Istanbul Part Two
Transplant Surgery
Did you know that Istanbul is a worldwide hub of hair
transplant surgery? We have seen many men walking around with bandaged up
heads, and we weren’t quite sure what was going on until we learned about this.
People fly in, get hair transplant surgery, and fly home. It looks rather
uncomfortable.
Air Bnb Apartment
We transitioned from our hotel in our first neighborhood in
Istanbul (Sultanahmet) to our AirBnb in our second neighborhood – called
Eminonu. It was a really affordable apartment but perhaps not our favourite
place. A very cozy 1 bdm suite with a little kitchen and a basic bathroom with
a lot of mildew. We were safe and it was fine, but it reminds me that having a
good lodging option can really make a stay much more or less enjoyable…
Galata Tower
We walked over the Galata Bridge, which is massive and provides great views of the boat traffic in Istanbul. There are hundreds of fisherman spanning both sides of the bridge. It was fun to watch them bringing in lines of 2-6 small silver fish and putting them in buckets with water over and over again. We had a really beautiful day with blue sky (most other days were foggy/grey) to go up to the top of the Galata Tower and enjoy the view over the whole city. Istanbul is massive! 16million people – likely the most populated city any of us have ever been to.
Near the tower we walked along a touristy street and got a delicious waffle treat. Then we walked back to our place via the metro bridge, which was another cool view.
Suleymaniye Mosque
Mosques, mosques everywhere! This particular one (named for Suleyman the Magnificent) was
gorgeous and large. We enjoyed the outside and the inside. Going inside
provided a calm and peace that seemed harder to find anywhere else, so we
enjoyed that and felt very welcomed.
We then walked around town - we saw some other mosques and gardens.
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| Gardens beside this other beautiful mosque |
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| I dragged the family around to find this old historic column because it was a geocaching thing |
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| Turkish pizza for lunch |
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| J and M had a geocaching date in and around the Grand Bazaar |
Taksim Square and the tram of Istiklal
We saw the monument at Taksim Square, walked along next to
the historic tram, and enjoyed the street where we could find stores in
English. It was busy with many shoppers. We found a great sports store (like
Dick’s or SportChek) inside a mall. Downstairs we saw an indoor trampoline
park, so the kids went for it and jumped around the obstacle course challenge
for an hour.
We also rode the historic funicular here that is short and sweet.
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| Can you find Joey and Nunu? |
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| Turkish Lira |
Our 8 days in Istanbul, allowed us to explore the main
tourist attractions of the city. We enjoyed our time here.
Two other personal things happened while we were here that have
nothing to do with Istanbul or Turkey.
1) 1) Jason was successful in the HardRock 100 lottery, so he will be running this really hard 100 miler for the third time in July 2023. This is really exciting (and lucky). We will do our best to support his training over the next 6 months (ie find mountain trails and hills he can run whenever possible) while we travel. We aren’t quite sure what our plans are in May/June/July in terms of coming back to North America and how that might all fit together.
2) 2) Croatia has been successful in its quest to join
the Schengen zone. Starting Jan 1, 2023, any entry into Croatia will now count
as time in the Schengen Zone. We knew that this might happen, but was hoping it
wouldn’t happen until after we spent some time there in January/February.
Unfortunately we don’t have time left in our visa to spend days inside the
Schengen Zone, so we can’t go to Croatia for more than 1-2 days. This means we
had to cancel our plans in Croatia and will have to shift to other plans
instead. Hopefully as that door closes to us, another one with a different
adventure, opens.
Next stop: CAIRO!
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