Istanbul Day 3

June 16, 2010

Day 3 Istanbul, Turkey

 We got into Istanbul around 07:00 and found out where to go to catch the metro and started heading for our hotel.  We had to do a bit of money exchange, but we didn't see any exchange places.  I was super grumpy, hot and had to use the bathroom.  Trevor was wonderful and put up with all the complaints during our ride to our hotel.  We ended up having to transfer twice, once that we knew about and the second time because I guess there was an issue that caused the train only to go to a certain point and you had to go to the other side of the platform to catch a train that continued onwards.  It was so packed.  We had to push our way in.  It was definitely rush hour!  We got to the stop that we were directed to and went on a hunt for our hostel which was tricky to find.  We found it, but even then it was hard to know for sure that it was a hostel, except that a bunch of young people were standing outside of it.  We met the spaced out hostel guy who told us that after we tour around we will have beds, though it was interesting how he designated the beds to us.  He pretty much just sort of said 'well these are going to be your beds, I think' not really knowing who was staying and who was leaving.  We had a shower and headed out to explore Istanbul.  We decided to walk over to the main area, near Hagia Sofia.  On the way we saw a man weaving a blanket using an old loom.  It was incredible to watch.  We also saw some criminals in handcuffs being put in jail (we assumed).  That was less cool, especially since we didn't even know what was going on and practically walked right next to the guards and the criminals!  Anyways, along the way we searched for an info place, but had a hard time finding it.  As we walked around and took pictures of the garden area by the Hagia Sofia, we were stopped by two girls who were practicing their English.  They asked us some questions and took our picture and went on their way to find more tourists to practice on.  We headed to the Blue Mosque.  The inside was really pretty with really nice tiling all over the walls and ceilings.  After, we headed for a park bench and I nearly fell asleep, but we got up and started heading towards the Grand Bazaar.  We managed to find the info place then and we grabbed some info on what to see and then headed to grab something to eat (I was hungry).  The food was okay.  We had kofte, which are basically oblong meatballs.  We had tried them before in Egypt.  We also had corba, a lentil soup I think.  It was then off to the Grand Bazaar.  We made it, after a lot of walking.  It was incredible!  It's a huge indoor market.  It has a ridiculous number of shops and you can easily get lost.  Each area seems to have a theme of what it's selling.  You turn one way and you see tons of shops with leather jackets.  Another aisle will have silver, another will have tourist stuff.  After wandering a little I wanted to find the spice market.  It took a lot of effort.  We ended up going by the pet area of the Grand Bazaar, first.  There were tons of baby birds (ducks, chickens, and quail I think).  The hamsters in most of the cages didn't look so good.  The kittens were cute and so were the puppies.  It was crazy how they were selling the animals.  After some time spent looking at baby animals, we were back on the hunt for the spice market and after asking for directions, we made it.  It really wasn't anything exciting, just another area in the market, but this time with spices, dry fruits, Turkish delight (which we tried and it was pretty good).  We kept wandering up and down when all of a sudden I turned and who should be standing  two metres away, but Daniel Dae Kim (Jin from LOST)!  I sort of freaked out and told Trevor to guess who it was which caught the attention of who I assume to be the body guard.  This guy was super tall and didn't look like someone you should mess with.  I panicked and ended up not going up to Daniel.  Instead and I just kept rambling to Trevor how I shouldn't bother him because he probably doesn't like crazy fans.  He seemed really happy and he was with "the body guard", his wife and some other girl (maybe "body guards" girlfriend/wife?)  So off we went on our way.  After a little while, Trevor managed to convince me to go and talk to the actor so we headed back to the place where he had been, but it was too late.  So next we headed for the ferries, because we figured we should go to Asia since Istanbul is the only bi-continental city in the world.  We hopped onto the ferry and took a 10 min ride over and spent most of our time in Asia napping on a bench, grabbing something to eat and then having a difficult time trying to figure out how to get back.  We asked a ticket lady if the ferry was going to a certain place and she said no and told us to take a bus.  What we learned soon after, is that the ferry that was leaving would take us really close to where we wanted to go, just not to the place we had asked about.  But it wasn't until I asked where that ferry was going that we found this out.  Meaning, it makes more sense just to ask where the ferry is going than to ask will it go wherever you want to go.  So silly.  We made it back to the European side by ferry and decided it was time to grab some more food.  We went back to the market and bought a pizza like thing and then went and got ourselves some tea and relaxed a bit.  Finally, we were getting tired, so we headed back to our hostel, on the way grabbing a street vendor corn on the cob.  Here we finished off our evening talking with some of the hostel people in the upstairs lounge area and heading to bed in our packed room.