August in Istanbul - Review

This post was updated on June 12, 2014.

Yayy I'm back home (Calgary) from home (Istanbul)!
I was planning to be in Istanbul on August 19th, but God laughed at me since it is a well-known custom of him when people make plans...
I was not let in the United Airlines plane!
Why??
Because I didn't have a visa to enter the US; because I didn't know that I need a visa to have a connecting flight through the US; because I didn't research; because I never ever never needed visa for my connecting flights in Europe...
(Sigh)

So, I bought another ticket with a connecting flight through Europe. KLM saved my vacation, but could not prevent my bank account from having a painful dent, which made me cry just a little bit. I was on the plane by the evening of August 19th. Things seemed good until the pilot announced "Dear passengers, we are returning to Calgary due to a medical emergency. We will stay in Calgary tonight blah blah blah..."
(Sigh)

Next morning I went to the Calgary Airport, hoping I would make it in Istanbul some day in the near future.
I slept in my bedroom in Istanbul on Monday, August 20.

Dome Art
I have just developed a new interest in architecture while visiting the Blue Mosque and Hagia Sophia: Artwork on ceilings, especially domes. Looking up amazed and unable to find the correct words to describe the scenery, I had such a feeling I had had while reading the book the House of the Spirits, or watching the movie Les Uns et Les Autres, or listening to Pavane Op. 50... I cannot find the right word to describe the spiritual feeling.
(No, I'm not religious)

Like minarets, domes are one of the signature forms in Islamic architecture. Since the revelation of Islam in the 7th century of the Common Era until today, they have been used in most -if not all- Islamic lands and cultures. Technically, a dome is a rounded vault, set over a room that is usually square. (1)

Long before Islam, the dome was a popular architectural form throughout the Mediterranean and southwest Asia. Indeed the English word "dome" derives from the Latin word "domus", which means "house". In Arabic, the most common term for a dome is "qubba", which comes from a Syriac word meaning "canopy" or "umbrella". (1)

Here is Hagia Sophia -built in the 6th century

And these photos are from the Blue Mosque -built in the 17th century:

People, people, people...

I arrived the city on the second day of Eid. Since it is one of the longest vacation periods of the year, you can expect at least one fifth of Istanbul population to be out of town having vacation.

It doesn't really matter whether it is one-fifth, one-third, one-tenth, or whatever... Istanbul is crowded anyways. 17 million! Even if half was gone, Istanbul would still be crowded.
It was crowded, indeed. I didn't notice any difference compared to the other times.

Food
I had mentioned some places to find good food in one of my posts, Eat in Istanbul. Below is some update.

• PiPa, the Italian restaurant in Nişantaşı: Good food and good service / I liked my vegetarien pizza with eggplant / My boyfriend's stake was cut in tiny pieces -weird / It was too hot inside and there was no air conditioning.
• Karaköy-Güllüoğlu, the dessert place in Karaköy. I ordered a small box of mixed dessert -making sure one of them to be the famous chocolate baklava. They were all delicious. I know there are many dessert stores with the name of Güllüoğlu in Istanbul, but here at the entrance of the Karaköy-Güllüoğlu store you will see a sign, saying: "We do not sell at any other locations". My brother told me the story later: Güllüoğlu brothers started this business together long time ago. One of the brothers decided to leave the company and opened his own store with his own recipes. Karaköy-Güllüoğlu is owned by this "black sheep" brother. (He is absolutely better than the others.)
• Kaptan Baba, a restaurant-boat in Beykoz. Hmmm... Hm hm hmmm... Fishes of the season in August: Çupra (Gilthead seabream), levrek (sea bass), tekir (striped red mullet), midye (mussels), kalamar (calamari), balık çorbası (fish soup),... We ate on the boat enjoying the scenery of Asian and European sides. Seagulls walked on our tent.

There are boats leaving from Yenikoy (on the European side) to Beykoz (Asian side) every 20 minutes. They are cheap: 3 Turkish Lira per person; and fast -It takes 15-20min to go to Beykoz. Kaptan Baba (Captain Father)'s boat is very close to the dock. You can ask anyone in Beykoz, they will show you.

Here is our view of Europe from Kaptan Baba's boat:

(1) Quoted from S. S. Blair and J. M. Bloom's article, "Domes", published in the Saudi Aramco World 2014 Calender