TRIP TO HENGDIAN

Last week one of our classmates informed us about a group tour. She said there would be a sleepover tour and asked us if we want to go. I and my other Turkish pal in the class accepted to go that trip. We are third year students now and this time could be the last tour with our classmates before graduation. Moreover we have been invited for a picnic last year and not being able to attend due to some other reasons. So we already felt debted to all class. That is why we accepted to go, if there is not, we planed to head another place with my other friends for spending the weekend. The weather was great at the week and that was the second reason for us.

The girl who informed class about that trip said;

‘it may not be available any shopping area in the place, so get your own foods and even water if you can.’

There would be no food and even water, so we thought it will be an adventure trip, and we could spent the night in a tent on a hill and when the weather getting dark and cold we could light a fire in order to get warm. We went to shopping and bought a lot of food the day before travelling.

‘I don’t want to go hungry in a hardship place, so please be sure we don’t forget anything’ I said to my friend.

On Saturday morning, everybody gathered before dining hall. The bus was belong to school and had an old and battered looking. And what is worse, there was no seat for us when we got on the bus. Fortunately some kind friends gave their own seat to us. I sit by window but what hell was that, the windows let the freezing air in the bus, I was really about the freezing if we didn’t change the seats with my buddy. I noticed that most of Chinese classmates just had a small bag. At first I didn’t get why they don’t bring more food along but when we arrived I understand why they didn’t get food with them, coz you could find everything in there. Yeah we just bought the foods unnecessarily.

More Chinese friends were playing cards all the way. I tried to read book at first but unfortunately didn’t manage to read more than five pages, because in a such bus very hard to read something, so I decided to sleep. Actually I was really sleepy at that time, so when I got up, we already reached the destination. Chinese friends rised against the guide when she said you can eat your lunch at 11:00 am in the morning. It is actually not in the morning especially for Chineses, but they also didn’t want to eat at least before mid-day. But there was no way but go to eat, because if it was not eaten at that time, there would be no eating place until 16:30. So everybody went to eat halfheartedly.

After eating something, we set off to enter the closed area called Hengdian. Because a lot of Chinese movie are shot in that place. So it is known as Zhejiang Hengdian World Studios. Tickets have been bought before, so we just showed our ID cards and went into the place. And it was said to us the bus would be back four thirty. We went into it and began to walk around. In three hours, we almost saw the whole studio and took beautiful pictures. But there was no meaning to stay anymore. So we got out of the area and sit in the restaurant for the bus.

I asked the guide if there was any other place for visit, she said no. We set off such early just for visiting one place? That was really ridiculous. I was really angry but our main purpose was being with our classmates, not having lot of fun., so thanks God that consoled us.

We headed for hotel after having dinner. As soon as we reached hotel, I had a rest because of my headache tiredness and restlessness. There was Turkish and Spain football match in the small hours of the morning and we missed to watch it unfortunately. We got up 8 o’clock in the morning and went to another place. It was like an amusement park but like a simple one. Before arrived that park, there was a small lake and on that lake with a Chinese style medium-sized touristic ship, there were some small boats too. We parted from the group with some buddies and rented a rowing-boat. But the weather was very cold so it also not became so enjoyable. We reached the group when they were at park.. I was already boring and wanted to back as soon as possible. We walk around the park in less than two hours. There was no special there, excluding some Buddhist temples.

That was the last stop of the tour. It was the time to hit the road. That tour could be completed in only one day, we spent the night in the hotel in vain. Thanks God we would get back. now. One of the most enjoyable parts of the trip was the game we played in the bus when we were on the way. We imaged a great adventure indeed, but it happened totally different. It became a simple and boring group tour. But being with classmates is more importantly of course, so I do not regret it and never will.

SALE FOR LOVE

It’s been already more than one year that the earthquake occurred in Sichuan. I still remember the miserable and harsh condition of the people who live in there, listen the screams of people who stayed under the debris and couldn’t help it was really ominous. I don’t have an exact idea about casualties but after doing some research, I saw an enormous casualties. The earthquake took place last year, so the result I get is the net results. When we think the deads, injureds and missings together, we will face unfortunately with a huge amount.

Image a disaster that almost 69,227 people had died, 374,643 injured and 17,923 missed, you can see clearly how this disaster is a miserableness. Under these misery circumstance, almost all of countries tried to help to earthquake victims. And I felt honor to get information about the aid of Turkiye. when a disaster occurred in a place, diplomacy remain in the background and the humanity come to the forefront as it should be. So all of people and countries gave their helping hands and made donations for victims. I hope donations and aids could dress their wounds at least a tiny bit. Now it already passed more than one year from the occurance of quake, people who is involved in quake partly, and who is not involved in it totally forget it. I was in china when the earthquake took place. My family worried about me when they saw the newsbreak on tv. I generally don’t like to watch tv, so the day of the occurance of the quake I got a phone from my father, he asked me if I still alive, when a said
‘of course I am, what s up?’ he gave me the news of quake and said,
‘the news just said a huge quake took place in china and a lot of people took a knock, so I worried about you.’
‘ I am ok, don’t worry about me’ I said.
I got back to dorm for watching the news. Oh! It was really bad to see people who was under the debris. I knew if I live in Tukiye, it was probably influence me lesser but I live in China so I was influenced from that disaster so much. It seemed to me as if the quake took place in Turkiye. Regardless of their belief, race or background, I though I must give my helping hand to the victims. For this reason, my friend and I started to think some way for helping. Firstly we thought to donate an amount of money but it would not be a proper favor when we consider the calamity. So we tried to find another way. We might let other foreigners to join us, so we did it. We informed all of foreign students for donation. Finally we got more money than we thought but it also seemed not sufficient. We started to see about to make larger the amount. And one of friend found a way to get more money. He said we could trade with the money we have. We also didn’t know what kind of trade it would be, but as all we know trade is the best way to double up the capital on hand. Eventually we decided to hold a kermess, that was a great idea for making more money to donate. Yes it was a good idea because the most important feature of a kermess is that it usually hold in the open air in order to aid people, associations or organizations in need.

Firstly we got the green light from the foreign students’ office then rolled up our sleeves and set to work.. At first, we asked almost all of foreign friends for participating in this benevolent charity event. Most of them have joined us. We gathered all things we have; food, clothes, souvenir and drinks. Some of us cooked his cultural foods and desserts too. We also prepared some t-shirts and made to print ‘everything for Wenchuan’ on them. From the morning till afternoon, almost everything have been ready. We brought things to place where the kermess would take place. We began to sell at midday during the luch. Dinnertimes are so important to Chinese., they are punctual at dinnertimes just as at other things. So at the lunch time before dining hall became crowded. It was like a bazaar. So we began to call out students to buy something for earthquake victims. Chinese people of course felt more sorry than we foreigners. So when they saw us as tried to doing something for victims, they were appreciated and didn’t hesitated to give more money for the things that had less value. They gave 10 yuan for a small piece of cake or gave 200 yuan for a souvenir for instance. During the selling, some teachers also gave us back, their help made our work eaiser. When the time arrived to mid-afternoon, we already sold all of things we had. We didn’t expect to finish up the things in such a short time but thanks God we did it.

The end of day we turned 1000 yuan into 5000 yuan. That was a good job. Later on we gathered all of money and went to donation center all together. After delivering money by hand, we got back to dorm and our hearts were at ease because we gave a helping hand to earthquake victims as volunteers. The donation center gave us a plaquet in order to thank us. But I think we didn’t deserve that plaquet because the things we did should be done already. I still want to thank for kindness of Chinese people, and always try to pray for them. God forbid another such disaster again!

I have not seen the sun yet!

There is a new movie released in cinemas in these days named ‘I saw the sun’. it is shooted by a singer, Mahsun Kirmizigul. I have not seen that movie yet, but to tell the truth, its trailer affected me a lot. Although as I said before I have not seen that movie yet, but I already decided that this movie is a successful and great movie among the latest movies which produced in Turkiye. Of course the quality of movies is never understood clearly from by its own trailer. You can see a lot of seems perfect trailer before going to the movie, but when you face with movie in the cinema or on dvd, sometimes you really can think you were in the wrong because of your decision only on the trailer. So I am ready if I would been disappointed about that movie, but yeah I can’t predict about the movie before seeing but my sense says the movie deserves the compliments and praises. As far as I concerned and follow from the media, the people and experts who saw the sun are satisfied and they think Kirmizigul is a forethoughtful person and by that movie he reflected the Eastern’s problems on the screen properly. Even though there are a big majority of the people who are jealous of his success, Kirmizigul seems don’t care what such people think about him and he minds his own business. He actually dissatisfied from the sharp and bitter criticisms and thinks that such people too will accept his achievements in the near future. He is sure of himself and knows what he is doing, and I think his self-conscious will make him more successful director in the future.

Besides writer-director Kirmizigul, the film’s cast is really sufficient and veteran. It has been more than ten days that the movie started to release in Turkiye in addition to many countries and it already broke rating records in Turkiye. Millions of people rushed into cinemas in a week. That is a great success for a director who only made two films. That is an obvious sign of success of Kirmizigul.

I look forward to see the movie, I want to watch at once. I watched the trailer so many times before the movie released, now the movie is exhibiting in the cinemas but I cannot watch it because of the distance. L . I live in China and the movie is not showed here. I want to get the original version of the movie and it is probably that I would have to wait until next month. I hope I would find the movie’s DVD in China otherwise I could not watch the movie until next summer unless if I can get back to Turkiye at an earlier date. I found some Turkish films such as polis,kurtlar vadisi irak and beyzanin kadinlari in DVD shops, so it is my hope to find that movie too. Let’s hope.

Turkish Ground & Roasted Coffee

I still remember like yesterday when I first time went to a coffee shop with my father…I was still a kid who goes to primary school. I could not remember why we went out at that day, but so glad that we did. We were in Eminonu. My father suddenly ceased me while we about to get on the bus for go back to home and said;
‘let’s get some coffee’
‘coffee’ I said in surprise.
‘Yeah coffee, come on.!’
‘Okey’ I said. We were pretty exausted and it would be good for us to sit in a coffee house and sipping our coffee, furthermore, I have never drunk coffee with my father.
We set off for drink some coffee, at least I was thinking like that. But the result was nothing of the kind! All I could see was a crowd of people who try to buy something, yeah I figured out that they were trying to buy coffee after coming up to the crowd. Oh! A big coffee shop, so many salesgirls and salesboys were trying to answer the demands of the crowded. There are always big crowdeds in front of the small window of the shop, so you would face hustle and bustle of people for buying roasted coffee. Sellers always busy filling small brown packages of freshly roasted Turkish coffee.
Ground coffee is demanded like that really surprised me. There are a lot of coffee lovers in Turkiye. That is why there was a long queue.
‘Omg! Is this line made for getting some coffee?’ That was my thought about the queue, because I didn’t know the fascinating taste of coffee at that time. But smell of coffee was great, I was really touched from great smell of ground coffee. We had waited in line for a long time to buy . My father and I were the last people in line, I think it was worth to wait for it so we did it till our turn comes.

When we were in line, the sign of the shop attracted my attention. Kurukahveci Mehmet Efendi was the name of that shop, It means ‘ground and roasted coffee seller Mehmet Efendi’. I read biography of Mehmet Efendi later on. He is the first person who start roasting and grinding
Coffee in Turkiye. And as one of my blogger friend said, the first shop of him was founded in the heart of Eminonu. A great coffee smell spread around, and indeed this is one of the unique scents for a coffee lover, so just follow your nose if you are in Eminonu and near Tahmis sokak, I am sure you will find yourself in the coffee shop.
And now I think that was the why my father suddenly changed his mind and headed for scents of coffee. Here in China, It is very difficult to find Turkish coffee, so before came to here, I put several small coffee pouch in my baggage. I still use those packets, but I am afraid they are about to finish. When I was a child, my mother always made coffee for me and for my dad with milk, so it was so hard for me to drink plain coffee without milk but now I drink also plain black coffee, and more than that I now can cook myself… :-D
But drink in a coffee house in Turkiye or get your own coffee from Kurukahveci Mehmet Efendi shop instead of an ordinary market, make you feel better besides the enjoyable times when you sip your coffee from the small coffee cup named fincan in Turkish.
Today if I was in Turkiye, I would visit there at least once time every week, but unfortunately I don’t live in Turkiye now. I promised myself that I will visit Eminonu coffee shop if I get back to Turkiye this summer. Let’s hope for that.!

And I almost forget to say how you can make your own coffee in your home...You are welcome to try...hehe

How to make Turkish Coffee?

· Use one full coffee spoon of Turkish coffee per person
· Use one coffee cup full of water per person
· Use sugar as per your taste (half a dessert-spoon per cup recommended)
You start by adding and mixing the coffee, sugar and cold water into a coffee pot. Keep the stove at low until you see foam appear on top of the pot. Pour the foamy part of the coffee into the cup (special Turkish coffe cups recommended - called "fincan"). Then return the pot to the stove and bring the remaining coffee to a boil. Pour the boiling coffee over the cup all the way to the top. Your Turkish coffee is now ready to serve. Afiyet Olsun (Bon Appetite).

don't you like music?

I don’t know why I like music so much. I don’t know why I sometimes think I never could live without music. I admit that I am a music addict, I listen it everywhere, listen every chance I get.. And listen any kind of music as long as I like. I don’t mind if it is pop, jazz, rock, hip, hop, rap, classic folk music or gospel…As you see, I listen any kind of it.
And I don’t have any favorite singer, I just have favorite songs. There are some singers who has just one song that I like., the other songs just nothing for me.
I get a lot of songs from my online friends, a lot of great pieces of music. I listen regardless of the language, just rhythm is enough for me as a reason . I believe that the music has a universal language，yes music is the universal language. That is why we all listen some songs without getting even a word. But that is not mean that I don’t care the words, of course it is important for me to understand the words. When I get a music from a friend, I also don’t forget to ask for lyrics . Actually I have a software music program named kugou. You also can download from its own website, here http://www.kugou.com/ . I think you must download and try… It is pretty useful. You can see the lyrics on the screen while the song playing. It is like karaoke, so you also can turn off the voice and sing by following the lyrics. But I am afraid you could not find all of lyrics on that program. Coz for some songs you may face with a writing in Chinese as 没有找到歌词, It means ‘did not find the lyrics’. In such cases, you can find the words from the lyric websites just as I do.
I also try to memorize the lyrics as far as I can. I would like singing but I have a terrible voice more’s the pity. But I am still singing when I am alone. Not singing so much but listening is a good way to improve your skill for understanding the lyrics easily. Otherwise, able to understand the words needs a special effort.
I don’t know your music taste but I want to strongly recommend some good pieces of music that I like so much and listen usually. All songs you see below are already in my mp4. I listem them everyday. I hope you also love them like me… :-D

陈楚生 - 有没有人告诉你 –
徐誉滕 - 你不懂我
周传雄 - 蓝色土耳其
秋天不回来 王强
declan galbraith - tell me why
declan galbraith - angels
nothing's gonna change my love for you
katty perry - hot n cold
Michael Jakson-they dont care about us
bertie higgins - casablanca
blue - if you come back –
blue - guilty
scorpions - send me an angel
akon - ghetto
akon - right now na na na
brandy - everything i doi do it for you
v - ghetto gospel - pc – key
backstreet boys - drowning –
Aphrodite's Child - Rain and tears
Blero Cant You See
Craig David - Walking Away
Mariah carey - My All
usher - his mistakes
Toni Braxton-spanish guitar
Whitney Houston - I Will Always Love You (1)
Celine Dione - Titanic - My Heart Will Go On
fadl_shaker_-_fakerni_nseetak

be careful!

Today I really feel so terrible, because of that damn sickness…I caught a cold unfortunately. The freaking weather doesn’t make any sense. Jinhua is a small place when compared to Shanghai or some other big cities. One day is sunny, the next day is rainy, then the day after is foggy… It s because when you live here you can never guess how the weather will be tomorrow.
It is not only me, but also a lot of people around me suffer from the same sickness. It is like a virus that surrounds us and our bodies. I don’t know what should I do? Should I have a rest? Or maybe take some medicine or go to see a doctor…what should I do?
Frankly, I don’t like to oversleep, but resting for a short while is not enough for me. So after sleeping a while I got up and started to tidy up the room.. Oh what a mess that we have left last night. It has taken me an age to tidy up the room.. I hate being messy and I don’t know how we left the room like this. Anyway, the room is clean now…hehe
Although I am still snuffling, there are tons of tissues around me…My friend gave me some Chinese medicine but yeah I am afraid I still can’t recover yet! It doesn’t work at all… Furthermore I am still have an awful cough…ew.!
I didn’t attend class today and I don’t feel like doing anything…I just want to do nothing but thinking empty thoughts while listening to some slow music that I like…It may help to be recovered from my situation…If I get into a good mood, I believe I will get better in a shorter time. Please pray for me! And Let me know if you have any useful advice for me…