Istanbul Trip Part 8: Grand Bazaar

After spending some time and enjoying the tulip garden, we tried to make our way to the Grand Bazaar.. which is supposed to be walking distance in the area...

Saw someone weaving carpets on the way...

There was a little dog sitting inside.. but he had his eyes closed.. i wonder if the dog is sleeping or if the dog is blind.. cos I have never seen dogs keeping their eyes closed at all...

We walked past this pillar called the Milion.

Originally it is part of a nice roman structure used as a marker.... 

According to Wikipedia...  (I feel I doing my Istanbul tour twice.. once in person, on location.. once on the internet.. wahahhaa)

"The Milion (Greek: Μίλ(λ)ιον), was a mile-marker monument erected in the early 4th century AD in Constantinople (modern-day Istanbul, Turkey). It was the starting-place for measurement of distances for all the roads leading to the cities of the Byzantine Empire and had the same function as the Milliarium Aureum of Rome. The domed building of the Milion rested on 4 large arches, and it was expanded and decorated with several statues and paintings. It had survived intact, following the Ottoman conquest of Constantinople (1453), for about the next 50 years, but disappeared at the start of the 16th century. During excavations in the 1960s, some partial fragments of it were discovered under houses in the area."

THat is a pity.. I would have liked to see it in its full glory... anyway, I went online to search and found that there is a similar structure with the same function in Jordan.. so probably.. originally, it looked like this..




Nice hor...

All that is left of it though.. is a foundation...

And a sign they made much later...

Apparently, according to Wiki..

"When Emperor Constantine I the Great rebuilt the city of Byzantium to make it his new imperial capital, which he named Nova Roma ("New Rome"), he consciously emulated many of the features of "Old Rome". Among these was the Milion: it was a tetrapylon (that is what that structure is called) surmounted by a dome, built in the first Region of the city, near the old Walls of Byzantium, at the very beginning of the main thoroughfare of the new city, the Mese (Μέση Οδός), which at that point formed a bend....

After the Ottoman conquest of Constantinople (1453), the building remained intact up to the end of the fifteenth century.[4] It disappeared possibly at the beginning of the sixteenth century because of the enlargement of the nearby aqueduct and the subsequent erection of the nearby suterazi (Turkish: "water tower", lit. "water scale")."

We walked and walked for quite some time and found the entrance that looked like an entrance to the grand bazaar.. only to realize we seem to have walked a big round cos well, we are so close to the blue mosque leh:)

Today, we only have one goal... to search for a Turkish Lamp that we both will like:)

We asked around and found that again, we walked a big big round cos the entrance is furthur up.. hehehe:) But getting lost is good cos we saw the quiet part of the "market"....

The grand bazaar is way too big.. too many things inside.. like a hypermart of tourist stuffs! I didn't really like it as it was way too big and sold too many repeated things...

Check out these lovely embroidered boots...

While we were focused on getting Turkish lamps... Ace only had ONE thing on his mind-- the top!

THat is his very sian look to find tat the top of his fav colour had a crack..

The bazaar also had shops that sold lots of antiques...

Saw these lovely jewellery..

The one in the box is a ring.. and it is the shaped of a boat with something for the Sultan to sit on...
Cute!

Then dunno how.. we wandered out of the market to the streets and I bought a nice pair of real leather whites shoes :)

Trying to go back in to find the original entrance we came in from... can tell the building is very old right..



We went back in... and met an excellent sales person!:) So we were sold and bought our lamps from him..

His name is LEO and when we first met him.. he said to us, "Come in, come in and take a look, almost free..."

Usually, I wouldnt have walked in.. BUT... Leo's shop had the rainbow design that we liked and couldnt find or see anywhere else..

He told us that he has his own design and his own factory and that we could email him for catalogue, orders or replacements etc etc etc...

When we asked him to show us his catalogue.. he passed the book to us.. and said, "be afraid.. be very afraid... are you prepared now.. to spend your money?"

Wahahhaa... his cocky confidence was strangely reassuring.. hahahah

And he also made lots of jokes like when Max asked me about my opinion... and Leo said, "Oh, so it is also the same in your country? The women are the one who is the head of the household?"

We bought this design in the end.. exact same design for the lamps.. BUT instead of the stand, Max chose one tat can hang down from the ceiling.

After we found what we wanted, decided to go home lah.. not interested to walk around more anyway...

We went back to our room, rested a little.. and then decided to go out for dinner..

It was very very very cold that night.. I had to put on the hoodie the moment we went out of the hotel....

We walked around a little and I told Max to please choose to eat nearby cos I was very hungry and also it was too cold to walk around too much as my legs were feeling cold.. not a good sign..

We were attracted by this little pub in one alley.. Max was attracted because the music they were playing sounded like a live band.. wahaha.. alas is just tape...

And Max ordered the SAME THING again! wahahaha

Ace had some crepe.. which tasted really nice:) I think I will try to make it for his meals in future...

Boh liao take pics...

While we were there, there were many people who walked in to sell things. Many of them were children.. they will come in and sell little knick knacks like the flower headbands.. I wonder why there are so many children selling things here... is it that life here is really difficult for them or what...

Max is happy with his beer.. Note tat Max is wearing 3 layers.. despite the fact that we are seated directly under the heater!:) wahahaha... Just wearing fleece was not warm enough.. so he had to wear the windbreaker.. cos the wind is super chilly!

After that, went back and I basically FAINTED cos I was soooooooo tired... hahaha...

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