I celebrated my first day of Raya in Istanbul. Yeah, tick off another list in my bucket lists. To be honest, Turkey was never in my plan before 2014 because well, I never knew someone who had visited Turkey until I watched Fazura in Manisnya Cinta di Cappadocia. Not even Lisa Surihani in Istanbul Aku Datang could pique my interest to visit Turkey. Nope.
Later in the year 2015, I learned about a Muslim warrior who conquered Constantinople from Byzantine named Sultan Mehmet al Fatih. Whenever I read about the history of Ottoman Empire, I always stumbled upon Constantinople but only in 2015 did I knew that Constantinople is now known as Istanbul.
In 2016, my little sister went to further her studies in Istanbul. I used this opportunity to plan my trip to the city and decided it would be great if I get to celebrate my Eid in Istanbul. After a careful planning and changing the itinerary every single day, I finally landed in Istanbul on Raya morning. Goodbye rendang and my Mak Long's kuah kacang. Will miss you dearly and here is how my FINDING FATIH JOURNEY started.
As soon as I landed in Istanbul, the first thing I did was finding the metro station. From the exit door, you will see Metro signboard on your left side and it will lead you to the lower ground. Bear in mind, you have to buy Istanbul card (Istanbulkart) which is just like our Touch n Go. #tip, if you see a stall selling Istanbulkart at the airport, just buy it cause I didn't and that was my biggest regret of the day. (More regrets later, just keep reading.) I knew I could buy Istanbulkart from the machine but a man who helped me buying the ticket bought 1 way ticket for me which cost me about TL 4 instead of TL2.50 if I use the Istanbulkart.
My first destination would be my sister's school which is located somewhere in Umraniye, Istanbul (Never heard of it? Yeah, me too. Just imagine going to Section 2, Shah Alam from KLIA). So from the airport, I have to take the metro to Yenikapi and then change the train to Uskudar. Here was when this story became interesting.
Most of Turkish do not know how to speak English. At Uskudar Station, only 1 out of 6 security guards could point me how to go to Umraniye. I was told to take Bus No 52B which is supposed to depart from Point 1. But no, no signboard to show me where Point 1 is located at. All I saw were signboards Point 3 and 4. After 10 minutes walking here and there looking for Point 1, I gave up and decided to use my offline Google Translate. So I asked a nice looking man (who looks like he's a nice man, not a scammer) and typed "Do you speak English?" Though he didn't know how to speak English, luckily his friend did. God led me to the correct man. Alhamdulillah.
I told them I didn't have Istanbulkart and asked them where can I get one cause as far as I know you cannot ride the bus without it. He told me there was no stall/machine selling it there. What??? Then he added that I could ride the bus with them and he would give me his card since he is serving the army so he doesn't need one. Not only he gave me his card, but he also reloaded the card with TL10. I wanted to repay him but he sincerely turned it down. Wow so nice aaa, but why was he being so nice to me, a complete stranger? That got me so suspicious but I knew I had to choose either to stuck at the station or follow him and I chose the latter. (I urge you girls, don't follow my footstep. I was lucky this time, but next time?)
Later on we introduced ourselves and we even became Facebook friends. Batuhan indeed is a nice guy. He told me that he was very exhausted from his trainings in the army. Since he is from Samsun, he's not very familiar with Uskudar/Umraniye. Even though we had to change buses a few times plus a missed bus, at the end he safely sent me to my sister's school. I was grateful I met a nice guy like him in the middle of Uskudar where anything could happen to a solo female tourist like me. I hope God would repay him in any way I couldn't. Hope he would enjoy the Maggi cup I have him because that's the only thing from Malaysia I could give him. That or the baju kurung my mom sent to my sister. Aherher.
