Riomar Istanbul

... a new cheap Turkish cell phone which I did. They cannot buy ebay here of download itunes. Their reputation for fraud and confusion seems to be large. Seda can't buy used books on Amazon either. They won't ship to Turkiye.

After a short break, I got ready for the concert at a beautiful modern concert hall somewhere not too far. Cecil Taylor played with a British sort of drummer named Tony Oxley. The hall was full and Cecil had pink satin pants with long socks on ...

... unlike anything I've ever seen, with a lot of small ,colored mirrored tiles used to decorate them in part. Lots of gold or gold leaf incorporated. Roofs were done in ceramic tiles of orange and green. There were also MANY buddhas, including some reclining ones, which I believe depicts the buddha just before he passed on from earth. Also, lots of chedi which are roughly bell shaped and I believe house relics. These tended to be done in beautiful ceramic ...

... bank in the blazing sun. Thanks to Dan and his girlfriend/partner Danielle (no joke), we got the lowdown on what to bring to the race. Towels to sit on (since it was rock and dirt), plenty of water (since it was 4 TL for a small, ear plugs, sunscreen (since there is no shade anywhere on the turns, and some snacks. There were two warm up races on to keep us entertained before the big boys came out to play.

We found it more ...

... ll out and bumped ınto the Aussıes I meet on the bus from Syrıa and hung out wıth them for the day. We went to the spıce market and ended up gettıng some great foodş I brought 1kg of turkısh delıght for 5 Lıara around 2 pound whıch ıs so cheapş ıt ıs also so dıfferent from the UK stuff ıt ıs so much better. The food ın the market was really amazıng and lots of dıfferent stalls nut stalls and spıces etc ıt was pretty awsome. We strolled along the ...

... Mosque ıs a lıttle less old but ıt's unıque because the sultan that buılt ıt ordered ıt to have 6 mınarets. At that tıme, the only mosque wıth 6 mınarets was ın Mecca so to avoıdıng beıng seen as dısrespectful to Mecca, the sultan ordered a 7th mınaret buılt at that mosque. We dıdn't do anythıng too tourısty ın Istanbul, maınly walked around and admıred the sıghts from the outsıde. Walked through the Grand ...

... on the shisha pillows! Shisha was so much fun, we started well no, I started to give uta a massage, then Peter, then Snez, then Peter again, then finally Chitty. He loved it so much that hejust collapsed when I was finished. Made me feel good =) during oen of our sessions, I held the shisha pipe for Peter as he was giving me a massage & he blew out and the smoke just incircled my entire head. we got a photo of it as well. :) The follow day we were to awake ...

... is 50 metre away on the corner of our street. It is pretty low-key during the day, so we have missed it, but at night there is a large group of flash Mercedes and 4WD's parked outside. Nick J decides to go with us, just for a drink, but balks at the price, something like 3.8 EUROS. All the menu is in euros, but you have to pay in sum, at a rate of 2000 to the euro. The menu is pretentious, but the food pretty ordinary ...

POLSKI: Przyjechalismy do Istanbulu jeszcze przed 6 rano. Juz z autokaru widac było, jakie to ogromne miasto. Na dworcu autobusowym zostawilam Zajaca z Marcinem, i poszlam z Arkiem poszukac taniego zakwaterowania. Doslownie 2 minuty od dworca znalezlismy hotel, 35$ za pokoj dwuosobowy - oczywiscie bezgwiazdkowy, bez zadnych komfortow - ale z klimatyzacja i lazienka:). Po upragnionych, solidnych prysznicach i malym praniu recznym, wszyscy poszlismy spac na ...

... restaurant inside the palace. It is something of an institution but unfortunately unbelievably expensive. Twelve lira for a kebab and six lira for a can of coke. Still, the setting is remarkable so we decided to order the minimum to tide us over. So by all means visit the Topkapi Palace but take a snack with you! We left the palace in the early afternoon and made our way down to the Grand Bazaar. On the way we stopped off at the World Famous Pudding Shop. We had ...

... popular, and also had a waterpipe with a mixed flavoured tabacco of cappucino and fruits. It was fantastic!! The cool water made it easy to smoke and it was yummy! I told Shane it was all I will smoke back in Australia. hehe The Grand Bazaar was great but a little annoying with hassles so we didnt get anything. The heat really got to us even though it was fun. We made friends with the hotel manager, who had a cute Golden Retriever called Bibo who he had recently shaved because of the ...