Pera Tulip Istanbul

... of the band so many of you will get a chance to hear it. Are you groaning yet? I know that Dr. Schubert went there and he knows much more about this than rest of us.

I wanted to see and hear the band because of a book I read called The Janissary Tree by Jason Goodwin. If you have read it, I need not explain.

After the museum visit, I walked and walked some more back to Taksim Square, had some lentil soup and then went to the Akbank Arts Center for a ...

... a massage and a soak and scrub would have set us back 90-100 Liras, we decided to check it out. Sure enough, we found it right at the crossroads and 50 meters, just as our friend at the cafe told us, and we checked out their prices, which turned out to be a good third of what it was downtown.

The place looked like any other building from the outside, a dome adorning the rooftop, and a separate women's entrance to the side of the building, but when we walked in ...

... have her leaving less frustrated. I
personally find all religion a bit confusing, as I have never found
faith, if you will. Ultimately, I have to say that Islam seems like a
tough religion to practice...though also one with far fewer dıifference
with the other monotheistic religions of the world than many people
seem to think, despite the West's negative views of it and the frosty
and unfair reception it too often receives in the Western world. I
Istanbul, Turkey jimmyandkristen

... to almost all of the attractıons. We did meet a friendly carpet salesman thıs day named Juma who is from a small village outside of Cappodocia, where we wıll be ın a number of days. The second day we walked to Hagia Sofia and the Blue Mosque (we are only about a ten minute walk from both of these attractions!) however, as we left the hotel a little later than we planned we did not enter either place because of the sheer number of tourists. We ended up ...

... the clubs and bars are. I was pretty dissapointed. Not only were the clubs empty, the drinks were too expensive for me to afford. Nonetheless I wandered around with a few guys hoping to find something better. We did find a homeless man who stuck his dentures out at people passing by which was quite disgusting but also funny, so we fed him food and got him a beer from the corner store. It was getting late so I decided that to take a taxi with two english guys. They instantly got on my ...

... and according to our floormate from Tajikistan (the country next to China, you know?), the free breakfast is not served until Monday. So we decided to go out for a brunch to a nearby cafe before our orientation at 1pm. With lots of confusion and body language as usual, we managed to order a plate of meat and a sandwich at a cute supermarket/cafe type of place. Sunnie and Laura tried the obligatory Turkish coffee (I unfortunately do not drink coffee ...

... afternoon smoking nargileh (shisha) and sipping apple tea in a lovely little sunken courtyard hidden away from the outside world beneath a blanket of trees. We spent 5 nights in the Orient Hostel and saw a number of people trailing in and out of our dorm including a blonde Belgium who had just sailed into Istanbul from Thailand braving pirate territory off Somalia, a left wing American who ...

... and cost me 16 Euros = RM 80 for a 30 minutes ride :( Weather there is cool averaging about 24 degrees in the day and drops to 20 degrees in the evening. Didn't have the chance to roam the "European like " culture and cafes though. Managed to buy some souveniers at the Hotel lobby. Accepted currency there is in either Turkish Lira or Euro. The persian lady named Fadhil (strange for a woman's name) greeted me with such a smile and her eyes GOD so natural. It was blue ...

... to meet up with another friend of a friend which didn't work out, but he too seemed very friendly. The vendors and people in the street on the other hand I found very rude and impatient. I'm guessing that some people have accepted the tourists and others have no tolerance for them. I have had my half-full bottle of water kicked at me from a store vendor when I didn't end up buying a shirt I tried on; I ...