This weekend I was in Bulgaria due to my 1 year anniversary with my girlfriend, who’s from Bulgaria. We went to a mountain resort, which is cheaper than Sofia (in the low season). On the day we arrived everything was green, but this Saturday the world turned white. I love it. I notice I feel quite at home in Bulgaria, and especially Sofia.
Will write more about my stay there in the days to come. Have to find my way back to Istanbul in this snowy mess. You can stay up to date by following my Twitter feed, or subscribe to this blog by RSS or email.
I’m hoping for some nice snow in Istanbul this winter. Has it snowed where you are yet? Will it at all?
A typical shot of a street on the Asian side of Istanbul in Kadıköy, where I live. I didn’t want to feature this picture until I realized that this very every day scene for me might not be so ‘every day’ for the my many visitors from around the world. Click on the picture or here to get a larger and higher quality version of the photograph. In Holland we have a huge debate about the towers of the mosques, called minarets, spoiling the way the street/neighbourhood looks.
What do you think, would one (or a few) of these towers spoil the sight of your neighbourhood? Why (not)?
If you’re not yet subscribed to updates from this blog and you’d like to be, do so now either by RSS or through email updates. If you have any questions about Istanbul, about me, anything else, or you’d just like to tell me how your day was, do not hesitate to email me at .
Taken in a touristy shop along Istanbul’s famous Istiklal Caddesi (Independence Avenue), this photo features the famous Turkish glass mosaic lamps. I’m not sure about the origins of them, whether they’re Middle Eastern, Central Asian or from other regions or just from Turkey, but they’re undeniably associated with Turkey. Every one of them is very unique and very beautiful and they make a great object for photography, don’t you think?
I see there are quite a bit of mosaic lamps on Amazon, what lamps do you prefer? The mosaic lamps there or the ones above? Though the ones on Amazon are true works of art, I prefer the more exotic ones.
Can anyone tell me more about the origins of these lamps? Can anyone tell me how to take these lamps on a long busride or airflight without breaking them?
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The following shot was taken at a big bazaar that’s held every Tuesday and Friday in Istanbul’s Kadıköy area, which is on the Asian side of the Bosphorus. You can find food like fruit, vegetables, spices, nuts and grape leaves there, but also clothes such as the headdresses below. I was walking around there with a blond girl and boy, do you draw attention if you’re a young, blond, European woman in Istanbul. People were yelling out “Obama, Obama”, “hoş geldiniz” (welcome), “hello!” and “buyrun” (come in please/come here).
I apologize for the recent lack of updates. I had a friend from Holland visiting me here, but will now resume my posting about life in Istanbul.
I plan on posting a lot more pictures and short stories like this one in the coming time, so if you’re not yet subscribed to updates from this blog, do so now either by RSS or through email updates.
Just before dawn, Istanbul’s fishermen get in their boats and move onto the Bosphorus or the Marmara sea. If you walk or sit along the coastline, you can hear them talking or listening to music. A great place to visit in Istanbul, if you want to sit along the coast, is Kadıköy, which is also where this picture was taken. Inspired by the work of Michael Kenna.
Today’s my girlfriend’s birthday. Look what I made for her! Since I live in Istanbul, and she lives in Sofia, Bulgaria, and we couldn’t be together for her birthday, I still wanted to make something special. So I gathered up some friends and acquaintances at my university and made this!
There’s many nationalities in there also… Italian, Dutch, Romanian, American, Turkish, Canadian, Greek, German and Czech. I thanked them for their help afterwards.
Hope you all like it as much as my girlfriend did. A little bit less is also okay also.
As said in the previous posts, I live very close to the sea. The first evening that I was in my apartment, I got a bit bored and went to walk around a bit. I found a gorgeous sun setting in the sea. Check out the video below… It’s really soothing, relaxing, meditative.
Sorry for the crooked horizon… see it as artistic expression.
A few years ago I was walking through my hometown Utrecht in The Netherlands quite bored, but I had to kill some time. For some reason while I was walking I looked up and suddenly found myself marvelling at a beauty I had never noticed before. I believe a lot of things in our surrounding go completely unnoticed, because we don’t look up much. That’s why I’d like to encourage you all to LOOK UP MORE!
Every Monday I will post a photo or two of shots I took while looking up. This is the first installment with some shots from Istanbul, Turkey.
The last one is a shot by my girlfriend Tsvety (visit her DeviantArt page) and was taken in Ephesus, Anatolia, Turkey. It contains the Library of Celsus, completed in 135 AD.
If you would like to participate, just post a pic every monday taken from an upward angle and post your link below! For this week don’t worry if your post is a day late. Just post your link and visit the others.
“One hour's meditation on the work of the Creator is better than seventy years of prayer.” - Muhammad
About Me
I'm Bas, 24, an International Comm. Management student from The Netherlands. Since the summer of 2007 I've lived in Sofia, Bulgaria, for a total of one year and Istanbul, Turkey for half a year. I'm currently back at home in The Netherlands. I write about the future of music, living abroad, traveling, all things 2.0, the future, and a little activism. I love photography and making videos, so my posts are often accompanied by those media. More on me? Check out my social media profiles:
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, what lamps do you prefer? The mosaic lamps there or the ones above? Though the ones on Amazon are true works of art, I prefer the more exotic ones.
