Turkey’s First Apple Store opens in Istanbul Zorlu Center

When the first Apple Store On February 4th 2014, opens its doors in Istanbul Zorlu Center, Turkey will join 14 countries which have Apple Store. The huge Istanbul Apple Store will span across 2,000 meter squares and sell Apple products like Mac PCs, Apple Software, Apple TV, iPods, iPads and iPhones as well as 3rd party products like accessories. The Apple Store in Istanbul will feature cubical glass ceiling architecture which is currently used in only 2 stores in USA.

Istanbul Apple Store will also offer personalization services for purchased Apple products. For example, customers will be able to write their names behind iPad tablets using lazer or select the specifications of Mac computers before they purchase them. Like all Apple Stores, Apple Store in Zorlu Center will also feature Apple repair services.

Turkey is one of the focus areas of Apple and it is reported in Turkish media that Apple’s CEO Tim Cook will be in Istanbul for the opening of the Apple Store. Apple eventually plans to open 4 Apple Retail Stores in Turkey.

Zorlu Center in Istanbul will be home to Turkey’s first Apple Store which is scheduled to open in Feb 2014.

Tim Cook will also visit Ankara and meet Turkish President Abdullah Gul to discuss Fatih Project. This educational project involves 10.6 million tablets and Apple has given proposal for the project, which is not concluded yet, in June 2013.

Apple has opened its iTunes Turkey last year.

Currently Apple has 420 stores in 14 countries including United States, United Kingdom, Canada, Australia, France, Italy, Germany, China, Hong Kong, Japan, The Netherlands, Spain, Sweden and Switzeland. The largest Apple Store in the world is currently located in Amsterdam’s Leidseplein Square.

Zorlu Center is composed of three residential towers, a 184 room Raffles İstanbul Zorlu Center hotel, a 2,300 seat Zorlu Center for Performing Arts Center and a large shopping mall. The Zorlu Center Shopping Mall is home to 200 shops ranging from Turkish luxury department store Beymen to international names such as Valentino, Stella McCartney and Pucci. On the European side of Istanbul near city’s business and finance center in Levent, it is also easily accessible from Asian side through Bosphorus Bridge.

Qatar Airways flights to Istanbul Sabiha Gokcen Airport to start in May 2014

Most of the international flights to Turkey arrives to Istanbul Ataturk Airport which is at almost the end of this large city on the European side. This is OK for many because much of the tourist attractions in Istanbul is on this side of the Bosphorus. But if your destination is Asian side or other cities near Istanbul such as Bursa, Izmit and Sakarya then you will need to “cross the bridge”. This may mean hours of drive in traffic as well as other conveniences (there is no direct airport shuttle from Istanbul Ataturk Airport to Anatolian side of the city and it will cost a lot to take taxi to there).

Recently, I have taken a flight from Singapore to Istanbul on Qatar Airways and landed in Istanbul Ataturk Airport while my final destination was Umraniye on the Asian side. I had to take a 2 hours long public transportation to reach there (yes I am stingy). If there was a Sabiha Gokcen flight I would just take a shorter airport shuttle and then taxi.

Fortunately, increasing number of international flights are arriving to Istanbul Sabiha Gokcen Airport. Qatar Airways is the last one and one of the few which opens Asian side of İstanbul to long-haul international flights from Africa and Far East. By May 22 2014, the Doha based airline will fly to Sabiha Gokcen. The 4x weekly flights will be served by Airbus A320 aircraft in 2 class configuration with 12 Business Class and 132 Economy Class seats.

This will allow passengers to access Asian side of Istanbul as well as some other major industrial cities in Marmara region such as Izmit, Sakarya and Bursa. And not only Qatar Airways passangers: the airline has recently joined oneworld global airline alliance which is the third largest in the world. Oneworld members include American Airlines, British Airways, Cathay Pacific, Japan Airlines, LAN Airlines, Malaysia Airlines, Qantas.

Qatar Airways will commence flights to Istanbul Sabiha Gokcen Airport in May 2014.

Qatar Airways have started flying to Turkey in 2004 with the commence of Doha – İstanbul Ataturk Airport flights. Increased demand resulted in introduction of Ankara – Doha flights in 2010. In 2013, Qatar Airways has responded to increased demand for flights to Turkey by replacing narrow body Airbus A320 aircraft on Istanbul route with wide body Airbus A330 and increasing the frequency of Ankara – Doha flights. Doha – Istanbul Sabiha Gokcen route will be the 3rd route of Qatar Airways to Turkey. With these flights total number of Qatar Airways flights to Turkey is increasing from 14 to 18.

Qatar Airways offers transfer in Doha to Istanbul which makes it a cheaper alternative to fly to Istanbul from Far East such as Singapore, Malaysia, Thailand, China and Japan.

Halal Sex Shop opened in Turkey

Turkey's fırst Halal Sex Shop has been launched selling halal sex products and giving advises on how to have "halal" sex. The shop is opened by 38 years old Turkish entrepreneur Haluk Murat Demirel. The sex shop does not use explicit photos and does not sell haram products such as vibrators (masturbation is not halal). The halal sex shop on the other hand sells products “entirely safe,” and in compliance with Islamic norms such as condoms, massage oils, lubricants and herbal aphrodisiacs.

45 per cent of the halal sex shop are women. The shop does not have an official Halal certificate. The shop owner checks the products in Islamic sources and marks them Halal.

The entrance page on its web site there are 2 sections Erkek (Male) and Kadın (Female). It says completely safe, comply with Islamic norms and Halal sexual products.

Entrance page of Halal Sex Shop

"We use words which are delicate, not pornographic," he explains. "For example, instead of 'horny' we use 'desiring'. These details are important."

Turkey is a country where liberal and conservative values often conflict. Recently a Victoria's Secret shop silently pulled down their shutters before the prime minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan, who was in this Ankara Shopping Mall, walked by. This was quite aggressively debated in social networks and internet in general.

Turkish socialite rocked by black baby scandal

This blog post is moved to Oravar.com : Turkish socialite rocked by black baby scandal.

Turkish man Yagmur Kursat Ersagun accused of rape in Taiwan

One of the most talked person in Taiwan was a Turkish student named Yağmur Kürşat Ersagün. Unfortunately, the topic is rape: Ersagün also known as Wang KaiJie (王凱傑) in Taiwan is accused of raping a woman and an underage high school girl. And there is more: Taiwan police have found sex videos of 29 women in his apartment.

Last April, a woman approached Taipei Police and accused Ersagün with attempted rape. According to the woman, she has met Ersagün in internet and he has brought her to his apartment with the excuse of "feeding his sick rabbit". Ersagün, who is a student in Taiwan for the past 5 years, was in front of judge this week and rejected all accusations. He had claimed that the videos found in his apartment was taken with the consent of the women and he has given a copy of the video to the women. Unlike most other sex video scandals, the videos did not leak to internet to be watched by masses.

Taiwan has a very big video and rape scandal last year. Justin Lee, a playboy and son of a well known tycoon in Taiwan, has been accused of raping and taking videos of women. Some of these women were very well known models and actresses like Maggie Wu. At the end Justin Lee has been found guilty for raping 9 women and was sentenced to 18 years in prison. Justin Lee scandal videos were leaked to internet and was highly in demand for download and watch.

Yağmur Kürşat Ersagün

Turkey climbs one place to sixth in World’s Top Tourism Destinations List

According to United Nations World Trade Organisation (UNWTO) Tourism Highlights 2012, Turkey moved up one position to sixth place (with 29 million tourists) overtaking the United Kingdom in the 10 ranking by international tourist arrivals.

From UNWTO Tourism Highlights, 2012 Edition:

France continues to lead the ranking of international tourist arrivals (79 million), and ranks third in receipts (US$ 54 billion), while the United States ranks first in receipts (US$ 116 billion) and second in arrivals (62 million). Spain is still the second largest earner worldwide and the first in Europe (US$ 60 billion), while ranking fourth in the world by arrivals (57 million). China continues to rank third in arrivals (58 million) and fourth in receipts (US$ 48 billion), while Italy remains in fifth place in both arrivals (46 million) and receipts (US$ 43 billion).

Turkey moved up one place to sixth in arrivals and is twelfth in receipts. The United Kingdom is seventh in both arrivals and receipts. Germany continues to rank eighth in tourist arrivals and sixth in receipts, while Malaysia is ninth and fourteenth respectively. Australia, Macao (China), and Hong Kong (China) complete the top ten ranking by receipts in eighth, ninth and tenth place respectively, while Mexico closes the top ten by arrivals in tenth position.

UNWTO ranks countries according to the two key tourism indicators: international tourist arrivals and international tourism receipts. 8 of the top 10 destinations appear on both lists, despite showing marked differences in terms of the type of tourists they attract, their average length of stay and their spending per trip and per night. In the case of international tourism receipts, changes not only reflect relative performance.

Although Turkey is 6th in the World’s Top 10 Tourism Destinations By International Arrival list, it is not in top 10 in the World’s Top 10 Tourism Destinations By International Tourism Receipts list.

Maiden Tower, Istanbul

World’s Top 10 Tourism Destinations By International Arrival

1 - France (79.5 million)

2 - United States (62.3 million)

3 - China (57.6 million)

4 - Spain (56.7 million)

5 - Italy (46.1 million)

6 - Turkey (29.3 million)

7 - United Kingdom (29.2 million)

8 - Germany (28.4 million)

9 - Malaysia (24.7 million)

10 - Mexico (23.4 million)