Above: My family and my Uncle Soner's family pose for a picture on the balcony of our resort room in front of the scenery. From left to right: Aunt Nermin, my dad, my mom, me, Uncle Soner, and Onur.
My family stayed there with Uncle Soner and Aunt Nermin. Their son, Yiğit (who is now in college), also came. Bodrum has a great beach right in the Ege Sea. I really enjoyed swimming there. The water wasn't too overheated, nor too cold, and there wasn't any waves. This was because the beach was in an mostly enclosed area, so most waves didn't get through. However, there was occasionally a few waves made by boats passing by, but they ended quickly.
The resort we stayed in was called Hilton Bodrum Türkbükü. I decided to give it a review here. I will divide it into five sections: food, beach, pools and water slides, activities and entertainment, and hotel rooms and the look of the place.
My overall rating for the place is 4.7 out of 5 stars.
Above: All of use sitting down at a restaurant in the resort.
First of all, the food was pretty good. They had ice cream everyday at the buffet, as well as tasty Turkish food. Not only was there Turkish food, but also food I am used to eating all the time, like spaghetti, pizza, and burgers. They had plenty of Turkish deserts.
Above: A photo of some of the water at the beach.
In my opinion, the beach was my favorite thing there. It was great to swim in, and there were many decks that I swam across to. I noticed that after swimming to a small hut that looked abandoned, that it was actually a massage center. We swam back to it a few times, but it was always empty and looked like it was in the same exact condition as before, with the same water bottles and towels lying around in the same place day after day. I really think someone should look after this place. Since if anyone orders a massage, I do not think they would want to have it in a dirty place like that!
Above: A photo I took from the balcony there. It shows the overall view of the pools and water slides.
The pools were actually a lot bigger than I expected. I only swam in them a few times, so I feel that they are basically your average pool, except a bit cleaner.
The water slides were all really fun! There were 6 of them total. There were three yellow ones, which were all the same. There was also a big blue one that went around in circles.
The most fun one was the red one. It was very steep and fast. Even though it only lasted about 5 seconds to ride, it was very fun. However, I have a few complaints. The green one was never open. I think that it may be broken. They should have fixed it already. Also, the slides were only open for a limited time each day. I am not saying that they should be open all day. It just may be better if they keep it open for at least a few more hours.
Above: Me and Onur walking out onto the deck on the beach.
There were many activities that you could sign up for. They had many water sports that you could try lit, including water skiing, sailing, and paragliding over the water. I didn't get to try any of them, but I want to do it next year. They had games of dart and volleyball that you could go to anytime you wanted. There was also a kids club. The only thing we did at the kids club was sign up for this contest where you could win an iPad or a vacation package by playing an online game. That will happen sometime in the winter. Every night there was some sort of show or trivia game. There were two places where the show took place: the amphitheater and the stage. The shows were nice except that you could only participate in the trivia challeges if you were 16 or older, so I couldn't do that.
Above: The lobby of the resort.
The resort looked very nice. In the lobby, the entire main back wall was made of glass, so you could always look at the view, whether you were on the balcony or not. There were a lot of plants everywhere. Some of the floor tiles were just plain white and boring. A few of them had fancy designs and patterns. The hotel rooms were decent. It had everything you would expect. It also had a balcony for viewing the scenery. In my opinion, the balcony was too small. You ended up in a tight space. The better place for viewing was the balcony next to the lobby. The room I was in was decently sized. There was only one bed, so me and Onur slept in the couch while my parents were in the bed.
If you want to see more photos from the resort at Bodrum, check out this new YouTube video I made using Magisto photo montage creator: https://youtu.be/bmM8fn7AO20
That is all for my resort review. I also want to show you some more photos that we took there.
Above: The cockpit of a F104 fighter plane attached to a cupboard.
We visited my mom's cousin's house. Her cousin's father was once a high ranking Turkish Airforce officer. He is now retired. He showed us a part of the cockpit of his plane, his special helmet, and an award he received. Me and Onur got to try on the special helmet with an oxygen tube. You can see the pictures of this below.
Above: Me wearing the pilot helmet. It looks kinda like the X-Wing pilot helmet from Star Wars.
Above: Onur wearing the pilot helmet.
Week 2: Ankara, the capital
Above: A photo I took of a street in Old Town Ankara.
This week, I was in Ankara. Most people think that Istanbul is the capital of turkey. But that is not true. Ankara is the real capital of Turkey. Istanbul is just the most well-known Turkish city (other than Batman, no kidding, which is the name of a city there). In Turkey we visited my mom's side of the family. This includes my Grandpa İlhan and Grandma Nurten, Uncle Yilnir and Aunt Gülay, and my cousin Alkim. In this post I will be showing you some photos we took there and a summary of what we did there.
Above: All of us at a restaurant in Old Town Ankara. Left side of the table from top to bottom: Onur, my mom, me, my dad. Right side of the table from top to bottom: Aunt Gülay, Grandpa İlhan, Grandma Nurten
There, we visited Old Town Ankara, where there are some famous old-fashioned houses. We ate at a Turkish restaurant (obviously) there as well.
Above: Another street-view photo I took at Old Town Ankara.
Above: My mom and Onur stand in front of a statue of the poet who wrote the Turkish national anthem.
Above: My family along with my mom's side of the family sitting down at a restaurant in the city of Ankara. I am pretty sure you can recognize the right side of the table as my main family, so I will instead list everyone on the left side of the table from top to bottom: Aunt Gülay, Grandma Nurten, Grandpa İlhan, my cousin Alkim, and Uncle Yilnur
Where my grandpa and grandma love in Ankara, there is this ice cream place called Mado. They have really good finger-ice cream cones. They are basically ice cream in very tiny cones, covered with a layer of white chocolate or milk chocolate. I give them a rating of 4 and a half stars. They may taste very good, but not the best I have ever tasted. Turkish ice cream in general is my favorite type of ice cream. It is way better than American ice cream, in my opinion. Turkish ice cream is creamier and this makes it tastier.
At this one Burger King there, they constantly played the same two songs over and over again. They were "My Heart Is A Ghost Town" and some other song I forgot the name of. I am not sure if any of the people working there even noticed!
Week 3: Gurun
Hello, guys! This is Arca. I came back from Turkey one week ago, and I still haven't posted about my final week in Gurun. In today's post, I will be showing you the photos we took there. We stayed with most of my dad's side of the family, except for my cousin Fatih and Mehmet, who were unfortunately unable to attend.
Above: Only a few of the many caves we saw there.
The caves were all man-made, and date back many years. One of my uncles used to explore them as a kid. They were all connected, and one of them was about a mile long. According to him, there was some ancient writing on the walls. Now, you are not allowed to go in them.
Above: Me in front of a herd of goats in a farm near a village in Gurun.
We visited many farms. We got to see several types of farm animals! (Except for pigs, of course.)
Above: Me and Onur standing next to a Donkey. 'What are you doing in my swamp!'
Above: A view of a rock peak with the sun behind it. Great for a photo! I may send it to MyShot sometime.
There was a great park there for sight seeing. We saw rocky cliffs, a waterfall, a river, and more!
Above: A view of some of the park's mountains.
Above: Water flowing down rocks into the river.
Above: My main family standing next to a waterfall. We got a huge spray of cold water after that!
Above: Me in a giant hamster ball spinning over a spinning pool.
At this one place next to the lake, you could pay money to go inside a giant inflatable hamster ball over a swimming pool. Me, Onur, and all of my kid cousins did it. We each took turns doing it for about 5 minutes. When they start inflating it with a machine, you have to cover your ears real good or else your ears will hurt because of the pressure. It is kind of hard to control. I made the mistake of standing up while doing it. The result is you falling hard onto your butt! I tried to push myself around the pool a few times before my turn was over. I wish I could put a video of it here!
That was my final week of Turkey. It is always sad to return home, but I know I will go there again every year!
No comments:
Post a Comment