Mr. Pasha's face coming out of the wall. This guy's portrait/sculpture/statue was all over the place in Istanbul. I think he was the founder of modern turkey some 80 years ago. 

Its the Taksim Kebab place. let's eat chicken. 

Here's a picture of a shoe shining stand in the hotel we were at. These guys are undercover, thus the black bar to maintain their anonymity.  

This is a picture of some dude cleaning the windows. Funny thing is, he's about 3 stories up, and he's just standing on the ledge...what's up with that? 

OK, Its Istanbul!

ISTANBUL

I have to say first off that we were working most of the time. Basically, we left the hotel around 8:30am. The commute was about 30 minutes there, and we left anywhere between 6-7pm. The ride back to the hotel was longer due to traffic. It would still take about 30 minutes to get back to the area around the hotel, but due to one way roads and lots a traffic, an 800 meter walk took another 15 minutes! We asked to be dropped off where we were, but since the rides were arranged by our hosts, the driver would not let us out. Thus, I don’t have any cool pictures, especially not of the touristy things. I took a few, so I’ll post some of them. Sorry.

Anyway, I’m not going to do a day by day account. I’ll try to just include the highlights. Also keep in mind, our general feeling of uneasiness was due in part to language/culture differences/misunderstanding/ignorance and Turkey’s neighbors: Greece, Iraq, Iran, Syria, and maybe some others I can’t remember without the map.

Sunday, April 17th :
We arrived in Istanbul today. The flight was uneventful. For that I’m grateful. The first night myself and two coworkers decided to head out to dinner. Our fourth member crashed at the hotel and just went straight to bed. The three of us out walked around looking for an authentic Turkish restaurant near the hotel. We found a nice little kebab place. One thing I’ll mention about Istanbul…they eat a lot of meat. My meals for the week (except for one dinner at a Japanese restaurant) were always some sort of combination of chicken, lamb, or beef. For lunch and dinner! I was getting tired of it the second day. Anyway, after dinner we walked back to the hotel. It was less than a mile away, so was easy to get to. Went to bed around 3 or 4am.

Food:
As I mentioned above, it was a lot of meat. I never ate seafood (except when I went to the Japanese restaurant on my own). I inquired of my hosts about the availability of seafood in Turkey and they assured me it was readily available – Turkey is along the sea. Why we never ate fish during the trip I’ll never know.

I got my fill of Lamb. Its pretty stringy…

Walking to the shopping district, my coworker and I passed a man on the street selling little bunnies. He had them in a box, and I thought he was looking to sell them as pets. As we approached we heard him asking “shish kebabs, shish kebabs” I felt bad for the bunnies.

Almost all the dessert we had were some sort of pastry drenched in honey. Sometimes it was a cake drenched in honey. Sometimes, some heavier kind of pastry. Sometimes pears, topped with applesauce, all soaked in honey. There were ok, but I don’t think I’d like to eat it every day like I did.

Coffee!!!
This was great. I’ve never had Turkish coffee before, but after the first, I was hooked. Basically Turkish coffee served in a cup about the size of a double sized shot glass. The coffee is put directly in a small pot along with water (and sugar to taste). Its boiled and poured into the small cup. You can drink about ¾ of it before you start to hit the coffee grounds. I told you it wasn’t filtered. The grounds generally sink to the bottom of the cup and you definitely don’t drink it unless you want to get sick. I ended up getting a cup set, coffee pots, and lots of coffee. It should last a long time, since I don’t think its too healthy to drink this stuff every day. Plus, you make such a small cup anyway. Well, I hope it lasts a while. I’ll ask one of my coworkers to bring some back next time he goes if it seems to go by fast.

Safety:
I’m going to be honest here. None of us felt safe there. I made the mistake of going out on my own one night. I got dragged into a bar and put at a table. Lots of eastern European women dancing around. They sat me at a table with a guy and two girls came by. I tried to leave ,but they put down our drinks. I finally made my way out and discovered they weren’t about to let me leave without paying for my drink. Or the drinks of my “friends”. I was there about 2 minutes, and all this happened. Well the four drinks came to about $200. I had $25 in Turkish lira on me, $100 US dollars, and multiple credit cards. Luckily, I had stashed my lira in a separate pocket and pulled out the wad and handed it to the guy. We argued a bit, but eventually they let me go. It was one of the scariest moments in my life. Any multitude of bad things could have occurred- most of which I don’t want to get into. I figure this was one of the most valuable lessons I’ve had in life thus far—and it only cost me $25! That’s the best deal anywhere. I had been in a good mood, was near the hotel (about 400 meters or so), and a complete dumbass.

Other than that, we all went out in 2s or 3s. Most of us were worried about safety the whole time I suspect.

The people:
OK, hard to generalize. Shouldn’t do it really, but that’s what humans do. ALL the people we worked with were pleasant and nice, and concerned about us. They were all friendly and easy to work with. I guess I don’t have much us to say about that.

A lot of the people we worked with could speak English. Many of them had spent some time in the States at grad school or some other student or work exchange. I was pleasantly surprised.

Overall:
This was a good place to visit (though I would have preferred another time), but I would never want to live there. I felt unsafe outside the office/hotel almost the entire time. I didn’t see much of the city besides the immediate area around my hotel. And even then, I didn’t go out much. Thus I have little to really base a solid opinion on. And the time I got relieved of my money—that could have happened anywhere. There are tons of places like that in Japan, run by Yakuza. But in Japan, I had a better sense of my environment and could tell earlier when things weren’t right. I wonder how many of you have read this. Its pretty long, and I think the only reason I’ve written so much is because I’m stuck on the plane. I’m over the Atlantic now, approaching Canada. I’ll be back in Chicago in a few hours. Then back to the drudgery that is my life.

One more note: thanks to you guys making the podcasts. I listened to you guys on the flight over, during the layover at London, and when I couldn’t sleep in Istanbul. Thanks to
Herro flom Japan - http://www.herroflomjapan.com
3 Monkeys Productions - http://3monkeysproductions.com/
Kobe Beef - http://kobe-beef.blogspot.com/
You made my trip just that much better. I’ll tell all my friends about you guys.

something of a downer.

Well I promised an update didn’t I? I’m typing this on the flight on my way back to Chicago. I think we’re somewhere south of Greenland now. It’s about 8pm Istanbul time, and noon in Chicago. Its going to be a long day. I’m going through a bit of a rough period actually. For those of you that know me well, you know what I’m talking about. I’m actually finding it hard to concentrate and type this now… I was all set to do a nice little write-up of my first visit to Turkey, but I’ve become preoccupied with some other things. Sometimes I’m not even thinking about it, other times I can’t get it out of my head. Its all the little things that remind me and bring back memories. In the solitude of my hotel room it’s the worst. I have trouble sleeping in the best of circumstances. Nowadays, when I’m lying in the bed, trying to go to sleep at 10 or 11pm so I can get enough rest for work the next day, I find myself rerunning the same thoughts, over and over again in my head. Its like a movie, that keeps playing out, rewinding, and starting over again. Around 2 or 3am I usually pass out due to exhaustion. 4 hours later, I get up, rested or not, for a day of work. (It also doesn’t help when I change time zones by 8 or 15 hours). This is bad on the weekdays of course. I seek solace knowing that on Saturday or Sunday I’ll be able to catch up on some sleep. But it’s the same thing. As I prepare for bed, the thoughts come crashing through again like an unwanted guest.

On the weekends, I’ll get to bed around 1-2am and its not necessarily because I’m out at a bar, or visiting friends. And I’ll get up around 6 or 6:30. I never seem to make it up on the weekends, so I wonder when the exhaustion will finally come to a boil. To be completely honest, the last 4 months have been pretty much a big haze. I have trouble remembering things I’ve done. Granted, Jan-Mid-March was pretty much nonstop work. But then again, with so much work, I didn’t have time to think about other pressing matters.

And I’ve got some pressing issues that I have to deal with this year. One of which is an Exam in Mid June. After that, there are some decisions I have to make. Its going to be tough, and if I have sleepless nights now, I wonder what the near future holds. Do you ever wonder if you’ve made the right decisions? I don’t mean the small ones. I’m talking about the big decisions that directly affect your life years from now. I’m thinking I’ve made one of the biggest mistakes in my life when I was 18. Things aren’t the way I want them now and I wonder if a decision I made 10 years ago would have made any difference. Maybe it wouldn’t have. I suppose that’s something I’ll never discover.

I made another decision 2 years ago, and I’m wondering if that also was a mistake. That one I’m not so sure about.

Where am I going to be in 5 years? 3 years? 1 year? The immediate future is bleak.

See next post for the Istanbul summary.

Almost back

I'm in London now, typing this at the American Airlines business lounge. I love free internet access. I really wanted to write some stuff while it was fresh in mind my during my trip to Istanbul, but I couldn't since I only had access from the office.

anyway, I'm a bit tired, and still have one more leg left before I get back to Chicago. Lots of stuff to talk about, and I think I'll post a log over the weekend. Suffice it to say, Istanbul has lots of meat, Airlines suck, bars where they try to scam you at of 200 bucks for drinks you didn't drink suck, and I'm a lucky guy.

more coming later. unfortunately, I couldn't take many pictures since there just weren't many opportunities. Plus, taking pictures marks you as even more of a tourist, and I didn't exactly feel safe as it was.

gotta get some free beer from the lounge. Later.

London!

Just landed in London, just called my flight to Istanbul. Gotta go. Post pics later.

London!

Just landed in London, just called my flight to Istanbul. Gotta go. Post pics later.

I'm leaving for Turkey

Well, tomorrow I'm off to Istanbul for a week to work on an audit. It should be fun. I think my team is going to be pretty busy during the week, but I'm hoping to be able to go out on Friday night at least and explore a little before I fly back on Saturday.

One thing I didn't notice until last week was which countries Turkey shares a border with. The east side of the country borders Syria, Iran, and Iraq. I hear Istanbul is a beautiful city, and I'm happy to be going, but I'd be lying if I weren't a little concerned with the situation. oh well, I suppose I'll just have to listen to They Might Be Giants' classic "Istanbul" before I go.

So tonight, I went to a White Sox game. They were playing the Mariners. Go Ichiro! It was pretty neat. Prior to the game, I went to the dugout area and I watched the players warm up. Ichiro is so small!. So the players were warming up a bit, and Ichiro tossed a ball to the guy in front of me. Damn, just one more spot closer and I could have gotten it. Later, I went back up to the Skybox to watch the game. It was really nice up there. Lots of food and great desserts. Plus a cart came by with a selection of cigars and expensive drinks. I had some Johnny Walker blue label. Well, I think it was Johnny Walker. Not sure, but whatever it was, it was blue label. Pretty strong and expensive stuff.

anyway, time to go to bed. Gotta take a shower and get ready for tomorrow. Bye all.

cheap flight to Japan

if you leave next weekend, get a ticket from Chicago to Nagoya, Japan for $350 round trip on American Airlines www.aa.com! Thats almost 1/2 the price of the cheapest ticket you can usually find! I've usually had to pay around $700 and up for a round trip ticket. Since this is a last minute fare, you gotta check it out FAST! I'd go, but I'm already going to be abroad for work that week. I get to go a country that borders some of the most dangerous countries in the middle east. Lucky for me huh?

damn NC

ok, after posting about dropping the hate, there I go with that title...I'm not above needing a little help myself.

so the Illini lost tonight. I think they had their chances and could have won it. But the refs were calling the stupidest calls--on both sides. I think the refs calls (intentional or not), influenced and directed the game. The calls on Augustyne were very ridculous. What that did was not only get James out of the game, it emboldened May to keep attacking the rim, knowing the refs would side with NC. That pretty much sewed up the game. Like I said, the Illini could still have pulled out a victory had they made their shots, but oh well. They shouldn't have been in that position in the first place. The refs should let the players play the game, and not call fouls for the merest of touches.

Once more, it rears it's ugly head

What's with all the hate? An addition to my previous note, check out this story: http://www.japantoday.com/e/?content=news&cat=1&id=332890

Heres a recap:
Japan is bidding for a seat on the UN security council. Protests in China. Some Chinese smash up Japanese store.

Hey, protest all you want, no need to turn to violence or property damage.

Japan's got its own issues too. I'll go into those when I get the chance to write properly. (war dead honors, inaccurate textbooks, denial of the past, etc). But let's all try to get past the hate. Come to think of it, No need for me to comment on those things and keep dredging these issues up. If you're interested, do a search on google.

too much hate

So I was chatting with someone yesterday. Not sure where's she's from, but she told me flat out that she hates Japan/Japanese people. WTF?! She's asian, but I'm not sure which country...but why still hold a grudge? what purpose does it serve? there's already enough hate in the world, don't bring any more to me. The cycle will never end if people still harbor hatred in their hearts.

I guess that bugs me a lot. I know some older Chinese that still have those feelings-i.e., won't buy a japanese car, go to a japanese restaurant, etc.. but the person who told me this last night was a 23 year old, post grad student. Goes to show you, education don't mean a thing.

on a side note, I'm going to see Sin City now. Heard its good. later all.