Tsukiji Fish Market

Tsukiji Fish Market sometimes called as Central Wholesale Market is very interesting place in Tokyo. This place consist of two sections, the ‘inner market’ is the licensed wholesale market, where the seafood auctions take place. The ‘outer market’ consists of stalls selling of many kinds of fresh fish, seafood, processed marine product, etc.

The most interesting part in the Market is Tuna Auction in the ‘inner market’. The auctions start around 5:00am, you need to wake up earlier to witness this specially events (renowned as the highlight of visiting the Tsukiji Fish Market). You can see a huge amount of Tuna fishes (with tail cut down) line up on a terraced platform within the Wholesaling Area. Auctioneer uses a red food coloring to indicate group of Tuna fishes they belong by some kanji characters or symbol. Buyers carry a ‘hook’ type of tool to slide down small piece of the Tuna meat with the tool. They can either smell it or rub the meat by using their thumb and index finger to examine the quality of fish.

Once the inspection session is passed, auctioneer rings the hand bell and rapidly calls out the number and opening bid for each group of tuna. Buyers use a hand gestures to inform the auctioneer how much they want to bid for a particular group of tuna called out by auctioneer. This is the interesting part as the way auctioneer rapidly call out the bidding sound very much like chanting with some fascinating rhythm, you can also see those buyers busily show their hand gesture to response each calling by the auctioneer. The amazing thing is final price for the bid can be established almost immediately within the calling and hand gesture between auctioneer and buyer.

After the bidding, each Tuna will be loaded into the carry cart. The narrow street in the market will be packed with carts carrying with frozen Tuna fish to be loaded into trucks and shipped to the next destinations. Some carts will be moved to the stall located inside of the market.

You can also have chance to witness how Tuna fish is processed in the ‘outer market’. When the frozen Tuna fish delivered to fish stall, it will be cut by using a machinery saw into 4 quadrants. Fishmonger will remove the bone by using a long knife and cut the fish into smaller rectangle pieces.

Each piece of tuna fish will be then displayed in the stall with different price base on its size and quality.

Other than Tuna fish, there are different varieties of interesting fish or marine product sell in the ‘outer market’.

When you have chance to visit Tokyo, you can arrange sometimes to visit Tsukiji Fish Market. This is totally different from the rest of seafood or wet market in other part of Asia.

Natasha's Experience in Japan

I had a splendid experience when I travelled to Japan in July’07. The reason why I said it’s splendid is merely because it’s my dream to travel to Japan. I’ve never been to Japan but kinda like the feeling that this country impressed me.

Well, I’d say that I’ve unofficially visited Japan for 2 times. Why? I have 2-time Japan visa in my passport. Why? In 2005, I almost got to Japan successfully but the plan was called off last minute due to Duncan’s business trip was postponed. (He supposed to do the same thing, which is bringing his wife along during his business trip to Japan).

In 2006, same thing happened again. Whenever I thought I’d be in Japan next week, and things got pulled back last minute. This year, when Duncan told me that he has an assignment to go over for a meeting, to be frank, I don’t show any reaction. I don’t remember when the visa was ready and how I made myself not to wait for the trip. Until we got the air ticket booked, annual leave approved, JR ticket bought, I started to believe that I’d be in Japan next few days, at least for this time, successfully.

I finally stepped in to KLIA then to Narita Airport. It’s not end yet. My passport was on-hold by a custom officer and was told to have suspicious towards my passport. Time ticking and ticking, i was called after around 30 minutes. The officer raised questions like the purpose of our visit, what we do for our living, what kind of relationship and etc. After the “Q&A” session, they shot a photo of myself to prove I am the person in my passport and released us.

Throughout my trip in Japan, I wrote down some blogs to share my feeling and view against this country of rising sun.

• Japan First Impression
• Japanese Food

To be continued .......

Natasha's experience in Japan - Part 2 (Food)

One of the reasons why I always wanted to travel to Japan, is partly because of the food. I love raw stuff, sushi and everything. Every day I travelled, food has become part of my objectives on the day. I was looking forward to 3 meals in a day. I planned for my breakfast. I had limited time to catch the early train, so, Duncan always wanted me to get the breakfast ready the night before. Not far from our hotel, there’s a convenient shop, 7-eleven. Most of my breakfast would be from this convenient shop.

Either Bento set or kind-of-rice-ball sushi, I had them finished with satisfaction. That was a day I wanted to taste a different breakfast, so I bought a Japanese instant noodle. It tastes totally different from those in our country. I don’t know how to describe, it just tastes very good. That was one of my breakfasts.

As for lunch, I’d prefer to purchase those from machine. The first time I saw this machine outside a restaurant at Asakusa. I had ‘hard time’ to purchase anything from this machine as I can’t read Japanese !! Well, when Duncan was with me, he did most of the food ordering, while I don’t do anything but ready to eat. Buying food from this machine is much cheaper than you dine in those normal order-to-eat restaurants.

The problem had finally arisen when I was all alone. I chose to have my lunch at one of the train stations. Restaurants are just few steps away when you exit from the station. That is something I like too whereby you can easily find a place to eat in a station. I chose to have my lunch that day at a so-called convenient restaurant with food ordering machine. To those working Japanese, lunch is rather rushed for them and you won’t be surprised to see restaurants with no chairs at all and everybody is standing at the bar to have their lunch.

I had my coins ready to prepare for the machine. Too bad, I didn’t think there’s any kanji looks like Chinese character and I can’t read the menu at all. I quickly approached a middle-age man standing next to me. Again, how am I supposed to tell him what I want to eat? I saw some displays of ramen or lunch set at the window. I tried to point which one I’d like to have and get him to show me on the food ordering machine. Apparently, he doesn’t understand though and I don’t seem to know what he tried to tell me. *Chicken and duck speaking.

No choice, I tried my luck to those buttons that seem answering my questions. A ticket drawn out from the machine and the lunch set was ready when you passed over the ticket to the waiter. I was in the queue of all working Japanese man with suits on and carried a briefcase. When I got my food ready, it was a relief that I had something which is edible, ramen with a roll of fried tempura. Thank god :)

Usually I’d have dinner with Duncan when we met up at somewhere. Most of the time, our dinner was the most expensive one. We had the raw stuff and Yakitori (BBQ set). Dinner was never a problem to me.

I noticed something when we had dinner at one of the restaurants one day. Most of the customers in this restaurant are male Japanese. They were smoking and laughing loud while drinking their Japanese wine, I guess. It was 9 somethings when we had dinner that night. Japanese men don’t go home after work. They will usually hang around with colleagues or friends in the wine bar, restaurants or Pachinko (one kind of Japanese game for gambling) shop. Duncan explained to me, if a Japanese husband goes home early, it means the husband does not work hard enough to earn money for the family. Now I realized why these people would rather enjoy themselves in the restaurants.

Back to Natasha's Experience in Japan (Main)

To be continued .........

Madonna of the Rocks

Please refer to below 2 portraits, can you identify any difference between these 2 portraits?

These 2 portraits are masterpiece painted by Leonardo Da Vinci.

Leonardo received a request from one of the church in Milan to paint the centerpiece of an altar. The nuns of the church gave Leonardo their desired theme for the painting. They requested to have the Virgin Mary, baby Jesus, angel Uriel and baby John the Baptist sheltering in a cave. Leonardo Da Vinci delivered his work as requested but rejected the nuns as they found the portrait offensive. The nuns requested Leonardo to repaint the portrait.

On the left hand side of the portrait is the first version painted that rejected, the portrait on the right hand side is the accepted portrait. The first version of Madonna of the Rocks is currently exhibited in the Louvre, Paris while the second version is exhibited in London’s National Gallery.

What’s wrong with the first version of the portrait? Why the nuns reacted exaggeratedly on the portrait?

I am not a scholar of Christianity or Art. I am just a layman whom interested with these 2 portraits. This is my shallow 2 cents worth.

The controversial part of the first version of the portrait is Baby Jesus kneed and holds out his hands in a gesture of prayer toward Baby John. Everybody presume the baby near to Virgin Mary is Jesus. If referring to second version, the John's traditional cruciform stick has been added to the baby whom Virgin Mary sitting with. The cruciform stick further clarified the identity between Baby Jesus and Baby John, it showed that the baby whose Virgin Mary ushered with is Baby John instead of Baby Jesus. If the baby was John that Virgin Mary ushered with, there is no problem for the praying gesture that the baby holds while this is matched with the common Jesus-blessing-John scenario. However, some scholars refuse to believe and claimed that the cruciform stick was added by other artist later, it is rather a very odd sitting arrangement that Baby John ushered by Virgin Mary instead of Jesus that commonly be seen in Christianity portrait.

Another mystery is Angel Uriel pointed her finger towards baby whom sat with Virgin Mary in the first version. Why the pointing gesture had been removed in the second version? What does the gesture mean in the first version? Most people believe the only reason why the gesture had been deliberately removed from the second version is to let everybody believe the baby that sat with Virgin Mary is John the Baptist.

In Dan Brown’s popular novel “The Da Vinci Code”, it is claimed that the first version of the portrait was rejected due to the painting contained hidden sign which contradicted Christian belief.

Extracted Dan Brown’s statement from “The Da Vinci Code” related to Madonna in the Rocks as below:

“….. More troubling still, Mary as holding one hand high above the head of infant John and making a decidedly threatening gesture – her fingers looking like eagle’s talons, gripping an invisible head. Finally, the most obvious and frightening image. Just below Mary’s curled fingers, Uriel was making a cutting gesture with his hand – as if slicing the neck of the invisible head gripped by Mary’s claw-like hand. ”

I cannot relate the scandalous comment that Virgin Mary and Angel Uriel threatening gesture that claimed by Dan Brown above. If referring to these 2 versions of portraits, although you can clearly see the index and middle fingers of Virgin Mary are slightly clawed compare with the second version. However, I cannot really see any threatening gesture of gripping an invisible head no matter how I can imagine. Furthermore, it is very apparent that Angel Uriel was making the pointing gesture with his hand instead of cutting gesture. I think this the statement is only gimmick Dan Brown used to support the plot in his novel.

No matter how we can analyze on these 2 portraits, no one can really give us the right answer of those questions that we have since many decades. The only person could answe was Leonardo Da Vinci.

The Colosseum of Rome

The construction of the Colosseum began under the rule of the Roman Emperor around 70AD. The name Colosseum has believed to be derived from a colossal status of Nero. This statue was later replaced to the sun god Apollo by successor of Nero. Colosseum was used for Gladiator battle, sea battling, animal hunting, and other battles that Roman can imagine of.

Colosseum in Rome is the largest amphitheater ever built in the Roman Empire. The height of Colosseum is 48 meters, 188 meter long and 156 meter wide. The Colosseum divided into 3 levels and each level consists of 80 arches. Those arches on the second and third level are believed stood with Roman God statues in the past. Despite the impressive of the external structure, the internal structure of Colosseum is equally impressive. Colosseum could accommodate more than 50.000 seats. The interior of the Colosseum was divided into 3 sections:

• Arena – The stage can be covered by sand or floored with water for naval battle.
• Cavea – Spectacular Seating. Divided into 3 tiers, Knight sat at lowest tier; wealthy citizen at middle tier while public sat at highest tier.
• Podium – Terrace of seat reserve for emperors, senators and VIPs.
  

The Colosseum was in use until 217, when it was damaged by fire from lightning. Four earthquakes between 442 and 1349 severely damage some parts the building,

In March 2003, we visited Rome. Everybody told us that “No visit to Rome completed without visit to Colosseum”. In the matter of the fact, Colosseum becomes our Must-Visit destination. The Colosseum is located in the center of Rome which is very easy to be located. The structure of the Colosseum is very impressive, you can clearly see those 3 levels of the Colosseum with its arches. Even though some parts of the Colosseum was destroyed by earthquake but you can still see the glory of the Colosseum in the past when current structure preserved.

The picture showed that I climbed up to the lower level of the Colosseum. My height don’t even reach one third of the height of the lower section.
When we were inside the Arena of Colosseum, we instantly flashed back many scenes from Award-winning movie Gladiator by Russell Crowe. The scenes showed General Maximum fought with tigers, Maximum fought with Emperor Commodus, Gladiator Maximum earn the overall tomb up from audiences, etc. The internal of Colosseum is equally impressive compared with its external.

Colosseum could be the most spectacular and greater work of Roman architecture however the usage of the structure was very cruel. How many victims had sacrificed themselves for the pleasure of Roman Emperor or wealthy citizens? Sigh!

The scents of reminiscence

When we walk passed a cologne counter in the department store today, the scent of cologne reminds us something….

There was a new experience for us and we don’t know whether any other Europe or Middle East countries having the same custom. Regardless the distance of bus journey, bus conductor will spray your hand with cologne. Even through the cologne might not be the expensive one but the fragrance doesn’t disturbing. Most common scents of those colognes that we have experienced throughout our travel in Turkey are lemon, orange and jasmine scented.

The bus conductor pour cologne to passenger’s hand and passenger rub their palms with cologne and apply to their face, hand or neck. Natasha and I imitate those locals when the bus conductor made his turn to pours the cologne into our hands. Once the bus attendance moved from front to the back of the bus on spraying cologne, scent of sweat and cigarette from passengers went disappear and the aroma of entire bus becomes fragrant and refreshed.

The scent of cologne in the bus becomes our scents of reminscence on travelling in Turkey.

Natasha's experience in Japan - Part 1 (First Impression)

The journey started the day we arrived, how packed was the airport, how efficient the shuttle bus system was and of course, how fast the Japanese can walk, all these tiny little things printed in my mind. Apparently this is not new to me as I kinda knew this thru the readings and Japanese movie.

I remember there’s a dry garden nearby right after the bus moving. In Japan, the dry garden has nothing to do with flowers or grasses, not even a tree. I started to notice, the dry garden is actually consists of rocks and sand. The rocks are placed in the way of a picture to represent mountain and sea. This is something new to me.


I don’t know about others, but to me, Japanese Kanji are somehow look familiar to myself as if I knew them long time ago. Although I don’t have a clue how it supposed to pronounce, common sense does tell a lot. Duncan always gives me a clue and pronounces the wordings which I really have no idea to recognize at. As known, most of the Japanese Kanji are real closed to Chinese wordings. Unless it spells in Chinese wordings, otherwise I will usually prefer approaching the passer-by for a correct direction.




To be frank, I was worried to have this trip all alone by myself during day time most of the day when Duncan was still on his work schedule. How to recognize Shinkansen station, which direction to follow when you have all the Japanese sign boards right in front of you, how to ask simple question to a Japanese, how to order food and of course how to get back to your hotel. I have all doubts that if I manage to handle all these.





People in Japan like walking very much. No matter how far the destination is, to them, walking is like daily activity. Unless the destination is miles away, most of the time, you will see busy street with busy people. At the zebra-crossing, most of the time it can be a whole bunch of people came from nowhere, waiting to cross the street. Once the light turns green, that is the most impressive scene I’ve ever seen :)


Japanese people usually wake up early. Most of them rushing to catch an early train, but some of them do catch the right timing to get to the office. It’s not surprised to have no way to squeeze in between the line when you’re in the crowd. I don’t understand why all these people rushing to work at the same time, squeezing in between at the same time. No doubts, I hardly walked in between them as I was heading the station and these people were heading to the office instead. I remembered it was 8 o’clock in the morning.

The most important thing in Japan is “Punctuality”. As known, Japanese is the most punctual creature amongst others. You won’t be surprised you’re at the wrong train with only a few seconds difference from the train schedule. We experienced once. That was in Nikko. After a tiring trip in Nikko, initially we planned to go to Onsen (bath) before we left to Tokyo. Due to the destination is quite a distance from Nikko, we had to make sure we were at the station earlier before the train departs. We got to the station 2 minutes earlier and saw the train was already waiting. We got into the train and ended up we're at the wrong station after an hour. This is ridiculous but taught us a good lesson too. However, there’s another couple from Korea made the same mistake. So, we had to call off our plan and head back to Tokyo.



Streets in Japan are clean. You can hardly find a piece of paper on the streets in Japan. Not only how systematic the traffic is but the cleanliness of the environment did impress me a lot. I also noticed that beautiful decorations, graphics or statues are everywhere when you walked along the streets.






(From left to right)
Ground Decoration along the way to Nagoya Castle. It explains how the four seasons in Nagoya.
Giant Fish Memorial & Museum in Kobe
Giant Spider - Landmark in Roppongi Hill
Bronze Statue along the way to Oasis 21, Nagoya

Back to Natasha's Experience in Japan (Main)

To be continued....

Baksheesh

“Baksheesh” means tip in Egypt. Some Egyptian accustomed to ask for Baksheesh for whatever reason. Asking the direction of train platform, reading some texts from the museum exhibit room, passing toilet paper in washroom and whatever reason they can think of.

I personally dislike the statement of “$$ LE is nothing to you but this is lots of thing to us”. Definitely $$ is something to everyone, money will not drop directly from the sky. Everyone needs to work hard to earn the money and Baksheesh is not free!

They can ask for baksheesh, but we can choose to pay or not. The baksheesh should be paid base on the service provided and they shouldn’t demand for it. Furthermore they shouldn’t ask for how much we should pay for it. Sometimes they take Baksheesh for granted, they have predetermined a minimum amount of Baksheesh base on some actions they did. If the amount given is not up to the limit set, they will start nagging. We have been rejected by someone by giving 10 LE. We can remember clearly, the guy told us do not treat him like beggar when we gave 10 LE as Baksheesh.

How ridiculous is this? Even 10 LE is a big deal. In our country, some people need to work around 4 hours in the fast food chains to earn 10 LE.

Of course, those people that we met during our travel in Egypt are mainly surrounded in tourist business. We cannot stereotype that every Egyptian have the same behavior against Baksheesh. We truly believe those people that we met are only minority in the country but this is definitely carried some bad impression to the country as a traveler.

The Lighthouse of Alexandria

After Alexander the Great death, his commander and successor in Egypt - Ptomlemy Soter establish his administrative capital in Alexandria. Due to the dangerous sailing conditions and flat coastline in Alexandria harbor, Ptolemy Soter decided to construct a lighthouse.

Why the Lighthouse was chosen as one of the Wonders? It was believed that the Lighthouse was the only Wonder that have practical use with its impressive architecture.

Base on the description from Arabian scholar on the Lighthouse:

• The lowest section was square with 55.9 m height
• The middle section was octagonal with 27.45 m height
• The top section was circular with a statue of Poseidon stood in the summit of 7.30 m height

The statue of Poseidon - God of Ocean in Trevi Fountain - Rome, Italy

The total height of the building including the foundation base was about 117 m, it was the second tallest man made building (after the great pyramid) in the ancient world. Another fascination about the Lighthouse was the reflection of its mirror which could be seen more than 56 km off shore. During the daytime, the bronze mirror at the top stage reflected sunlight while fire was used during night time for guiding the shipping traffic.

The Lighthouse guided ship into the city harbor for 1,500 years. After going through few earthquakes from AD1303 to 1323, the Lighthouse was finally collapsed. In AD 1480, Egyptian Sultan Qaitbay decided built a fort to fortify Alexandria's defense on the same location where the Lighthouse once stood by using the fallen stone and marble remained from the Lighthouse.

In October 2006, we visited Fort Qaitbay. It is very difficult for us to relate the fort with the Lighthouse from its structure or size. We can only try to imagine which part of the fort was built by the remains of Lighthouse but we have very limited clue about it. Surprisingly, within the area of Fort Qaitbay, there isn't any particular sign to indicate the fort was built in the original site of the Lighthouse. We can’t find any miniature model or picture that depicts of the wonder. Without learning this information from tour guide or guidebook, it is very difficult for any visitor to imagine that.

The Great Pyramid of Giza

The Great Pyramid is the only surviving wonder of the seven ancient wonders. You don’t need to rely on document or remaining sculpture to imagine how great the structure is. You can physically see it up close and personal.

The great pyramid was built by the Egyptian pharaoh Khufu of the Fourth Dynasty around the year 2560 BC (Imaging this, 2560 years before Christ was born...) to serve as a tomb when he dies. When it was built, the Great pyramid was 145.75m high. Over the years, it lost approximate 10m off its top. It ranked as the tallest structure on Earth for more than 43 centuries, only to be surpassed in height in the nineteenth century AD by Eiffel Tower in Paris. The structure consists of approximately 2 million blocks of stone, each weighing more than two tons.

Natasha and I visited this gorgeous pyramid in Giza Plateau in October 2006. These 2 photos show the size of each block of stone that constructed the Great Pyramid. A block of stone can be easily reached the height of an adult.

The Great Pyramid is very impressive not just because of the structure. The Great Pyramid left a number of mysteries and unanswered questions to the world. Until today, nobody can actually explain how the Great Pyramid was built? What is the actual purpose of the Pyramid?

Amongst mysteries related to the Great Pyramid that we gather from some books or websites, we have listed some that we think interesting as below:

• The Great Pyramid as built by species from outer space.
• The Great Pyramid is that it has the power to stop the rotting of flesh.
• The alignment of the three pyramids to Orion’s belt.

The Colossus of Rhodes

The giant bronze statue of Sun God Helios stood at the entrance of the harbor entrance. With both of his leg straddle at the each side of the harbor entrance and hold the torch with his hand. The statue was believed with its height as 120 feet oversee the harbor of Rhodes in Aegean seas. Some scholars believe it will be impossible and technical infeasibility to have the 120 feet bronze status straddle of the entrance of the harbor. With the weight and the size, it won’t be able to support the statues if the leg being straddle. The statue should be just stood at a side of the harbor with his leg standing close instead of straddle like current statue of Liberty in America. (Some scholar believe Statue of Liberty was inspired by the Colossus of Rhodes) However, we don’t have the same opinion. Just that no one can fully explain how those ancient structures were built like Pyramid, Stonehenge or Moai statues in Easter Island.

The study believes the construction of the Colossus took 12 years and was finished in 282 years before Christ born. The statue was stand still on the entrance of harbor until damaged by a strong earthquake in about 226 BC. The city was badly damaged and the Colossus was collapsed.

In August, 2004, Natasha and I visited to the beautiful harbor of Rhodes. We didn’t see any remain of the colossus that can remind us this is the original place for one of the seven wonders of the ancient world. There are only 2 columns built that reminisce the glory of the world wonder in the past. These 2 columns is stood in each side of the harbor entrance. There is a bronze deer statue is at the top of each of the column that represent the state of Rhodes. Again, you need to make use of your imagination to picture how spectacular the statue was in the past.

The reconstructed columns aren't too high but if you image the distance between these two columns at the entrance of the harbor as the leg of the statue straddle across, it is very impressive!

There are a lot of souvenir stall in Rhodes selling the Colossus of Rhodes. The people in Rhodes are still believed the Colossus of Rhodes is straddle at the harbor entrance. You can also see a ship sail through underneath the thigh of the Colossus.

By looking at these statues, will it remind you of the famous Status of Liberty?

The Mausoleum of Halirarnassus

When Persian expanded their kingdom and conquered countries surrounding its country included Asia Minor. King of Persian elected Satrap (Governor) to rule some provinces where far apart from the kingdom. One of Satrap whom rules the Caria province called king Maussollos. This Satrap might not have any great contribution that can be remembered however he became more famous than other Satraps or Persian King to the world later.

The story begins 377 years before Christ born. This king decided to build a very impressive tomb to himself. Maybe because of building the tomb, most of his time and money invested in his tomb construction and he didn’t have much contribution towards his kingdom. The poor king Maussollos didn’t manage to see the completion of his impressive tomb and the tomb only completed three years after the king death. This tomb is so impressive and known as one of the Seven Ancient Wonders of the wonder and the name of the king is used to designate the large tomb today as Mausoleum.

Why the Mausoleum has been renowned as one of the ancient wonder? The structure of Mausoleum was rectangular and comprises 4 different tiers. This is quite similar to the Buddhist Pagoda with different tiers in present.

The dimension of the base is around 40 m by 30 m with 4 tiers:

• The stepped podium (20 m)
• Colonnade (12 m)
• Pyramid Roof (7 m)
• A Statue of Chariot (6 m)

Total height of the tomb was 45 m. (Around 10 times the height of standard basketball post)
On the top of the tomb, there was a statue of Chariot pulled by 4 horses. The second tier was a pyramid as the roof of third tier - Colonnade. The Colonnade was surrounded by Ionic columns and sculptures. The lower tier of Mausoleum was formed by stepped podium. Each side of the stepped podium was decorated with statues. There were statues of people, warriors, lions, horses and other animals. Mausoleum was the special structure during that period of time as those statues was dedicated to a human but was not dedicated to the gods of Ancient Greece.

The Mausoleum was destroyed by an earthquake caused some damage to colonnade and the roof. In the early fifteenth century, the Knight of St. John from Malta invaded Halirarnassus and torn down remains of Mausoleum to built their castle.

Before Natasha and I visited the ruin of Mausoleum, we know that we cannot expect any spectacular sculpture remained. As we know most important sculptures and statues found during excavation have been sent to British Museum. The ruin of Mausoleum is located at Bodrum, Turkey. When we entered in to the ruin in August, 2004, we proved that our thoughts are right. Some fragment of columns, stones, debris are scattered around the ruin. This is not easy for us to image this place was one of the Seven Wonders of the Ancient World in the past. We don’t have any clue on which part of the ruin was the colonnade, where was the stepped podium or any sight of the infamous chariot on the top of the tomb. The only sight that visible to us is the base of the Mausoleum.

The impressive of Mausoleum can be imagined with the miniature model in the exhibit room at the ruin of Mausoleum. With the visual aid of the Mausoleum model in the exhibit room and look at the size of the base, we try to imagine how each part of the Mausoleum model was built in the actual site of ruin.

Some debris remained showed some war scenes. This debris is believed at the lower tier or second tier. Archer fight with warrior on horse (Right) and 2 warriors on horse fighting (Left).



Besides Mausolean’s ruin, some pre Mausolean remains are impressive. There is a Pre Mausolean stairway lead to the tomb chamber. The stairway was constructed with pieces of stone and arranged in the orderly pattern. Don’t expect to see any sarcophagus of the King nor any treasure remains in the tomb chamber. There are only some wall with marble columns remained.



Today, the castle built by Knight of St. John from Malta still stands in Bodrum. The stone and marble blocks of the Mausoleum can be seen in the walls of the castle.