Day 11 - Grand Bazaar

*Entrance into the Kapali Carsi (the Grand Bazaar). It's really not that grand until you walk inside its four thousand shop maze. You could stay here for days if you are a shopper like me.

"How about I give you a good price, only for you!" Julee and I decided to pack all our shopping at the famous Grand Bazaar all in the last day. We started 10 in the morning and got out at 5 in the afternoon. There were so many bright shiny objects (in Julee's words) that constantly distracted me, I could not focus on any one thing before I leaped from one shop to the next, pointing at yet another discovery with all the excitement that I should NOT be displaying in front of the vendors. I am completely an impulse buyer. At the end of the day, I became a bag lady. Hopping with a backpack full of ceramic which I collect from all over the world and a double-bagged gigantic nargile pipe, which I regrettably did not purchase last year in Cairo.

Haggling-wise, it never felt right. I never knew whether we did a good job or not after comparison across different shops. The Grand Bazaar has over four thousand shops under ornately painted domes. It was not intuitively organized at least for us. The signs are in Turkish so we really did not know which way to go. Every shop led to the next which were all full of fancy intriguing objects. We were like kids in the candy store.

* Heaven for ceremic lovers. I love all the tiles in Turkey.

I was dizzy from the selections. Eventually a blue tree of life plate went home with me.

To hide our interest from the shop keepers or to make an attempt to do so, Julee and I decided that we would use a code word - "Grilled octopus (our favorite food)" would be the code for "Hey Julee come here. I found something I really liked!" For Julee especially, who had absolutely no way to hide her interest when it comes to a rug or a gigantic necklace. She would go into a carpet shop, sing praises to the rug of her desire, kneel down and give me a 10 minute lesson on the differences between a kilim vs. a sumac and the varying knitting and knotting techniques. The carpet seller often looked at her in amazement and invited her to be their sales lady. I teased her "Why don't you just pay twice the price for this rug since it's so precious!"

After the shopping, we went back to the Galata Bridge and had dinner watching our favorite scenery in Istanbul, the Bosphorus. Tonight we will pack and tomorrow morning we fly to Croatia.

*Pack mule sitting outside Yani Cami (New Mosque) near the spice bazaar. At this point, I had my precious nargile with me. I made the guy double bag it. In fact, I almost lost it half an hour later since I forgot it at the shop outside the train station when I was buying a ring. When I realized I lost it, I let out a cry on the street that made other Turks around me jump. I ran back to the shop and had to say "No I've eaten already" dozen more times to the restaurant waiters trying to get me inside... but I had my nargile back safe and sound.