Day 31 - Hitting the Grand Bazaar

I get up around 2pm and quickly jump into the shower. Just as I am finishing up, the phone rings. Moishii hangs up just as I walk out of the bathroom. "QUICK!!! PACK YOUR STUFF!! WE'RE GETTING EVICTED!!!!!". WTF? Before I could even ask what was going on, Moishii swimgs around and starts packing his shit up. In amongst us HURLING stuff into our suitcases, he managed to explain to me that Bellboy found us a better room and he's coming up now to help us move. Wait, now? Like NOW? I've barely had time to shove my clothes line of underwear that I left up to dry into my suitcase, that Bellboy comes crashing into our bedroom.

Next thing you know, he starts grabbing our stuff and dragging it out of the room. We've got stuff spilling out of the bags as he's dragging them down the hallway. I'm shoving whatever I can find into whatever bag there is before Bellboy runs off with it. Before we've barely moved everything into the new room, the cleaners moved in. It was complete chaos. I even left behind a bag of toiletries in the old room which the cleaners returned to us.

So we're finally in the new room and I'm still dripping wet since I haven't dried my hair since getting out of the shower. It took us a good 30mins to sort ourselves out, including sorting through our stuff since we were packing whatever we saw. Regardless of who's property it was. The great thing about the new room is that there is a window facing Maestro. I threw the window open, screamed Christine and slammed it shut. God that feels good.

We finally got ready for breakfast around 3pm when we walked past our old room and managed to sneak a photo:

The ledge Moishii bashed his head on

The bloody aircon

Seeing that we missed the hotel provided breakfast again (Well, it is 3pm), we went across the road to Maestro. We ordered a breakfast plate each (Which got us raised eyebrows) and also a turkish omelette to share.

Breakfast plate

They were stingey with the bread

Cay to wake us up instead of coffee

Turkish omelette

The water feature got topped up until it almost flooded the restaurant

After breakfast, we decided to go for a walk to the nearest supermarket and to pick up some cough syrup for me. As we were walking there, Moishii started pointing out all the guys checking me out. Infact, this guy standing outside a restaurant practically pulled a muscle in his neck trying to look down my top. Quite scary actually, considering a heap of the younger generations are walking around in bikini tops. Pfffft.

Anyway, we decided to hit the Grand Bazaar today. First stop was the jewellery guy:


We dropped by where Moishii ended up buying half of the store with him. We then went searching for Scarf guy. We found the shop with no problem, but there was no scarf guy! OH NO! This is as bad as no $40 woman!!

Disappointed, we started walking around randomly when we accidentally made contact with a guy. Next thing you know, we're suckered into this shop and I'm buying Turkish costumes for my nephews in there. We didn't mind too much since we ended up chatting with him and finding out he was Greek. What are the odds? And with our tradition of photos first, questions later, we asked him for a photo. He insisted on dressing me up to take a photo with him:


After walking around for awhile, we decided to go to our usual tea house at the Grand Bazaar for a rest. This is when we spot another Christine sugar daddy potential:


We continued shopping after our break where Moishii was obsessed about finding this 3D ceramic picture of Istanbul. We finally spotted one that he liked and started bargaining with the guy when he practically burps in Moishii's face.


We quickly made our purchases and did a runner. We almost tripped over this woman posing infront of her shop:


We thought we'd walk past Scarf guy again, just in case he shows up. He practically ends up leaping out of the shop at us! Since we had already spent a whole heap of money and I bought everything I needed from the Greek scarf guy, we were desperately trying to find something to buy from the original scarf guy. I don't even know why we needed to buy anything, especially when we know we can't be bothered bargaining with him and we're probably getting ripped off even when he says we get a special price. Anyway, next thing you know, it was a fashion parade!

Sultana hat

Sultana hat take 2

Random hats

Group shot!

I'm not sure exactly what happened. But we both walked out with random crap, especially since he started grabbing random stuff and shoving it in our bags as a gift. This is what I looked like walking back to the hotel:

We drop everything in the hotel and head across to Maestro for our lunch/dinner thing. We spotted that they did the vase casserole, which is apparently a Turkish delicacy and not commonly offered in restaurant. We just had to try it:

You can't see, but the vase was surrounded by flames

They needed a separate table to dish our food up

They were more generous with the bread than this morning

Shepards salad

MmMmm Guvec! This was SO GOOD!!

After dinner, we decided to go have a rest before heading out to Ortakoy for a bit of sight seeing and shopping. Whilst Moishii showered and got ready, I decided to amuse myself:

Moishii practically ran into the wall when he came out of the shower and saw me sitting there like that! Hey! You gotta amuse yourself during the 10min commercial breaks!

We got changed and headed out to Ortakoy where we immediately hit the shops where I buy a heap of jewelery before we went to my favourite cafe. The first time I came to Ortakoy, we came to this cafe where they gave you blankets to wrap yourself in as you sit by the water enjoying your meal. I had the most orgasmic Kazandibi EVER. And I've been craving for it every since! However, when we got there, there was only ONE PIECE LEFT! We ordered it quick smart before it was all gone:

The view

As we caught a cab back to the hotel, an alarm started beeping as we were crossing the bridge. We both thought the bridge was going to open to let a boat past, except this bridge doesn't open. We asked the taxi driver what was going on, and apparently the alarm signals that there may be an earthquake. Now we knew why we slammed on the gas. We could still hear the alarm as we get close to the hotel and we ask him to drop us off and we'll walk the rest of the way. I figured if there's an earthquake, its easier to find somewhere safe to hide on foot. Luckily nothing happened, which is a miracle by our terms.

All the excitement made my coughing fit worse, so we decided to stop by Maestro again on the way back to the hotel for some soup before bed. We went for tomato soup which had a strange addition...

What lurks beneath?

Melty cheese!

They were VERY generous with the bread tonight

Tea to sooth our throats

We went back to the hotel room to pass out of the night, only rudely interrupted by the couple next door having wild animal sex that involved, what I was pretty sure of, spanking. So to retaliate. I threw myself against the door separating our rooms and put on my own "performance". That shut them up pretty quickly after that.

It's almost time!

I just realised in less than 3 weeks, I'll be off to Singapore and Vietnam for a holiday. It wasn't until my sister mentioned it that I remembered that I had a flight booked! How can I "forget" such a thing? Admittedly, work has been crazy lately. I've been writing so many strategies and documents that I can't even see straight. Ontop of that, we've started interviewing people to hire as my "mentor". Lets just say, the interview we had last week, gave us a good laugh on Friday afternoon. My manager has promised not to subject us to that again.

So back to my trip. Going to Singapore is a no brainer for me. I used up my frequent flyer points and booked myself a flight on the airbus off the internet. Vietnam was a different story. I had originally planned to go Singapore and Shanghai to visit baby Ashley, but the price of a ticket from Singapore to Shanghai, is over $1k. That's a bit too much to spend for the 3-5 days I wanted to spend in Shanghai. Instead, I asked my sister to scope out tickets or tours to Vietnam/Thailand since you can get an all inclusive tour plus airfares for way less than a grand. Hearing that I wanted to go Vietnam/Thailand, she immediately decided that we should do a girls weekend away. She mentioned it to my brother in law, and this was what happened:

Her: "I'm thinking of going Thailand or Vietnam with Lily, for a girls weekend."
Him: "Sure, that's a great idea!"
Her: "Good, so you're ok with looking after the kids?"
Him: "WHAT?! Aren't the kids going with you?!?!?!"

Teeheehee. So I basically told my sister to book whatever was cheap. I didn't really care which country I went to, as long as there were discount airfares. So now, we're booked for Ho Chi Minh city. My brother in law, has also sweetly forked out for a 5 star hotel for us because of safety etc. Which turned out really well because the hotel is located just a few blocks from Ben Thanh markets where I intend to do most of my shopping!! I need to spend a bit more time researching Ho Chi Minh city and also learning a few basic Viet phrases, but I need a break at work first. Plus I need to finish blogging about my last trip!! I've only got a few more posts left, I promise!

The Chinese New Year Eve feast

Happy Chinese New Year!!! I've finally recovered from my food induced coma. This tends to happen every CNY Eve for our traditional family reunion dinner. So after my mum's 3 days of food preparation, here's what was on the menu:

My contribution: Filo spring rolls

Supposedly the spring rolls are supposed to look like gold bars which represents prosperity. The real reason I made it? Kids love spring rolls. And the reason I made it with filo pastry is because in the mad rush of cooking, my mum wasn't about to give me access to the stove!

Tong Yuen - Glutinous Rice Balls in soup

Tong Yuen basically sounds like reunion. Which is to signify family reunion which is the whole point of this dinner! hehe This soup gets soooooooo much better over night, not because the flavour comes out, but because we add a whole heap of leftovers to the soup to make it taste better!

Steamed Fish

Stir fried mussels

Steamed baby abalone

Steamed scallop in shell with XO vermicelli

Deep fried ham and chicken roll

Mushroom and lettuce with dried scallop sauce

Lettuce is something we must also have for CNY as it can mean either lively, or rising wealth.

Mushrooms, dried oysters, pork knuckle and black hair moss

Prawns

Dried oysters and fish stomach stew

Whole steamed chicken

Roast duck

The spread!

So what does that mean?

My manager pulled me aside yesterday to have a chat to me. Basically a week or so ago, I had a chat to her about what opportunities are available to me. I basically told her that I want to be a Manager and that my goal is to climb the corporate ladder (OK, I didn't use those exact words...). Anyway, the purpose of our chat is that she is offering me a chance to learn off a contract Test Manager and another one of my colleagues to eventually work towards the Test Manager position. I don't know exactly what that means, but it sounds like an opportunity for me to learn more things and take on more responsibility to eventually fulfill my goal.

We had a team meeting today where she announced this decision to my immediate team. She then sent an email out to all the other Managers informing them of this. This email then got circulated around the rest of the office. Suddenly I'm getting a whole heap of emails saying "Congratulations". Now this completely caught me off guard. I saw this as an opportunity to learn more and tune my management skills. But judging by the reactions, this is seen as a promotion? As far as I know, my job title hasn't changed, my corporate level hasn't changed (I'm still an executive) and there is definitely no extra money. However, there is going to be more responsibility and more work. So what does that mean? Is it a promotion? I don't know whether to celebrate or not. And I definitely haven't discussed this with my family as I don't see the point because its not a promotion. Or is it???

Day 30 - Recuperating in Istanbul

The great thing about staying at a proper hotel is that they provide you with breakfast. However, that is of no use to anyone when you get at up 1pm. And the only reason we got up at 1pm is because the stupid hotel had a blackout in the middle of the night and shut the air con off. I woke up a few times during the night to turn it back on, but the black out has a loud clacking sound which kept waking me up in the middle of the night. It blacked out atleast 2-3 times from memory. Since the air con was off, there was no air in the room. I'm surprise I didn't suffocate and die overnight.

We finally get changed and decided to go search for breakfast. Not after being confronted by Bellboy. We walk down the familiar shops before we find a Simit place where we stopped for some tea and simit.

Simit is basically turkish pretzel that is heavily crusted with sesame seeds. I got a simit pizza to kick off my day. Probably wasn't a great idea since my throat was still fairly closed up and the sesame seeds was making my coughing even worse.

After breakfast, the plan was to do some shopping. Moishii's friend recommended a shopping district where half of the shops sell things in bulk and at a good discount. We jump onto a tram and got off at the last stop. From there, it was a 20-30min walk to the shopping area. Why we didn't catch a cab is beyond me. We get there, and immediately we needed another tea stop.

Once we were reenergised with Cay, we moved on to the shopping. By the 10th shop, Moishii was disgusted that I didn't buy anything. But the thing is, everything they were selling were either dirty or plain slutty. To make things worse, half of the shops aren't even open. within 45mins, we called it quits. The place was desserted as its their rest day and the shops don't open. We jumped into a cab, almost get killed going down the narrow streets and end up in Taksim.

We immediately hit the shops and spotted a really nice pair of jock straps with an elephant on it for Gus. But when we walked into the shop, it was complete chaos with people knocking things over. We decided to bail instead.

We walked up and down the streets of Taksim (God this feels like Mykonos all over again) where Moishii started going a bit nuts buying his CDs. Meanwhile, I was on a hunt for Turkish cookbooks. After an intense shopping spree which didn't involve much buying, we were starving. I still remembered one of the first restaurant Moishii ever too me to in Taksim where we had the most delicious stuffed cabbage and shepards salad EVER. Actually, it was the first time I had shepards salad and I've remembered it ever since. After some hunting, we finally found Otantik.

After sitting down, we quickly ordered our food. Then the waiter goes to this massive wardrobe looking thing, pulls out this massive door and suddenly we had bread. So whilst the bread was plonked down infront of us, this other waiter walks in, opens the wardrobe and throws some leftover bread in. Err........ok. I may lay off the bread.

Finally, the food comes and it tastes just as good as it used to!

Stuffed cabbage

Mixed grill platter

Summer Salad

Cay to wash down the meal

After completely stuff ourselves, we went for another walk around Taksim. It was basically a search for a toilet. Why didn't I go at the restaurant? Someone had errrrrr... "destroyed" the ladies toilets. We walked into Starbucks where I left Moishii and ran downstairs to the toilet. There was a line outside the only toilet. There were 3 kids waiting before me when these other 2 other chicks came and lined up behind me.

5mins later, the chick in the toilet finally comes out and the 3 kids go in together. So the 3 of us were standing outside waiting and waiting. When the chick behind me steps infront of me and starts bashing on the door and then runs off (making it look like I was the one bashing the door down). And she kept doing that another 2 times before the kids came out. OK, I know they were busting to go, but so was I. So whilst I was in the toilet, they turned the lights out on me. Just for 5-10 secs and bashing on the door. Anyone who has gone out with me knows that I am really quick going to the toilet. So they were basically just being a bitch. Well 2 can play at that game. I took ALL the toilet paper that was left in the toilet (there wasn't that much anyway), shoved it into my bag and walked out. Lets see you use the toilets now BITCH.

I walk back upstairs where Moishii is in a panic thinking I got locked in the toilet again. We went for another walk around Taksim and watched these guys perform for awhile:

We decided to head back to the hotel when Moishii suddenly drops his sunnies:

That's what happen when you buy cheap sunnies off a guy on the streets. We also spotted a catholic church in the middle of Taksim:

And we managed to find Christine's new sugar daddy:

We finally get into the taxi stand. After spending 5 mins fighting people for a taxi, we finally got into a cab without any bloodshed. We decided to jump out of the cab earlier (since he almost killed us by driving into oncoming traffic) and walk back. We needed to buy more water and tea anyway. This is when we bump into another Christine sugar daddy potential:

We get back to the hotel where we shower and relax for awhile. My friend managed to get me a copy of Harry Potter on PDF which I had downloaded and was happily reading away on my laptop. (Don't worry, I already have the hard copy, I just don't like reading the hard copy in case I scratch/bend it.....).

As it got later, we decided to go to Maestro again for soup.

More bread

Is there any Salt and pepper!?!?!

Tomato soup

After our soup, we went back to the hotel to rest up. Because of the way the electricity is set up in the hotel, the minute we take our access card out of the slot to go out, all the electricity goes off. So that means the air conditioning goes off which means we suffocate every time we go back into the room. Even when the air conditioning it on, its extremely stuffy. Considering I feel like death has visited me and my nose is blocked like anything, I was finding it hard to breath let alone sleep.

So here we were, tossing and turning trying to sleep. It was probably about 2am, when I heard Moishii tossing and turning in bed and then *CRACKKKKK*. I don't know WTF he was doing, but he had managed to CRACK his head on the 2inches of headboard that is sticking up over the bed. However, the over hanging bit is a good 70cm from the bed. Maybe he was doing somersaults in the bed? I'm biting my lips asking if he's OK. Before he could answer me, I broke out into a laughing fit. Then he broke out into a laughing fit. I think it was the concussion setting in. I then spent the next hour trying not to laugh out loud so Moishii could sleep. but I wasn't really successful since I almost suffocated myself by burying my face in the pillow. He knew I was still pissing myself laughing anyway. I think I eventually passed out from laughing exhaustion at 3am.