istanbul day 3
Oct. 24th, 2014 03:41 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
mekyriaThe problem with our airco was 'solved' by turning off the electricity to our airco. It sure can't malfunction if it doesn't functiom at all!
We woke up on Wtiesday at a fairly late hour and headed towards the Blue Mosque. By then, I was perfecting the skills that work with E on Little Brother. See, he likes to lead and make decisions, but not all the time. We have this natural balance thing going on with shifting leadership between us. The mosque was nice and we ealked to the Aua Sofya, a Christian church right next to the blue mosque. I learned a lot about decoratimg standards, mainly that one wall needs at least seven different patterns/materials. This is obvious something that should be practiced in costuming. peaking of costuming, i went to Ali Babba right before closing time and they were very nice, though at a certain point I felt a bit weird, as the salesmen went into the dressingroom to help me into costumes. Their stuff is okay but I didn't see anything that I'd wanted to wear/buy. My taste and experience in costuming is a curse, I tell you.
We relaxed a bit by going to the Hammam. little Brother and me were seperated after the register where a Turkish man was sort of manning the register. He gave us a worn out piece of paper with several choices. i went with 'bathing, self service. 50 lira' and 'honey massage, 30 minutes. 30 lira'. Ofcourse I didn't bring a bikini because it was a spur of the moment decision. Despite being wrapped in a towel most of the time, this made me a bit self concious. A turkish woman of about my age ushered me through a couple of rooms into a marble slated domed room. It had two smaller rooms to the side with marble tables for massage, and a sauna on the kther side. The rest of the room had small copper taps alomg the wall with a marble bassin underneath, just big enough to put the plastic bowl in and soop up water. The center of the room was filled with a huge square marble platform that was warm to the touch. It was heated from underneath and decorated with a marble inlay of flowers.
I felt lost. The woman led me to the sauna and sai d'ten minutes, then clean with water, then massage.' That's what I did, despite having no clue when ten minutes went passed. This caused me some anxiety. When the woman returned, she gave a a honey massage with honey that felt more like massage oil. I ended up spending about one and a half hour there and heard form other people that you could stay for several hours, repeating the sauna-cold bath-shower routine ad infinitum.
In the evening we did not go om the tourist boat for a dinnershow, we went to a bellydance show instead. little Brother loved it and was bery impressed with the lead bellydancer and I really liked the male bellydancer. His solo performance with zills on live drumming was perfect. A sour puss would mention that it was also very American instead of Turkish. Overall, the show left me wondering if there is such a thing as authentic bellydance left in the Middle-East.
We woke up on Wtiesday at a fairly late hour and headed towards the Blue Mosque. By then, I was perfecting the skills that work with E on Little Brother. See, he likes to lead and make decisions, but not all the time. We have this natural balance thing going on with shifting leadership between us. The mosque was nice and we ealked to the Aua Sofya, a Christian church right next to the blue mosque. I learned a lot about decoratimg standards, mainly that one wall needs at least seven different patterns/materials. This is obvious something that should be practiced in costuming. peaking of costuming, i went to Ali Babba right before closing time and they were very nice, though at a certain point I felt a bit weird, as the salesmen went into the dressingroom to help me into costumes. Their stuff is okay but I didn't see anything that I'd wanted to wear/buy. My taste and experience in costuming is a curse, I tell you.
We relaxed a bit by going to the Hammam. little Brother and me were seperated after the register where a Turkish man was sort of manning the register. He gave us a worn out piece of paper with several choices. i went with 'bathing, self service. 50 lira' and 'honey massage, 30 minutes. 30 lira'. Ofcourse I didn't bring a bikini because it was a spur of the moment decision. Despite being wrapped in a towel most of the time, this made me a bit self concious. A turkish woman of about my age ushered me through a couple of rooms into a marble slated domed room. It had two smaller rooms to the side with marble tables for massage, and a sauna on the kther side. The rest of the room had small copper taps alomg the wall with a marble bassin underneath, just big enough to put the plastic bowl in and soop up water. The center of the room was filled with a huge square marble platform that was warm to the touch. It was heated from underneath and decorated with a marble inlay of flowers.
I felt lost. The woman led me to the sauna and sai d'ten minutes, then clean with water, then massage.' That's what I did, despite having no clue when ten minutes went passed. This caused me some anxiety. When the woman returned, she gave a a honey massage with honey that felt more like massage oil. I ended up spending about one and a half hour there and heard form other people that you could stay for several hours, repeating the sauna-cold bath-shower routine ad infinitum.
In the evening we did not go om the tourist boat for a dinnershow, we went to a bellydance show instead. little Brother loved it and was bery impressed with the lead bellydancer and I really liked the male bellydancer. His solo performance with zills on live drumming was perfect. A sour puss would mention that it was also very American instead of Turkish. Overall, the show left me wondering if there is such a thing as authentic bellydance left in the Middle-East.
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Date: 2014-10-27 12:16 pm (UTC)