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Turkiye do not celebrate Christmas. It’s Christmas morning right here in Gayrettepe and I’m wondering why there’s still heavy traffic on the street. There’s a primary school too opposite my hotel room and I can hear the shrills and wonder of the children’s play and banter.
I should check on my hotel fitness centre. The beauty or/ and frustration of interacting with fellow humans with limited medium of language is that you have your own assumptions of what have been communicated and vice versa. I enquired with them considering today will be Christmas, would their opening hours be like a public holiday: 1000–2000? They advised they’ll be open at 1100. On weekdays, they’re open 0700–2100.
So I’ve figured out that I’m retarded, as suspected. Of course the hotel fitness centre opened as per usual since Christmas is not celebrated right here in Turkiye/ Istanbul.
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I started this article on Christmas 2025, in the midst of my year end Istanbul trip, inspired by the sights and sounds of the beautiful city to start writing again, to pick it up as habit as a way to record my experiences, emotions, etc. I am now writing from the blessed city of Medina, a few weeks into 2026.
I feel blessed, to be able to do a quick turnaround of traveling to faraway places in the span of two weeks returning from Istanbul. This is not an attempt of humble bragging, there is nothing to be proud or bragging about. That’s why I mentioned I’m blessed. However I do take note that it’s something special in my life that I’m able to go to two regions, close to each other, after going home in between, within a short period of time. The last time a deja vu like this occurred was probably in 2017, where after going to Paris in April, I went to JB to visit my sister-in-law and when I flew to Sydney, I realized that the in-flight magazine was still the same edition as when I last took MAS.
As it’s apparent, the direction of this article has gone down the drain. I started it to reflect on my experiences and observations in Turkiye, lost all time to follow up on my writings, and revisited it at another place, time and train of thoughts. It occurred to me that, that may not be the issue. The issue may be that I start writing without a plan.
Thus moving on, I would plan my writing and hopefully the articles turn out to be more articulated and neat.
