Trip to Istanbul

This past weekend we drove to Istanbul on Saturday and returned on Monday.  It was a fun and active trip.  Saturday night we celebrated my birthday dinner early by going to our favorite, Beyti.  This restaurant is unique in many ways - the decor and the food are top quality and the service is excellent.  But the biggest distinction comes from 85 or so old Beyti Bey who is at the restaurant everyday.  He greets and generally runs the place.  He is a living icon and still at the top of his game at his advanced years.  Randy had the chicken (which we both agreed was the best we ever tasted) and I went whole hog (so to speak) and had the mixed kebab which included about six different kinds of meat.  We finished with the most indulgent dessert - kunefe - which is like a super rich baklava and at Beyti is served with a unbelievably rich cream.  We went to the hotel in a meat coma.

Beautiful snow laden trees on the road between Ankara and Istanbul near the mountain town of Bolu

Kunefe Beyti style - huge and with this incredibly rich cream as a side

After a restful night at our Istanbul hotel, the Cinar, we walked along the Sea of Marmara and then had breakfast overlooking it at the hotel.  We took a taxi to the old downtown area to visit Topkapi, the old Ottoman sultan's palace which is now a museum.  Our aim was to see a special exhibit of the Chinese terracotta warriors on loan to Turkey.  It was leaving in a few days and was worth the trip.  There were four warriors and one horse.  They were in incredible shape for being 2000 years old.  Afterwards, we visited most of the rest of the Topkapi including the famed treasury.

The iconic Aya Sofia - we did not go inside this time but it is always a thrill to be in the presence of this classic structure

One of the entry gates to Topkapi

One of the Topkapi cats getting friendly with Randy

Nice juxtaposition of black and white cats at Topkapi

The winter weather added a stark beauty to Topkapi courtyards

One of the main gates to Topkapi

One of the doors to the inner sanctum

The venerable cedar trees in the inner courtyard

A tile detail from an interior

Randy with Bosporus in the background

Same location at the end of Topkapi with Alice

One of the bronze lion statues in the most inner courtyard

A ceiling detail

Another ceiling detail

Alice chilling on one of the Topkapi terraces

A very nice tile scene of an Ottoman miniature

I don't know that this is but it is just outside the Topkapi exit and looks awesome

Alice with Aya Sofia across the lawn

We walked in the old section a bit and went back for a respite at the Cinar before heading up the Bosporus to meet Refik and Selda Gullu and their son Poyraz for dinner at Tek Balik near Sariyer.  It was a long but fun drive and we went under both Bosporus bridges and saw the lights of both Asia and Europe. The Gullu's were great - it had been a long time since we saw Selda and we never met Poyraz before.  He is quite the little gentleman.  As you might guess from the restaurant name, fish is on the menu.  We had cold fish meze, hot fish meze and multiple main courses of fish culminating in a whole fish that housed bits of cooked fish and vegetables.   Dessert followed but my stomach did not allow much intake of that after the mass amounts of fish I ingested.

Alice with Selda and Poyraz Gullu - just for the record Poyraz is drinking water and not raki

Some of the cold fish meze

More cold fish meze

And, just for the record, Refik and Randy did drink raki

One of the hot fish mezze which included whole little octopus

Monday we walked again along the sea and ate a big breakfast then headed for the Asian side of Istanbul.  We were to meet my student Elif Ozgormus there and have a meeting with some marketing executives at Migros, the largest food store chain in Turkey.  Elif and I are collaborating with Migros for her dissertation work on facility layout and relayout for retail organizations.  The Migros headquarters is in the Asian part of Istanbul and while the traffic was surprisingly light by Istanbul standards, we did get lost for about 30 minutes.  After a few calls to Elif we found the right place and arrived just on time.  The meeting was a success and the CEO Ozgur Tort joined us briefly.  He graduated from the same department as I did at Missouri - Rolla and while I did not know him (he graduated later than I) it did form a common bond.

The Migros team with Alice - Tamer, Alice, Ozgur, Tugba and Ilker

This time Tamer took the picture and Elif was in it also

Randy drove the easy drive back to Ankara with no issue.  The road is quite pretty in places and we observed some snow - enough to make things lovely but not enough to be on the roads.