Quote of the Day

Anyone who lives within their means suffers from a lack of imagination.

-OSCAR WILDE

My Soul, My Liver

On our last night in Istanbul, we decided to have an authentic old school Turkish dinner. Canim Cigerim Ilhan Usta (translates to "my soul, my liver") is this place that specializes in grilled liver! It's served with herbs (corriander, mint, razorishy herb whatever it is called), spicy tomato sauce, grilled vegetables, and turkish equivalant to banh trang (rice paper). 

They also have chicken or beef if offal isn't your (or in this case, Yen's) thing although the liver is the house specialty.

So apparently (by Yen's count) they give you 10 skewers of meat each and Yen only had 6 in total. Somehow I managed to eat all ten of my skewers. Two of hers in the beginning and then two more of hers at the end when she got sick of it. So all in all, I had 14 skewers? 

14 skewers!!! All washed down with Ayran. 

So lets reflect on this. 14 skewers of meat. 10 of those comprised of liver. All accompanied by spicy tomato sauce. Washed down with a salted yogurt water beverage. 

Let's just say this, I got more toxic assets than a government assisted bank.

Yen certainly didn't appreciate the aftermath of my body trying to digest all that either. 

Day 5: Turkish Bath

According to our guidebook, it is not "advisable" for anyone to leave Istanbul without having a Turkish bath or Hamami as they call it, so on our last day, we headed to Çemberlitaş Hamamı, one of the most beautiful and a highly recommended baths in the city, located in a building dating back to 1584.

Michael wasn't keen on the idea, but thought it'd be worth a shot. I opted for a basic bath and oil massage package, while he got just a basic bath. Men and women bathe in completely different chambers and what happens is, you strip down, get butt nekkid and a busty old woman (burly old man in Mike's case) scrubs you down. It's some serious scrubbin' as you can actually see the dirt from your skin on the sponge. I had really been looking forward to the experience, which is why I saved it for the last day of our trip and went in there with high spirits.

The baths are extremely steamy, hot and super packed. Everyone walks in a bit confused at first, because it's just a large room, with a huge marble slab in the middle, which you lay on, and wait for your turn to be bathed (with all your glory hanging out for everyone to see - I saw lots' of "shapes and sizes" if you know what I mean). Some people who were lucky and were laying in the right spot at the right time, got bathed right away. It looked like the average wait time was about 5 to 15 minutes. But I sat there nearly unnoticed for over an hour! Imagine sitting in a strange, stuffy sauna, alone, with a bunch of nekkid women yelling in a language you don't understand, while you ponder whether the marble slab you're jewels have been resting on have ever been sanitized... for an hour! Two American women who seemed lost, walked into the chamber and asked me if I had been bathed already because I was drenched in sweat. I wonder if they noticed I was feeling sorry for myself and near tears because I thought I was going to pass out from dehydration.

After that hour, a woman finally notices that I still hadn't been bathed and went outside to pull in another woman, who didn't seem to be too happy as they were screaming at each other in Turkish. I'm assuming the woman she pulled in was on break and didn't want to be bothered to bathe me. She made it apparent too as she took her frustrations out on me and I got a very half @ss scrub and mediocre hairwash, that lasted for about 4 minutes total - while I had just spent an hour watching all these other women getting luxurious body scrubs that lasted for about 15-20 minutes and head massage during their shampoo! It's not like I could have even said anything about it since people conveniently don't speak English when you want to make a complaint.

She then wisked me off to my oil massage, which was the most stressful massage I have ever had in my life. I came out of that bath dirtier, oilier, and more tensed than I had going in. Michael was waiting for me in the common room, fresh faced, relaxed and clean. He greeted me with a smile, while I did everything I could to not to grind my teeth. After all, it wasn't his fault I paid 95 lira for torture-in-a-sauna... while he paid half the price for an attendant assigned solely to him, got a 40 minute scrub, back massage and a bonus back-crack free-of-charge!!! Isn't that just the bollucks?!.. he didn't even want a Turkish bath, but ended up having a way better experience than me! I suppose if it wasn't for that long, miserable, unexpected wait, it would have been a lot more enjoyable. In hindsight, I'm really glad we did it... though we found out from my boss later, that him and his wife went to a luxurious bath and paid only 15 lira each - oiiii.

Here are some pictures of our last day in Istanbul (pre-bath... we couldn't bring cameras inside the bath) where we walked by some remaining sights.

In front of Topkapi Palace

Baklava

When I had my first baklava years ago, I didn't like it at all... I thought it was way too sweet, even for my tastes! Baklava, a Turkish specialty, is an extremely rich, sweet pastry made of crispy layers, filled with nuts, and then drenched in syrup or honey. I thought I'd give it another shot this time around and developed a super-sonic sweet tooth (version 2.0 of my already sweet tooth :) and it was love at 1st bite! From then on, I could not walk by a pastry shop / window display of baclava without stopping to buy at least a few for the road.

The one with the green topping (first picture above & below) seems to be the most popular one and is made with pistachios. And the nuts wrapped in crispy noodles is really yummy!
But this remaining one was gross... couldn't waste the walnut though :P
This peanut brittle looking thing was ridiculously good too!.. wonder what they put in it?
Later in the trip, I discovered this pistachio-CHOCOLATE one... my faaaaavorite!

Homer Simpson style... "Ummm... baklavaaa..."

360

On the Saturday night of our trip, Michael and I had dinner at 360, a restaurant-nightclub, known for its supposed "knock-out" views of the city, but we didn't even go out on the terrace to see the views because it was too cold! We did listen to some awesome, live, old-school Tina Turner beats though (big wheels keep on turning, anyone?). The place was cool, but a lot of ex-pats and tourists. Judging from the crowd and the pricey drinks (if you thought London was expensive, think again), we forgot we were in Istanbul!..

... Until we ran into our boss, Amir from London! Yup, that's our CEO.
Ok, ok, so we didn't run into him - we found out right before we left, that him and his wife were also coming to Istanbul the same weekend to visit her family, so he called to meet up. Here we thought we were getting away from work! What a small world!

Despite it all, I had a great time... as always!!!