Family vacation - something for everyone - Day 1 Istanbul

Our trips for the year are usually planned by end of January.. at least till Thanksgiving. The kids rarely commit for family trips. This year we planned a trip to Istanbul for Labor day. My college mates had done a mini reunion in Istanbul that I could not attend earlier. To make up for it, wanted to see the city with family. San has been going nuts watching Turkish soap operas since Covid and has also been craving a visit. I also wanted to see Kapadokya. The kids were not so keen. As an appeasement move we combined to different wish lists. Spend half the vacation in Turkey, and the other half in the Amalfi coast in Italy. Our friends had visited recently and gave the place rave reviews. The kids being interested in cuisine wanted to do this leg. Not that we had an issue.

After a lot of haggling, we planned the Turkey leg and they planned the Italy leg.

Original plan was to take the four remaining days of long weekend and go. Thanks to some flight timing changes between the time we booked and the actual trip, had to take the Friday off as well and go to the airport by Noon. Turkish airlines is excellent and we had a direct flight from SFO to Istanbul. The car ride to our hotel (an excellent place to stay in old town) called Carina Gold Hotel was a long one. We also ended up waiting 45 minutes to get our Taxi at the airport. By the time we reached the hotel we were tired. After some turkish tea, we decided to go sightseeing. This hotel is walking distance from most of the sights in old town area.

We were told by the hotel staff that the Grand Bazaar would be closed the next day.. so we were in luck to visit the bazaar for an hour and a half. The day also happened to be some special holiday in Istanbul, which explained the crowds everywhere and the traffic to reach the hotel.

My grad school buddy Sedat, who is now a professor in Gebsi in Istanbul was constantly in my mind. Had told the family so many stories of our time together that they wanted to meet him and his family. However we missed each other on the coms (we were both trekkies and would sit and watch Simpsons and Star Trek with our third buddy Indra, who is also a Professor). At that time I also wanted to be a professor, but my dream wavered. He must have got the hiccups when i was thinking of him. If I wasn’t the shops reminded me.

We saw shops as far as the eye could see, bought some stuff, took some cheesy pictures and were off to our next stop.

The grand Cistern. This underground water storage place with giant pillars had an audio visual show for 20 mintues. We enjoyed it thoroghly.

We saw this cat feeding station. You can pay and the cats get food! There were cats everywhere. The kids were happy. I was immediately concerned about allergies!

After that we went for a walk around the market in Sultanahmet mosque area. After some ice cream and window shopping we got a feel for the city. Then we went to find dinner at a rooftop restaurant. It was a lot of climbing to the fifth floor but worth it. They had vegetarian food. After a nice dinner we walked back to the hotel.

There were happy smiling faces so far. The next day was going to be a lot of sight seeing.

A video highlights reel..

will pick up the blog where this leaves off tomorrow..

Dew magic - Gray whale cove trail, Pacifica

We have hiked Gray whale cove trail once before. We were inexperienced hikers then, confusing bike paths with hiking trails and taking on steep slippery slopes without hiking shoes.

Decided to revisit the trail this weekend with some friends who are not part of our usual hiking group. There were no views. The place was completely foggy once we hit the cloud line. The skies cleared up only when we almost came down. Definitely recommend this as an afternoon hike if scenery is your thing.

That said, our hikes are all about the joking, giggling ladies, taking pictures of whatever comes our way and Chaifies when we reach the summit. This time we had Chai, cookies, pakoras… they all taste divine after hiking a few hours , standing in condensed dew and sweat on a windy summit. There were many bench photos..

The dew and condensed mist made magic. The flowers, the webs, buds.. I was just taking macro shots everytime we stopped. Here are the pictures..

A few other shots..

a short video clip of the foggy experience

Blogging can be fast if you keep at it.. editing photos and videos, uploading them and doing a write up used to be so fast for me.. after a three month gap, takes me longer.. like my yoga teachers say “if you don’t use it, you lose it”. Glad to be writing again.

This hike is tricky at places but strongly recommend with good hiking shoes, having all trails (still two members missed a cut off and kept walking) and taking the safer options. The two folks who kept talking and walked almost a mile ahead and turned back were made to stand up on the bench and do thoppikaranam for ummachchi. The offenders faces have been blocked out like in Indian news media so the blog audience cannot know who they are..

Now I have to be more careful on the trails and not get lost. As the person who is most likely to get lost, this new protocol might actually be bad for me!

Go try this hike! We have. never gone down the beach on the other side of the freeway yet. On our next attempt definitely plan to do that.

Fall creek state park

The plan for the long weekend was rest rest and more rest, with some yoga thrown in. However, the hiking group decided that the best recovery is to just get back on the trail when I have been declared to be able to breathe again normally.

If the wife says I am hike worthy.. then guess I am..

We left at 7AM to drive to Scotts valley / Felton area to Henry Cowell state park area. There is a Fall creek state park as part of this elaborate complex of parks.

We hiked the big ben tree trail, the lost empire trail and a few other trails. It was interesting. Four plus miles of downhill and an almost non stop climb back up. Not exactly a starter hike for a guy who has been wondering where all oxygen was going after it passed through his nose.

There were Zero benches on this trail. So no bench photos.. I did stop a lot to take pictures..

There was plenty of water in the creek and the waterfalls were amazing!

The trees, the berries, the banana slugs, it was an interesting hike.. and the mosquitos..

standing inside the hollow of a burnt out tree that still stands is an amazing experience. These trees are hundreds of years old!

After the hike we stopped on the way in Felton at Ambrosia to get some Indian buffet.. have not had a buffet lunch in a long time. There was a lot of stuff for non-veg folks. I did not get my money’s worth, but the food was great! The daal and naan were fantastic.

Here is a video highlights reel..

A few things about this hike. It is not 8 miles. It is closer to 10. So don’t believe the comments on websites. The hike is moderately hard at places. It was pleasant and a better me would have had a lot more fun. Finally, there is plenty to see on this trail and it is mostly shaded. No benches but plenty of amazing views and the creeks full of water added vibrant views.

We might visit other trails in this state park area soon!