llo people,
We are now settled in Istanbul in a suburb called Aksaray, 2 tram stops from the blue mosque.

The bus trip from Oludeniz was long and dehydrating but the service was excellent! They serve hot and cold drinks, snacks and even basic meals on the long-haul busses here. Even so, it was a long 15 hour overnight trip. Sleeping in a sitting position is only good if it's a nanna-nap on the couch at home!

So far we've been to the archaeology museum and the grand bazaar.

The museum is really impressive, loads of beautifully carved roman sarcophogi, headstones, freizes, pottery..
so many examples of everything that it's really too much to take in. The photo with the columns is the tiled pavillion viwed from the museum, it was basicly a granstand from which the sultan would watch sporting events.

The whole area around the museum is full of historical buildings, even the tea garden outside is made up of Roman columns and statues, some used as chairs and tables.

The Grand Bazzar was great to see but on the whole not the place to pick up a bargain. I think it is completely a tourist market now.
Even so, there are a couple of things I'm going back to take a second look at! The interior of the building is very attractive with paintet arched ceilings.

I found a Bellydance costume wholesaler with amazing prices - I've done a lot of internet research- and ended up buying 3 costumes within the budget I had for 1! Thanks to my gym buddies and John and Mary for the monetary gifts from my 30th last year- this is how I spent it!

It is really hot in Istanbul at the moment so we are doing half a day touring and half a day relaxing and wandering our local area. Clive went to a barber yesterday and had a great haircut, wash and massage for $9. Tday he is planning the check out the local Hamam.

Aksary is very quaint and totally un-touristed, it has cobbled streets, loads of food shops, men selling fruit from carts, lovely old buildings and the people are really friendly. We went into a stationers to buy pencils and the moment we were in the door he was sharing his dinner with us! It's also a great area for clothes, jeans are around $10 and are in a huge range of styles from designer copies (or factory seconds) to original designs. Shoes and T-shirts are around the same and certainly better quality than the cheaper clothing outlets in Australia.

This is a bit of a rambling blog, I can't seem to get into the swing of writing today but there was a lot to catch up on....

I will try to improve for tomorrows blog!