On Friday, my friend Semiha showed me Çengelköy, a neighborhood in Uskudar on the Asian side of Istanbul. We went to a famous café called Tarihi Çınaraltı Aile Çay Bahçesi, which, if my memory is halfway decent, means “Family Tea Garden Under a Tree,” or something along those lines. The selling point of this place and the reason for its popularity does not lie primarily in its proximity to a big tree, but in its fabulous location, right on the Bosporus.
Semiha took many pictures of me with the gorgeous scenery in the background and while she was angling my camera and playing with the settings to achieve the best shots, a strange little girl squirted her with her squirt gun. I love children, even the ones who start unwarranted squirt gun fights, and thought it was even stranger and slightly amusing that the girl's mother and her friends sat close by chatting and drinking tea, completely oblivious to the bored girl's assault on my friend.
Afterward, we took a visit to chocolate heaven, a cozy little shop where the confectioners combine Turkish coffee with hot chocolate. Because it was Friday, a holy day in Islam, they had closed the shop to go pray. So we went to the seaside and relaxed for a bit, before going back to the shop to enjoy some intense chocolaty beverages and chill out to some traditional Turkish music.
You had a good time. There is so much more must be visited in Istanbul.
ReplyDeleteTunahan