A Day of Shopping in Istanbul

Today was the last day of the tour and breakfast saw the first of the farewells – to Joelene, Joel & Kristy – Phillipa had already gone – having an early morning flight.

Shopping with boys
After breakfast Lorin & I headed to the Grand Bazar with James & Chris. It was all a bit whirl wind as the boys had to be back at the hotel by mid day to get to the airport – so Lorin and I mostly just tagged along where they wanted to go. J&C are master hagglers – and made several great deals. I didn’t buy anything in the morning – Lorin bought a leather poof thing with the boys – they bought like 20 of them and got them for about ½ the original price.



After a speedy tour of the markets it was time to head back to the Hotel via jewellwery shop we had passed on the way – which after an abortive attempt to back track – James wanted to turn left which was back toward the Bazar – and Chris wanted to go straight ahead which was the opposite direction to where we needed to go master barginers they may be but with no sense of direction what so ever – we managed with ease.

James & Chris’s master bargining came into effect again at the jewellery shop – this was my favourite shop of the morning – as got to help spend other peoples money ;) the boys bargained for 20 pairs of earrings for 30 lira – this was ½ the price of one pair. It was fun helping Chris pick out 20 pairs of earrings. I bought 4 pairs of earrings – 2 for myself and 2 for gifts – I got them for the same price as the others got theirs – it pays to go shopping with big spenders

As well as earring the shop sold plates, drums, rings and bracelets. The Jewllery was all make there – they had the sheets of pressed copper – both plain and coloured – with the shapes marked on them which they engraved with the designs then cut out, curved and applied fixings to.

Back at the hotel we caught up with the rest of the group & Canar for the final time :( although it wasn’t quite good bye to everyone yet – Lorin, Frostie and myself were all staying until Monday – Cassie was staying until Sunday

Got some good news about my phone – it was on it’s way and for just 30 Lira I would have it that evening Canar’s friend would drop it off at the hotel for me YEAH – what a relief!!


Shopping with Lorin & Others
The afternoon was more shopping this time with Janet and Robert, Frostie, Cassie & Lorin – this time Lorin and I did so some buying – we had made lists and were on a mission as the markets weren’t going to be open on the Sunday.

We started off at the spice markets, where you are confronted with an amazing assortment of sights and smells – although we looked we didn’t buy at this time – but made a note of a couple of stalls to come back too.

Once through the spice market we made headed toward the grand bazaar – this tooking us through local shopping area – we didn’t see many tourists here. But we did see a number of the items we wanted to purchase so serious browsing was taking place. It was surprising how easy it was to keep our largish group together in the crowds.

Prices aways from the tourist areas were cheaper – so we had our eyes peeled for things on our lists – the first purchase I made was several evil eye protectors – which was followed up by the first bargining of the day for 2 tea sets – one for Lorin and one for me – and once the price was negotiated we had to find just the right ones – which we finally managed.

And finally we made our way into the Grand Bazar – at this point we fair welled Janet & Robert who had some other things to do before heading to the airport later that afternoon.

In the Grand Bazar against all odds I managed to navigate back to several stalls we had been to in the morning – where based on our return we managed some very fruitful bargaining. The biggest shopping missions of the day were Cassies search for a pipe – she succeeded after several shops and much bargining, and Lorin & mine’s search for spoons to go with our tea set – the closed we came was some at 200 lira for 6 – they were stirling silver – oh well we always have Sunday.

My final purchase at the Grand Bazar was a Tvla (backgammon) set – I probably didn’t bargaining the guy down as much as I should have but to be honest I was rather over it and had enough shopping.

After an afternoon of successful shopping we headed back to the hotel – via the jewellery shop we had been to in the morning where Cassie got the same great bargain as we had. I couldn’t resist and bought myself a ring to go with one of the pairs of earrings I had bought in the morning.

Photos @ Kodak