Living the Travel Channel

Posted by Kanga.

The very first thing I noticed about Istanbul looking out the van window while being driven from the airport along the coastline to our hotel was that ancient and modern are melded together. Unlike Dubai, where a ten year old building is considered ripe for the wreaking ball, Byzantine and Medieval walls and buildings are simply incorporated into modern constructions.

You never know when you will look down a street and see an ancient wall.

Or an old tree around which building, awning and sidewalk wrap.

One explanation of the origin of Turkish Delight is that it was invented by Bekir Effendi the founder of this confectionary established in 1777 and still operating today. Of course, we went in and bought some. Yum!

Posted by Kanga.

When one of our Twitter friends saw that we are in Instanbul and staying near the Blue Mosque, he messaged us to look for the Akbiyik Mosque in our neighborhood. It is one of the oldest mosques built in Instanbul – 1464 C.E. (or A.D., if you prefer) – and among Istanbul mosques is the nearest to Mecca. Why did our friend bring this to our attention? Because it was built by his ancestors, his family heritage.

So, here it is, literally just a few steps from our hotel.

The sign explaining the history:

The view from Akbiyik Mosque up the hill to the Blue Mosque:

Thanks Khaled for bringing this to our attention. It brings a personal touch to the history we are seeing all around us.

Posted by Kanga.

We walked through the backstreets of our neighborhood this morning. Here are a few of the sights.

Ever thought of Olive Oyl as a geisha? Someone did. (This is my new Facebook pic.)

Shortly after I took the above image a man came down the street pushing a similar cart and calling out something in Turkish. He had some scrap metal in his cart. He parked his cart next to this one.

While I was stopping to take the above picture, the street sweeper (a man with a broom and a dirt pan made out of a broom handle and a large plastic bottle) spoke to Paul in Turkish. From the focus of his gaze on Paul’s beard, we concluded he was remarking on the awesomeness of the beard.

I took this picture just because I think it is beautiful and undoubtedly even more so in the spring and summer when the trees are green.

This is the gateway out of our backstreet area to the main road that runs along the side of the Sea of Marmara.

So, there you have the first ten minutes of our day, yesterday.

Posted by Kanga.

Here are some random street views I’ve taken so far.

The above picture did not come out particularly well, but at the end of this street is a lovely view of the Sea of Marmara.

This was a rather Dubai-like traffic situation. A man was pulling a wheeled cart across a narrow street blocking several cars. He was in no hurry.

I took this picture for the five story tall textile shop, but what stands out is the yellow Playstation sign. Oh, well.

This is the street with the tram running down the center. I was just going to take a basic photo, but saw this guy coming with his sack out of the corner of my eye, so waited a little bit.

This is the same street from a slightly different angle.

This is just a beautiful city.

Posted by Kanga (With update below by Daddybird)

We walked all day. Our hotel is literally just a few blocks from the Blue Mosque. Above is what it looks like in the daylight. We did not go in. We’ll do that another day.

A 180 degree turn resulted in the below view of the Hagia Sophia (originally a Christian cathedral turned into a mosque and then turned into a museum). We didn’t go into that either. Again, something for another day.

Everyone we saw was wearing down filled or wool coats. Here’s DaddyBird in his winter wear. It was pleasantly cool for us. I wore a turtleneck shirt. No coat necessary. It wasn’t windy. Would have been a different story if it had.

We saw many cats over the course of the day and this fellow cat lover.

Case in point, here are a few we saw in a graveyard. There are many old graveyards throughout the city and they seem all to be populated with stray cats. This little white kitten was a sweetie and enjoyed some petting. Unfortunately, the little black one was quite pregnant. That’s the sad part of stray cats, kittens having kittens.

The Turkish men sitting on benches nearby thought we were crazy taking pictures and petting the cats. Maybe so, but we don’t care.

One of the beauties of Istanbul is that you can be walking along and find some ancient ruins laying alongside the sidewalk. This is the remains of the Triumphal Arch of Theodosius.

And you may even see a shoe and bag store on the ruins.

While I was taking this picture of this statue DaddyBird was in the background getting into a conversation with a Pakistani stranger. There were many conversations with strangers over the course of the day, although most were with hawkers trying to convince us to go to their carpet shop or art store or sit down at their restaurant. One restaurant hawker loudly declared his love for DaddyBird.

More of the antiquity – Roman aquaduct.

DaddyBird’s beard was the big attraction of the day. Nearly everyone we passed gawked at him. Old men were impressed. Young men gazed enviously. Children giggled. I told him now he knows how well endowed women feel being looked at all the time.

We kept walking and got off the beaten path into the neighborhood where little or no English is spoken. We stopped into this kebab restaurant where they were pleased to see us and patient with our pointing to the menu to communicate what we wanted.

This pida and mixed grill meal cost us 38 lira ($24.00 or 89 AED).

UPDATE: Here’s a map of the route we walked to today, which I created at http://www.gmap-pedometer.com/?r=4248034

Posted by Kanga

This was the site as we reached our departure gate at the Dubai airport. Now you know how they clean the windows. There was no water involved, so technically not washing the windows. They wiped them down with a broom covered with a cloth and had a window cleaner spray bottle for tough spots. They were also tightening the screws holding the windows in place as they went.

Sometimes you don’t have to learn the language to get around. Taksi anyone?

This is the street our hotel is on. And below is our current window. For three days, we will be in the basement room, then we move upstairs to the top floor for the rest of our stay. (I need to train DaddyBird to reserve ground floor rooms. The stairs are spiral and very narrow.)