Inside the Blue Mosque

The Sultanahmet Mosque or better known as the Blue Mosque for the blue tiles adorning its interior walls was built during the rule of Sultan Ahmet I. The Blue Mosque was commissioned by the sultan when he was just 19 years old (he ascended the throne at the age of 14). He even 'turun padang' during the foundation digging process and worked with his velvet handled digger. Unfortunately, he died just a year after his masterpiece was completed, at the age of 27 and was buried outside the mosque.

The interior of the mosque - I was completely mesmerized and in awe...

While in the mosque, I was also fascinated by this one tour guide, a Turkish guy, who explained the history of each feature of the mosque (judging by how he kept pointing to different things inside the mosque while talking) in fluent Japanese to a bunch of Japanese tourists. His Japanese was very very good, complete with the intonation semua, it's unbelievable! If you didn't see his face, you'd think that it was a Japanese talking to his Japanese friends.

It's weird but cool at the same time, just like if you see mat sallehs speak fluent Malay. You just can't help but stare at them, which was what I did to that Japanese-speaking Turkish tour guide. Yeahhh, staring is rude, I know hehe.