray time.

More lessons this morning, Istanbul had a population of 15 million but they expect that to be 20 million now because of refugees over the last few years.
It used to be the capital city of the country and through that had two empires reign, the Romans for thousand and the ottoman reign for 600 years before being taken over by the brits for two or so years and a few others in between before some Mohammed guy after the world war 1 and claiming independence to the country Turkey and so that’s the reason why only 5% of the country is now classed as Europe (part of Istanbul) and the rest of the country is asia.
Istanbul is 185KM in distance and has 3000 mosques!! What the hell. I thought I seen a lot of mosques!

The Romans built the city up with palaces and hippodromes where they would race their horses in it by cart.
When the Ottoman Empire overruled they knocked down the churches and built mosques or turned them into mosques by taking the crosses down and defacing or plastering over the murals.

Three seas surround Istanbul/Turkey, the Black Sea, Sea of Marmara in the middle and the Aegean Sea. Two major bays flow through Istanbul that allow for shipping between the seas and countries (Asia and Europe).

Turns out Turkey has lots of famous history spots, Noah’s arch stopped in one of the mountains near to the east and Jesus mother Mary spent her last years in the country on the west coast (I think a place beginning with E?)
So much history here I can’t take it all inN these guides must study it for so long!

I also learnt that about the Minarets on a mosque. 1 minaret means that the community/people built it, 2 means that it was built by royalty, 4 Minarets means that the sultan built it. When they built the blue mosque they built 6 so they had to add more in Mecca, the most religious place for Muslims.

We walked through the gardens and passed the Topkapi palace, the Turkish restaurant street where they had their delicacy lamb intestine roll. Absolutely disgusting!!
Then the spice market, lots of corn on the cob stalls that remind me of Ellie haha, she gets so excited about food let alone corn on the cob stalls we saw and ate from in Bali! Haha.

I’m going to have to come back to Istanbul, heck Turkey because the blue mosque was closed for restoration and there are lots of other places to see in Turkey!

This evening in my way out for food (a bagel from the market cart) I was called an a****** (HAHA) the guy who I didn’t want to go for a drink with. To which I replied “no, I’m just not stupid” smiled, shrugged me shoulders and walked swiftly. Bloody idiot lol. At least it stopped him bothering me!