Life in Turkey

Family life in Izmir, the Aegean coast, Istanbul and other places we love in Turkey

What makes you overhungry?

Rhythm Life in Turkey,
Montalut Daily Rhythm

For the first time ever she was not happy to see us. She’d already bargained for another night at the beach with her Aunt and we said yes. We dropped by to see her just the same, and she didn’t even want to go near us for fear we’d take her home! 🤸‍♀️

The local beach culture here in Turkey is very different from the PH. The water is only warm in the summer, so beach towns get packed in June-July-August. Young and old (it’s normal to be past 70 in a bikini here, yay!) brave the midday sun complete with their beach gear: foldable chairs and tables, towels, mats and coolers. Often they live in the city and stay in their summer houses at the beach three months a year.

The summer house culture concentrates summer energy into three months. Maybe for seasoned locals, it’s just how life is–activities change every season, and it’s actually a beautiful thing. Our daughter, on the other hand, has been beach-hungry since we moved to Turkey. Swimming was an everyday activity in the tropics, so she gets overeager or “gigil” for any moment to swim.

💙 On Blue Day, do a mental check of what you’re overeager for. What do you crave so much that you’ll pack tons of it, maybe even hoard it? What can you do to release that hunger, to tune into what is, what changes, and flow with what comes, as it comes?

Istanbul from Up High

Life in Turkey

🔥Hot tip: Don’t leave İstanbul without visiting a rooftop bar! Really loved the peace and quiet here, and of course that amazing view 🤩

Weekend vibe on Bağdat Street

Life in Turkey

🛳 Back to the Asian aka Anatolian side of İstanbul, and enjoyed the weekend vibe on Bağdat Street. I had to ask Koray if there was a football match or concert going on because the street was so busy and alive, but he said it’s just another Saturday afternoon on Bağdat. It was really nice to see residents enjoying their neighborhood.🏘

Istanbul road trip!🚗

Life in Turkey

Business meetings + slow travel + big city recharge + family time = fantabulous first trip with Sulana in the city of transformation 🕌

Istanbul is a beautiful city with such a rich history–it’s over 3,700 years old!

✅️ From Izmir we drove over 400km of highway in 4 hours, including 1.5 hrs of traffic in the greater Istanbul area. It’s about 100km longer than Manila to Daet (Bicol) and Koray says when he was a kid this trip was also about 8 to 10 hours. Amazing they cut travel time to less than half today. Hoping PH can catch up and do the same.

✅️ It’s a hilly city! ⛰️ Much like San Francisco, walking around İstanbul will definitely up anyone’s fitness level. Izmir is mostly flat and very organized, with reliable public transportation from end to end (about 250km). İstanbul is a different story…more rowdy and chaotic, difficult parking, drivers are hotheads that honk at you for being slow (parallel parking here is on ninja levels), and cab drivers are a mix of really nice to really shady.

✅️ On the upside, Su got to ride the subway for the first time and enjoyed it so much that on her second try said, “Can we pretend it’s my first time on the subway again?”

✅️ The drive home was a different story, because Koray wanted the scenic route along the coast of Çanakkale. We were almost 12 hours on the road with slow driving and pit stops, including a short walk around the old city of Troy, which deserves a proper revisit.

We weren’t in a hurry to visit everything (we knew we’d be back), so we just took in the city slowly.

Non-touristy Highlights for me:

🚶‍♂️walking around local neighborhoods, shops and malls AND being able to chat up people in English (yay!)
🍪getting our fill of non-Turkish foods and flavors including superfudgey brownies and cookies
🌉driving around the Bosphorus road at night
🇵🇭 visiting the PH consulate and talking in Filipino again
🏙 visiting the Anatolian side and seeing the street come alive with residents just enjoying their neighborhood on a Saturday afternoon
😎 just vibing with the city and its super friendly people, who are extra nice to children (Turkey is really known to be children-friendly)

Su got her wish and was in the Philippines for her birthday! 🥳

Life in Turkey

Thank you to our wonderful Philippine diplomats at the Consulate in İstanbul, Rachel and MJ, who were so gracious and generous with their stories and Pinoy hospitality. It was great to be back “home” even for a few hours, and with pabaon dried mangoes 🥭 Special thanks, too, to Tita Rap who connected us with Consul Rachel. 🙏

Bonus#2 was seeing the İstanbul bridge in Philippine colors as we drove around the Bosphorus last night. Super heartwarming (nakakatuwang yakap!) to see our two home countries shake hands this way.

🇵🇭 Happy Independence Day, Philippines!

#PH125Istanbul

Legit burgers, brisket, and milk tea in Istanbul

Life in Turkey

Multiple cravings satisfied, yay!

On our agenda in Istanbul was to taste the flavors we missed from back home, and so far so good 🍔🌯

We had to walk half a km in hilly neighborhoods for our milk tea hunt, and pasado!! It’s no Tiger Sugar, but after 9 months, we finally get our proper milk tea fix.🧋😂

Beautiful purple plants! Milk Thistle & Germander

Life in Turkey Farming and Gardening

Beautiful purple plants! And one of them is the milk thistle, which I thought was a prized plant tended in a garden…turns out it’s a widespread wild flower, even covering full hillsides.⛰️ If you’re wondering why it sounds familiar, it’s a key ingredient for supplements for nursing moms–so it’s a superfood growing so abundantly here for free. It’s also been used for liver, kidney and gallbladder diseases. Wow 🤩

The other purple shrub is the shrubby germander, a silvery-gray member of the mint family popular in landscaping home gardens. We thought it was lavender at first, but the aroma is very faint. Bees looooove them 🐝💜

Nature walk by the seaside
April 2023

Iyi Bayramlar from our family to yours ✨️🙏

Life in Turkey, ,

Ramazan bayrami is the first of two Bayrams celebrated every year, and it marks the end of the thirty days of fasting during Ramazan. Kurban bayrami or the Feast of Sacrifice comes two months later, where families sacrifice a lamb to share 1/3 of the meat with neighbors and family, 1/3 with those in need and the remaining third to eat for themselves.

It’s amazing to be in Turkey 🇹🇷 to experience the month-long fast (I was just a spectator–it was Koray who fasted from sunrise to sunset), the special iftar dinners every night with the prayers and mezze traditions, and now an open house on Bayram day itself to welcome visiting family and friends. Amidst all this came our first experience of Spring (and all the sheep! I’m an uber fan of sheep now), and two other Holy Weeks: Easter and Orthodox Easter. We were even able to squeeze in two visits to Mary’s house in Ephesus to offer prayers and petitions.🙏

Today, everyone is dressed up, chocolates and Turkish coffee ready to serve to guests and the house is given an extra special Spring cleaning to welcome the new season. Yesterday, groceries and malls were swarming with crowds and families buying gifts, sweets, and new dresses for Bayram, and even the line at the carwash was crazy! Traffic in downtown Izmir was at a standstill as offices closed at midday and the roads were packed with people flocking to the coastal towns to spend the holiday in their summer houses. Altogether it feels like a mix of Christmas and Holy Week in one, complete with the feasts, pamasko, reunions, visits, and holiday fever. Truly thankful we’re able to experience this with our Turkish family, and sending everyone lots of clarity, holy energy and joy. 🙌