Istanbul Day 6 - Sight Seeing

Today was our day for touristy stuff so we tried to hit as many of the major sites as possible. Here is a short recap of what we saw:

Topkapi Palace - This was an old palace that served as the home for the Ottoman Sultans. It was pretty big with a ton of different buildings (including the "circumcision room"...uhhhh?) There were a ton of jewels and other artifacts on display but the highlights had to be: an 86 carat diamond that was originally found in the city rubbish dump, the staff Moses used to part the sea, and the fingers of John the Baptist.

From 2010 Turkey

Hagia Sophia - The Haga Sophia is a church which was turned into a mosque. It's definitely a unique and beautiful building worth seeing. Massive is the best way to describe it.

From 2010 Turkey

From 2010 Turkey

Blue Mosque - The Blue Mosque was pretty interesting too. You are required to remove your shoes to enter. It's currently Ramadan too, so it may have been busier than usual. I was sort of disappointed with the ability to take a good photo though because they had these low-hanging chandeliers and a ton of wires obstructing the views of the ornate ceilings.

From 2010 Turkey

From 2010 Turkey

Cistern Basilica - This was probably my favorite thing that we saw today, mainly because I loved the underworld sort of feeling and the engineering that must have gone into creating such a place. It was essentially a big underground reservoir for the city of Istanbul and there were aqueducts to transport the water to and from the reservoir. Today there's only a few feet of water in it, but I can imagine that it must have gotten quite full in the past (there are big carp swimming around in the water today.) They do a great job of lighting it in an interesting way for the tourists although taking photos is tough because you need to use such a long exposure.

From 2010 Turkey

The Grand Bazar - The Grand Bazar was completely different from what I expected. I was thinking this would be very rustic with a dirt floor and little tent covered vendors. But it's really like a big maze of hallways and feels much more like a mall. There are some nice trendy sort of high end shops but most are little local establishments. It seems like you can get just about anything here and haggle prices with the local Turks. All the folks I was with bought some little souvenirs and some bought bigger ticket items like turkish rugs.

From 2010 Turkey

For dinner we went to Park Flora to have fish on the Bosphorus. This is a very nice restaurant with a great view and outdoor seating. They sell fish in kind of a strange way though. First, the prices on the menu are all per KG, so at first we were shocked to see how expensive everything is. But considering that an entree is only like 400 grams it was slightly more reasonable. But the other weird part was that you actually get up from your table with the waiter to go and pick your specific fish from their "fish market" in the restaurant. They have them all laid out on ice and you choose the one you want. We all ended up getting sea bass so they picked the biggest one for us to share. There was no choice on how it's prepared so we were in for a surprise. It turned out to be good though and even more importantly, it was a great experience.

One thing that I realized on this trip is a quote that Justin keeps saying "it's all about the experience" and he's right. Experiences might cost money, but that's beside the point. You want to have interesting, unique, enjoyable experiences when you're on a trip to a foreign country and money should be a secondary concern (in my opinion.) So even though it was an expensive dinner, it was definitely worth it and something I'll remember forever.

After dinner we walked over to Ortokoy for drinks down by the water. I think we were just at the Radisson hotel bar or something but it was awesome...right on the water with great views of the bridge and a trendy European crowd. One tip while you're in Turkey is to order the local vodka (Bimboa) if you are getting mixed drinks because it's significantly cheaper. Imported alcohol is heavily taxed.

Finishing up our drinks we tried to meet up with Preston and his friends to go to Angelic, a local club/bar. Unfortunately, only a few of us where able to get in (Justin and Harsha) but actually that worked out well since it allowed Caroline, Andrea, Neville and I to get an "early" night's sleep. I think Harsha and Justin had a pretty big night out and looked like they were in some pain the next morning.