TRAVEL | MONTHLY CHALLENGE | SKYSCRAPERS
I Like To Climb Big Towers
Writing Response to Globetrotters June Monthly Challenge: Skyscrapers
Well, here we are! Two days before the deadline for our Globetrotter’s monthly challenge and I am finally getting my butt in gear.
My excuse for being so late to the party is that I couldn’t find the above image and I knew that without it, I couldn’t write my skyscraper submission. Sadly, I also can’t find any of my other photos from Hong Kong that go with this. At least I think it is in Hong Kong. Maybe it is in Singapore? It’s from 2008 so my memory is fuzzy. Maybe somebody else recognizes this building and can enlighten me as to where it resides.
The sad reality is that I can’t find most of my photos of highrises. Most of my experience with them was way back in the past. I have been up the Empire State Building on a couple of occasions, have stayed in a penthouse suite on a skyscraper hotel in Kuala Lumpur and went high up in a building in Hong Kong to learn all about their currency and how it was developed.
I have also scaled the CN Tower in Toronto twice and have ridden to the top of the Seattle Space Needle. But I can’t find the pictures. Sigh.
So yeah, this monthly challenge topic has been a bit of a struggle for me.
There are not as many skyscrapers in Istanbul as you think there should be
Instead of dwelling on the distant past and missing photos, though, I have decided to turn this post around and bring some of my recent travels to the forefront. Though not many of them contain adventures in skyscrapers, there are a few high buildings that we have been in that I think do warrant a post.
The only significantly large city that we have spent much time in in the past 5 years of full-time travel is Istanbul. And wouldn’t you know it, Istanbul really doesn’t have much in the way of skyscrapers. At least not skyscrapers in the traditional sense.
Instead, what dominates Istanbul’s skyline is the minarets from the many mosques that are found around the city.
However, there is one tower that gets a lot of attention in Istanbul, and that is Galata Tower. We climbed up Galata Tower one evening to look out on the city lights at night. It was truly magical.
Built as a watchtower back in 1348, the 67 metre Galata Tower was Istanbul’s highest tower at the time.
You can see this iconic tower from most viewpoints in the European side of Istanbul. It is even depicted in the artwork that graces the city subways.
One afternoon we found our way to a rooftop restaurant. This is not an unusual thing in Istanbul, but what we didn’t know was that it is a great location to watch the sunset from. Our waiter told us this so we returned a second time to check it out. It was definitely beautiful. Especially when the mosque sounded its call to prayer while the sun dipped into the Sea of Marmara.
At the tail end of our stay in Istanbul in 2020, my dad gifted us hotel points that needed to be used up by the end of the year. So we spent a few nights in a Sheraton on the 23rd floor on the Asian side.
Most highrises in Istanbul are on this side, as it is the newer and more modern part of the city.
And, there is one really huge skyscraper in Istanbul, but I really don’t know much about it other than it is currently the tallest building in the city. The Camliça Tower is a radio tower that is 369 meters tall! It sticks out way above the rest of the buildings over on the Asian side of the city. I had wanted to try and go up it, but we never did get around to it. I think there is a restaurant up there!
But what about the ancient skyscrapers?
While we celebrate towers and skyscrapers in our modern-day society as a signal that we are progressing as a population in the world, we can also go back to ancient times when building structures high up into the skies was believed to have brought them closer to heaven.
The temples of Tikal in Northern Guatemala are the Mayan versions of skyscrapers if you ask me. They are astoundingly large and I can’t imagine the ingenuity and advanced mechanics that were involved in the making of them. In one sense, they are certainly more impressive than our modern-day skyscrapers.
But these weren’t structures that were lived in or worked in, like our modern-day skyscrapers, these are tombs.
Tombs of kings, queens and royalty from days gone by.
These structures provide their final resting places, and as stated, bring them closer to heaven so the bodies have an easier time of transitioning. It’s hard to believe that they would take the time to build most of these tombs for just one body!
What is most amazing is that there are more Mayan ruins that are buried in the jungles of Honduras, Guatemala and Southern Mexico that are still being discovered today. Massive ancient cities that were once eaten by the jungle, are being opened up, studied and ruminated over. Archeologists are working hard to uncover the secrets of these ancient civilizations.
But will we ever know all of the answers that we are looking for? Not likely.
Future skyscrapers that I want to see
Of course, the travel list is endless and there are many cities in the world that I haven’t been to and many skyscrapers that I will still climb in the future, I’m sure.
I really want to visit Tokyo, would love to go back to Hong Kong, and also want to see more parts of Malaysia. I’m not sure on Dubai, thought if it just happened to work out, I’m sure I would have no qualms about going there.
I certainly won’t travel to any one destination, just to climb a skyscraper, but I’m always down to do it if the opportunity presents itself.
Thanks to all the Globetrotters who submitted their skyscraper stories in the month of June! It’s almost July now and we are working on a whole new prompt! Stay tuned:)
Here are a couple of other stories that were submitted this month:
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