Wow, people actually read chapter 2, I'm impressed. It was so long, I didn't go through it
myse - okay, that's a lie, I went though it 1896568799000 times. I see a couple of you left comments (vehshi naach) so I'll address those before resuming with our normal transmission.
BumbleBee - Thanks for the positive feedback! I definitely plan to include shopping and food both, not to worry. The cost breakup is something I can't really help with myself since my dad (he's a travel agent) took care of our hotel expenses. We paid for our food and shopping and traveling on metros/cabs were split whenever possible. If you still need an estimate, leave me your email address or contact me on
Twitter and I can get you in touch with my dad's agency.
Anonymous - You can easily find out the average rates of hotels online, that's how we finalized ours. Everything you need to know is available on
TripAdvisor. As for the domestic flights - again, the rates are easily available online. When we booked ours, the fares changed twice or thrice so you'll have to check the going rate, I wouldn't know. Like I wrote to BumbleBee, if you want to contact me and get the number for my dad's agency, feel free to contact!
AncientHydra - You'd win this unfitness-off, hands down. NO to roller skates, the streets are more often cobblestoned than not, and you with your unfit regime could end up seriously hurting yourself. Please to not do that. I'll add in more detail when I'm done with the major stuff, be patient! (super glad you're reading all the crap I write though 💜).
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Right then, back to my trip. Day 3 found two of us injured with the always accompanying feverish symptoms, two of us too exhausted to go anywhere (parents had already been traveling for well over a month) and the last two (my brother and I) restless and uncaring of the heat - and let me tell you IT WAS HOT. Like, Lahore hot. Just not with the horrid, breathing-through-soup humidity so bearable hot. So we did what anyone does in this kind of heat: went to hunt ice cream. Now, here is one of my top favorite things about Turkey: Mado. This wonderful, amazing, reaching-genius-level lovely, lovely gelato was my saviour every day; sometimes twice a day. Their Nutty Roasted Caramel is out of this world good. This ice cream place is all over the 3 cities I visited, in pretty much every popular street - in the markets, by the beach, by the hotels, by the food strip. Pretty easy to find. The flavors aren't too creative but what they have is this gorgeously textured gelato with a depth of flavor that's absolutely fantastic. It's not just an ice cream parlor though, they have their own cafes serving food - both local Turkish cuisine and other stuff. When you go, please do try their desserts and food, it was one of my favorite places there.
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| These are only the ones I paused to take pictures of, not all the ones I ate. I ate a lot. |
*Disclaimer* all food pictures are from my phone, please forgive the wonky colors and composition.
A little bit about Turkish cuisine: if you're not a fan of meat or lamb, bring your tin ke dabbay with your choice of food with you. Turkish food is meat, meat, meat with a side of meat. Not to say it wasn't good - it was actually pretty flavorful, depending on which restaurant you picked. Most dishes are served with a massive bowl of salad and yogurt (their yogurt was super good) and sometimes, a basket of bread with dipping sauces of weird things I couldn't recognize except olive-chili oil.
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| Great bread, weird dips. |
There are doner places everywhere, which is great if you like mild wraps. Fast food chains like Burger King, KFC and McDonald's are very popular there. This one time, I ordered a burger at BK because I wanted a break from the local food and I kid you not, the meat patty was making the sides of the burger box bulge out and tear. It. Was. MASSIVE.
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| Lamb shish |
Their lamb shish, lamb chops and chicken shish are safe options pretty much everywhere.
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| Lamb chops |
Their local pizzas are kind of meh - toppings are great but there's too much of the sheep's cheese they love and the bread is too weak to hold it all so it ends up an attractive, oddly imbalanced mess in your mouth.
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| Pizza with gooey toppings and super mild flavor |
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| Plain cheese |
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| Ground meat with cheese and veggies |
Which brings me to my most important point: never having tried it before, I thought sheep's cheese would be okayish, nothing too amazing. But man, was I ever wrong. They do these flatbreads at every local cafe and restaurant called 'pide'. The fillings range from plain cheese and ground meat to combinations of both with veggies or even half and half. These were hands down the BEST food item in all of Turkey (that I saw). I can't begin to describe how good these are, you'll just have to take my word for it until you go to Turkey and try these yourself which you MUST.
We tried their local fried chicken which wasn't bad, just kind of tough to chew - or at least mine was. I think because the oil was reused and also I really, really hate the flavor of sesame oil so I wouldn't give it 5 stars. But hey, it looked good.
Also, if you're into breads, they have this sesame coated bread I forgot the name of - it's a circle of twisted dough that's baked a deep golden brown and it smells sooooo good! It also tastes pretty great, provided you get a fresh one and not the ones they've baked at 5 a.m. These are available in every street, every food place, every ferry/boat ride. Very common.
Sorry for the mediocre pictures, most times I was too hungry to wait so I just ate it all and then remembered I had to take pictures but it was too late, obviously. It's okay though, I don't mind. The food for me was a bit too mild at places so I wasn't a huge fan but there were some places that did something exceptionally amazing to the meat and it was divine. I'll show you those pictures later, I'm not adding everything I ate and liked here, these are just a few things.
Also, not adding anything tea or coffee related here. Those I feel deserve more than just a cursory mention, so I'll include those in either the next post or some other one. I also have cute pictures of the Turkish chai and I want to show those off, so you'll just have to wait and see. I wasn't intending to talk about the cuisine just yet but... oh well.
Coming back to what I did on day 3 - shopped for things like iron-on badges, cute little bags, any souvenir type thing, explored adorable street-side cafes - mostly just roamed around the area I was staying in. It's called Şişli so that's where I was and the street market there was awesome. There's loads of shops that sell pretty much everything and the price range is low (street vendors, small markets, tiny shops) to high (upscale boutiques, pretty cafes, sexy shoe stores), depending on which shop you enter.
When it got too hot, we went up to the hotel's rooftop swimming pool which had a nice cool breeze so hung out there for a while. Here's a view of a tiny section of the city from up there.
Post 4 p.m., it got really hot and even the breeze stopped (plus we were hungry and tired) so all of us decided to rest up a little before heading out in the evening. Around 9ish, baba suddenly decided to have dinner near the seaside. That wasn't exactly nearby but we were so excited at the prospect of thandi hawa and good food and just chilling out that we ran to the Metro station. Got there in about 40 minutes and walked through the area (which by day is Spice Bazar, by night it's... closed). A lot of street vendors had set up supplies near the bridge and under it so you can get a lot of cheap shopping done there (the bridge by the Marmara sea). If I'm not explaining things right, don't worry, you'll find it anyway lol. Here are some nighttime views of random places I liked.
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| Loved, loved, loved this purple bridge. Picture doesn't do it justice. |
There were tons of seafood restaurants in the area, but the coolest part was how they arranged it all. So, on the docks, they'd set out chairs and tables for the customers but the kitchens were in the boats and ferries themselves - on the water, tied of course but the chefs and waiters would jump on and off the boat to speak to/serve the customers.
We sat here and had chai and boiled corn (I don't know how theirs tastes so good while ours tastes like... boiled corn). Nobody felt like seafood, and there was a strip of local Turkish restaurants on the other side so we started meandering - yes, meandering - there.
Had a great dinner of Turkish sandwiches and shisha - more on that later.
I don't remember if this is the Golden Horn Bridge, the Golden something or the Golden something or the other. But it's golden, it's pretty, it's a tram station and it's famous. Sorry, I suck at remembering stuff.
Alright then, huge ass post once more, I hope you guys enjoy it. I'll be adding more about food and shopping bits wherever possible, since I still have 3 more days to do in Istanbul before moving on to Izmir and Kayseri - which in comparison will sound like I spent all that time in a coma.
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