2: Getting home sick
3: In the Grand Bazaar
This time next week we should be inserting our key in our door at home. It seems so long ago we were there. K's really looking forward to it as are the kids. I also was until recently - now I'm not too sure. Breakfast on the terrace with a view of the Blue Mosque and the Marmara Sea - beauuuutiful!
Off to the Grand Bazaar. It is the oldest and biggest shopping area in the world. The Grand Bazaar is a vast collection of over 4,000 shops, 24 hans (privately owned inns or marketplaces), 65 streets, 22 gates, 2 bedestens (covered markets), restaurants, mosques, fountains, and teahouses within an area of 31 hectares (76 acres). Lots of people, the smell of spices in the air and the hard sell from everyone we walked past. But we did buy but always after a good haggle. We spent a good deal of the day here.
Returning from the bazaar at the Hippodrome, about 8 men wearing Guy Fawkes masks were scaring a few people by sneaking up on them and I could see some concern on some people's faces. I mention them as the mask is a symbol of the protestors involved in the riots. Several police vans arrived and an unmarked police car so the mask wearers left without any real issues.
We have experienced the warmest weather since leaving Australia so we will enjoy it before returning to an Aussie winter. I write this as I sit on the window ledge looking out our window at the shop vendors chatting as they sit outside together occasionally encouraging passing tourists to look at their wares. Vendors pushing ancient looking trolleys sell watermelon or cooked corn whilst another pulls one filling it with plastic from bins that he must be able to sell on. I could sit here for hours spying on the going ons below me and that is exactly what I intend to do.
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