Tuesday, May 31, 2011

Istanbul with Kids: Street Finds

Our favorite part of Istanbul was the stuff we just stumbled on in the streets.

Riot police prepared for action

We accidentally stumbled upon a political protest march (especially interesting to us since part of David's conference was cancelled over fear of protests). This was a young, cheery crowd carrying signs complaining of Internet censorship by the government. At one point, protesters started swing dancing with a sidewalk jazz band.


Restaurant with three goats' heads. How could we not eat here? It was actually very good.


City Walls. 


 The precipitousness of the "steps" should have warned us--sheer, terrifying drops everywhere off these remnants of the city walls. But the views were staggering.


Fat mannequins. Our hotel was in the garment district. I have never before seen so many clothing shops in such a small space. And some of them used fat mannequins! We even discovered a mannequin store where they sell them!



Tiled houses. In the neighborhoods outside of the city center, many of the houses are covered outside with tiles like you would find in a kitchen or bathroom.


Street Food. Turkish ice cream. Sesame breadsticks (my favorite). Freshly-squeezed juice. And lollipops. As you watched, the lollipop would create a richly fruit-flavored lollipop just for you.


A creepy chess set--Western political leaders versus Al Qaeda.

2 comments:

Sarah said...

So, would you recommend Turkey? While I danced with the BYU Folk Dance Team, I enjoyed learning the dance culture of other countries and longed to visit some day. Turkish dances were among those we learned--though, not the swing dancing that apparently is popular on the streets. :)

I also like the ball cap on the mannequin. It makes him look so gansta cool, right? He's not fat, he's "phat." I guess if you've got merchandise to push, you do what you can. Funny.

Annette said...

Turkey was pretty great with kids and it was not terribly expensive, either, which is always a plus for us. So, yes! I would recommend Turkey.

I'm kind of surprised I've never seen fat (or phat!) mannequins in the US. It had never occurred to me that you could have mannequins of varying sizes, in fact, until I saw these. Perhaps those cultural expectations in America are more insidious than I had realized!