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parasitegirl
Saturday evening, back at my hotel､I sat on my bed counting my cash. My bank card doesn’t work in Istanbul so I’d be stuck with what I brought. I counted out 515 Euros for the hotel, knowing that the cash rate was cheaper than whatever the credit card rate would be, and I clipped a note to it. I counted out my Bella money, and my 70 lira to Reyhan, 100 Euros to Princess, 210 lira for Ahmet (this would be my big mistake as three days of lessons costs 210 Euros)…ok. Spending money is OK!
Gonul was instrumental in communication with Ahmet Ogren. Ahmet’s English is not as good as I’d remembered, perhaps because when away from someone who can translate for him, he doesn’t show when he doesn’t comprehend. He’s got a good poker face. This may explain the vague replies I’d gotten from him via Facebook. Gonul is instrumental if you want to actually pin him down to a time/plan. If you get an email from him and it is clear and crisp…it’s Gonul. It was only in interacting with Ahmet and Gonul when I’d see him turn to her for clarification about what I’d said that I understood his English level better.
I woke up Sunday morning and ate as much breakfast as possible. Mishaal had recommended the Sunday flea market in Ortakoy, but as I had not yet figuredout the ferries and busses. I figured I’d go on my last Sunday…not knowing that I would be broke by then and have an afternoon lesson.
Once more, words fail me but my photos are many
I could take pictures of patterns forever…and they don’t even address the treasures and the textiles. Oooooooh, the textiles….mmmmm…sultantastic. I have a pocket guide to Ottoman motifs I bought a few years ago in Japan. I’ve consulted it for designs I’ve integrated into drawings and costumes. I would have sprung for a good book of the textiles but didn’t see one.
In the room of the various jewel-encrusted bling-blings I kept feeling deja-vu. Soon I pinpointed it to an exhibit in New York I saw with Praveen the November I flew back after the terrorist attacks…which I think was an exhibit of the Treasures of Mughal Empire. Similar ornamentation but the Mughal treasures show had an excess of stones with sections of the Koran etched into them.
I’m sure I missed a great deal of historical context in the Topkapi Palace by not experiencing the whole thing while actively reading my guidebook/not paying 10 euros for a tour-headset. Most of the people around me had different ideas about how to experience it all and weren’t down with my theory of letting it all hit me raw and fleshing out the details later. I missed most of the crowds but ended up seeing everything at almost the same pace as a Chinese- American girl around my age and her two parents. The daughter had sprung for the headset and her parents had not. My experience was often punctuated by her louder than needed (due to the headphones) quick summations for her parents. “Oh, it’s a circumcision room!” or “I guess whenever he won a war he built one of these” and a Chinese and English discussion would ensue for a few moments.
After the Harem I grabbed another peach-juice at the café outside. Don’t ask me how it is I kept forgetting to eat a real meal in a country with so much to offer in the way of foods. I have regrets. I’ll be back.
At the same café I ended up being escorted to the tramway by a very tall, sunburned, local university student with almost no English skills. He was sweet but I did give him the brush off because, well, conversation was painfully labored, even by my standards. If an elementary school teacher finds your language speed trying…and I’d estimate him to have been around 6’5” or so. I know the sisterhood of tall girls don't appreciate shorties like me thinning the numbers. He’ll make an awkwardly tall tourist very happy.
I took the tramway across to Tophane and decided to walk up towards Istikal instead of taking the funicular to Taxsim. And I do mean walk up, as the whole way is uphill. This would be the day I decided to walk everywhere to get a good idea of the lay of the land, unlike the day before where I walked and walked because I was lost and stubborn. I walked up and up, actually passing the Fazil Studio NYC…but not knowing it.
Istikal has all the happening shops, but it also has all those shops that are happening everywhere and tend to put a damper on travelers looking for the elusive “authentic” ideal. "What’s that window out of which people are getting lovely looking soft serve? Oh, it’s the Burger King ice cream window…" but, hell, when you are hot and exhausted…I do recommend wandering in the cold basement outlet stores of familiar international brands like MNG until you feel refreshed. These stores are next to more “traditional” stores with men showing off the elastic nature of Turkish ice cream, men in the streets selling rubbery supermen toys that crawl down windows, “hot” Izod jackets, dubious peddlers of perfumes, street crazies, a few street performers and poor Romani women and children selling tissues ( I did not take pictures of the many Romani and non-Romani beggers. I might photograph Japan train life, I do take photos without permission, but I don’t feel comfortable making memories of displays of poverty and need).
I was in search of a good Internet café. I hadn’t had much luck with the internet. The hostel next to my hotel had free access…but only two terminals…and the one I was on didn’t have a functioning i, c, or b...and the scruffy backpacker next to me wouldn’t take pity/obey the “only ten minutes please” written signs. The two cafes recommended by my travel guide were gone. The other one I’d found had ancient machines and too much smoke.
I didn’t find the internet café I was looking for. I did reach a point of exhaustion and stopped for food at a random place where I communicated with a cute waiter with no English ability by using gestures. Teaching “communication style” classes has made me a world class gesture maker…and has lessened the humiliation of doing so.
I walked back down toward the tramway, encountering this stairway:
Which I would later find in my guide book…but I feel it’s better stumbled into than actively searched for. Once I was back doooooown the hill, at the tramway, I decided to keep walking. I walked across the Galata bridge, clicking pictures of the men fishing as I walked. The bridge, as far as I can tell, is never without men fishing off it. The numbers decrease at night…but in my mind it is fished 24/7. Under the bridge are a series of fish restaurants, which I never ate at.
Part of my walking was to eyeball Eminonu where the boats selling fish sandwiches and salads for 4-lira were. The salad is kind of a lie. It means that when these men shove your grilled fish into half a loaf of bread, there is also a pile of onions and lettuce in with it. For some reason I had a minor obsession with knowing about where I could buy such a thing if money got tight. The guidebooks all mention that they are heavenly, a great deal, and worth…the risk. Sometimes they are amazing, and sometimes they are just greasy enough turn your intestines into a wild ride. I was already pushing my luck. I eat fish and seafood nowadays, I’ve relaxed my vegetarian ways here in Japan…but I don’t do it often and was already eating more fish in few days than I do in half a year…and part of why I don’t eat a lot of fish is that my body can’t cope with a lot of fish.
Still, when I saw the floating fish-sandwich boats, looking just like they do in the pictures, I was cheered. I never did try anything from the “pickled foods” sellers, as I get enough of that back in Japan and didn’t even know where to start or if I wanted to start.
And I kept walking and walking.
Back near Sutlanhamet station I ended up talking to a guy trying to get customers to come in to his restaurant. He’d seen me slowdown at the sign about belly dance shows. He told me the price was 30 Euros for the show and food and I started bartering and asking questions…because I know most of the dinner and show places have at least 3 dancers (or varying quality) and folk dance (usually bad) and that this wasn’t going to be worth 30 euros. He agreed to 20 lira for the show and I pay for my drinks. Sure. He etched his name and price into the flyer so whatever night I came I could get what we agreed to. I didn’t expect it to be a good dancer…simply a dancer. I was there to see dancers in the environments Istanbul presents them, and this was one.
I went back to my hotel and showered. I walked back down to Eminonu, this time taking the historical street lined by restored homes along the outer wall of Topkapi palace near. I then purchased my first fish sandwich and salad…followed by some fresh Turkish sweets.
Around 6:45 I wandered to the Sufi show. It was in an artsy venue…with too few toilets (one for men, one for women). Some toilets in Istanbul are flushed by a panel on the wall that you push down on the bottom of to start the flushing and push at the top of to start flushing. I think the woman before me couldn’t figure it out and ripped that panel out of the wall and then tried to shove it back in. It made my use of the toilet problematic, but I got the flushing mechanism to work and then scurried out…not wanting to alert anyone lest I be blamed. I’d love to know if a study exists on international toilet issues and their impact on traveler stress. God knows no one comes to Japan without commenting on the buttons and options involved in high-end toilets and I know my general comfort with squat toilets is not universal.
I have my own troubled history with travel and toilets. It runs in the family. When I managed to get locked in a hamman changing room (I managed to mess up the lock so badly they had to get me to pass the key under the door, and cut it from its key teather to free me) I thought of how I’d laughed when my mother told me how often she’d gotten herself locked in German bathrooms while abroad…and my mother and I were both disturbed by the shower/toilet on our train in Thailand and the thought that someone had actually showered in there.
There was 30 minute concert before the Sufi ceremony started. You can find pictures inside the venue in my photo album, but none of the dancing or music. The musicians were wonderful…wonderful enough that you eventually no longer think about how felted hats like they wear flatter no one. Once more it was very familiar music for me.
The Sufi Performance inevitably reminded me of seeing a “cultural sampler” of sorts in Kyoto with Dave Warning. There was the constant realization that our being there was unnatural. A few of the cultural items on display in Kyoto were common-folks stuff, like Bunraku, but the Geisha? No. This wasn’t how Geisha were supposed to be seen, but it was also the only way shlubs like us would get to see one. Viewing that show in Kyoto we had the added stress/hypocrisy of feeling annoyed by the other interlopers who behaved in loud foreign ways that called extra attention to the incongruous nature of the scene and made everything feel tawdry.
In Kyoto it was the obnoxious Germans. In Istanbul it was all sorts of international halfwits who couldn’t wrap their minds around not using a fucking flash, not talking, and not walking about during a goddamned religious ceremony we’re being allowed to watch. I’m pretty sure these people are the same ones who toss off their head scarves as soon as they get into the Blue Mosque.
The ceremony was slow, but not unwatchably so or dull. I’ve sat through a morning of Noh performances. Nothing tops Noh for slow. This was methodical but not plodding. It was quietly fascinating and not just because I was trying to figure out the footwork of the turns.
After the ceremony I realized I’d still have time to catch the dubious bellydancer show if I wanted to. I got there at 9:30 because the flyer promised live music. I was expecting a fasil band…but of course it was just one guy singing along with his guitar. I should have stayed outside for the kannun player and singer in the street, but in a terrace restaurant only the men who work there can hit on you, you’re not subject to every man on the street.
I chit-chatted with one waiter as I drank my beer. He brought me a small silk elephant, which I sat next to me as my date.
The place was almost empty but they told me it would fill up around 10:30 for the show. Various tables did come, as did a table of 20+ Spaniards paying full price. The head waiter let me move closer to the “stage” area (which was still bigger than any floorspace given to me in Tokyo) with the cheesy line of “You can watch better… and I can watch you better.” The headwaiter also gave me a couple lines about how I wouldn’t have to worry about him because he doesn’t give him card to anyone but his mother and his grandmother…but he looked like a sexy version of the guy who wrote the Game for pick-up artists and said it in a way that made me think “I know what you’re doing, this whole exclusive, too good for the women who come in here act is supposed to make me try for you …”so I kept my card holstered.
Then, a woman who had been sitting at a head table shucked her long coat off to reveal her costume. On the flyer she’d had something like a Bella on, but this was more budget a costume. Still, she WAS the same girl as on the flyer, which is a sort of honesty you rarely find here in Japan (may I remind you that Anatolia in Shibuya has Aziza on their front sign).
She trotted off and they started her music. It was all Egyptian and familiar.
She was also familiar in her “wearing huge stripper shoes with skirts that have been hemmed for a barefoot dancers” way that brought to mind many generic you tube videos of Turkish dancers. It also brought to mind my own argument with the owner of Ala Turca about wanting us all in heels.
She was, in many ways, the bad Turkish dancer we’ve all seen. Her arms were weak. You could see the lights turning off in her eyes and how she didn’t modify her choreography to avoid flashing fake smiles at empty tables. There was a lot of flopping over at the waist and it not looking good, over use of hair tossing, and the occasional dramatic adjusting of breasts.
Still, there were moments where something turned on behind her eyes and she was there and maybe even enjoying herself. There were move I hand’t seen but liked. It was a short set, but closer to the restaurant set that I am familiar to here than the dinner-theater shows I’d see later.
There was they show and then there was the equally long time of going around to each table and soliticing tips (and, yes, allowing tips right into her bra cups…) which was as interesting to watch. I never get to act violent and pull the hair of customers here or and wouldn’t think of shoving heads towards my breasts. She tried to play a too-long game of “ooop, I’m moving my hip away from your money, can you get me?” with me but didn’t know who she was dealing with. Her jaw dropped when she brought her hip back for another teasing pass and realized I’d gotten money into her belt without her even feeling it. I tip as a kindness, but have no need for tipping games.
I left after three beers…pretty damned tipsy. This was when one pick-up artist got bitchy and wished me a long and lonely life. I’d told him, straight up, that I needed to pee and wasn’t interested in more drinks. When he provided a bathroom at a nearby bar he was disappointed to find that leading me to a toilet had not made me want to drink with him.
This was also when I met Halit, who ended up knowing people who worked at Simsir restaurant in Yokohama where Eshe used to dance and where I used to fill in. If you can provide the station name for Simsir, you’re legit. So I had a drink with Halit and his friend Haji, and we chatted in Japanese, before I crashed at my hotel for the night.
