happy together

more from the open-air museum and fairy chimnies1

Photo 1 - here I go walking into a chapel!!

Photo 2 - now inside a chapel. Look closely and you can see a cross engraved on a wall behind me

Photo 3 - still in the open air museum taking breaks between chapel visits

Photo 4 - here we are walking to the open-air museum and we came across all these people who took people on horses around Kapadokya

Photo 5 - Just incredible these rock formations arent they!!!

magical day in Kapadokya

Photo 1 - This is a Erik tree. These small sour plums that are all the rage in Turkey right now. Here we are on a hike through a valley and we came across many of these Erik trees and of course we went crazy!

Photo 2 - very happy about the Erik trees :)

Photo 3 - Here Aysegul stands proud in front of maybe the most famous of the fairy chiminies. These fairy chiminies appeared on the back of the 50 Lira note before they changed it recently. About the fairy chiminies I should mention a bit on how this incredible unique landscape was created. There was a volcanic eruption that created this wonder of the world - The Turkish Grand Canyon as it were - and combined with the wind and other weather conditions created these incredible fairy chiminies. Everywhere we went in Kapadokya felt like being inside a fairy tale. All magical and peaceful. With the fairy chiminies (called that way because they resemble something out of a fairy tale) and the soft rocks resembling mountains of ice cream and whip cream and fudge everywhere, and the cave dwellings everywhere the eye can see, we felt like we were the Flinstones living in Smurf-ville. Or as Aysegul continually put it, we were living inside a Lord of the Rings story and we should see Hobbits running around everywhere.

Photo 4 - This i believe is the famous `Camel humps fairy chimney` as the magical rocks resemble this. There are other famous chimneys such as `couple dancing`, `ducks` and many others i am sure. On our tour we were free to name any chimney we wished:)

Photo 5 - all happy in front of the camel fairy chimney

and now photos from our all-day Kapadokya tour with all those other Canadians

These photos are from the all-day tour we did on the Saturday we were in Kapadokya. And Aysegul was the only non-Canadian in the tour! Our tour bus consisted of Levent the Turkish tour guide, two Canadians from Calgary, two more from Quebec, and Mr. Kopalak from Toronto. Aysegul was the Yabanci (foreigner) in the group :)

Photo 1 - this is in this huge pottery place we went to and I tried to make pottery. This place had such beautiful pottery

Photo 2 - after the long day tour relaxing with tour friends in the cafe

Photo 3 - there is the whole group except mr. Kopalak. Here we are on an a beautiful hike into a valley full of more caves like the one you see, and actually a lot of vegetation and some Erik trees - sour plums that are so popular here! We picked lots of Erik :)

Photo 4 - here is Aysegul and all her new Canadian friends in a cave restuarant in a town called Avanos. Yes thats right - a cave restaurant. We were living life as Flinstones characters the whole time. Here we had a local delicacy - pottery doner - a sort of stew that is cooked inside a pottery pot and then they bring it to the table and break the neck of the pot and pour the hot steaming meat onto your plate. Yumm

Photo 5 - here we are after touring the underground city. This was a hiding place for Christians long long long time ago to escape invaders. They lived here for long periods of time and in the caves you can see the kitchen and living areas and where they stored the food. In fact many caves were used to store and refrigerate food for long periods of time. Perfectly cool and protected.

Kopalak in the heart of Cappadocia

photos from Uçhisar on our all-day tour and more of the open air museum and a special shadow photo where we created fairy chiminies of our own:)

making our way to the open air museum - seeing trees made of both pottery and kleenexes!!

kapadokya open air museum

kopalak and aysegul in kapadokya!!!!!

How to hear Kopalak on the Radio!!

Ok folks here ıs how you can lısten to the radıo show that I was on last Thursday

Clıck on lınk below

http://audio.roassets.net/modernsabahlar/modernsabahlar_040609.mp3

Thıs ıs a podcast from the radıo statıon RADYO ODTU. You wıll see a lıttle player wıth pause and play buttons ın the mıddle of your screen. The rest of the screen should be blank.

There should be a cırcle next to the pause/play button. If you take the mouse on thıs cırcle you should be able to move ıt left and rıght. If you move ıt all the way to the rıght you get to the end of the show. My bıt of readıng the chıldren's story ıs at the very end of the show - about the last fıfteen mınutes. So move the cırcle to about a centımetre from the end of the lıne and that should be around where I start. Hopefully you wıll be able to hear ıt!! Its all ın Turkısh but you can recognıze my voıce poppıng ın there between the commentary :)))

Enjoy :)

and now even more from Kopalak's magic morning at Radyo Odtü

Enjoy!!!!