So we started off today with a walking tour of istanbul, its a great city with so much culture and history. Everyone is very friendly and welcoming.
We started off our morning walk through the streets going to a local square, hearing about the hisotry. We also stopped by a spice market where a whole entire street only sold spices....the smell in there was mezmorizing...
What was amazing was when we stopped by a nearby turkish delight shop...ive never had it before, but this stuff is ammmmaaaaazing.
After our morning tour, we broke off for lunch...me, candice and rick opted for the fish sandwich. It was ok i suppose, a bit tooooo fishy for my liking and wayyy too much bread....
After the just-ok lunch, we headed over to check out the sultan's palace. This place was massive...but i think if i had to use a few words to describe it, it would be "over-indulgence"...
Absolutely stunning grounds tho, very ancient trees and expensive furniture, ornaments and jewerly.
After the palace, we went back for a nice siesta nap. At around sundown, we set off on the istabul tram......
And made our way to an area called takism...which is basically the shopping/westernized part of istanbul...
This area was just like any major busy square in the world, lots of big shops, flashy lights and tons of people. After searching for a while, we found a place where there were lots of locals chowing down on kebaps and pida. I ordered the doner kebap which was delicious and only cost 11tl.
Its amazing how so much of istanbul architechture is made of old and new. Just a few steps from the restaurant was a beautiful tower brightly shining...
My hopes after dinner was to go to an authentic turkish bath, but my plan falled and instead, i went with my roomate, sarah (a photog nut) to go take pics of hagia sophia and the blue mosque at night...
We started hearing this loud turkish man screaming something (we hear this very, very often) but we weren't sure what he was saying. Aftrr most of the people there started clearing out, we realized it meant it was time to go. Right before i was kicked out of the mosque, i maanged to squeeze in one last shot of the empty area, so peaceful....
After sarah and i got our fill of pics of the mosque and hagia sophia, we headed back to our "hotel" where we were stopped by some random turkish guy in a shop. At first we just thought that it was another guy trying to sell us something, but it turns out he wanted to practice his english with us. He offered me a pretty flower made of tissue....
After a few minutes of conversation, i asked if i could take a pic with him, he said sure, so we get up to get sarah to take a pic. As i posed standing and smiling, he randomly gave me a kiss on the cheek, nicely caught on camera by sarah. Too bad "getting kissed by a turkish man" wasnt on my list! Lol
It was a fun day in istanbul, and people are clearrrrly very friendly.
Dont worry, coleman isn't the jealous type. Lol.
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Location:Istanbul
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