This post is dedicated to the people of Turkey. Thank you for taking care of me and my mum when we were there a couple of years ago. It is unfortunate that the capital city of Turkey, Ankara suffered a gruesome attack last week. Giving into fear is exactly what these monsters want us to do. They want us to live in fear, and triumph us over a psychological battle.
But they will not get that from me :)
Spoiler and warning: THERE WILL BE LOTS OF FLOWERS IN THIS POST. LOTS.
For my other posts about Turkey
For other posts about the International Tulips Festival by The Istanbul Insider
My euro trip with mum was initiated by photos from Fresh's Istanbul trip. I knew mum's favourite flower was tulip, so I showed mum some photos of her trip and she literally dropped everything from her hands, looked at me and said, "That's my dream".
There's a long story of why we wanted to realize all my mum's dreams. The fact that she's much older now, she had gone through some major stress a couple of years back, are few of the reasons. So I said, let's do it, let's go to Istanbul.
1.5 months later we're off to Europe.
International Tulips Festival 2016 (every April)
I've googled around to see whether the International Tulips Festival in Istanbul has any actual event of singing or dancing, or some sort of ceremony to initiate the Tulips Festival ....... but they don't It's just a celebration of these ridiculously beautiful (the colours are so vivid, almost fake like!) flower in one of the biggest parks in Turkey.
Free time to walk around all by ourselves?
SOUNDS LIKE AWESOME!
We took the bus from Sultanahmet (big city where the Hagia Sofia is) to Emirgan Park. It was quite dramatic, because it rained so heavily with thunderstorms and I swear to God, it seemed like the rain was so big, and heavy and everything was just wet. Including mum and I.
Let's just say, getting there wasn't one of our best experience.
We didn't bring umbrellas... so when mum saw a guy selling umbrellas for Lira 20. She just grabbed it and go. We were desperate.
To add more salt and pepper to our trip to Emirgan Park, when we asked the locals around where is it exactly, they told us it is about 40 minutes away from where the bus driver stopped us and told us.
RIGHT.
So we took the cab, all wet, frustrated and tired at 11am in the morning and then..........
I did warned you there were gonna be lots of flowers........
We were so blown away at the HUGE, COLORFUL AND SUPER VIVID show of tulips at Emirgan Park, we forgot every other thing that hindered us from coming just now. I had secretly hugged one or two of the Tulips because they were so unreal (you know, cause we don't have tulips in Malaysia, and even if we do... nothing can defeat the display like this!)
It was so beautiful............... T______T
That was that one day that I selfied so much with the tulips that I think I got a headache at one point from doing so. It was so breathtaking.
And the designs, and the layouts of each of the sections.......
Never underestimate the peace of walking in a park, at a cool and windy morning overlooking hundreds possibly thousands of colorful bulbs making shapes and signs as far as the eyes can see. The serene of listening to birds going by their day so chirpily, the soft voices and whispers by other patrons, and the little stomps, giggles and laughter by amicable kids and worn out mums from chasing them around. Where leaves whistles and trees listen. Where odd shaped (and coloured) bugs move ever so slowly.. That unexplained, rare, simple joy of just seating by the bench, looking and hearing the time passes by right by your eyes.
This is happiness.
Begins my plethora of Selfie..... I can't help it, they're so nice! I don't know why some of my photos are so blurry..........
I found another beautiful flower while walking around the park.. I didn't pick this one out, it was already on the ground so I took a photo of it.
And just wanted to remember that dreamy, walk in the park at Emirgan Park.
Love,
Jacqueline Rowena @ Jacqkie.
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