Day 3 - Markets & Towers & Asia, oh my!

Complimentary Breakfast

This morning we woke up fairly early (8:30am), and headed down for breakfast.  They had a great selection of breads, jams, yogurts, eggs, meats, and juices.  Their descriptively labeled white, yellow, and goat cheeses were more intense than I was prepared for :)  The jams were super runny and sweet.  The breakfast room was not terribly large, but it was nicely decorated.  There was the Turkish flag's crescent moon and star carved into every chair, centerpieces with flowers, nice table cloths, and some pretty nicely painted ceiling patterns.

Market
Today is the last day w/ just the 3 of us, so we tried to find something to do other than the primary tourist attractions that everyone is going to want to do.  First, we picked up an istanbulkart and loaded it w/ funds for public transit.  Then, we hopped on the train bound for Taksim Square.  There we found:

a gigantic Turkish flag

some statue thing that people kept taking pictures of

Best to snap a shot of it just in case it ends up being important.  Then we headed through the markets / streets nearby.

Following Nora's bright Mexican backpack

There were many meat.  Meat cooked on a vertical rotisserie is called Do:ner (pretend the colon is above the o instead of after it).

Many side streets contained shops with various items, such as:

spices (I've been told you use these to cook things with flavor in it)

decorative plates (where practical meets artistic)

vegetables

cats (Casey thought it was a fur hat)

fruits

blenders for rent (i.e. fruit juice)

children playing accordians

this church

its courtyard

Well that was a strange paragraph.

Galata Tower

Next we went up Galata Tower to get a view of the city.

"oh, a-there she is"

whoa, it's pretty tall

whoa, it's super tall

we went at 1:15 and paid 18.5 Turkish Lira each (see, I knew snapping this shot would be important! How else would I remember such an important detail?)

the wife's new hairdo enjoyed dancing in the ~30mph breeze

full 360 panorama

The red marker is the tower from which the panorama was taken.  In relation to the panoramic image, if one of the cruise ships on the right travels up and to the left, it will be traveling northeast up the Bosphorus Straight to the Black Sea.  If it travels up and to the right, it will enter the Sea of Marmara, which connects to the Aegean Sea and the Mediterranean.  If it travels down and to the right, it will loop to the water shown on the left side of the image, which is an inlet which will dead end shortly (west of the red marker).

Asia

Last up, we took a ferry ride over to Asia to check out the non-touristy markets.  Here we saw people buying backpacks and shoes for back-to-school, and

dolphin payphones, naturally.

We stopped for a late lunch.  Our server was pretty funny.  He didn't know too much English, but he sang us Jingle Bells.

Tavuk (chicken) Doner w/ french fries and tomatoes, and Koka-Kola.  3 sandwiches + 3 drinks for under $10 including tax and tip.

Then we took the ferry back to the hotel for nap time (or blog time for the troopers).

Here's a short video I took on the boat ride back to Europe.  Note that the local commuters behind Nora did not join in on our excitement... how very strange.  Please do NOT note that my video is focused on the water instead of the landscape.