Emirgan Park

Emirgan Park is one of the largest parks in Istanbul. I had attempted a visit in the summer, but the walk up the hill from the Bosphorus was too intimidating. Today I attended a luncheon at a home near an exit from the park at its highest elevation. As I was on foot, rather than in a car, it was no problem to step over the metal grate that would puncture tires entering this exit. Emirgan Park is famous for its tulips in the spring, so I will be visiting again at that time. But it was beautiful today also. Within the park, there are three pavillions, named for their colors. We have the White Pavillion, ... the Yellow Pavillion, which was open today for dining, and...

the Pink Pavillion.

Throughout the park, there are many walking trails, picnic tables, park benches, ...

a water fountain, with ducks and ...

a friendly swan. Not many people were in the park, as we are now in our second week of school and this was early afternoon. I imagine weekends are another story.

The grounds were magnificantly kept. Gardeners were working in several areas. My favorites in the park were the tree with the pink flowers, and ...

the knotted up tree.

I walked downward through the park and ended up at the Bosphorus, where I took the bus to Bebek and the ferry back to the Asian side. A to be repeated visit to Emirgan Park.

Istinye

Today I was over on the European side and had a walk around the village of Istinye. Istinye harbor area is just one of many natural harbors along the Bosphorus. It has a good size harbor, which is always lined with boats. In the distance, you can easily see the Asian side of Istanbul.

After walking around the harbor, I walked down some side streets away from the water and found a very pretty flowering tree, ...

and a building supply shop with the clay roof tiles piled up outside the shop.

And if you are shopping for a wedding dress, you might want to check out this shop.

The new USA consulate is not far from here, but you must have an appointment to get in, even if you are a passport holder of the USA. I still have pages in my passport, so no need for an appointment today.

The Color Orange

I purchased a vase recently. Not only is it orange, but it is in the shape of an orange segment. It is made by Pasabahce, one of my favorite shops in Turkey. They have been making glass pieces for everyday and art since 1938. There is also a village named Pasabahce, just a few villages north of me on the Asia side. It was the location of their factory until a recent relocation out of the area. When they first established the factory, it was probably considered far out from the city, but as the city grew, it became incorporated into the densely populated part of Istanbul. I did take a walk by the factory to see if it was completely closed down, and it appeared so.

Nearby, a creative someone seems to have made a home out of containers and painted them orange. So in keeping with an orange theme, here is the container house,...

and a more traditional house in another part of town, ...

life saving equipment on board a newer ferry, ...

and a couple of flowers from my brother-in-law's garden.

I just bought the flowers for my vase today and wonder if my husband will notice them. He had not yet noticed the orange vase!

Hope all are noticing some orange in the changing seasons.

Amy

Persian Pants

Persian pants are not the latest fashion statement in Istanbul, but they are on display at the Yapi Kredi (my bank) museum. These pants were created using the sprang technique, where vertically stretched threads are interlinked or intertwined together. It is thought this technique was used prior to knitting to create an elastic type garment, plus you could create this nice zig-zag pattern. Here is a small sample of some sprang work to give you a better idea as to how it is done. The pants were known to be worn by the Persian army as well as all Scythians and they are depicted here on a re-created painting and the original, found in a wooden burial chamber. The burial chamber is thought to be the only painted wooden grave chamber ever to be found. And it was found in Afyonkarahisar in western Turkey. Recently, the chamber has been excavated and the paintings studied. The chamber was built around 470 B.C. and has painted panels on all the interior walls. As you can see, the archers look very smart on horseback with their zig-zag designed pants. A time before camouflage to blend into the landscape.

The German excavation team did some research to determine how the paint was made and retained its color. They took pigments and mized them with such things as egg, linseed oil, cherry gum and rabbit skin glue to recreate the colors and their longevity.

The pigment colors were derived from locally available minerals.

The entire chamber is currently located in the Yapi Kredi museum in Istanbul, and will subsequently be moved to a museum in the city of Afyonkarahisar.

I have not seen anyone wearing these pants in downtown Istanbul, but I have seen girls wearing denim shrugs. Not sure if that is last year's fashion or this year's, but they are a new fashion item to me.

Turkish Coffee

Turks drink 245 million glasses of tea every day - that was news in yesterday's paper. With a population of 73 million, that only allows for 3 and 1/3 glasses per person. When you work the math, the number actually sounds a little low to me. It is by far the most popular drink. But there is some coffee drinking going on also. Turkish coffee is usually made one or two cups at a time and served in an espresso size cup. The coffee itself is very finely ground - I would call it coffee powder. The coffee and water are heated together in a little pot and after the coffee has boiled and foamed, it is poured in the cup. Sip slowly and carefully, as all the coffee powder is in the bottom of the cup.

When you have finished your coffee, place the saucer over the cup, give it a little swirl
and turn it over. Now it is ready to cool before having your fortune read.

An expert is needed to read the symbolism in your coffee grounds. Birds are good, but I don't see any in this cup. The handle of the cup marks the 12 o'clock position. So, if you had a bird at 3 o'clock, that would mean good news in 3 hours or 3 days or 3 weeks. The three is specific, but not the unit of time.

Not this, but another cup of Turkish coffee I drank, yielded the good fortune that I would be receiving lots of money. My reader is very new at this, but all encourage me to buy a lottery ticket. I was not so sure about this, and the lottery ticket costs $8. So I went for the 1/2 ticket for $4. The drawing is this Sunday evening. If I win a million dollars, my husband will retire for good. In the meantime, he is going to work.

Holiday in Izmir

Sunset on Wednesday, September 8th, marked the end of Ramadan and Turkey was on a national holiday for 4 days. We drove down to Izmir for the holiday, but first left from Istanbul via ferry to cross the Marmara Sea. We drove the car... onto the upper deck of the parking area. Then we left the car and headed to our assigned seats for the two hour crossing. I was looking forward to getting a closer look at the Marmara Sea, but...

the windows were slightly salted, and they did not allow us to go outside. This picture shows the southern shore of the Marmara Sea, where there is a significant wind farm, just before getting into Bandirma.

Bandirma did not make "10,000 Places to See Before You Die", and most likely will not make the "10,000 Places" edition. But driving out from Bandirma, there were fields and fields of dried sunflowers, waiting to be harvested for their seeds. We also passed Lake Kus on it's eastern shore, away from the national park home to herons, pelicans and spoonbills.

We stopped at one rest stop, where behind the restaurant, there were cows, and...

cow dormitories. Adjacent to the dorms, stood ...

a huge dairy processing factory. And at the rest stop, you could buy long life milk as well as a two kilo tin of feta cheese. For the lactose intolerant, they had a nice jar of mixed nuts in honey.

There were also lots of chicken farms, processing plants for poultry, beef, flour and oil and miles of olive trees. Somewhere amongst the olive trees, melons were growing. In one 40 kilometer section of road north of Akhisar, I counted 175 stands selling melons.

One large town we bypassed was Balikesir. Depending on where you hyphenate the name it could mean "trapped fish" (balik-esir) or "strong honey" (bali-kesir). I checked the towns website, and mention rumors of Persian origin, which could lead to either alternative.

We stayed overnight in Izmir and then went to my brother-in-law's summer house in Doganbey on the Aegean Sea. The summer homes are all nicely landscaped and the terrain is flat to the sea.

A one block walk to the sea... In the distance on the right, you can see the Greek Island of Samos. The beach has smooth stones of many colors. I picked up a number of green stones as well as a piece of previously carved marble. Perhaps a piece of a monument of antiquity. You can walk out a good distance in the water without it being over your head. A perfect beach for swimmers and non-swimmers.

The neighbor had pear and pomegranite trees and we helped ourselves to some. The pomegranites are not yet ripe, but the pears were juicy and delicious.

Many residents were visiting for the holiday, although some had closed up for the season.

Another day, we drove to Cesme, to my sister-in-law's summer house. Here, in the distance, is the Greek Chios Island. Smooth stones are deep at the water's edge and I picked some orange and yellow stones. The sea level drops off quickly, so this is the beach for the strong swimmers only.

The homes had lovely gardens and the bougainvillea was very stricking.

We returned to Istanbul via the same route as the original journey and were happy the trip went so smoothly during a national holiday.

Weekend in Sapanca

Labor Day weekend is not a holiday in Turkey, but we did have an adventure to Sapanca. Sapanca is a town to the east of Istanbul and it is surrounded by small villages and lovely countryside. There is a large lake there and the Karatepe mountains. My husband and his sister own a home there, which was built by their brother. Eight of us ventured the hour and a half out of Istanbul for a nice weekend together. The property has six homes as well as a spring from an artisian well. A channel built from the spring...

...feeds a pond built for fish. 10 very small trout were purchased and have grown to nice sizes. Their backs are green and they have a nice red stripe on their sides. We had fun feeding the fish.
We grilled for dinner, but the fish were safe. We had chicken and beef.

It is also walnut season in Sapanca and my husband's niece picked some off of a walnut tree and we all had some fresh walnuts to eat. I missed taking a picture of her hands after all the walnut peeling... they were stained a very dark brown that no soap washes away.

She did enjoy all the shaped bands I had gotten her at Kate's store.

The property also has a built-in swimming pool and several went in for a swim.

We had great weather and it was a fun weekend. And if anyone is interested, the house next door is available, if you would like to buy in to the neighborhood.