Sam A. Away: Istanbul days 3 and 4

May 11^th 2011

After our standard bowl of lentil soup, we took the tram from Kabataş to the Grand Bazaar. We found a public toilet outside a nearby mosque and I watched a crazy homeless man with 7 dogs while the rest of the family went to the bathroom. We walked around a bit until we found the book bazaar, it turned out that they didn't have what we were looking for so we braced ourselves and went into the Grand Bazaar. The Bazaar was in fact quite manageable and not too busy, a pleasant surprise. Most of the shops were touristy, and also expensive. At this point, Dad, Mhari and I spilt up with Mom so that she could shop as much as she wanted without us telling her to hurry up. We found our way out of the Bazaar only stopping for me to buy an awesome t-shirt (picture below) and went looking for a kebab shop. About 15 minutes later we found one on a street that sold nothing but plastic toys made in China. With our bellys full we climbed up the hill to Sulemaniye Mosque, apparently the grandest Mosque in Istanbul. It was indeed very grand, about as big as Blue Mosque, except pleasingly simple in decoration, other than the great stained glass windows. We got lost in the streets around the mosque which were full of old wooden houses, and ended up at the viaduct, we popped into another mosque, this one painted like an easter egg inside, and walked back to the Bazaar. On the way home I had a Simit (sesame seed bread ring) and a Dundurma (ice cream with a very elastic texture, you have to bite it or else you might just pull it off the cone) for 1 lira (65 cents) each. That evening we went back to our favourite Lokanta and had 8 mezzes and 3 rice puddings for 19 lira (11.50 dollars).

May 12^th 2011

Today we didn't know what to do so we decided to hop onto a ferry to Kadikoy, on the Asian side to see what it was like. We stopped at a pide (Turkish pizza) shop and had tea and pide, we also went to a very cheap bookstore and stocked up on reading material. This afternoon we went to the Military Museum to watch the Ottoman Military Band, which plays every day from 3pm to 4pm. Of course, due to some UN conference, they were not playing between the 1 and the 18^th of May - typical. The museum was nice though, they had 3 big rooms with nothing but swords, each sword had a plaque underneath it that said “Sword”. When we were done with the swords we wandered through Defence Weapons (shield, helmets etc.) in halls 1-4 and then came across a model of a Turkish military classroom, complete with 15 life size students. Each one was wearing a fez and raising his right hand, except for the 3 trouble makers in the back row who were raising their left hand. We also found a set of furniture made entirely from weapons. On the top floor there was quite a bit of Propaganda, including a room full of pictures of Turks who were massacred by Armenians, and another room full of weapons that were “Used by the Greek Cypriotes against the Turks”.