Spoons...

In the Kartal bazaar, this woman was selling spoons, the sign says that everything here is 1YTL (~$0.75) each. These spoons are quite popular in Turkey, they were available all over and seemed quite nice.

Sahil Yolu and Atalar

Below are pictures of the Sahil Yolu (coastal road) taken in Kartal. The body of water is the Marmara Sea. The area on the side of the mountain in the background is called Dragos, which is a very nice place to live.






Here are some pictures of Atalar, Rahmanlar and Petrol İş sections of Kartal.

Turkish Farmers Market (Pazar)

In Bornova, Izmir every Wednesday and Sunday several streets are shutdown and a pazar (farmers market) is setup. Most of the produce and meat/fish being sold is brought directly from farm to market, hence everything here is extremely fresh and sold at reasonable prices since the middleman has been eliminated. In some of the pictures there are prices visible and are generally for 1KG of the item being sold and priced in YTL (1.32YTL = 1USD).

Boats of Akyaka

Akyaka is a small tourist and fishing village located on the Gulf of Gökova and about a 30 minute drive from the city of Muğla. There were many interesting looking boats lining the canal (Akyaka Azmak) that led out to the gulf. This site has a very nice overhead view of the city and the canal where all of these pictures were taken.

Sock Dealer

There are not many places in the world left where you can find stores that specialize in selling socks (çorap):

Doors of Old Antakya

Antakya is an extremely old city, it was founded in 300BC, and has a section of the old town that has been preserved. The streets in this area were very narrow, not wide enough in some places for an automobile to enter. The doors on the buildings in this section of town were quite unique, here is sampling of the most interesting ones:

Delicious Shawarma Sandwiches

Kebo made some very nice chicken sandwiches. The sign reads 'Diet's Enemy', which I will have to agree with because I ate my fair share. In fact, these things are so good someone made a rap song about them:

Good Bay...

One interesting thing that is prevalent in both Turkey and Syria (where this photo was taken) is that when things are written in English they are commonly misspelled:

Returning to America...

Vacation is over, flying back early on Thursday morning...

update: back in America.

Arrived at Istanbul Atatürk Airport at 8:30PM EST and walked out of Detroit Metro Airport at 2:15PM EST the next day. Making the total travel time 17 hours and 45 minutes, this does not include the time spent driving to and from the airports...

Tree

It is not every day that you see a tree just sitting in the middle of a street. At least the city was courteous enough to put some signs in front of it...

Nonstop IST to ALP

Turkish Airlines has released their updated Summer Timetable with the information on the flights to Aleppo (Halab). The times are terrible, flights departing Aleppo (to Istanbul Ataturk) are available on Tuesday, Friday and Sunday at 3:45AM and returning to Aleppo on Monday, Thursday and Saturday at 11:50pm. The cost of the flight booked two weeks in advance is currently 475YTL, which is somewhat expensive. Flying to Antakya cost 250YTL, however, the cost (and inconvenience) of traveling across the boarder is avoided by flying directly to Aleppo.

Parking in Bornova

Parking in downtown Bornova (Izmir) can be somewhat tricky. Most apartment buildings reserve the spots in front for the tenants with security devices similar to this:



On a side note, as discussed earlier, take note of the code on the license plate (35).

The parking security system works by simply locking a bar in place, preventing someone from entering your parking spot. When disengaged, the driver simply pulls over the top of the device which lies flat (not necessarily flush) on the ground. This simple contraption can save a significant amount of time driving around looking for generally non-existent parking spaces. With the continued recent economic growth of Turkey, individual automobile ownership appears to have greatly increased.

Engaged:




Disengaged:

Pizza weirdness, Part 2...

Here are a few more pizza places with unusual names:

Izmir Lokma

Izmir Lokma is a very tasty treat. In America, the arab bakeries generally carry something quite similar to this, but it pales in comparison with the original product, fresh from the streets of Izmir: