Podcasts about Grand Bazaar

Kev goes through the news of the week Timings 00:00:00: Theme Tune 00:00:30: Intro 00:01:31: What Has Kevin Been Up To 00:04:26: Game News 00:31:13: Outro Links Rusty’s Retirement x Vampire Survivor Monsterpatch Kickstarter Rune Factory: Guardians of Azume Delay Artisan Story EA SoS: Grand Bazaar on Switch 2 rpgsite hands on for SoS: Grand Bazaar Oppidum Release Date Chronomon EA Release Date Tales of the Shire Gameplay Video Honeymancer Mac Support Mineko’s Night Market Soundtrack Contact Al on Mastodon: https://mastodon.scot/@TheScotBot Email Us: https://harvestseason.club/contact/ Transcript (0:00:30) Kev: Hello farmers and welcome to another episode of the harvest season. My name is Kevin and with me today is Kevin (0:00:38) Kev: But in Spanish (0:00:40) Kev: No, come on. Come me us. Yes. Yeah (0:00:44) Kev: Hello everyone, it is a solo Kevin episode again. I’m just one of those (0:00:50) Kev: weeks slash weekends where a (0:00:54) Kev: bunch of schedules played a little bit of hot potato and well (0:00:58) Kev: in case of emergency. (0:01:00) Kev: break out the solo kevin episode. (0:01:30) Kev: he was right on in. (0:01:32) Kev: well actually before that (0:01:34) Kev: stuff i’ve been up to (0:01:36) Kev: nothing terribly interesting (0:01:38) Kev: busy work week (0:01:40) Kev: allergies are bad out here (0:01:42) Kev: the pollen has been bad (0:01:44) Kev: but we got ray (0:01:46) Kev: and i’m thankful for that (0:01:48) Kev: but in terms of fun stuff (0:01:52) Kev: playing some marvel rivals (0:01:54) Kev: the new season is coming out in a couple of days (0:01:56) Kev: we’re getting emma frost (0:01:58) Kev: to hold X-Men Hellfire Galath. (0:02:00) Kev: I’m going to go back to the last themed season. (0:02:02) Kev: That’ll be fun. (0:02:04) Kev: And yeah, I’m just racing, scrambling to get the final missions to get the last costumes and unlocks from the current season pass or whatever. (0:02:13) Kev: But so that’s been fun. Nothing terribly new, but still a very solid game. (0:02:20) Kev: Let’s see, Marvel Snap also in my rotation. (0:02:24) Kev: Fun game. A new season just started. (0:02:28) Kev: the cards good (0:02:30) Kev: Actually, I haven’t bought the season new season fast. I can’t talk about Captain Carter (0:02:34) Kev: It’s a what-if themed season for people who are familiar with the Marvel Disney Plus series. What if? (0:02:44) Kev: And so I haven’t played with Captain Carter, but the the other card injuries thus far Goliath he’s been pretty good (0:02:50) Kev: But yeah (0:02:51) Kev: One interesting thing about Marvel snap is that I see a lot more bots right now (0:02:57) Kev: and it’s not just because of a new season although that’s also common. (0:03:01) Kev: It just really feels like the player base has kind of tapered off a bit. (0:03:08) Kev: Which works in my favorites and easier on the ranked ladder. (0:03:13) Kev: But that’s just interesting. (0:03:16) Kev: I get it. It’s a game that demands a lot of your time because it’s just constantly pumping out new things every single week. (0:03:24) Kev: So it’s just a treadmill and it can be exhausting a lot to keep up with. (0:03:30) Kev: But here I am. I kept up with it. I still like it. (0:03:34) Kev: So yeah, that’s good stuff. Marvel Snap. (0:03:39) Kev: Other than that, nothing terribly interesting. I picked up some Minecraft because sometimes I just get niche for the Minecraft movies. (0:03:48) Kev: Is it related to the movie news? Maybe. It’s the subconscious, the name thing, I guess. (0:03:54) Kev: I don’t know, but I don’t know. I just like firing it up starting a farm and little, you know, settlement. (0:04:00) Kev: That’s always fun. (0:04:03) Kev: But yeah, that’s what I’ve been up to, more or less. Nothing terribly interesting. (0:04:09) Kev: Oh, and Mario Odyssey, like Kingdom, that’s working on Rainbow Road radio stuff. (0:04:16) Kev: Let’s keep an eye out for that. It’s a good game and I like water levels, Waterworld, so yay. (0:04:23) Kev: Okay, yeah, but that about sums it up. (0:04:25) Kev: So now let’s actually dive into Cottage Core game news. (0:04:30) Kev: Oh, I don’t know if you guys heard me, that was my cat, my teddy, he’s chilling out back there. (0:04:35) Kev: He probably wants some food. I’ll feed you in a little, buddy. (0:04:40) Kev: But after the news, let’s see here. (0:04:44) Kev: First up, oh, we’re starting with the showstopper, I see. (0:04:49) Kev: “Rusty’s retirement cross vampire survivors.” (0:04:55) Kev: You’ve gotta love an April Fools joke that, oh wait, no, this is real, actually. (0:05:01) Kev: Because it’s so wild and ridiculous, I adore that sort of April Fools joke/news drop. (0:05:08) Kev: That’s how we got Yakuza like a dragon, if I recall correctly. (0:05:14) Kev: But yeah, April 1st, they announced a crossover. (0:05:18) Kev: Specifically, vampire survivors coming into Rusty’s retirement, which is hilarious, really. (0:05:24) Kev: So vampire survivors is the “bullet heaven” game where you’re just… (0:05:30) Kev: power up and power up, and just shooting waves and waves of enemies and whatnot, horror/vampire/Castlevania (0:05:39) Kev: themed, and they’ve done a handful of crossovers, including with actual Castlevania, so no surprise (0:05:46) Kev: from vampire survivors, they’ve done very well. (0:05:50) Kev: But somehow, the guys over there at, what is it, Ponkle, I believe the studio is called? (0:05:57) Kev: They heard of Rusty, and they reached out to… (0:06:01) Kev: Rusty’s retirement, and we have a new skin pack/map, what would call you, of Rusty’s retirement, where the (0:06:13) Kev: titular character… (0:06:15) Kev: What was their name? Po. Oh, there we go. Po, what if they retired? And so now they’re just farming up a storm. (0:06:22) Kev: And (0:06:25) Kev: Yeah, it’s it’s fun. They introduced a new mechanic (0:06:29) Kev: Where you grow (0:06:31) Kev: To keep away bats from stealing your crops, which is fun, right? (0:06:35) Kev: It’s still a relaxed, you know laid-back game, but now you just have this new little flavor (0:06:46) Kev: uh… elements so I i like that that’s very cute (0:06:49) Kev: uh… overall like that the graphics look great (0:06:53) Kev: uh… (0:06:55) Kev: uh… (0:06:56) Kev: the trailer itself is is pretty (0:06:59) Kev: pretty great uh… (0:07:03) Kev: yeah the the skins look great and and (0:07:05) Kev: you know what this one is tempting me to to download it because this is such a (0:07:10) Kev: fun crossover (0:07:11) Kev: uh… well I guess we do it I don’t know (0:07:14) Kev: uh… (0:07:16) Kev: yeah good (0:07:17) Kev: good on you both vampire survivors and rusty’s retirement (0:07:21) Kev: people (0:07:22) Kev: and uh… props to wife (0:07:25) Kev: apologize with uh… morris I believe is the fellas name of the rusty retirement (0:07:29) Kev: dev (0:07:29) Kev: uh… he is a dead now yeah (0:07:32) Kev: congrats (0:07:33) Kev: uh… adorable little kid it’s it’s all there on the the steam post uh… go (0:07:37) Kev: check out the baby pictures they’re very cute (0:07:42) Kev: uh… and uh… there are more (0:07:44) Kev: Crossovers to come, which is exciting. (0:07:47) Kev: Will it I have no idea with the you know, these kind of indie games you never know (0:07:52) Kev: Will be other indie game. So we get (0:07:56) Kev: retirement (0:07:57) Kev: Necro dancer mid proper. Yeah, that’s what is right. Yeah, the Nick grow dancer Nick grow retirement, whatever you want to call it (0:08:05) Kev: Possibly we get shovel knight retired. Maybe (0:08:10) Kev: Will we get David actually David ever feels very likely? (0:08:15) Kev: You know very (0:08:16) Kev: Exciting who knows it feels like anything is possible with this so (0:08:20) Kev: Definitely keeping my eyes (0:08:23) Kev: Peeled my you know looking up for more (0:08:26) Kev: News on these crossovers today all sound very fun (0:08:32) Kev: Okay, so yeah, let’s see here next up we have (0:08:37) Kev: monster patch (0:08:39) Kev: So yeah last time we talked to it. I mean it was already funded with we talked about it (0:08:45) Kev: But (0:08:46) Kev: They have passed the 150,000 USD mark and we they have revealed the Nintendo switch stretch goal (0:08:57) Kev: And so let’s see here that is exciting we they reached a goal for a museum (0:09:04) Kev: That the structure you can unlock and you can donate the monsters (0:09:09) Kev: and read interesting facts (0:09:12) Kev: That is pretty cool (0:09:16) Kev: They’ll probably be a special collection that’s interesting right because you always have the Pokedex in these monster claking games (0:09:22) Kev: But an actual museum dedicated to that that’s fun (0:09:27) Kev: Let’s see here (0:09:29) Kev: But yes, Nintendo switch was at two hundred thousand dollars (0:09:35) Kev: Let’s see where they are currently they’re at 182. They already passed the battle tower (0:09:40) Kev: Stretch goal, so yeah that switch support is very likely (0:09:46) Kev: Yeah, so (0:09:48) Kev: Probably keep an eye out. We’ll have a something’s release. I don’t know (0:09:54) Kev: But I’m if it’s I’m definitely getting if it’s going to switch so keep an eye out I (0:10:00) Kev: certainly am I mean we’ll hear about it because this thing’s just (0:10:04) Kev: Blasting through these stretch goals and and you know the way kickstarters work (0:10:08) Kev: The the the biggest pushes are at the start and at the end so whenever this thing (0:10:13) Kev: Which is the end which is in two weeks, roughly (0:10:16) Kev: I will get another big blast, so I wonder how far we’ll actually go (0:10:22) Kev: Yeah, so good on you monster pets and senior Sean young. I believe it is doing good. Yeah, that’s the guy’s name all right (0:10:30) Kev: Let’s see here next up (0:10:32) Kev: Room Factory Guardians of Azuma the new room factory game with dance the power of dance (0:10:39) Kev: It’s it’s just a new flavor room factory (0:10:42) Kev: They have announced that they are moving the release date from (0:10:46) Kev: May 30th to June 5th. Why? Well because there’s a Switch 2 coming out on June 5th, and that makes a lot of sense. (0:10:53) Kev: That’s only a week and a week, you know, as I’m playing this release of the two versions, or multiple versions. (0:10:59) Kev: The Switch 2 version with the other ones. So yeah, only a week difference. I don’t think anyone’s going to mind to play on their Switch 2 if you’re getting it. (0:11:08) Kev: Okay, let’s see here. Next up… (0:11:16) Kev: Reverse of Delay. It’s an out now, I guess I would call it. Artisan Story. (0:11:24) Kev: So for this game, I don’t know if we’ve talked about it, but you play as an artisan blacksmith type character. (0:11:34) Kev: It’s that sort of 2D HD octopath look. A lot of minigames for crafting different weapons and tools. (0:11:43) Kev: Um… I was… some… (0:11:46) Kev: emphasis on combat it looks like to make use of all the blades and weapons you’re (0:11:51) Kev: making with different combat styles which actually looks pretty fun. I quite (0:11:55) Kev: like the look of this game. It’s got a pixel look that’s a little simplified (0:12:03) Kev: maybe but against the 2D HD thing where they’re out in a 3D space and it looks (0:12:09) Kev: like some of the weapon styles could be even fun maybe a little different from (0:12:12) Kev: your standard cottagecore fare, so that’ll be cool. (0:12:17) Kev: There’s plenty of characters and what not to talk to. (0:12:19) Kev: Is there romance? I don’t know. (0:12:21) Kev: Maybe. (0:12:23) Kev: We’ll see. (0:12:25) Kev: Anyways, the primary news story is that Early Access is out now. (0:12:32) Kev: They are aiming to be in Early Access for a year. (0:12:40) Kev: There’s a whole post on Steam. (0:12:43) Kev: I’ll just read the quick little blurb about explaining why it’s Early Access. (0:12:47) Kev: We’re bringing this vision to life with your help. (0:12:51) Kev: By launching Early Access, we aim to refine gameplay mechanics, (0:12:55) Kev: expand crafting possibilities, and ensure that every aspect of the world (0:12:59) Kev: from farming to monster taming feels truly rewarding. (0:13:02) Kev: Your feedback will shape the future of the game, (0:13:04) Kev: helping us create the best artisan experience possible. (0:13:07) Kev: If you have the idea of crafting farming (0:13:09) Kev: and raising dungeon monsters, join us on this journey. (0:13:11) Kev: Be the first to experience new features. (0:13:13) Kev: Share your thoughts and help us build something truly special. (0:13:17) Kev: So yeah, it is currently just out on Steam. (0:13:20) Kev: It is $20. (0:13:22) Kev: There is a free demo you can download. (0:13:24) Kev: But Early Access is $20. (0:13:26) Kev: They mentioned the price could change, (0:13:28) Kev: especially when the full release comes and whatnot. (0:13:33) Kev: They list the whole slew of features currently available in Early Access. (0:13:42) Kev: Early Access makes a lot of sense for a lot of people. (0:13:45) Kev: or, you know, the– (0:13:46) Kev: developers, I’ve– oh, I forgot to mention, yeah, the monster taming thing. That’s an interesting aspect. (0:13:53) Kev: It looks a little passive, like you take care of your monsters, and they generate materials for you, kind of like (0:14:00) Kev: Moonstone Island, similar to that game, but fun touch nonetheless. (0:14:06) Kev: Am I getting the early access, infinously? No, I’m not an early access guy, but (0:14:13) Kev: It’s a good it is out. That is a good first step, right? (0:14:16) Kev: So hopefully we’ll see if we’ll release within a year like they’re aiming to and (0:14:21) Kev: Yeah, check it out. If you are interested that is artisan story. Oh, oh one more important note (0:14:27) Kev: The blank story naming scheme is yeah. I’m that that’s it. I’m drawing another line in the sand (0:14:33) Kev: There’s a lot of lines around me, but come on. Come on. Let’s put a little more effort into the title at least a (0:14:41) Kev: Subtitle something give give throw me a bone people we can do better than this (0:14:47) Kev: The game looks pretty good (0:14:51) Kev: Okay (0:14:54) Kev: Speaking of things that look pretty good and this one (0:14:57) Kev: Yeah, it’s story of seasons. Let’s talk about Grand Bazaar (0:15:01) Kev: We got the switch to version confirmed during the direct. It’ll be $10 more on switch to (0:15:09) Kev: We they let’s see RPG site net. I was able to get a like preview copy and then post all (0:15:16) Kev: Thing about it (0:15:19) Kev: It looks it has you know, this standard (0:15:25) Kev: Story of seasons fair, you know all your villagers the romance the farming all the good the animals all the good stuff (0:15:34) Kev: It does have some of the earth would say more modern innovations from the series like you can grow plants in all seasons (0:15:42) Kev: Some specifically from pioneers of all of town (0:15:47) Kev: Raise buffalo beekeeping mushrooms and flowers (0:15:51) Kev: And perhaps the most interesting bit is that there is no shipping bin in this game (0:15:58) Kev: Only the weekly bazaar similar to mannequins night market (0:16:04) Kev: Yeah, that is an interesting mechanic is just fun as mannequins I don’t know but (0:16:10) Kev: That’s interesting because you don’t have your daily, you know shipping bin revenue. You gotta wait every week (0:16:17) Kev: But yeah, I mean overall it’s a story of seasons game, right? So (0:16:21) Kev: You know the the the (0:16:24) Kev: Title the pedigree is there and I’m sure it will be a quality game nonetheless (0:16:29) Kev: So, yeah, that’s uh, that’s good stuff (0:16:35) Kev: Let’s see here (0:16:44) Kev: I don’t know, oh I apologize, no I was just looking, there is uh, Fogoo.com also had um, (0:16:52) Kev: thoughts on the game, but you will post the link um, uh, on all sorts, you know, the kind (0:16:58) Kev: of comp of the trailer and had everything. (0:17:01) Kev: Um, but uh, but yeah, there’s also some interviews with the director talking about the game for (0:17:08) Kev: the, again this is a remake um, of Grand Bazaar. (0:17:12) Kev: So it looks pretty good. (0:17:14) Kev: Overall, though, like all the stuff they’re integrating, all the new things. (0:17:18) Kev: OK. (0:17:21) Kev: Let’s see here. (0:17:24) Kev: Next up, we have– oh gosh, I still don’t know how to say this. (0:17:29) Kev: Opidum? (0:17:29) Kev: Opidum? (0:17:31) Kev: Opidum, perhaps, even. (0:17:34) Kev: This is the three– we’ve talked about it before. (0:17:39) Kev: It’s a 3D– I’m just going to say it looks like Breath of the Wild. (0:17:44) Kev: Oh, Minecraft– more Minecraft-y Breath of the Wild, because you’re out there building settlements (0:17:52) Kev: and whatnot. (0:17:53) Kev: Looks combat-heavy. (0:17:54) Kev: The character– the player character kind of looks like Link, at least the one they’re (0:17:59) Kev: using. (0:18:00) Kev: I don’t know if it’s customizable or not. (0:18:03) Kev: But yeah, that– they have– excuse me. (0:18:10) Kev: They are release– release date. (0:18:12) Kev: That’s the big news. (0:18:14) Kev: But that is very close. (0:18:15) Kev: That’s what– at the time you guys are listening, about two weeks, I would say, ish? (0:18:22) Kev: Yeah. (0:18:23) Kev: Oh, there it is, character creation. (0:18:25) Kev: Yep. (0:18:26) Kev: OK. (0:18:27) Kev: You don’t have to be faux-link. (0:18:28) Kev: You can be your own thing. (0:18:29) Kev: Yeah. (0:18:30) Kev: They announced this release date. (0:18:33) Kev: They got a trailer. (0:18:35) Kev: It is co-op. (0:18:36) Kev: You can have up to three friends playing with you. (0:18:39) Kev: Adaptive storytelling. (0:18:40) Kev: That’s an interesting buzzword or cue. (0:18:44) Kev: I think if I were to guess, that’s just like Breath of the Wild, where you can do stories if you want to, you know, do certain temples and learn certain stories. (0:18:53) Kev: Or you can just ignore it. (0:18:55) Kev: But regardless, you can experience yourself April 23rd. (0:19:01) Kev: That is coming very soon. I think I was just on Steam for now. (0:19:06) Kev: But yeah, look forward to that. (0:19:10) Kev: Um, okay, here’s… (0:19:14) Kev: Uh, this is an interesting one because it’s… (0:19:19) Kev: A… (0:19:22) Kev: E-A, um… (0:19:26) Kev: Okay, well, let’s get into it. (0:19:27) Kev: So, Chronomon was going to launch full, you know, full 1.0, (0:19:32) Kev: but they have pivoted to making it to an early access launch. (0:19:36) Kev: Um, this will be on May 8th, 2025, just about a month away. (0:19:41) Kev: Um… (0:19:44) Kev: It is interesting because they do go into the details why they decided to move this. (0:19:48) Kev: Um, they’re pivoting to because they want to show their commitment to working on it more. (0:20:02) Kev: And, of course, as usual, they’ll take feedback and refine things and whatnot. (0:20:12) Kev: They are planning, again, for about a year for early access. (0:20:26) Kev: And, uh, the- the one nice, uh… (0:20:36) Kev: the full main campaign is fully playable you’re right because they they were more (0:20:46) Kev: or less playing a full release so they they’re pretty much the full campaign (0:20:49) Kev: there so that that is nice I will say that right having early access game (0:20:52) Kev: with an actual finish point that’s good and of course a lot of the features of (0:21:00) Kev: this is again this is chronomond it’s a 2d pixel mod (0:21:06) Kev: taming and farming all the bells and whistles of both of those genres it’s (0:21:14) Kev: pretty cute I like the the dungeon design some of them are a little more (0:21:18) Kev: urban your modern looking than just a cave which I think is a little (0:21:22) Kev: refreshing they have a deep suite of RPG elements and customizations for your (0:21:28) Kev: monsters and skills and everything battles are in the overworld which is a (0:21:32) Kev: This is a nice little touch, not a separate Pokemon screen. (0:21:36) Kev: It does look robust, I will say, for an early access. (0:21:40) Kev: Again, that is May 8th when it’s coming out, and yeah, hopefully within a year they’ll have a full 1.0. (0:21:49) Kev: I’ll definitely be interested in seeing what that looks like. (0:21:53) Kev: Okay, let’s see here, next up we have a game that is also an early access. (0:22:05) Kev: honey man through the (0:22:06) Kev: bear witch game (0:22:08) Kev: they have a big update (0:22:10) Kev: announcing mac support (0:22:12) Kev: which is great (0:22:14) Kev: I know a lot of mac people (0:22:16) Kev: I never used a mac I’m not one of them (0:22:18) Kev: but hey now you guys can enjoy the (0:22:26) Kev: But yeah, that’s that’s a big one. But of course that comes the whole slew of (0:22:30) Kev: Additions changes balances, etc. You can check out the link for all that but (0:22:37) Kev: That is good. And that is out. I believe yes (0:22:41) Kev: Then only a week after early access good on them (0:22:47) Kev: Let’s see here. Oh (0:22:50) Kev: Goodness. I can’t believe almost skip to the story tales of the shire. Um, so they released (0:22:56) Kev: a a very in-depth a (0:23:02) Kev: Very in-depth (0:23:05) Kev: Game or look at the game (0:23:08) Kev: How long is this thing? Um (0:23:10) Kev: Ten minutes long which is fairly decent (0:23:13) Kev: Um, it’s it’s not just looking at the game or but talking to the devs and the and whatnot or how their (0:23:20) Kev: inspiration I like him about whatnot (0:23:22) Kev: And I’ll be honest. I think this is a (0:23:26) Kev: very good trailer. It’s probably got me the most excited about the game out of anything I’ve seen. (0:23:34) Kev: I think they put a lot of emphasis on how they keep going back, not just to the source material, (0:23:44) Kev: but actually looking at Tokien’s inspirations, how he wrote The Hobbit, the Middle-earth and what. (0:23:56) Kev: A lot of the trailer discusses the “conflict” because in so many games you need some sort of (0:24:07) Kev: conflict or issue to resolve. And so they go back to one of the main themes from All Middle-earth, (0:24:15) Kev: which is Tokien’s issues with urbanization and modernization. As I mentioned, he bemoaned the (0:24:24) Kev: urbanization of his (0:24:26) Kev: childhood home and what not (0:24:28) Kev: trees and forests he was so fond of becoming modern and urbanized (0:24:34) Kev: and so we were seeing that reflected in this game with certain characters pushing for more modernization (0:24:40) Kev: and other characters standing against it trying to maintain the shire as it is (0:24:48) Kev: and so yeah they go into a lot of detail over that (0:24:54) Kev: uh… it’s it’s it’s fast (0:24:56) Kev: how much they researched on the right they reached out to actual artisans and (0:25:00) Kev: blacksmiths how would things look like and and again not just the the actual (0:25:06) Kev: middle you know middle earthworks but the these stories are inspirations (0:25:14) Kev: behind them I think that’s a that shows a lot of dedication and yeah the the (0:25:20) Kev: actual gameplay in the this trailer looks pretty good I think I think (0:25:26) Kev: it kind of shows off its identity finally because that was I think (0:25:30) Kev: something that was kind of lacking right like was this gonna be some sort of you (0:25:34) Kev: know weird Lord of the Rings skin on Animal Crossing and whatnot right and I (0:25:40) Kev: mean to be sure right like they’re still aiming for the cozy very clearly and (0:25:44) Kev: explicitly there’s the farming and the the fishing and and and crafting and (0:25:49) Kev: all those standard hallmarks you know interacting with the town but you can (0:25:54) Kev: You (0:25:56) Kev: Can Really See how it’s all coming together here all right like they mentioned the the sense of community is important not just as a gameplay mechanic (0:26:03) Kev: But like thematically for the the the Shire the the the setting they’re trying to create here (0:26:11) Kev: So yeah, you’re gonna have relationships with (0:26:15) Kev: Not so romantic relationships, but it’s just like you know friendships and and relationships with characters (0:26:22) Kev: Well, you know, all dead-named characters and whatnot. (0:26:26) Kev: Who influenced the story, um, so yeah, it looks pretty good. (0:26:30) Kev: I’m, uh, I’m actually pretty interested in this now. (0:26:34) Kev: Um, I really suggest you guys check out the, uh, the link and take a look at the (0:26:40) Kev: video, um, because it is, uh, I think it looks quite, this video is quite nice. (0:26:47) Kev: Um, yeah, so that is again, tales of the Shire. (0:26:50) Kev: Um, I don’t think we still have a, um, excuse me, (0:26:56) Kev: a date or anything for it. (0:26:58) Kev: Um, oh, oh, I’m wrong. (0:26:59) Kev: July 29th, uh, release date. (0:27:02) Kev: Um, so the couple of months, uh, all right. (0:27:06) Kev: Uh, looking forward to it. (0:27:07) Kev: Um, that sounds pretty specific. (0:27:10) Kev: So I, and from the, where the video, the game looks like in the videos, I believe (0:27:16) Kev: that date, um, so yeah, let’s keep an eye out for, uh, tales of the Shire. (0:27:22) Kev: Good stuff. (0:27:24) Kev: Um (0:27:26) Kev: and lastly but certainly not leastly we have Maneko’s night market out in the (0:27:32) Kev: news again let us not forget that it was that last year’s game of the year or is (0:27:38) Kev: that the year before I know the year but yes the year before 2023 yes harvest (0:27:44) Kev: season’s game of the year 2023 no one can stop me they’ve released the soundtrack (0:27:54) Kev: It’s 20 bucks. (0:27:56) Kev: It’s on Steam, I think it’s on Spotify in other locations as well. (0:28:00) Kev: Um, that is, I don’t know if we harped on that to cover the game. (0:28:04) Kev: But the game has a banger soundtrack. (0:28:08) Kev: Um, it goes the whole gamut of emotions. (0:28:12) Kev: You have very, like, relaxed, nature-y music. (0:28:16) Kev: You have very joyous, happy music. (0:28:20) Kev: A lot more melancholy or reflectful tunes. (0:28:26) Kev: A lot of, you know, bits and pieces of kind of Japanese-style music kind of influence and whatnot, (0:28:34) Kev: given the setting of the game and whatnot, kind of. (0:28:38) Kev: It fits. (0:28:40) Kev: Um, so yeah, I cannot recommend enough that you check out the soundtrack, right? (0:28:46) Kev: That’s one thing about me, I’m a big soundtrack guy, like, maybe not by the soundtracks, (0:28:50) Kev: but I’ll look up soundtracks online and listen to them and whatnot. (0:28:54) Kev: Because games, quality games have a good time. (0:28:56) Kev: I love good music, y’know? And so, another game I can put into that library rotation, I’m always down for that. (0:29:02) Kev: Um, so yeah, go out there, buy it, support Mineko’s Night Market, Harvest Season 2023, Game of the Year, because it’s a good one. (0:29:10) Kev: laughs I’ve gotta go back and finish it. (0:29:14) Kev: Um, and, y’know, maybe I will. Maybe that’s… I’ve been itching for something, and I feel like that could be it! (0:29:20) Kev: That could be it! (0:29:22) Kev: Um… (0:29:24) Kev: Ugh, okay. (0:29:26) Kev: Um, but, uh, but yeah, that’s, uh, that’s kind of it. (0:29:31) Kev: That’s the news. (0:29:32) Kev: Um, let me be covered a little fast since it’s just me, but, uh, but it was (0:29:36) Kev: still a beefy gamut of stories there. (0:29:40) Kev: Um, I’m, I’ve got to say, like, just looking down this list, it’s a (0:29:45) Kev: healthy diversity of games, right? (0:29:47) Kev: Like, yeah, you know, we’ve been us being at this for so long, right? (0:29:53) Kev: We’ve seen trends come (0:29:56) Kev: and go and what not right so many stardew clones and so on and whatnot but (0:30:00) Kev: I like I look at this this variety here right we got the big names we got you (0:30:05) Kev: know tales of the shire with its IP we’ve got story of seasons and rune (0:30:10) Kev: factory and then we have more indie stuff everything from classic Pokemon (0:30:15) Kev: monster patch the very rusty retirement whatever you want to call that rusty (0:30:21) Kev: or whatever that the genre was. Rusty likes, yeah. (0:30:26) Kev: Right, kind of this background game we’ve got. (0:30:30) Kev: You’ve got Opadum, Full 3D, Breath of the Wild, (0:30:34) Kev: and more traditional 2D, Chronomon, (0:30:36) Kev: and In Between, and the artisan story. (0:30:41) Kev: Yeah, that’s pretty exciting. (0:30:45) Kev: All these new stories, pretty, again, (0:30:47) Kev: kind of like last week, they’re pretty feel good. (0:30:51) Kev: Or was it the week before? (0:30:52) Kev: Regardless what glass study did (0:30:56) Kev: It’s exciting. I think we’re in a good place right now with cottagecore games in world (0:31:02) Kev: Nothing really bumming me out in these new stories (0:31:04) Kev: So that’s that’s awesome, and I could use less bumming out these days. I think we all could (0:31:13) Kev: But yeah that that’ll do it for me for the this again shorter solo episode (0:31:20) Kev: I did try to stretch it out, but yeah, I’m just a one-man show (0:31:26) Kev: Teddy left, so I couldn’t have a meal more, but (0:31:29) Kev: But yeah, I did what I could anyways well. Thanks for listening folks (0:31:37) Kev: Thanks for joining me you know tune in next week for other stuffs (0:31:45) Kev: You can find me at Koopa prez on blue sky at the art of squares don’t see some my artwork. I’m (0:31:54) Kev: Find me over at Rainbow Road. (0:31:56) Kev: Check that out. Listen to the thoughts. Be hyped for the MooMoo cow being very playable in Mario Kart. (0:32:26) Kev: and listen to me tear up Matt Kirby air writers if once you’re done listening to (0:32:31) Kev: all that you can find more harvest season stuff by following Al at the (0:32:35) Kev: Scott bot or Mastodon on Scott and blue sky sorry at the Scott bot on Mastodon (0:32:42) Kev: Scott and on blue sky you know creator the show he’s got stuff he posts things (0:32:48) Kev: cottage core things it’s also on tumblr at THS pod and blue sky at THS (0:32:56) Kev: pod for all the news and to re-tweets social media engagements all that good (0:33:02) Kev: stuff or you can just if you want to simplify everything just go to harvest (0:33:06) Kev: season club per day listen to the era all the episodes we got provide (0:33:11) Kev: feedback give us links or no other way no we provide the links you give us (0:33:16) Kev: feedback yeah yeah do that harvest season dot club or you can head down to (0:33:22) Kev: patreon.com/thspod where you can (0:33:26) Kev: become a patron to this wonderful show (0:33:28) Kev: and join us over at our slack where we (0:33:32) Kev: have deep cuts content stuff posted (0:33:35) Kev: during recordings I didn’t do that right (0:33:38) Kev: now but it’s been a thing it’s been a (0:33:40) Kev: trend or and you also get the bonus of (0:33:46) Kev: the greenhouse episodes the non cottage (0:33:49) Kev: core focused uh guess what there’s gonna (0:33:52) Kev: be one on switch to directly I mean you (0:33:56) Kev: know gallon I covered one on the the (0:33:58) Kev: switch the switch whatever switch to the (0:34:03) Kev: other one the switch one previous that (0:34:06) Kev: but now we got there’s that switch to (0:34:08) Kev: direct was beef you guys there was a lot (0:34:09) Kev: so tune in um listen listen to me cry (0:34:13) Kev: about Kirby air writers because it’s (0:34:15) Kev: it’s all I need in my eye it’s all I (0:34:17) Kev: need and I yeah that’s all I need okay (0:34:24) Kev: that’s enough of my rambling everyone (0:34:27) Kev: bearing with me thank you for joining me (0:34:28) Kev: on this this little episode here thank (0:34:31) Kev: you out for having me on I guess thank (0:34:35) Kev: you me for doing it being my co-host and (0:34:39) Kev: we’ll see you guys next week and until (0:34:42) Kev: then of course have a good artist (0:34:46) Theme Tune: The harvest season is created by Al McKinlay, with support from our patrons, including our (0:34:56) Theme Tune: pro farmers, Kevin, Stuart and Alisa. (0:34:59) Theme Tune: Our art is done by Micah the Brave, and our music is done by Nick Burgess. (0:35:04) Theme Tune: Feel free to visit our website, harvestseason.club, for show notes and links to things we discussed (0:35:10) Theme Tune: in this episode. (0:35:20) Kev: I don’t know three two one clap I guess because it’s only me it says the solar (0:35:28) Kev: recording oh there we go hacking up great way to start this um oh god let’s (0:35:34) Kev: uh let’s just dive on in shall we all right

Kim and Tamara recently visited Istanbul, Türkiye for the first time to attend the SATW (Society of American Travel Writers) Annual Conference. In this episode, they share their insights and tips for others planning a trip to Istanbul including where to stay, top sights to visit, safety, and other travel tips. Show Highlights: Turkish Airlines has a lot of direct flights from the USA (including Boston and Seattle) Turkish Airlines business class varies depending on what plane you are on and you need to be strategic about choosing your seat It takes about an hour to get from the airport to the city center and there is a lot of traffic in Istanbul. Tamara used Welcome Pickups and Kim used Sun Transfers for private transfers, which were both affordable and possibly cheaper than taxis. It is best to stay in the Sultanahmet neighborhood for first time visitors near the main attraction, Kim also stayed in the Galata Tower area but it is very hilly and hard to access for cabs. Tamara stayed at the Hagia Sofia Mansions Hotel (a Curio Collection by Hilton Hotel) and Kim stayed at the White House boutique hotel. They also stayed at the Conrad Hilton during the convention but wouldn't recommend that area unless you are about to get on or off a cruise. You can ask Google Maps for an accessible route to avoid hills. Kim and Tamara really enjoyed taking a small group tour of the Blue Mosque and Hagia Sofia. You can do it on your own but the guide takes care of getting the tickets and plan it so you don't need to figure out what time the mosques are open for visitors. You need to cover your hair when you enter a mosque and take off your shoes so it is helpful to wear slip off shoes and socks. In the Hagia Sofia, visitors can only go to the second level and look down at the main prayer area. You can also see the gold mosaics and Christian imagery from when it was a church. The Basilica Cistern is also nearby and it is very popular with very long lines. We would recommend that you buy skip the line tickets online in advance. Tamara took a guided tour but it was hard to stay together in the crowd and you need to use a listening device to hear the guide. The Sulimaniye Mosque, near the Spice Market, is also well worth a visit for its gorgeous architecture. It is equal or even better than the Blue Mosque. The Rustem Pasha Mosque is also beautiful, but smaller. The Spice Market, also known at the Egyptian Market, has tons of shops selling tea and spices. Just beware that they sell via the kilo and that is a huge amount so you need to request a much smaller amount unless you want to spend an arm and a leg. The sales guys are very good at upselling and aggressive about engaging you to get you into the shop. They also offer free samples. See Tamara's tips on visiting to Istanbul as a solo female traveler: https://yourtimetofly.com/istanbul-solo-female-travel/ The Grand Bazaar is largely gold jewelry and knock off designer goods with just a few more authentic shops with Turkish linens or carpets. Make sure you try simit in the morning, baklava, Turkish Delight, and Turkish coffee and tea. There are some shops or tours that include someone who "reads" your tea leaves or coffee grounds. Turkish cuisine is very beef and lamb centric. A braised beef and eggplant is a popular dish. Let the restaurant bring different types of mezze, as many of these are delicious and things you might not have tried if you picked yourself. Gozleme is a flatbread topped with cheese or cheese and spinach. Credit cards are widely used but you should bring cash (or get cash from an ATM) for taxis and you will be able to spend less if you pay in cash when you go shopping. Be prepared to tip. Make sure the taxi starts the meter and know ahead of time about how much it should cost. And if you use Uber, don't let them tell you that they don't pay via the app. The tram is an easy way to get around and there is a kiosk to purchase tickets with an English option.

This week, I talk with Marjan Kamali about her beautiful novel about friendship, The Lion Women of Tehran.  We dive into how the book covers the nature of childhood friendships, the vast spectrum of being a Lion Woman, and the jarring aftermath of women losing their rights almost overnight to religious fundamentalists in Iran.The Lion Women of Tehran SynopsisIn 1950s Tehran, seven-year-old Ellie lives in grand comfort until the untimely death of her father, forcing Ellie and her mother to move to a tiny home downtown. Lonely and bearing the brunt of her mother's endless grievances, Ellie dreams of a friend to alleviate her isolation.Luckily, on the first day of school, she meets Homa, a kind, passionate girl with a brave and irrepressible spirit. Together, the two girls play games, learn to cook in the stone kitchen of Homa's warm home, wander through the colorful stalls of the Grand Bazaar, and share their ambitions for becoming “lion women.”But their happiness is disrupted when Ellie and her mother are afforded the opportunity to return to their previous bourgeois life. Now a popular student at the best girls' high school in Iran, Ellie's memories of Homa begin to fade. Years later, however, her sudden reappearance in Ellie's privileged world alters the course of both of their lives.Together, the two young women come of age and pursue their own goals for meaningful futures. But as the political turmoil in Iran builds to a breaking point, one earth-shattering betrayal will have enormous consequences.

In this episode of 'The Vacay Podcast', Sophie Jackson chats with Daniel from My Travel Expert about the enchanting city of Istanbul, Turkey. They explore iconic landmarks such as the Blue Mosque, Hagia Sophia, and the bustling Grand Bazaar. Daniel shares his love for the Mehtar at the Military Museum and the delicious Eggplant Roast at the Blue House restaurant. They also discuss the world's busiest burek and baklava production. Daniel emphasizes that Istanbul is a city of endless surprises, always offering something new to discover. Join them for a captivating conversation about the rich culture, history, and culinary delights of Istanbul. This episode is brought to you by nib & helloworld.See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

* Grand Bazaar and Deeper Secrets both available in PDF! * Kickstarter Backers have had their codes sent. * Deeper Secrets is big! 624 pages including index. * Throal Adventures: Purloined Provisions * Also released as the Shard "Pale River" by RedBrick * Designed for low Journeyman characters. * Like Parlainth Adventures, a collection of shorter, more straightforward scenarios. * Adventures all deal with traditional adventure/exploration. * Little direct interaction with Throalic society or politics. * Setup: Merchants in Grand Bazaar have been having their stalls looted. * Characters are hired to keep an eye out. * Encounter between pale ones and Throalic guards. * Characters follow the thieves into the tunnels deep below the Kingdom. * Learn the village is struggling because the river has dried up. * Venture upstream to investigate and solve the problem. * Combat encounters with stingers and shadowmants. * Cave trolls have dammed the river with an elemental to farm True water. * Likely combat with the trolls, and need to deal with the elemental. * Possible complications and side goals. * Fourth Circle updates and approaches. Find and Follow: Email: edsgpodcast@gmail.com YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/@EDSGPodcast Find and follow Josh: https://linktr.ee/LoreMerchant Get product information, developer blogs, and more at www.fasagames.com FASA Games on Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/fasagamesinc FASA Games Discord Channel: https://discord.gg/uuVwS9u Earthdawn West Marches: https://discord.gg/hhHDtXW --- Send in a voice message: https://podcasters.spotify.com/pod/show/edsg-podcast/message

In the Season 3 Finale, we get to go to Turkey with the Clue Crew –— Karen thought it was sassy, and Kelly thought it was meh but full of derring-do. We also discuss our theories on doppelgängers, our summer dreams, and how much we want to go to the Grand Bazaar and the Basilica Cistern.  Some thoughts to ponder: Would you buy a life insurance policy from Ned Nickerson? Would you have known Aisha was the mannequin? Should locksmiths and librarians have a Hippocratic oath? Rated 7 out of 12 deadly waterwheels.Recommendations:Loot - Apple TV (Maya Rudolph)People to Follow - Olivia WorleySupport the Show.https://www.instagram.com/itsacluepodcast/

Tom and Trevor's annual guys' trip for 2024 led them to Istanbul, Turkey, and their experience was an absolute Turkish delight! They booked their tickets via Turkish Airlines just before the award chart's devaluation, and they were relieved to still be able to use their points. In today's episode, we take a look at Tom and Trevor's Middle Eastern adventure, starting with their first experience of successfully transferring and redeeming thank-you points. The journey continues as we discuss the fleet at Turkish Airlines, some interesting events at Newark, Tom and Trevor's in-flight experience, and everything that happened after they landed in Istanbul. We also learn about how Instagram deceived Trevor, the hotels that feel like home, their day out at the Grand Bazaar, multimodal travel, and the joys of being fully cleansed at the hammam. The trip home came with a silly customs mistake by Trevor, an underwhelming lounge, a Super Bowl cliffhanger, and everything you need to consider when looking for the right car rental agency. Key Points From This Episode: [0:00:40] How we were lucky to book our trip to Turkey before its airline's devaluation. [0:01:10] What Turkish Airlines' devaluation means for future travel on the airline. [0:04:17] Our first experience of transferring thank-you points. [0:05:50] Exploring the Turkish Airlines fleet. [0:08:43] How we made our bookings for Turkey and some interesting events from Newark Liberty International Airport. [0:24:45] Our in-flight experience. [0:30:01] Arriving in Turkey: Customs, Uber's, Salt Bae, and the Park Hyatt. [0:36:08] How we tried to visit every restaurant and bar in the area, and what we paid. [0:40:40] What we liked about breakfast and what we think could've been better. [0:44:21] Indulging Trevor and being pleasantly surprised. [0:47:47] The Grand Hyatt Istanbul – a home away from home. [0:52:52] Why we loved the hammam. [0:57:10] The ins and outs of our day at the Grand Bazaar, and the benefits of meal planning. [1:00:47] Our multimodal transportation adventure. [1:03:13] Bidding adieu to Istanbul. [1:06:55] The silly mistake that Trevor made at customs when leaving Turkey. [1:08:19] Why the Turkish Airlines lounge in Istanbul is not as great as it used to be. [1:12:17] What to keep in mind when departing from Istanbul Airport. [1:15:35] The flight back, Super Bowl ads, and arriving home. [1:24:00] A smooth Budget experience, and why we choose certain car rental agencies. [1:34:21] Final thoughts on the Turkish edition of our annual guys' trip. Quotes: “Folks talk about having to jump through hoops; if you've done it once, it is super easy – the reality of the matter is, you go through a little bit of pain but afterwards, it's actually not that bad.” — @tmount [0:03:58] “Don't print any checks you can't cash.” — @TktweetsKim [0:07:46] “Turkey is the number one producer of hazelnuts in the world.” — @TktweetsKim [0:28:04] “[Salt Bae's restaurant] just didn't feel like what you see on Instagram.” — @tmount[0:58:11] “In the future, we're going to have to plan our meals a little bit better – just waiting for the random best option to fall into our laps has turned out to be a problem.” — @TktweetsKim [1:00:17] “[On] our last day, we hit three continents. We did Europe, Asia, and then we landed in North America.” — @tmount[1:03:11] “Uber is the way to go if you need to get a taxi. It's a way not to get scammed.” — @TktweetsKim [1:04:48] “When you're on vacation [and] you can spend $20 or $30 to reduce some friction in your life, do it.” — @TktweetsKim [1:30:54] Links Mentioned in Today's Episode: Turkish Airlines Park Hyatt Istanbul - Macka Palas Grand Hyatt Istanbul Nusr-Et Steakhouse Salt Bae on Instagram Çatma Mescit Hammam Grand Bazaar United American Express Budget Car Rental National Car Rental Hagia Sofia Mansions Istanbul ‘Episode 17: Annual Guys Trip to Rio' The Milenomics Podcast Network Thomas Kim on X Trevor Mountcastle on X

Explore Istanbul in just 24 hours! Navigate the Grand Bazaar, indulges in Turkish cuisine, and explores iconic mosques. Plus, a sneak peek into Short Sleeve Travel's upcoming Italy biking trip. Don't miss out—hit play now! Instagram @katshortsleeveTik Tok @katshortsleeveYoutube Shortsleeve Travel with Kat Shortsleeve

Work and urban design are continuously evolving, but there's something to be learned from one of the oldest multi-sided businesses in history – the Grand Bazaar. This intricate market has somehow managed to sustain itself for over 500 years without a single leader at the helm. Dr. Sharon Wohl has spent countless hours analyzing the design of the Grand Bazaar, revealing how such bottom-up hierarchies can produce quality products and processes consistently for hundreds of years.Dr. Sharon Wohl is a distinguished scholar specializing in complex adaptive systems within urban design. She is the current Associate Dean for the College of Architecture and Environmental Design at Kent State University. In this episode, Dart and Sharon discuss:- The emergence and sustainability of the Grand Bazaar- Complex adaptive systems (CASTs) in decentralized settings- Whether or not we need an overarching governance at work- How simple rules can lead to complex results - An analysis of bottom-up strategies for system design and urbanism- The less visible flows within a business- The way designers can enable thriving systems - And other topics…Dr.  Sharon Wohl is a distinguished scholar specializing in complex adaptive systems within urban design. With a Ph.D. in Spatial Planning and Strategy from Delft Technical University, Sharon has taught at University of Manitoba and held a tenured position at Iowa State University. She is the current Associate Dean for the College of Architecture and Environmental Design at Kent State University. Prior to completing her doctorate, she practiced with the award-winning Canadian Architectural firm, 5468796 Architecture.Wohl's research examines how principles of complex adaptive systems can be operationalized within the built environment. Her expertise in complexity has been recognized through a research fellowship with the Institute for Advanced Studies in Amsterdam, invitations for speaking/guest lecture events, and her academic appointment as an FRK Faculty Fellow at ISU. Her research has been published in a variety of journals, including Planning Theory, Progress in Human Geography, and Space and Culture.  Resources mentioned:“The Grand Bazaar in Istanbul,” by Sharon Wohl: https://dr.lib.iastate.edu/server/api/core/bitstreams/f478ee3b-4098-4630-996b-024d6eefca01/contentHow Buildings Learn, by Stewart Brand: https://www.amazon.com/How-Buildings-Learn-Happens-Theyre/dp/0140139966 Connect with Sharon:LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/sharon-wohl-4168177 Google Scholar: https://scholar.google.com/citations?user=mGa84LoAAAAJ&hl=en&oi=ao 

* New Year, New mailbag! * The full, unedited interview with Lou is available on our YouTube channel. * The pre-art draft for Grand Bazaar has been made available to backers. * Email from Bart: Dispelling or disrupting threads? * Email from Chris: Crossbows! Why Strength? * Why not more kinds of crossbows? * Convention news! * Email from Brendan: Twisted ideals for the non-mad Passions? * Email from Shady Dragon: Teamwork knacks? * Email from Brendan: What about the Grim Legion? Find and Follow: Email: edsgpodcast@gmail.com YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/@EDSGPodcast Find and follow Josh: https://linktr.ee/LoreMerchant Get product information, developer blogs, and more at www.fasagames.com FASA Games on Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/fasagamesinc FASA Games Discord Channel: https://discord.gg/uuVwS9u Earthdawn West Marches: https://discord.gg/hhHDtXW --- Send in a voice message: https://podcasters.spotify.com/pod/show/edsg-podcast/message

Hey there, Travel Hackers! This week, we're diving into the captivating world of Istanbul, where every turn is a discovery and every moment an adventure. Jess and Pam have been there, explored its wonders, and are thrilled to show you how to experience this magical city using the clever art of travel hacking. Picture this: You're cruising high above, nestled in business class, sipping a welcome drink, en route to an unforgettable Istanbul escapade. Jess has got the scoop on snagging those coveted business class seats using airline miles, ensuring your journey is as enchanting as the destination. Utilizing credit card miles, your dream flight to Istanbul is closer than you think. Istanbul's accommodations aren't just places to rest; they're part of the experience. Hear Jess rave about her experience at the Park Hyatt Istanbul. Transferring Hyatt points between friends allowed her and three girlfriends to stay for $0! We also share Jess and Pam's contrasting experiences with the traditional Turkish Hamam, a story you won't want to miss!  Istanbul is full of experiences! Whether you're soaking in the history at the Hagia Sophia, wandering through the bustling Grand Bazaar, or cruising the Bosphorus, Istanbul's allure is endless. And with our insider tips, you'll enjoy these wonders while making savvy use of your travel budget. This might all sound like a dream, but it's all within reach, thanks to points and miles. Ready to embark on an Istanbul adventure like no other? Press play on this episode, and let us take you through the mesmerizing streets of Istanbul, showing you how to make your travel dreams a reality, without stretching your wallet. Happy travels and happy hacking!   Links For This Episode:  Find Traci (Jess's points guru) on Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/pointillismtravelhacking/ Kılıç Ali Paşa Hamam Must Do Attractions and Hidden Gems of Old City Bosphorus Sunset Cruise  Park Hyatt Istanbul  inDrive App  Free Gifts and Resources To Start Your Travel Hacking Journey: Free Webinar: How to Start Traveling for Nearly Free Best Current Credit Card Offers: Best Rewards Card Offers | Travel Hacking Mom Award Travel Academy: Award Travel Academy Our Website: https://travelhackingmom.com Connect With Us: Newsletter signup: https://travelhackingmom.com/newsletter Instagram: Alex + Pam + Jess | Points & Miles (@travelhackingmom) TikTok: travelhackingmom's Creator Profile Facebook group: Travel Hacking Mom Group | Facebook Episode Minute By Minute: 01:11 Planning the Trip: Choosing the Destination 01:49 Booking the Flights: Travel Hacking Strategies 03:05 The Benefits of Getting Friends into Travel Hacking  04:55 Booking the Flights: Using Points and Miles 07:50 Arriving in Istanbul: First Impressions and Transportation 10:28 Accommodation: Staying at the Park Hyatt Istanbul 17:41 Exploring Istanbul: Location and Accessibility 18:49 Navigating Istanbul: Public Transportation and Taxi Apps 22:05 The Hamam Experience: Pam's Hilarious Story  25:48 The Hamam Experience: Jess's Story 30:47 Exploring Istanbul: Guided Tours and Sunset Cruises 34:51 Istanbul: A Family-Friendly Destination 35:24 Traveling with Friends: The Benefits of Shared Experiences 36:05 Conclusion: Istanbul, A Must-Visit Destination  

Freshly inked, our heroes continue their investigations into the whereabouts of Dieral Myrnese and leave the safety of the Grand Bazaar.New episodes are released every Wednesday; find out more at describeyourkill.com or come say hi to the DYK crew on our new DISCORD!This podcast is an actual-play of Paizo's Stolen Fate Adventure Path for Pathfinder Second Edition.Music:"Kalimba Relaxation Music" / "Furious Freak" by Kevin MacLeod (incompetech.com). Licensed under Creative Commons: By Attribution 4.0 License."Tavern Loop Two" / "Autumn Walk" by Alexander Nakarada (creatorchords.com). Licensed under Creative Commons: By Attribution 4.0 License."Bazaar" / "Stirrup & Barding" by Michael Ghelfi Studios - https://michaelghelfistudios.com/"Mysterious Tension" by Syrinscape from the Abomination Vaults module for Foundry Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

Our heroes begin making enquiries and meeting more of the Grand Bazaar's shopkeepers, Malachi gets a tattoo, and Lupin meets an old friend...New episodes are released every Wednesday; find out more at describeyourkill.com or come say hi to the DYK crew on our new DISCORD!This podcast is an actual-play of Paizo's Stolen Fate Adventure Path for Pathfinder Second Edition.Music:"Kalimba Relaxation Music" / "Furious Freak" by Kevin MacLeod (incompetech.com). Licensed under Creative Commons: By Attribution 4.0 License."Tavern Loop One" / "Tavern Loop Two" / "Tavern Loop Three" by Alexander Nakarada (creatorchords.com). Licensed under Creative Commons: By Attribution 4.0 License."Bazaar" by Michael Ghelfi Studios - https://michaelghelfistudios.com/"Placid Seaside" by Syrinscape from the Abomination Vaults module for Foundry Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

Jim Santos, and his wife, Rita, continue their long-delayed roving retirement plan. As Jim records this episode, he and Rita are in Istanbul, Turkey checking out the city before they head to Vienna and Prague to continue their nine-week romp through Europe.In a change to the usual format, in this episode, Jim himself takes to the mic, giving his impressions of a city that straddles two continents, maintains thousands of years of history, and bridges the Western and Eastern worlds. He shares details of where you should visit, and when. Jim's tips and hacks on how to avoid the worst of the tourist crowds, what to look out for when you book your accommodation, and how to keep yourself safe and sane in this city of 15 million inhabitants, are invaluable preparation for a trip to Turkey's largest city.Join Jim as he talks us through the sights, sounds, and smells of Istanbul, from the subterranean city cisterns to the glorious dome of the Hagia Sophia; across the Bosphorous Strait for lunch in another continent, to fresh pistachios and Turkish Delight at the Grand Bazaar. When to go, what to wear, and which days to avoid…it's all included in the latest episode of the International Living Podcast.   If you're enjoying the podcast, we would really appreciate it if you could leave us a review on your favorite podcast platform: https://lovethepodcast.com/internationalliving.Facebook | Instagram | Twitter | YouTube

Post-combat, investigations begin at Three Moves Ahead. After some unusual breakfast exchanges, our heroes begin to unpick the mysteries within the Grand Bazaar. And Malachi gets lucky... or does he?New episodes are released every Wednesday; find out more at describeyourkill.com or come say hi to the DYK crew on our new DISCORD!This podcast is an actual-play of Paizo's Stolen Fate Adventure Path for Pathfinder Second Edition.Music:"Kalimba Relaxation Music" / "Furious Freak" / "Virtutes Instrumenti" / "Adventures in Adventureland" by Kevin MacLeod (incompetech.com). Licensed under Creative Commons: By Attribution 4.0 License."Tavern Loop One" by Alexander Nakarada (creatorchords.com). Licensed under Creative Commons: By Attribution 4.0 License."Bazaar" by Michael Ghelfi Studios - https://michaelghelfistudios.com/"Memory of the Roseguard" / "Mysterious Tension" / "Placid Seaside" by Syrinscape from the Abomination Vaults module for Foundry Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

Unknown to each other, four misfit heroes share a strange vision and end up simultaneously in Absalom's Grand Bazaar; each bearing a strange and powerful Harrow card.New episodes are released every Wednesday; find out more at describeyourkill.com.This podcast is an actual-play of Paizo's Stolen Fate Adventure Path for Pathfinder Second Edition.Music:"Kalimba Relaxation Music" / "Furious Freak" / "Virtutes Instrumenti" / "Adventures in Adventureland" by Kevin MacLeod (incompetech.com). Licensed under Creative Commons: By Attribution 4.0 License."Tavern Loop One" by Alexander Nakarada (creatorchords.com). Licensed under Creative Commons: By Attribution 4.0 License."Bazaar" by Michael Ghelfi Studios - https://michaelghelfistudios.com/ Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

BloggerAtLarge writer Megan Singleton is still gallivanting across the world- and recently stopped off in Istanbul! Despite missing the Haggia Sofia and the Blue Mosque due to long lines, Megan still managed to experience the Galata Bridge and the Grand Bazaar- and all the fine dining and views the attractions had to offer. LISTEN ABOVESee omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

We're in Istanbul, Turkey, with Andrea Lemieux of TheQuirkyCork.com. We talk about exploring the harems at Topkapi Palace, visiting the Blue Mosque, and shopping at the Grand Bazaar.  Show notes & our 1-page guide are at https://WeTravelThere.com/istanbul Miles & points make travel affordable but tracking them is difficult. That's why I use AwardWallet to monitor rewards, reservations & free night certificates. Sign up for free at WeTravelThere.com/awardwallet

The Grand Bazaar in Istanbul is one of the oldest and largest covered markets in the world, with 61 streets and over 4,000 shops covering 330,000 square feet or about the area of 6 football fields.  Between 250,000 and 400,000 people visit it daily.  This may make it first among the world's most-visited tourist attractions, with about 91 million annual visitors.  The Grand Bazaar is also reputed to be the location of portals that can transport people around the world.  But despite the rumors, one fact is incontrovertible: in 1591 thieves stole 30,000 gold coins in one of the most surprising thefts in the history of Istanbul.  Visit us at www.mydarkpath.comwww.youtube.com/@mydarkpathwww.patreon.com/mydarkpath

In episode #131 your favorite CEOs Taylor Graham and Chloe Willemsen are back to catch you up on all of their latest travel shenanigans in Istanbul, Turkey! The CEOs chat about: The heat wave, and why Europeans despise being comfortable when it's this hot outside Their first walking tour in Istanbul Getting sudsy (and fully naked) in the Turkish bath houses together Grand Bazaar market  Their much needed beach day at Princes Islands  A colorful day in Balat 3 AM cat brawls and seagull calls Chloe absolutely roasting Taylor, once again Then, the CEOs are joined once again by Leyanna who is here share her history with journaling, her specific process, her favorite supplies, tips for first time journalers looking to get started, and more! To check out our Portable USB Rechargeable Mini Fan recommendation that is single handedly keeping us alive on this trip click HERE To follow Leyanna on Instagram click HERE  Feel free to stalk your hosts further: Chloe: ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠@c.e.chlo⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠  Taylor:⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠ @taygrahambiz⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠ and⁠⁠ ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠@sociallytaylored⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠ To check out the official CEOish website click ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠HERE⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠ To ask us a question or request a guest, connect with us on Instagram and Twitter⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠ @ceoishpodcast⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠ or email us at⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠ hello@ceoishpodcast.com⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠

In this Tablet podcast, assistant editor Ruth Gledhill talks to Dr Natalie Watson, theologian and editor, about the coming Tablet trip to Turkey, where classical civilisation can be found alongside the sites of the earliest Christian churches along with the locations of some of the earliest and most significant events of the early Church. We start with three nights in Istanbul, one of the world's greatest cities, visting sites such as the grand Byzantine basilica Aya Sofya, often called Hagia Sophia, and the Ottoman sultans' lavish Topkapı Palace. We take a guided stroll in the Grand Bazaar and have a traditional coffee tasting and ponder the spiritual adventure ahead, and enjoy the views from our Bosphorus cruise. We then travel through the countryside visiting the sites of the Seven Churches of Revelation. These churches were real, physical congregations when the Apostle John wrote this last book of the Bible around 95 AD. While in Patmos, John was seized by the Holy Spirit and received prophetic visions from Christ instructing him to: “Write on a scroll what you see and send it to the seven churches: to Ephesus, Smyrna, Pergamum, Thyatira, Sardis, Philadelphia, and Laodicea” We will also visit the bright-white terraces of Pamukkale, the warm mineral water that flows through them being the basis for the ancient spa city of Hierapolis. Then, we finish with three nights in Cappadocia, a geological wonderland in the centre of Turkey. The history of early Christians in Anatolia comes alive at the Göreme Open-Air Museum and the other cave churches and underground cities scattered around the valley. For more information on The Tablet trip to Turkey in September, visit McCabe Pilgrimages or email info@mccabe-travel.co.uk quoting TabTurk2. For more information on The Tablet trip to the Holy Land and Jordan in November, email enquiries@jcjourneys.com. --- Send in a voice message: https://podcasters.spotify.com/pod/show/the-tablet/message

The Dreamers finally reach the city of Lhosk, mercantile capital of the Cerenarian Sea. Will they find aid within the bustling city, or do the red tarpaulins of the Grand Bazaar conceal more than just the sun? Claire - Rootpicker, One with the rootsRobert - Frederick Cohn, Takes the first sipEthan - E.S. Walcott, UnderdressedNoah - Richard Rouchard, Unsteady HandsFind Noah on Twitter and his podcast Thinking Too Hard About AnimeCheck out Ethan's RPG Podcast The Adventurer's Vault on their website and Twitter

Emily Stochl is a writer, podcaster and educator with expertise in the vintage and secondhand fashion industry. She is the host and creator of Pre-Loved Podcast, which is a weekly interview podcast about vintage and secondhand fashion. Launched in 2018, Pre-Loved Podcast was the first interview podcast dedicated specifically to vintage and secondhand fashion's stories. Emily's writing and commentary on the vintage & secondhand fashion industry has been included in Atmos, Glamour, Vogue Business, The Zoe Report, Women's Wear Daily, Refinery29 and more. She is also the Director of Education & Community Engagement for the global fashion advocacy organisation, Remake. Follow Emily on @emilymstochlShop her favourite vintage @foundedandformedshop Shop Route 66 in Sydney or onlineTrue Cost documentary https://truecostmovie.comMy MamaMia article on vintage fashion trends Previous episode with B Jones StyleFollow @bjonesstyle for style inspoVisit the Manhattan Vintage Show Visit the Grand Bazaar in New YorkMy episode on the Preloved PodcastOrder your copy of the How To Be Fabulous book on Booktopia here. This podcast is sponsored by Better Help. Use the link www.betterhelp.com/befabulous to get 10% off your first month of Better Help. #sponsoredThis episode was hosted & produced by writer & vintage fashion expert, Charlotte Dallison. Follow @charlottedallison on Instagram or subscribe to her Substack: Blonde not Beige Mail.Follow us @htbfabulous on Instagram.For advertising enquiries please email charlotte@charlottedallison.com

In this week's episode, Jenni covers Turkish style coffee and the origins of coffee culture. The first recorded history of coffee dates back to the mid 1500s in Yemen. Sultan Suleiman then spread it throughout the entire Ottoman Empire. Turkish style coffee brewed using a cezve/ibrik became so prominent that it is still the main brew method throughout most of the countries that were a part of the Ottoman Empire. From the first coffee houses in the Grand Bazaar in Istanbul to modern day political fights over coffee, this episode has it all!For the tasting, we picked up some Kurukahveci Mehmet Efendi Turkish coffee and a cezve big enough for three at our local Mediterranean grocery store. Listen to find out how brewing it over an open flame on mic goes and to find out what we think! Jenni even tries her hand at reading coffee grounds as they do in Turkey.Kurukahveci Mehmet Efendi: https://mehmetefendi.com/eng/products/turkish-coffeeFurther media:https://boisecoffee.org/podcast/episode-six-turkish-coffee/https://www.npr.org/sections/thesalt/2013/04/27/179270924/dont-call-it-turkish-coffee-unless-of-course-it-is#:~:text=Back%20home%20in%20Bulgaria%2C%20as,the%20Turks%20call%20a%20cezve.https://www.ducksters.com/history/renaissance/ottoman_empire.phphttps://www.thespruceeats.com/tasseography-tea-leaf-reading-symbols-765838-Buy a mystery box of past products that we have tried on the podcast! For $10 you will receive 10 cups worth of coffee. Includes shipping! Limited supplies, buy here: https://www.paypal.com/instantcommerce/checkout/YUHJNDHDX2CTEHelp us buy questionable coffee!https://www.patreon.com/nobadreviewspodhttps://www.buymeacoffee.com/nobadreviewspod

英语新闻｜多地优化调整疫情防控政策Optimized rules include reduced testing, better medical access优化政策包括减少核酸检测，以及提供更好的医疗服务Several cities and provinces have recently optimized COVID-19 control measures concerning mass nucleic acid testing and medical services to minimize the impact on people and economic activity.一些城市和省份最近优化了有关大规模核酸检测和医疗服务的新冠肺炎防控措施，以尽量减少对居民和经济活动的影响。Starting on Monday, Shanghai will no longer require passengers to possess a negative nucleic acid test result when taking public transportation, including buses and subways, or when entering outdoor public spaces, according to an announcement made on Sunday afternoon.根据12月4日下午发布的公告，从12月5日开始，上海市将不再要求乘客在乘坐公共交通工具（包括公共汽车和地铁）或进入室外公共场所时，必须持有核酸检测阴性结果。The city is the latest to join other major Chinese cities in optimizing COVID-19 prevention and control measures to try to return normalcy to life and work following similar announcements by Beijing, Guangzhou and Chongqing.在北京、广州和重庆发布类似声明后，上海是最新公告优化新冠肺炎防控措施，以努力恢复正常生活和工作的城市。Beijing announced on Friday that from Monday, public transportation, including buses and subways, may not turn away passengers without proof of a negative test result taken within 48 hours.12月2日，北京宣布从12月5日起，包括公共汽车和地铁在内的公共交通工具不得拒载没有48小时内阴性检测结果证明的乘客。Certain groups, including the homebound, students studying online, infants and those working from home, are exempt from mass screening for COVID-19 if they do not need to go out.一些群体，包括在家上学的学生、在线学习的学生、婴儿和远程工作的人，如果不需要外出，则可以不参与大规模核酸筛查。However, people still need to show negative test results taken within 48 hours when entering public places such as supermarkets and shopping malls.不过，人们在进入超市和商场等公共场所时，仍需出示48小时内的阴性检测结果。In Guangzhou, capital of Guangdong province, people without COVID-19 symptoms, or who work in low-risk posts and those who do not intend to visit supermarkets or other places requiring proof of a negative test, are being asked not to get tested.在广东省省会广州市，没有新冠肺炎症状的人，或在低风险岗位工作的人，以及那些不前往超市或其他需要阴性检测证明的地方的人，都不需要接受检测。According to a notice issued on Sunday by Haizhu authorities, the district hardest hit by the latest outbreak in Guangzhou, only people working in high-risk posts such as express delivery, food take-away, hotels, transportation, shopping malls, construction sites and supermarkets are required to get tested.海珠区是广州疫情最严重的地区，根据海珠区政府12月4日发布的通知，只有在快递、外卖、酒店、交通、购物中心、建筑工地和超市等高风险岗位工作的人员需要接受检测。Several cities in Guangdong have also adjusted sampling strategies, with tests mainly targeting people in at-risk posts, or who work in key industries.广东的几个城市也调整了核酸采样策略，主要对风险岗位人员或重点行业工作人员进行检测。In Zhuhai, residents are required to pay for any tests they need starting from Sunday, according to a notice issued by the local government.在珠海，根据当地政府发布的一份通知，从12月4日开始，居民需要支付核酸检测的费用。Residents in Shenzhen will no longer be required to present test results when taking public transportation as long as their health code remains green, according to a notice issued by the local epidemic prevention and control headquarters on Saturday.根据当地疫情防控指挥部12月3日发布的通知，深圳居民在乘坐公共交通工具时，只要持绿色健康码，就不再需要出示检测结果。In Chongqing, residents of low-risk areas do not need to be tested. Test results are also not required to take public transport or enter low-risk residential areas.在重庆，低风险地区的居民不需要接受检测。乘坐公共交通工具或进入低风险居民区也不需要提供核酸检测结果。In addition to reducing tests, many cities are providing better public medical services.除了减少检测，许多城市正在提供更好的公共医疗服务。Starting on Saturday, residents in Beijing no longer need to register their personal information to purchase medicines for fever, coughs, sore throats or infections either online or in drugstores, according to the municipality's market supervision authority. Guangzhou made a similar announcement several days earlier.根据北京市市场监管部门，从12月3日开始，北京居民不再需要登记个人信息，就可以在网上或药店购买治疗发烧、咳嗽、喉咙痛或感染的药品。几天前，广州也发布了类似的公告。On Thursday, the capital government made it clear that medical service providers in Beijing may not turn away patients without a negative nucleic acid test taken within 48 hours.12月1日，北京政府明确表示，北京的医疗机构不得拒绝没有48小时核酸检测阴性证明的患者。The city's health commission said on Saturday that residents can also get access to healthcare and medical consultancy via an online platform relaunched recently by Beijing Medical Association, which is run by experts in eight specialties including respiratory issues, infectious diseases, geriatrics, pediatrics and psychology. Beijing authorities have also mandated that makeshift hospitals ensure that patients are discharged safely, effectively and in an orderly manner.北京市卫健委12月3日表示，居民还可以通过北京医学会最近推出的在线平台获得医疗保健和医疗咨询服务。北京医学会由呼吸问题、传染病、老年病、儿科和心理学等八个专业的专家运营。北京政府还要求方舱医院保障治愈患者安全、有效、有序地出院。The staff at makeshift hospitals will provide recovered patients with documentation to ensure they are readmitted by their residential communities.方舱医院的工作人员将为康复患者提供文件，以确保他们可返回居住地社区。As control measures are relaxed, shopping malls and department stores in cities including Beijing, Chongqing and Guangzhou have been gradually reopening, although most restaurants still only offer takeout service.随着防控措施的放松，北京、重庆和广州等城市的购物中心和百货商店已逐步重新开放，尽管大多数餐馆仍然只提供外卖服务。The Grand Bazaar pedestrian street in Urumqi, capital of the Xinjiang Uygur autonomous region, and skiing resorts in the region also reopened on Sunday.新疆维吾尔自治区乌鲁木齐的大巴扎步行街和该地区的滑雪场也于12月4日重新开放。nucleic英 [njuːˈkleɪɪk] 美 [nuːˈkliːɪk; nuːˈkleɪɪk]adj.核的exempt英 [ɪɡˈzempt] 美 [ɪɡˈzempt]adj.被免除……的municipality 英 [mjuːˌnɪsɪˈpæləti] 美 [mjuːˌnɪsɪˈpæləti]n.市政当局

Learn to travel for "free" utilizing the best credit card welcome offers. Travel to Vegas and anywhere else! Check out this free tool that we highly recommend. Travel Freely (free sign-up) Episode Description: As a reminder you can watch this show as well at: http://www.YouTube.com/milestomemories The LVCVA has released visitor statistics for 2021 and some of the data is pretty shocking. We go over the most interesting numbers that spell doom for the monorail and show why the casinos are winning so much money lately. But it's hard to explain why so many people are bringing their children to Las Vegas! In other news we learned about how and when you can score the high demand Formula 1 tickets. This is one you want to try for. We also discuss Katy Perry's robot eye, the insane $150K suite package at Palms, the destruction of some of the Grand Bazaar shops and the arrival of the original Cronut in Las Vegas. About the Show Each week tens of thousands of people tune into our MtM Vegas news shows at http://www.YouTube.com/milestomemories. We do two news shows weekly on YouTube with the audio being combined into this podcast. Never miss out on the latest happenings in and around Las Vegas! Enjoying the podcast? Please consider leaving us a positive review on your favorite podcast platform! You can also connect with us anytime at podcast@milestomemories.com.  You can subscribe on Apple Podcasts, Google Podcasts, Spotify or by searching "MtM Vegas" or "Miles to Memories" in your favorite podcast app. Don't forget to check out our travel/miles/points podcast as well!

During a trip to Istanbul, academic scholar Alithea Binnie (Tilda Swinton) happens across a curious glass lamp which she buys in the Grand Bazaar. When she cleans it with an electric toothbrush, she unwittingly unleashes Djinn (Idris Elba) and she is granted three wishes… 

During a trip to Istanbul, academic scholar Alithea Binnie (Tilda Swinton) happens across a curious glass lamp which she buys in the Grand Bazaar. When she cleans it with an electric toothbrush, she unwittingly unleashes Djinn (Idris Elba) and she is granted three wishes… See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

S6 Ep28 Michelle of Allegra Vintij: vintage seller with a showroom in Brooklyn - on market and pop–up tips, estate sale adventures, and personal style vintage magic.  JOIN OUR PATREON COMMUNITY: https://www.patreon.com/prelovedpod  Listen and subscribe on: iTunes | Spotify | Stitcher | Google Play | or wherever you get your podcasts! Please rate & review the show so more vintage lovers find this community. Pre-Loved Podcast is a weekly interview show about rad vintage style with guests you'll want to go thrifting with. Find the show at @emilymstochl on Instagram and @PreLovedPod on Twitter. Pre-Loved Podcast: Michelle of Allegra Vintij Today, I'm joined by Michelle, the owner and founder of Allegra Vintij! Michelle sells vintage treasures from the 19th century through the 90s, focusing on well-made, one-of-a-kind quality vintage pieces that allow shoppers to “always play dress up!” You can regularly find Michelle at her vintage showroom, or Regeneration, or at markets like Grand Bazaar on the Upper West Side or the Manhattan Vintage Show.  I met Michelle when I was in New York covering Manhattan Vintage this spring, and she's an absolute blast – I know you're gonna love her vintage fashion stories! Tour Dates:  September 21: Pre-Loved Podcast LIVE in St. Louis All the Episode Links: @allegravintij Allegra Vintij site Greenpoint Terminal Market Manhattan Vintage Show Hampton Flea Hester Street Fair Grand Bazaar  Regeneration Newburgh Vintage Emporium Marvin Ruby NYC Vintage Map Brimfield Antique Show Deals on Designers on Pre-Loved Podcast Style4Vintage Omnia Vintage B Jones Style Randi's Relics  Toot's Vintage * JOIN THE PATREON COMMUNITY and get the Pre-Loved Podcast News Flash: https://www.patreon.com/prelovedpod  A special thanks goes out to my Patron Insiders: Patty Weber Beverley Docherty of Wolfe Pack Vintage Danny of Galaxy Live Kathy Brand Lucero Buendia Steven Vogel Mary-Elizabeth Land Tricia Zelazny Leslie V. Lisa of Queenie & Pearl Pre-Loved Podcast is created by Emily Stochl. Follow me on Instagram, Twitter, and my blog. 

Die Welt ist grau und hässlich, dann ist die Grand Bazaar Bernard Grancher der perfekte Begleiter für Ihren Konkurs. ## La caricature du bonheur Chers adeptes, Aujourd'hui, je n'ai mangé que du fromage blanc. J'étais là et je rêvassais alors que je mélangeais le sucre blanc à mon potage lacté et onctueux. Je me suis immédiatement senti aspiré par cette spirale immaculée de blancheur virginale. Ma tête plongea dans le bol et n'en ressortit plus. Ainsi, il a neigé et ma face embrassait tes fesses sous ta robe de mariée. Là, j'étais bien caché et heureux; au chaud. Plus rien n'existait que la blancheur, comme un flash permanant qui m'englobait telle une noisette au cœur d'un rocher choco-coco. Soudain, j'ai joui et mon sperme, noir comme un glaviot de pétrole perfora ce monde trop parfait comme dans un négatif in vivo. Le GbbB était terminé et je n'avais plus qu'à rembobiner pour revivre le même bonheur grotesque. Au programme: 1. Générique GBBG 2. Broadcast & The Focus Group - inside out 3. The High Llamas - Rustic Vespa/Folly time 4. Laurent Danicher - Mon coeur bleu 5. Henri Salvador - Enfoncez vous çà dans la tête ! 6. Turn on - Glangorous 7. Lyne Clever - Nana la marchande d'ananas 8. The oscillation - Head hang low 9. Julianna Barwick - The magic place 10. The new lines - The falaise gap 11. Of Montreal - Authentic pyrrhic remission 12. Olafur Arnalds - day-ii_raein Bernard Grancher # Grand Bazaar Bernard Grancher Die GBBG ist ein Radioprogramm von Bernard Grancher produziert. Sein starkes psychotrope Potential ergibt sich aus der Nähe zu den gefährlichsten Drogen. So ist die Sendung für alle Fälle von Leber- und Dickdarmerkrankungen empfohlen. Es ist nicht notwendig, an Gott zu glauben, um die Sendung zu hören, aber es ist verboten in ihr Potenzial für die Verbesserung des Intelligenzquotienten zu sehen. Der Intelligenzquotient ist eine proletarische prospektive Vorstellung, die ein positiv perspektivistisches Ziel dem Menschseins geben soll. Dies ist durch diese Sendung erwiesen, durch den menschliche Zustand ist er es nicht. * http://www.grandbazaarbernardgrancher.com/

Die Welt ist grau und hässlich, dann ist die Grand Bazaar Bernard Grancher der perfekte Begleiter für Ihren Konkurs. ## Fantasmons sur vos vies insipides Chers adeptes, Nous passons énormément de temps dans le GbbG. Notre vie est, ainsi, un pic d' excitation permanent, un grand 8 émotionnel perpétuel conduit par un Bernard Grancher trépané, incapable de mettre en perspective les conséquences des décisions prisent au sein du conseil d'administration de sa secte mégalo-maniaque. Aussi, nous sommes dans l'incapacité d'appréhender le banal de vos existences. Mieux, celles-ci nous paraissent fascinantes de bêtise et de normalité. Le moindre de vos actes, le moindre petit détail de votre quotidien devient un bijou précieux que nous aimons exposer ici comme les œuvres d'art brut de vos vies sans but. Vos plats de nouilles froides nous semblent des mets délicieux. Les remontrances de vos chefs de services deviennent des happening grandioses, des joutes naines entre insectes insignifiants dont on jouit à l'idée de les balayer d'un souffle. Votre façon d'exister par l'acte d'achat de marques reconnues et appréciées par vos pairs nous amusent la gueule à vomir. Nous ne valons pas mieux mais nous en avons conscience et cela nous rend joyeux et supérieurs. Rejoignez le GBBG! Au programme: 1. Générique GBBG 2. Silverio - El Dedo Suizo 3. Aux Raus - Powder powder 4. GbbG Arkestra - Nous sommes absolument normaux 5. Apparat Organ Quartet vs Bernard Grancher - Babbage Video-GaG 6. Thee oh sees - The dream 7. Esprits frappeurs - Infini 8. Grimes - Caladan Bernard Grancher # Grand Bazaar Bernard Grancher Die GBBG ist ein Radioprogramm von Bernard Grancher produziert. Sein starkes psychotrope Potential ergibt sich aus der Nähe zu den gefährlichsten Drogen. So ist die Sendung für alle Fälle von Leber- und Dickdarmerkrankungen empfohlen. Es ist nicht notwendig, an Gott zu glauben, um die Sendung zu hören, aber es ist verboten in ihr Potenzial für die Verbesserung des Intelligenzquotienten zu sehen. Der Intelligenzquotient ist eine proletarische prospektive Vorstellung, die ein positiv perspektivistisches Ziel dem Menschseins geben soll. Dies ist durch diese Sendung erwiesen, durch den menschliche Zustand ist er es nicht. * http://www.grandbazaarbernardgrancher.com/

In Ian Fleming's 1957 novel, James Bond 007 visits Istanbul. The city is wonderfully described, from a British perspective. Having studied Turkish for over 20 years, I go through Fleming's chapters on Turkey, and give my own perspective.This is Part 2 of a series initially focusing on Fleming. You can listen to these in any order, having read the books or not. I give real-world insights on places visited by the world's most celebrated fictitious spy.  After this, you can decide how far I go down the Bond rabbit hole! Contact me using any of the following accounts:You can find me on Instagram: @FlemingNeverDiesYou can find my Turkish account here: @JamesBond_TurkiyeYou can e-mail me: AlbionNeverDies@Gmail.comCheck out my Youtube channel: https://www.youtube.com/britishculture Support the show

First  the company AirportTag has given The Non Rev Lounge a discount for the photo luggage: LARA10 Lara's trip to Egypt part deux!!We hear about  Lara's flights on Egypt AirPyramids…don't get on the camels!Nile CruiseAbu-Simbel (watch out for loose rocks)Careful when you use a public restroom!!Felucca rideEgyptian night on the cruise! How to get a discount in The Grand Bazaar in Cairo! (Hint, your airline ID ain't it!)Tour group security Jordan! Petra:  The Treasury vs The Monastery! Can you really float in the Dead Sea?Find us on Instagram @NonRevLoungePodcast and Twitter @NonRevLoungePod.If you have any questions or feedback please feel free to reach out to us via email at NonRevLoungePodcast@gmail.comDon't forget your PERX.COM discount! Nonrevloungepod30Photo luggage from AirportTag discount: LARA10

Today's episode features an interview with Simon Howard, Marketing Director of Bailey of Bristol, one of the UK's biggest and longest-running touring caravan and coachbuilt motorhome manufacturers, where he is responsible for all internal and external communications. Simon's family has owned Bailey of Bristol since 1977, and he now runs the business with his brother, Nick, the Managing Director, and their executive management team. Simon discusses his 23 years of working at Bailey, how he's brought its PR and marketing into the digital world and embraced social media, the current supply chain issues, and his participation in a series of Big Bailey Adventures taking their leisure vehicles across the Australian Outback, over ice roads in the Arctic Circle and (accidentally) through the Grand Bazaar in central Istanbul.Topics discussed (topics covered in the podcast)MarketingPR and mediaSocial Media and influencersBailey's Big AdventuresSuppliers and supply chain issuesRESOURCESwww.baileyofbristol.co.ukCONTACT Email: marketing@baileyofbristol.co.uk Instagram: @BaileyofBristolFacebook: @BaileycaravansandmotorhomesTwitter: @BaileyofBristolLinkedin: @BaileyofBristolYouTube: @BaileyofBristolI'd really appreciate it if you could give this podcast a 5 star review as it helps the algorithms - so more people find it. Thank you very much.

* Josh flaked out on finishing things up, so show notes are delayed! * This week: Some emails are answered, and we talk about the Cult of the Great Hunter. * Don't forget, the latest Kickstarter for the Grand Bazaar sourcebook runs through June 14! Email: edsgpodcast@gmail.com Twitter: @EDSGPodcast Josh on Twitter: @LoreMerchant Dan on Twitter: @boice_voice Get product information, developer blogs, and more at www.fasagames.com FASA Games on Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/fasagamesinc FASA Games Discord Channel: https://discord.gg/uuVwS9u Earthdawn Guild Facebook Group: https://www.facebook.com/groups/earthdawnguild Earthdawn West Marches: https://discord.gg/hhHDtXW

Palms returns, Bally's sports book may be doomed, Grand Bazaar downsizes, Rhumbar returns and we run through the FSE concert lineup in excruciating detail The post FHBM #826: We Built This Podcast first appeared on Five Hundy By Midnight.

This week, Christopher Burdett returns to finish our conversation about what it was like working on Buffy, Angel, and Firefly, what it was like working next to Lemmy Kilmister in Toxic Avenger 4, his artwork for the Star Wars Playing Card Game, Dungeons and Dragons, and all about his new work "The Grand Bazaar of Ethra VanDalia". Get a copy of Christopher's book at www.christopherburdett.com --Patreon: www.openmicers.com --Merch: www.teepublic.com/stores/openmicerspodcast -- Watch live at https://www.twitch.tv/jayfunktastic --- Support this podcast: https://anchor.fm/openmicers/support

Loot Town Square is a weekly community call. A space for fans, players, and builders to come together and share ideas, tease projects, launch projects, ask questions, and just generally geek out on all things Loot. Thursdays @ 9AM PST/4PM UTC ------ Music by https://twitter.com/bowtiedindigo ------ SUBSCRIBE TO NEWSLETTER: https://lootproject.substack.com/

* Live Q&A from FreedoniaCon! * Questions from LouP: Talent Pattern and Attribute Pattern talents in Fourth Edition? * Why only one talent option per Discipline Circle? * Questions from Svenn: Status of Magic: Deeper Secrets? * Spell design rules and updating older spells? * How large is Deeper Secrets going to be? * Looking at third party material (Codex Arcanum)? * Contest for fan content as part of new book? * English publication of German Kaers book? * Status of Grand Bazaar? * Questions from Joel: Favorite bit of Earthdawn lore? * Where would you start a Barsaivian campaign (running or playing)? * Where would you set a non-Barsaivian campaign? * What areas in Barsaive not yet developed would you like to explore? * Thoughts on other Great Dragons relations to Barsaive? * Plans for Fekara? * Morgan working up a non-caster thing? * Questions from Chad: Duration of spells and damage? * Questions from K Scott: Expanding elemental planes or other netherworlds? * Question from Lee B: Status of House Syrtis and the Prophetess? * Status of Vivane and southwest Barsaive? * House K'tenshin? Iopos? * Cara Fahd and Landis? * Future of the Legends of Barsaive? * Questions from Lee A: Thanks to the EDSG for our work! * Strategies for regularly using Surprise Strike in combat? * What if the Thief delays their entry into combat? * Damage potential for Thief Discipline? * Can you use Great Leap every round to trigger Down Strike? * Changes to racial Karma in fourth (and third) edition? * Would changing the karma die back to first edition rules break the game? * Do the Legends of Barsaive adventures require any special background or setup? * Cross-Discipline talent synergies are an intentional design choice to encourage cooperation within a group. * Question from Josh: Why is his cat clawing his leg? * Thank you everyone for your questions and feedback! Email: edsgpodcast@gmail.com Twitter: @EDSGPodcast Josh on Twitter: @LoreMerchant Dan on Twitter: @boice_voice Get product information, developer blogs, and more at www.fasagames.com FASA Games on Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/fasagamesinc FASA Games Discord Channel: https://discord.gg/uuVwS9u Earthdawn Guild Facebook Group: https://www.facebook.com/groups/earthdawnguild Earthdawn West Marches: https://discord.gg/hhHDtXW

This episode is also available as a blog post: http://afghannewswire.com/2022/02/24/the-grand-bazaar-of-ghazni-in-afghanistan/

On this edition of Business Weekly, we're looking at BP's latest results. The energy giant made a profit of $12.8bn last year - thanks mainly to surging oil and gas prices. This comes after a loss in 2020. We hear why some are calling for a ‘windfall tax' - a one-off charge that would then be channelled to help struggling consumers battling price rises. We hear the response from BP, and comments from Connor Schwartz at Friends of the Earth and Tom Wilson from the Financial Times. Staying with rising bills, the BBC's Tamasin Ford investigates the cost of living in different parts of the world. She hears how it is calculated and how increases in everyday essentials impact people in different ways. Also on the programme, we enter the world of fashion, and hear how some apps are trying to increase the sustainability of the industry by encouraging us to buy or rent second-hand. We get a tour of the technology from the BBC's Justin Rowlatt and his daughter, Zola. Turkey is a country with soaring inflation. The currency has lost some 50% of its value in a year. Although this means day-to-day life in the country is hard, it does make it an attractive destination for tourists, who will find their money goes further. The BBC's Victoria Craig talks to visitors in Istanbul about how they're getting more value for money, and visits traders in the Grand Bazaar. Finally, Sasha Twining meets ‘Buddy', a robot pet dog designed for those living with dementia. She speaks to the Chief Executive of Ageless Innovation, Ted Fischer, and hears how the interactive dogs and cats can respond to their human owners and could help those who feel lonely or isolated. Business Weekly is presented by Sasha Twining and produced by Matthew Davies.

Drawn by the favourable exchange rate, tourists are flocking to Turkey, but can they compensate for the country's wider economic woes? In 2020, Turkey was hit hard by the pandemic lockdown, soaring inflation, a weakening currency and a current account deficit. Last year, the number of visitors jumped 85.5%. Victoria Craig talks to tourists in Istanbul about how they're getting more value for money and visits traders in the Grand Bazaar. Tour guide Sebnem Altin at tour company Grand Circle Travel has mixed feelings about the future and economist Roger Kelly at the European Bank for Reconstruction and Development puts the latest tourism figures in context. Produced by Stephen Ryan and Gulsah Karadag. (Image: Istanbul's Grand Bazaar, Credit: Victoria Craig)

Episode 68: I will be talking about Jewel Grand Bazaar, John T. Shayne Clothing Store, Kiddytown Amusement Park, and Chicago Police Officer Leonard Baldy. --- Send in a voice message: https://anchor.fm/pete-kastanes/message

Episode 68: I will be talking about Jewel Grand Bazaar, John T. Shayne Clothing Store, Kiddytown Amusement Park, and Chicago Police Officer Leonard Baldy. --- Send in a voice message: https://anchor.fm/pete-kastanes/message

John Paulson, a multi-fiat Fed note billionaire Wall Street trading legend, was interviewed on August 12th, 2021, and Bloomberg Wealth published these video clips this past week.  This famed, often highly leveraged derivative, a trader who helped his firm and investors net over $20 billion on a trade shorting the 2007/2008 housing market credit bust, had additional sharp insights on the parabolic future price climb for gold. The close to this week's silver and gold derivative trading hours ended on a positive note for bullion bulls. A massive near 500,000 jobs bolstered both respective silver spot price and gold spot prices in August 2021. The gold-silver ratio also fell firmly on the news, showing signs that derivative traders were seeking alpha by placing down additional silver derivative long bets.  Sideways spot price consolidations can wear people's excitement and patience out. But this last year to time for silver bulls like myself and the extended base we have been building signals tremendous upside energy likely ahead. And with fiat creationist cartels en route to doubling their ballooning balance sheets within the last two years, well, a reckoning in store of value confidence is what I continue actively betting on and saving against. This week we have some exciting news from various important gold stacking and even increasing commodity-price-discovering nations on the other side of the world. We'll begin with news out of China. Note the mentioning of shipping futures contracts and the massive escalating price squeeze ongoing for goods from China to the USA since the pandemic.  Much of these shipping price escalations have and will likely continue to be passed off to consumers with higher prices for goods coming out of China. Also, China is still the world's largest consumer of commodities, and it's not close in terms of the second-largest market buying most things critical for a quality modern lifestyle.  Pretty easy to guess that China wants to wrestle much commodity price discovery influence away from futures markets like the US-based COMEX and NYMEX to have her longer-term agenda more easily appeased.  Of course, Russia likely knows well the International Monetary Fund's Special Drawing Rights history. The SDR began in 1968 as a supposed gold-backed freely convertible supra-central banknote only to morph into year another complete fiat currency contrivance. The SDR fiat currency unit inputs basket has lost over 97% of its value to gold bullion. And the Russian Federation likely agrees that the SDR devaluation vs. bullion trend is not changing anytime soon. Gold market analysts Daniel March and Krishan Gopaul were quick to cite massive gold demand out of India for this past month of August 2021.  Remember how last week we mentioned Germany had almost imported 100 metric tonnes of gold in the first half of 2021? Well, India did that and more in August alone. India's most significant gold bullion buying nation f India is getting back on track, and it appears she is well open to importing 1,000 metric tonnes for the year.  This week Market Watch had an exciting story citing estimates that an additional 20% of undocumented smuggled gold moves into India annually — stashed inside wigs, jeans, shoes, and other body cavity regions. The reason for this at a large scale is the arbitrage of possibly avoiding the 7.5% duty and tax slapped onto both gold and silver bullion bar imports into India. A country that is preparing to launch trial programs for its fiat CBDC rupee late this year 2021. The Indian banking system is notorious for being insolvent and not writing down bad loans and debts, so moving to a fiat CBDC grid and killing cash is likely a high priority for the financial powers.  Finally, to close, I will leave a link to an interview I did yesterday with Tom from Palisades Radio. https://youtu.be/QHKOirpEkqc   In the interview, I go over a bit of what I am about to tell you. My recent less than 24 hours one day trip through Istanbul, Turkey, was eye-opening. The ancient and largest city on the European continent, with portions of it extending on the continent of Asia as well. About 16 million people live there at the moment.  And the majority of the people living there are suffering under severe currency devaluation and ongoing price inflation. Historically and currently, this part of the world has a massive gold trade, not merely in annual demand for high-grade gold jewelry manufacturing but also its growing gold refining capacities.  Increasingly too, as the Turkish lira continues devaluing, their demand for silver continually grows, as likely the poor man's gold is deemed a better value and with a reasonable price range.  In mid-2208, the Turkish lira was almost at par with the fiat Federal Reserve note, and now it takes over eight fiat lira to get one US dollar. So I went there with the express intention to buy some high-grade gold jewelry gifts in their world-famous Grand Bazaar. The trouble was they had a national holiday on August 30th, so I will have to return happily. Here's the point, I didn't get my high-grade gold jewelry gifts, but what I did get was some perspective of how lucky I am. That day I got to meet and sit with a young, charismatic Syrian refugee for a 15-minute tea, and we quickly got to the point where he mentioned how terrible his job was. He complained of having to work 12 hour days with no breaks and how his pay was demolished by ongoing lira price inflation. Never mind the fact that his home country was recently ravished by war.  I bet if you asked a lot of these people here, they would tell you similar or even possibly worse stories. You see, most of watching this video have been lucky, including me: Count, our blessings, That is all for this week's SD Bullion market update. As always, take great care of yourselves and those you love.

How many drinks do you think it's acceptable to have by yourself, in public? An honest mistake at brunch has me asking! On this date, I do the best I can to get that "one-of-a-kind find" shopping experience. Pretend with me that we're strolling through a laid-back neighborhood market in Florence or scoping out the goods at the bustling Grand Bazaar in Istanbul, when really we're 20 minutes from my house.   Create Space for Yourself—Try It! Get 30 Solo Date Ideas:  www.lenaporter.com/ideas #TruthBomb App The Artist Way (the book that inspired these solo dates) https://bookshop.org/shop/lena * Adorable summertime appetizer plates for kids (or adults that like retro styles): www.lenaporter.com/shop    

What one expects when landing at an airport in South East Asia -- or for that matter, a developing country anywhere in the world -- is madness. Pure madness. A throng of taxi drivers will clamor in a bid for your attention, like a frenzied Wall Street trading floor. A stream of cars will weave through the terminal, disgorging passengers at full speed. To exit the terminal requires picking your way to the street through of an array of stalls offering everything from an arresting waft of the local fare to SIM cards from unknown carriers to offers to exchange currency at rate that only sounds fair while the local money still seems like a collection of meaningless pieces of paper. It is always an order of magnitude hotter and stickier than wherever you came from. This is what one might reasonably expect when stepping off the plane in Myanmar. But no such madness exists at Yangon International airport.The Yangon airport is something much closer to a buddhist monastery situated in some rural outpost like Montana or Kansas. Instead of madness, there is tranquility. A couple guys in sarongs will approach you and gently inquire if you'd be interested in commissioning a taxi. When you shake your head, they shrug their shoulders mildly and wander off. There are hardly any cars in the terminal. And unlike the other capitals of South East Asia, there are no motorbikes. Instead, when you step outside there is only a helpful taxi attendant and a docile queue of cabs. After the passenger drop-off lane, there are five further lanes, like at LAX, though unlike LAX only one of these lanes at any time is likely to have a vehicle in it. The most intrusive noise is the birds.When I stepped out of the terminal, I turned to my right to survey the open road in front of me. It stretched out into a dusk of palm trees lining the smoothly paved highway. I had planned to take the bus into the city, and since there weren't that many vehicles around I didn't have a hard time tracking down the right one. Stepping aboard, I presented the driver with a wad of cash. The written Myanmar language uses a different set of numerals than the standard Arabic ones, so I wasn't sure what I was looking at when it came to picking out the appropriate bill. It probably wouldn't have mattered even if I did, as I didn't know what the bus fare was. The driver shuffled through my available currency and selected a choice note. He beckoned me to go sit down. I took the seat nearest to the door. Then a few minutes later when the next passenger arrived, he negotiated with her to hand her fare over to me. In my serene naiveté, I had evidently paid twice the going rate. The driver had contrived a way to make me whole.After waiting for the bus to be mostly full, we set off on the road in the direction of the ripe sunset. For most of the way, we sailed straight through toward the city, save for a couple congested intersections. There was an astonishing display of cordiality on the roads. Our driver, for instance, actually appeared to stop for people who waved him down on the side of the road, even if they weren't yet at a legitimate bus stop. I didn't hear him use the horn once. Come it to think of it, I didn't hear any horns save for a couple flagrant violations of traffic decency. The roads felt new, though the bus didn't.On the way into the city, I sat with my backpack on my lap as the bus began to fill up. I took some time to study the map of the bus route in front of me. It wasn't an especially helpful chart. For one thing, it was mostly occluded by the passengers sitting in front of it. The only information it offered was the names of the stops on this line, which wasn't all that enlightening given that it was all in Myanmar's unique local script. Even among non-western scripts, the Myanmar writing system is particularly engaging to behold. What mostly it appears to have going on is a series of interlocking circles and squiggles, which are periodically marked off by larger boxes. It's got the buoyant aesthetic sensibility of the kind of script a three year old would come up with when she's imitating adult handwriting. All looping circles and entangled boxes, it is positively delightful.When I exited the bus at my downtown stop, I took a moment to gather my bearings. Then I slung my backpack over my shoulder and made my way down the street. The sidewalks featured the characteristically treacherous cracks of other cities in South East Asia, but with the difference that they were almost totally clean. There was no trash. The only debris was maybe 0.3 cigarette butts per square meter. The city center of Yangon has long, skinny Manhattan blocks. Walking north-south, one needs to take provisions as if undertaking a week long crossing of an expanse of desert. Walking east-west, there's room for maybe one and half store fronts before tumbling into the next intersection. At length, I presented myself at my hostel and checked in. I was officially on the ground in Myanmar.It was December, about a week until Christmas. My plan was to spend the holidays on my own here in this country. My life in England had been complicated over the last few months. My existence felt heavy. I wanted to feel unencumbered again. I wanted to be out there in the world. I wanted to be somewhere untethered from life's responsibilities. I wanted to have the breathing room to do a little soul searching. Myanmar had been a place I had wanted to come for a long time. The country's borders had opened up over the last half decade, after having been more or less shuttered for the past two generations -- since around the time George Orwell was posted in Burma on colonial duty. Of the ten countries in South East Asia, Myanmar has by far the largest land mass. Yet its tourist numbers are on par with Laos, one of the smallest. There are fewer tourists per capita here than anywhere else in this part of the world. But there's no guarantee that will continue. Perhaps it will develop into a tourist mecca, like Thailand or Vietnam. Perhaps it will close down again and slink back to the shadows. Either way, it's a nation in rapid change, and I wanted to see it while still in its blossoming, spring-time phase.I also liked the idea of spending Christmas in one of the most devoutly Buddhist countries on the planet. The official religion of Myanmar, which is practiced by the majority of the population, is Theravada Buddhism. It is generally considered to be the most conservative form of the religion. While everyone back home would be cutting down trees, putting up reindeer, and singing songs of joy and peace (or whatever else one is supposed to do during Christmas), I'd be wandering the exotic alleyways of this Christ-bereft stronghold of Buddhist tradition and stumbling upon the hidden mysteries of its grand and ancient pagodas. Sounded great to me.I had a rough itinerary sketched out. I had my plane tickets in and out of Yangon, the largest city and formerly known as the British colonial headquarters of Rangoon. I had booked most of my hostels in advance for each part of the country. But how I was going to get from place to place or what I was going to do when I got there was all to be determined. Life had felt stiflingly regimented back home. All I had with me now was a backpack. Not the travel-savvy, larger-than-the-girl-lugging-it kind of backpack, but my school backpack. It was filled mostly with books on the country. I wanted to get to know this place. Not just to see it, but to really learn about it, to talk to the people who actually lived here, and to read the words of people who have a deep connection with this land. I was ready to immerse myself. I was also ready for some moment-to-moment, take-it-as-it-comes living. This felt like a country built for just that.On my first morning in country, I set off from my hostel onto the streets. I was in search of nothing in particular. And in this first walkabout that was precisely what I found. The most arresting observation the tourist combing through downtown Yangon makes is one of demography: there are pretty much no white people here. There are many places in the world where this observation would hold. But few of them are cities that feel as developed, as accommodating, as unsullied as Yangon. In a way, it felt like coming to South East Asia for the first time again.When one first starts coming to this part of the world, what stands out is how fantastically different it is. It is a society based on fundamentally different principles than the West. In many ways, the apotheosis of Western culture is the shopping mall: everything is standardized. Each store offers the same things of the same quality and aesthetic of what that store offers anywhere else in the world. The point of a Starbucks Frappuchino is that you can go to practically any country on earth and order essentially the same drink. A shopping mall is laid out so that nothing is obscured, nothing is going to take you by surprise. The organizing principle of a shopping mall is homogeneity.If you're anything like me, you grew up in a culture, a city, a society that has increasingly come to resemble a shopping mall. So when you first come to South East Asia, you see that it's possible to have a society for which every impulse goes in the opposite direction. In many ways it is the antithesis of a shopping mall: nothing is standardized. Everything is unique. There are gapping, inexplicable holes in the infrastructure -- spots where something should exist but nothing does. Surprises abound. You take an action and there is little guarantee of what the subsequent reaction will be. It is completely and totally beguiling.But then after a little more time in this area, you start to see the spoilage. It is the infiltration of shopping mall culture into this otherwise gloriously haphazard vision of society. It is McDonalds and Burger King and KFC and Starbucks. It is the government's prioritization of the needs of tourists over the needs of locals. It is the overwhelming presence of white people. And once you've identified these spoilages, it's tough to recapture that initial sensibility of having uncovered a society of such immensely foreign awesomeness. One of the unfortunate facts of globalization is that so many of the best spots to be a tourist have been all but ruined by the presence of so many tourists. Being in Yangon felt exactly like recapturing that innocent, unspoiled joy of finding oneself in an exotic land of mystery and surprise.Every square inch of sidewalk in Yangon seems to be taken up with informal vendors. They appear to be organized into patches. For two blocks, it will be fruit vendors. Then the next block will feature grimy power tools. Then comes a swathe of clothes and textiles, followed by a sector proffering refurbished iPhones. Each is pocked with its own food stalls catering to adjacent vendors. At no point does one see anything on offer that would be of interest to anyone other than locals. The supply and demand here is clearly geared toward the indigenous population, and not hoards of foreigners swooping in to pay exorbitant sums for trinkets, goodies, or knick knacks.Most of the action takes place on the main drags, which run along the short sides of the blocks. The long sides are residential streets. They are quiet, filled mostly with stretches of worn but not dilapidated apartments atop modest restaurants and other small businesses. It is an immediate contrast. The sidewalks on the arterials bustle with vendors and foot traffic while the residential asides snooze.My first stop was at an ATM. Historically, Myanmar is famous for not having cash machines. This is something you'll hear frequently from people who've been there. It's no longer true. There are ATMs on almost every block. It's easy to get money. The problem, though, is that you have to cart around a lot of currency to have any meaningful amount of dough. Getting a couple hundred dollars worth of Kyat, which would last me for a couple weeks, required a mafioso-style briefcase in which to store all my local currency.That being said, Myanmar isn't exactly a place where a tourist feels exposed on the street. It is difficult not to feel safe in a city where half the population is walking around in skirts, and the other half are women. The tradition garb for a Myanmartian male is type of sarong, known as a Longyi. It gives the local population a certain way of ambling: at once sort of floppy, sort of shuffling, hands behind the back in leisured confidence. One's sandals make way from under the skirt with each shuffle. Everything is flowy and nonchalant. My initial suspicion was that these people wouldn't commit a petty crime if their life depended on it. This suspicion was increasingly strengthened the longer I staid in country. The women, for their part, are marked by Thanaka. It is de rigueur for women to smear Thanaka on their cheeks before leaving the house in the morning. A canonical symbol of Myanmar culture, it is a cosmetic paste ground from the bark of an indigenous tree. In other words, a mud mask that is appropriate, even lauded, to be worn in public. At first, it's a strange sight -- like when a female character in a movie emerges from her quarters in an avocado mask with cucumbers over her eyes. But one gets used to it, and eventually it comes to hold its own intrigue and attractiveness.As I made my way through the downtown area, I came upon an especially crowded intersection, where two big arterials criss-crossed. It was the kind of street that is not so much crossed as negotiated. In an interesting little piece of theatre, our numbers built up to a critical pedestrian mass before bursting out into the street, essentially bullying the steady stream of cars into realizing they couldn't possible run this many people over. Cross walks aren't really a thing here. Sure, there are some zebra crossing patterns painting onto the street. But they do not contribute to reality in any meaningful way.At length I found myself close to the center of the downtown area at the Bogyoke Aung San Market. I knew I was somewhere of central interest, because it was outfitted in the way that the core of all central business districts are during the holidays: with Christmas decorations. I was a bit taken aback. The most conspicuous display of Christmas spirit was a sign that proudly read "Yangon Christmas Festival" on the street running across the entrance to the market. Other strung up ornaments included white cutouts of Christmas trees and snowflakes, as if coniferous evergreens and fresh snowfall were indigenous to the area. It was more than a week before Christmas, but Yangon was already bubbling over with holiday spirit.The Bogyoke Aung San market is named for the man who essentially wrested control of Burma from the colonial British. He is the Myanmar nation's George Washington: the military-leader-cum-first-head-of-state, revered as the Father of the Nation. Bogyoke is an affectionate honorific meaning "major general." Aung San founded the country's military, which has been a central fixture in Myanmar's modern history -- though not always in a good way. Nonetheless, he is looked upon with widespread fondness to this day by the people of his nation, as befits an icon such as George Washington. Where his legacy begins to diverge from Ol' George's is that while Washington was afforded the opportunity to lead his young nation in its earliest and most vulnerable years, Aung San was assassinated six months into his reign. It was a plot by one of his political adversaries, whereby his men basically stormed into an important cabinet meeting and murdered the country's top seven political officials. Somewhat inexplicably, the architect of the assassination, U Saw, believed this would leave the country with no choice but to install him as head of state. In these designs U Saw turned out to be slightly over-optimistic and instead of being asked to lead, he was hanged. In the intervening seventy years since its independence, Myanmar has often entertained much criticism for how little democratic progress it has made.To this point, I think it's worth mentioning that seventy years into America's democracy, the Civil War hadn't even been fought -- meaning that the United States wasn't even yet on the verge of its states uniting in the way we think of them today. And that's without having the Founding Fathers summarily murdered by a political adversary. It takes time to build a functioning democracy -- if that's still a designation you'd like to bestow upon the U.S. -- from the ground up. The main impetus for this democratic building up has been Bogyoke's Nobel Peace Prize winning daughter, Aung San Suu Kyi.At any rate, the market. It was a great open air complex, like a converted airplane hangar with a white roof and white tile housing a brightly lit matrix of stalls. It's designation in the tourist guides -- a "lively bazaar in a multistory colonial building, with vendors selling antiques, jewelry, art & food" -- could describe the rudiments of almost any big market in the world, such as Ben Thanh Market in Saigon, or the Grand Bazaar in Istanbul. But there is one major exception. There were no white people here. I saw two, maybe three, foreigners the entire time. This is an almost unimaginable feature of this sort of market, if you've been to comparable ones throughout the world. Before wandering in here, I had always assumed that surely these sort of structures were built for people just like me -- to give tourists a center of gravity, a point around which to orient themselves in the city. Apparently not.The consequences of this absence of foreigners is tremendous. No one hassles you. No one approaches you in the aisles and tries to foist their s**t upon you. A guy wandering down the aisle asked me something. "No thank you," I mumbled habitually and shook my head. I assumed he had been selling something when he repeated himself. I saw he wasn't carrying anything to sell and realized that he was simply asking me if I needed help finding anything.One peculiar feature of the market were herds of unattended children wandering among the patrons and vendors. Each child had a shaved head with pink monk robes featuring an orange sash across their body. They roamed from stall to stall, whereupon they would half-heartedly chant some two line incantation. Without looking up from her phone, the store owner would stick a small pile of cash into the children's bucket. There were hundreds of these little troops, all around the city. It was like watching a conspiracy of non-Halloween trick-or-treating in progress. At the time, I imagined that this was some sort of mafia, run by eight year old Buddhist of especially feminine fashion sensibilities. I later learned they were nuns.I surveyed the wares at the market. I spied some passionfruit and dragonfruit, among my favorites in this part of the world. Other fruits included the usual suspects: jack fruit, pomelo, little mandarins, apples, pomegranates, and grapes. I had hoped to find the crowned prince of all South East Asian fruits, the Mangosteen, but none availed themselves of me. There was a meat market. It featured chickens in close quartered cages, crabs that might at any moment reach out and snag a passerby, a wriggling catfish that threatened a flailing slap across the face, and black bags fidgeting with unidentified detainees. That sort of stuff makes me feel kind of itchy. But for whatever reason, what inspired the most interest from me were the mandarin oranges. I went to a stall and pointed. The lady began to load up a small plastic bag. When after a moment I told her, "Oh, that's plenty, thanks," she took this a cue to keep piling them into the bag. I didn't really have a use for enough oranges to feed a family of seven for the next week, and I tried to communicate this to her by presenting her with my intended budget, 200 kyat. She took offense to this, as she felt this was a dramatic underestimate of the value of the bag full of oranges. Her counter offer was 1000 kyat. I tried further to explicate my position for her. "No, please just give me enough for two hundred." She stared at me. I handed her a thousand Kyat note and walked off with an arm load of mandarin oranges.Leaving the market, I headed back toward the streets. Without having gotten very far, a store front caught my eye, called J'Donuts. It appeared to be a Burmese version of Dunkin Donuts, a place where surely my money would be better spent than at the orange vendor. Indeed, the pastry case would not have been out of place in a Dunkin or a Tim Horton's, except for the overtly tropical flavors, with fillings such as lychee or choco-coconut. On the wall was a television with what appeared to be a twenty-four hour loop of a commercials in advertisement of J'Donut's products. The commercial was based, evidently, on the twin themes of Christmas and pedophilia. It featured cartoon children in costumes dressed as donuts, provocatively squirting chocolate syrup and festooning one another with sprinkles. These events, it was later revealed, were actually featured in the collective dreams of a small cohort of live action children, alongside the donuts dancing round their heads. Then a series of elves, in some sort of pervert Santa's helper gambit, entered the scene, stage left. I couldn't discern their function in the plot beyond adding a distinct element of seediness. At any rate, all of this was delivered in support of the thesis of J'Donut's cunning marketing slogan: "every day... tasty and fresh." As I sat there, not necessarily savoring but certainly consuming my cloying lychee donut and coffee-flavored sugar milk, an entire Harry Belafonte album -- though not necessarily a Christmasy one -- played all the way through in the background.Perhaps unsurprisingly when I exited J'Donuts I found myself crossing over into what appeared to be the primary expat community of the city. Every store front was either a coffee shop or a restaurant. It seemed the entire population consisted of pairs of white dudes with Asian chicks. The establishments boasted creatively western names like "Toasted Melt" (sells toasted melts), "Minister Cheese" (sells ice cream), "O'thentic Brasserie" (sells... Irish inflected French cuisine?), and "Pizza Heaven" (sells 'slices of heaven'). With the discovery of this enclave, it occurred to me that I had reached a point of diminishing returns and elected to repair to my hostel to doze off for the rest of the afternoon.In the evening I headed back to a side street that I had stumbled upon in my earlier wanderings. Only a couple blocks over from my hostel, it was called 19th Street. It turned out to be one of the more prominent culinary attractions in the city. Anthony Bourdain ate here when he filmed in Yangon. It is an entire block (a long-ways one) strewn with the glorious green and red short stools indigenous to South East Asia. I have attained a sort of Pavlovian conditioning where upon sitting down at one of these bad boys, I know I'm about to be served up something streaming and delicious, ideally spicy, and most likely resulting in some abdominal tumult until my body acclimates. The whole street was a series of food stations, each with their own packed seating area. Everywhere looked good. Everywhere looked fresh. Everywhere looked like they'd be willing to deep fry pretty much substance, foodstuff or otherwise, and present it on a stick for my gustatory contemplation. I picked the place with the best available seating. (Yeah, it was full to the point of having a tough go finding a seat.)I chose a dish for which the English translation was deep fried spicy pork. Because I'm white, the lady double checked about the spicy part -- imploring me to reconsider with a searching confirmation of "spicy?" in conjunction with a raise of the eye brow and the finger-thumb circle with splayed fingers, the universal sign for "Are you sure you can handle this, white boy?" Just try me.I also ordered a beer. When the lady reappeared with my beverage, she popped the tab, pealed off some label underneath and gave me a look that could only mean "Oh wow, you've just come into some money." She asked me if I'd like to exchange the tab. I said sure. She took the cap and came back a couple minutes later with some cash money and handed it to me. God, I've never felt so favorably disposed to a country before. I mean, getting cash back on your beer -- could it get any better? I settled in with my beer, and eventually my pork, and waded into a collection of writings by Aung San Suu Kyi.When not so long thereafter I was too tipsy not to get distracted by my surroundings, I put down the book and picked my head up to survey what was going on. I was alone at my table, and as I was enjoying my evening. Apparently, my solitude was noticed by the men at the table sitting next to me. They invited me to sit with them. So I paid my tab with the lady and moved next door, taking the fourth seat among my three new buddies. As is customary in many parts of the world, they made sure I was sufficiently plied with alcohol and cigarettes before we dug into any personal details. We got another round of beers. I accepted a cigarette, even though I don't smoke them. In fact, I can't. As a long-time cigar smoker, I have a hard time actually performing the act of inhaling smoke, as one is supposed to do with cigarette. I just hold the smoke in my mouth briefly, then let it go. The men I was sitting with noticed that I was doing it wrong. They gave me sidelong looks of moderate confusion. Then, apparently, they let the matter go, probably just chalking it up as an American thing.One of the guys was more comfortable in English than the other two, and he did most of the talking. One of the quiet ones owned a small business. The other two were students, studying something to do with tourism. The gregarious one was especially fascinated with my being American. To him, this was an accomplishment that merited some serious digging into. Attempting to curtail this line of inquiry, I managed to turn the conversation back to Myanmar. They noticed the face of Aung San Suu Kyi on my book. I asked them what they thought of her. Their position was, in essence, decidedly favorable. They felt like she had the country's back. It was the same enthusiasm for a leader that my Indian friends mustered for Narendra Modi when he first took over the country, or the ovation Michelle Obama would receive if she decided to run for president. I asked them what had changed over the last five years, since the country had become more open. Overall, they were a fan of the developments. Over the next five years, they hoped to see a greater separation between the country's military and its government.As well loved as Aung San Suu Kyi may be, she is often accused of being little more than a puppet of Myanmar's authoritarian and decidedly over-enthusiastic military regime. Instead of independent branches of executive, legislative, and judicial powers, the Myanmar government is much more of a highly interdependent morass of military and political interests. This is at the core of the recent claims that the Myanmar government, led by Suu, is supporting a genocide of the Rohingya people on the Bangladesh border. As much good work as she has done, the country's military is a powerful and often malevolent force. Her relationship to this regime is complicated. On the one hand, they are responsible for many atrocities that the Myanmar government perpetrated against its own citizens during the half-century after independence. They also locked Suu up for more than a decade. In 1990, Myanmar had its first democratic elections, and Aung San Suu Kyi's National League for Democracy party won. Instead of stepping aside to let her take the reins of the country, the military ignored the results and placed Suu under arrest. She was a political prisoner -- placing her in the company of the other architects of non-violent, world-shifting activism in the twentieth century, such as Mohandas Gandhi and Nelson Mandela -- for fifteen years. Which, I suppose, is quite a lot to put in the one hand.But on the other hand, it is, at its heart, still her father's military. For better or worse, it is her family's legacy. And as with all family legacies, it is simultaneously an embarrassment and a treasure. Also, what country isn't proud of their military, if they've got one? Anyway, this is why the country is so volatile. Overall, the current seems to be drifting toward the good. But at any moment the military junta could reassert itself. It is, to say the least, a complicated situation.Which, at this point in the evening, we made tragically little progress in solving. After pretending to have smoked a handful of cigarettes and having actually consumed enough beers to fill my quadrant of the table, I wasn't necessarily in a cognitive state conducive for nuanced political discourse. I bid my new friends adieu, and with that toppled my way back to the hostel.I'm not going to lie to you. Life was pretty good in Myanmar. I'd wake up at my leisure and wander downstairs for my first coffee of the day. Each morning I would put in a three hour of shift, with a bit of work, a bit of writing, and a bit of journaling -- a.k.a., three different modes of writing. During this time I'd pound down five or six cups of coffee, since it was free and unlimited in every hostel I staid at. I'd sit in the common area, and take my breakfast when it was ready. People would come and go. Travelers would commune with one another, carrying on the same inane conversations over and over again. "Have you been to the third tree on the east-most corner of Lake Mwandishi? No? Well, you really should. If you don't see that, you haven't really seen the country." I'd put in my headphones and get lost in my own world of curling streams of letters in my notebook or clack away on my keyboard for paragraph upon paragraph. Then I'd spend my afternoons out and about in the city.On this morning I was greeted with a new development at the hostel. The staff was painting Christmas designs onto the front doors of the hostel. Taking inspiration from the marketing team at J'Donuts, they inscribed a red and green nativity of Santa and his elves. Though there were no children depicted in this scene, I assume the elves would've taken more than a passing interest in them had there been. Even more egregiously, the staff all wore Christmas hats. This is when it started to become clear to me that I had come to the wrong country to escape Christmas festivities. The Christmas Spirit is even more fervent here than it is in the U.S., which has been mostly relegated to the more inclusive greetings of "Happy Holidays." I had successfully escaped the Jesusy aspects of Christmas, but that's not really what the holiday is about is it? It's about festivities, conducting oneself in a spirit of celebration and good will, and, above anything else, a fresh haul of new loot. In other words, capitalism -- which is a language that everyone speaks, regardless of religion. With more than a week until Christmas Day, the intrusions of unbidden and overwhelmingly kitsch holiday spirit would get worse before they got better.Only slightly daunted by the saccharine visage of Santa and his helpers, I set off back into town. One thing that I'd like to mention, which isn't my favorite topic to broach, but I sincerely think is worth bringing up, is the women of Yangon. They are easily the best looking population of females I've yet to come across in my travels. Now, pretty much every culture likes to say this of their own women. Especially, for some reason, Russians and Eastern Europeans. But they can't all be correct. As a third party judge, I have to give the award to Myanmar, specifically Yangon. I have a theory about this. Actually, two theories. The first has to do with the 136 indigenous ethnic groups of Myanmar. They are distributed geographically across the country, and Yangon, being the primary metropolitan area, is where all of the ones who are inclined to leave their ancestoral village and mate with someone further afield head to. As I'm sure is an uncontroversial point, mating across ethnic boundaries tends to lead to extremely beautiful offspring. While such mixing is subtle, that seems to be happening here. This is a personal theory of mine, and feel free to adopt it as your own or to reject it. The second theory, which is a more commonly held position is that it has to do with Thanaka. It's a blessing of a relatively high caliber to have baked into one's culture a penchant for excellent skin care. It would be as if Californians took a fancy to smearing avocado on their face when they left the house. After years of ardent commitment to skin care, you get a population of people with nice skin. So, like I said, it's a theory, and you're free to make of it what you will.Another curious and slightly less sexist thing that one begins to notice on the streets of Yangon is that the cars in this country are almost exclusively Japanese. Practically every vehicle is either a Suzuki, Honda, Toyota, Nissan, or, if it's a truck, a Mitsubishi. There isn't a Kia or a Hyundai in sight, let alone a Chevy or an Audi. One reason for this is that Aung San Suu Kyi has always harbored a great deal of admiration for the Japanese, and so there has always been a big-sister, little-sister sort of relationship between the countries. I'm sure there's also a specific economic reason, but I wasn't able to ascertain it throughout further research. At any rate, I'm sure this trend will change as the country continues to avail itself of the world economy.After starting this particular walkabout with no destination in mind, I oriented myself in the direction of the Zoological Gardens, which were enticingly marked on the map just north of the downtown area. Arriving at its gates, or at least, where on the map it appeared that the gates might be, I strolled through an open entrance. Then I heard someone call out "Hello!" The direct translation of this interjection to English would be something like "Hey!! Just where do you think you're going?" A man came from out of my peripheral vision to usher me toward a ticket booth, preventing me from entering the park illicitly.Upon entering the grounds, it was not clear whether what I was entering was a traditional zoo or some sort of nature reserve. All I could see was fauna. There didn't appear to be other people. And there didn't appear to be exhibits. A sign read that there were 133 species. It failed to disclose whether they were held in cages or just wandering about. Making one's way through the paths in this zoo was like rolling up into a ghost town in a Western flick. The protagonist surveys the otherwise desolate street, and as a tumble weed rolls through, remarks that it appears everyone else has been run out of town. The first exhibit I came upon was a cage of monkeys. The fence around the animals' enclosure was about as far from sidewalk where I stood as an extended monkey arm. The monkeys, I noticed, could just about stick their entire bodies through the screen save for their area of greatest circumference. There were no witnesses around in case one of them escaped, murdered me, and snuck back in. There were large patches of unfinished construction projects throughout the grounds, and for all I knew any of them could have been filled with the inert bodies of unsuspecting tourists. I backed away slowly and turned to have a look at what else was around.At length I did start to see other people. Again, I was astounded by the fact that not a single one appeared to be a tourist. I wandered the zoo for almost two hours, and never once saw another westerner. In my uniqueness, this made me an object of interest to the other patrons at the zoo, especially in the presence of some of the more lackluster animals.Certainly one of the reasons there were few tourists was that the Yangon zoo is not among the world's most spectacular zoological habitats. That said, it was quite relaxing to wander in a park where both the animals and the patrons had such generous proportions of Lebensraum. The potential danger posed by the observation that the fortifications keeping the animals from the humans didn't exactly inspire confidence, gave the excursion an added dimension of excitement not usually expected from a trip to the zoo.Making my way north again toward another site of interest on the map, I came upon a sprawling park laid out around a shimmeringly gorgeous azure lake. It was dusk now, and the setting sun was the same color as the sound of a bell marking the start of a meditation. The lake was ringed not only by a verdant lapel of grass, but also by a walking path, hovering over the edge of the water like a halo. Everyone I passed was a local. Each of them gave me a pleasant smile and nod. They seemed like they were just happy to see me enjoying myself in their city. I'd been wearing sandals all day, and my legs had the same gradient of dark clay to airy lightness as the sunset. At length, I came to a point where the walkway suddenly stopped. It's not that the loop had ended, but that there was a blockade in front of a ten yard stretch where there were no boards in the boardwalk -- a hole in the infrastructure, if you will -- and I could go no further.After a brief respite back at the hostel, I repaired in the evening to what appeared to be Yangon's premiere rooftop bar. I had noted they had a jazz band on that night, and I was curious what heights could be attained in this country when it came to the lush life of jazz and cocktails. On top of a hotel in an otherwise residential area, the seating are was exceptionally loungeable, with a corridor of reservable and cushioned alcoves. These mostly appeared to be occupied by European business men, who were out for some shared plates and a bottle or six of wine. They were among colleagues and friends, evidently operating in a celebratory mode. There were also a few groups of mostly upscale Burmese. I snagged a spot at the bar. The roof offered a three-sixty degree view of the city, with the main visual attraction being the Shwedagon Pagoda glowing in the distance like a hovering UFO. Viewed from this vantage, it really becomes clear that Myanmar truly is a kind of dark spot on the map. Situated between the well-lighted civilizations of India, China, and Thailand, the plot of land centered on the Irrawaddy delta is dark when viewed from space, or even just a tall building. Even in the city, most of the land is shaded from urban glow. Between me and the imposing Shwedagon, which is the visual centerpiece of the city, there was nothing but an inscrutable blackness. It is as if showing a laser pointer into a moonless, starless sky. What you see is not so much a view but simply an unlit expanse, like the visual field behind closed eyes.My first order of business was to obtain a drink. I was delighted to find their menu included barrel-aged negronis. I waved in the direction of the glowing panel of alcoholic goodness that was the bar and flagged down one of the bartenders. Normally, in these situations, I'd give the local flavors a shot and order something closer to an indigenous concoction than a tried classic. But this bar didn't have anything like that on offer. Plus the thought of gin, Campari, and vermouth marinating in oak over the course of a few weeks made me all tingly and excited in a way that's difficult to ignore. My cocktail was served with a flair of teak-wood smoke introduced into a glass enclosure around the drink, which upon lifting the enclosure released a fog, like a special effect at a rock concert. It was a little much for my taste. But it was also served with dehydrated orange slices, and I liked that. I sipped my cocktail, and read from my copy of George Orwell's Burmese Days by the under-light of the counter in front of me. Periodically, I'd looked up to survey the patrons of this illuminated fastness situated in the otherwise steely darkness of the landscape around us. I consumed these elegant $5 negronis with a certain ardent liberalism while smoking the Burmese cigars I'd bought, 10 for 50 cents. Soon the band began to play. Mostly it was from the oeuvre of Antônio Carlos Jobim. For the sake of propriety, I won't disclose the exact number of negronis I managed, nor the number of cigars I sucked down. But it's safe to that it was, in a scientific sense, a large enough sample to achieve statistical significance.Then the night took a left turn. I saw a couple of guys hanging out by a table next to mine. They were clearly vibing with the music and looked like locals. I approached them. We got to talking. After the first set was over, the jazz singer who had been on stage came to our table, and introduced herself as a friend as the gentlemen I was sitting with. She was from Japan, propelled by the twin dreams of living in Myanmar and being a jazz singer. The two guys were entrepreneurs. I asked them what business they were in. "Import-export," they told me. As anyone familiar with the espionage genre will infer, they were spies. One of them claimed to be especially fond of America, having made several extended trips to Nebraska. If anyone has ever uttered a statement which more directly implicated them in some sort of covert affair of counterintelligence, I have not heard it.Once the music had wrapped up and the European business men had begun to pack it in out of respect for tomorrow's workday, the two guys asked what I was doing next. "Nothing," I told them. It is at this point that the scene cuts to a drug-addled montage of rave music and altered consciousness, zooming around the city from one neon-lit palace of debauchery to another consuming substances of a dubious and enlivening nature. Or at least as close to that sort of thing as I come in my life.The first stop on our itinerary was the kind of place that one might imagine America is full of if one had never actually been to America: a nifty establishment called the "Beer Pong Bar." This title rather concisely captures the institution's mission statement. Conceptually, it is a bar which dedicates the major of its real estate to arraying cups of beer across a table and enjoining participants on both sides to sink ping pong balls into one another's cups. Beer pong is one of America's most celebrated cultural exports, like the hamburger or the iPad, much loved the world over. As with all of America' greatest innovations, it provides a highly bastardizable palate on which other nations can construct their own cultural inventions. That is how the hamburger differs from, say, classical French cuisine. If you don't cook French food the way they do it in Paris, you're doing it wrong. But anyone can take the basic canvas of the burger, do whatever the hell they want to it, and find themselves in the presence of a creation that is at once delicious and entirely legitimate. Beer pong has been similarly appropriated to great effect in other milieus. The premise of this establishment was to set up in what was essentially an empty, unlit warehouse, a football field's worth of regulation beer pong tables illuminated by the synthetic LEDs of an air hockey table or a laser tag course. The operation's feng shui was so effective that it had evidently attracted the presence of every adolescent in the province to gather with their friends, perch a Gatorade-sized vat of beer on their table, and engage in bouts of competitive drinking until long after peak performance had been achieved. Being an American, I felt a certain patriotic duty to represent my country well. I did what I could.Having reached a point of diminishing marginal returns on any activities which depended on the use of fine motor skills, we took off to the next spot. Upon leaving the beer pong bar, I discovered that our entourage had increased in number. Instead of requiring a single taxi, our crew now required a small fleet of vehicles. I had no real idea who any of these people were. But I was friends with all of them.When I next came to, there was wailing. Or not wailing, but rather singing. Then I immediately ascertained that we were in the plush and intimate confines of a karaoke room. Now, the western and eastern conceptions of karaoke are rather different. In the west, the essential framework for karaoke is to consume enough alcohol to demolish all sense of self-consciousness or social liability in the service of aurally making a fool of oneself in front of a group of total strangers. By contrast, the eastern framework for karaoke is to consume enough alcohol to demolish all sense of self-consciousness or social liability in service of aurally making a fool of oneself in front of a group of one's close friends. Instead of taking place on a stage for any casual observer to judge, it takes place in a private room. It is an infinitely preferable format over the western version. It is, however, still awful. The only way to make karaoke an even slightly palatable activity is to have it catch you completely by surprise. It has to develop organically, on the spur of the moment. It is in this respect like other acts of vulgar semi-public behavior, such as skinny dipping. You don't set a calendar event for your next skinny dipping session. The spirit must take you. At least that's what I imagine to be the case for skinny dipping. No one has ever invited me to go. At any rate, that same conceptual model holds true for karaoke.Having satisfactorily expressed ourselves in song, we ended the evening with a bite to eat -- whatever the Myanmartian equivalent to greasy three-AM kebab is. I ate my fill, then a good deal more, then I regretfully informed my companions that it was time for me to turn in. Without having taken the time to develop an especially solid game plan, I got up to leave. And I found myself walking in no direction in particular toward nothing much. It was 4:30 in the morning, and there were no cars on the road. I did not have internet on my phone. I knew the name of my hostel. I knew that it was somewhere south of where I was currently at. I didn't know which way south was. At the moment I was beginning to draw conclusions about my predicament based on these observations, a taxi pulled into the adjacent intersection. I flagged the driver down and hopped in.I told the driver the name of my hostel. Then he embarked on a protracted exposition in a language I didn't speak. I deduced from the fact that he was explaining instead of driving that I had been unsuccessful in describing the port of call at which I hoped to disembark. More words came from my mouth. I can recall them now probably just about as accurately as he could understand them then. I managed to communicate that I was going somewhere toward the city center, as we were pretty far outside of town at this point, and this satisfied him enough to put the car in gear. At length, we pulled over on the side of a desolate road. He rolled down the window and shouted something. A man emerged from the darkness into the din of nearby street lamp. There was a brief exchange, which I imagined was chiefly about where to dump my body. Then the man leaned into the window and asked me where I wanted to go. I gave him the street number closest to my destination, which he relayed to his colleague in what seemed like more verbiage that was strictly necessary. The man disappeared into the shadows, and we set off toward my place of residence and/or the body drop site. When the car came to a stop I recognized the familiar acrylic visage of Santa and his elves. I had made it home. I was alive, albeit somewhat cognitively impaired. Filled with gratitude, beer, Christmas cheer, patriotic pride, and the unassuageable desire to retire, I turned in for the night.Next Episode:Thanks for checking out Season 1 of Notes from the Field. If you’ve enjoyed it, please consider becoming a premium subscriber. I’m trying to do more of this kind of travel writing in the future. But as you can imagine, it’s hard to have these kinds of experiences while also holding down a job. Your subscription goes a long way toward helping me to do that. Use the link below, and you’ll get 50% off an annual subscription. 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I can think of nothing more exciting than the prospect of touching down and finding oneself in Istanbul. When you’re there it really feels like you’re in Constantinople, the legendary nexus of East and West. The city is tinted in sepia, like an old photograph. It has a palpable historical gravity. You feel as if you could wander around a corner and stumble upon some significant artifact, as would Indiana Jones. It’s not just that it is an old city. Europe is full of musty, old cities emitting the last wheezing respirations of life. Not Istanbul. Its former glory is also its present glory. The city doesn’t need life support, because it’s still spry and muscular, in the prime of life.I had only 36 hours in the city on a long layover. Thirty-six hours, you may well note, is a ludicrously insufficient amount of time to investigate the historical depths of Constantinople in full. And I’d agree with you. But it sure as heck beats nothing. Plus, I didn’t have to book an extra airfare, rather than just pick one with a long layover. Pretty savvy, if you ask me. I had booked accommodations at the ‘Cheers’ hostel, so named not for the American television show of the 1980s but for what British youths say instead of "thanks" at the end of a transaction. That's where I headed now.I hoped off the metro in the sepia-tone city center. Actually I wasn’t sure if it was the city center. I didn’t know the first thing about Istanbul or how it was laid out. But it seemed bustling, and there was a grandly-domed Mosque, called Sultan Ahmet, which took up about the same footprint as a football stadium. I meandered up the side street on which Cheers was located. Meandering is the only form of locomotion one can perform on an Istanbul side street. Each street heads in some direction but only vaguely and with dramatic reorientations at unexpected points, like the trend line of the stock market. I noticed that the streets were littered with kittens. They were feral cats, in the sense that no one owned them. But they didn’t look scraggily like most intercity fauna. From the looks of the bowl of milk on the sidewalk, people took care of them. I made my way down the street with my suitcase, scanning each brightly lit façade for some indication that I had found my temporary home. Then from the cool shade of an ivory laced café called a voice:“Hey, man. Are you looking for Cheers?”“Yes,” I said.“Well, you found it, man!”A Turkish fellow named Ahmed greeted me as if I were an old friend. He took me into the hostel to the front desk, where he introduced me to Sinan. They both had the air of men who had been relieved of ambition through many devoted years spent with Mary Jane. They were ludicrously welcoming, and I loved them immediately.“Are you staying at Cheers, man?” Sinan asked this as if a buddy had unexpectedly popped by to crash on his couch. I informed him of my intention to do so.Sinan and Ahmed showed me around the place. The building was long and lean, with a tight spiral staircase running up its spine. Everything was wooden and well-worn. The first floor had a modest kitchen in the back, where breakfast would be served. My room was on the second floor, with twelve bunks and a bathroom, arrayed in an unusually spacious room. The third floor had more rooms. On the floor above that was the in-house bar, where I made the acquaintance of yet another warm and kindly Turkish guy who invited me back to enjoy half-priced beers at happy hour. The bar boasted a spectacular view of Sultan Ahmet’s dome, pillared at four sides by great, spear-like columns, the scene practically springing in through the window as it would in a 3D movie.There is an idea from psychology called the "explore-exploit tradeoff." It is a decision-making dilemma that any thinking organism must solve: I can either choose the option I know to be the best right now (exploit), or I can try something new in hopes that it might prove even more beneficial (explore). It is notoriously difficult to describe the optimal solution to the explore-exploit tradeoff. The crux of the matter is that it’s tough to know when you’ve collected enough information to stop exploring and start exploiting. Well, I developed my own solution to the problem. I had several weeks before made a reservation at a restaurant called Mikla, which was recommended by a gourmand friend of mine who had recently spent two weeks in Turkey. It was a tasting menu establishment, where the general arrangement is to hand the waiter an immense wad of cash in the promise that sometime later he will return, course by course, with a series of whatever the chef has on offer, minusculy proportioned and neatly arranged. Like White Rabbit in Moscow. I enjoy that sort of thing, and so does my friend. I trust his tastes, too. My solution to the tradeoff, at least when it comes to restaurants, is to exploit his explorations. He said Mikla was the best thing in Turkey.However, earlier that day I had sent Mikla an email canceling the reservation. It was a lot of money. Not as much as it would be at an equivalent restaurant in US, or somewhere else relishing an economy that isn’t teetering on the verge of collapse. But certainly it would cost more than whatever I’d be able to find stumbling around the streets. When I got to the hostel I equivocated for a bit. Would it be worth it? At length I decided to fetch up at the restaurant and let fate decide—if they still had a table, I’d snag it. What the hell? I’m worth it.When I left the hostel I wasn’t sure if I was in Europe or Asia. Approximately half of Istanbul belongs to one and half to the other. I assumed since I was on one side of Istanbul and Mikla was on the other that I'd crossed from continent to the other. I felt as though I was crossing a border illicitly, as if into a forbidden nation. I wasn’t, I later learned. But I reveled in the sense of espionage anyway. When I inspected the map, it looked like Mikla was on a main drag. But as I trekked up the hill on which it was situated, I learned it was most emphatically not. Maps of Istanbul bear only a loose correspondence with reality, as the streets are constantly shifting, like the moving staircases of the dormitories at Hogwarts.I presented myself at Mikla on the 18th floor of a hotel situated on Istanbul’s highest eminence. I had walked for about an hour to get there, mostly uphill, and it was really hot out. I showed up in a bit of a tizzy, more than a bit disheveled. I was wearing running shoes, which had been a different color when I bought them, green shorts that extended down only as far as my upper thigh, and had a soot-stained face that brought to mind an industrious but unfortunate character in a Charles Dickens novel. I looked like s**t, really. I inquired with the maitre d’ about the possibility of restoring my previously appointed spot in the dining room. He demurred and told me it was full-up. The restaurant, I could see, was empty. I managed to negotiate a spot at the bar. Then I excused myself because, as I told him, I had come prepared to change into something more presentable. He directed me to the men’s room. While I was changing in the tiny bathroom, a guy came in to check on me. He offered some banal explanation for his presence, like making sure I knew how to operate the flush handle on the toilet. But really he was there on orders from the maitre d’ to ascertain whether I had in fact transmogrified into a form that was presentable and unlikely to cause embarrassment or mirth among the other dining patrons. I had put on dark jeans and a light blue linen collared shirt. I had also wiped the grime from my cheeks. I wouldn’t be turning any heads, neither for reasons of sexual intrigue nor arresting sartorial faux pas. I made my way back to the host’s table. He had managed, magically, to find a table for me, provided I could vacate by 9pm. Excellent.I submitted my request for the full tasting menu and a glass of Turkish rosé. Then I went to look out over the city. It was amazing. When I returned to my seat I beckoned the garçon. “I have a dumb question,” I told him. “Which continent am I on?”“Europe,” he genially informed me. “Asia is that way,” he pointed across a body of water. He explained that the heart of Istanbul formed something of a Y shape divided by waterways, the Bosphorus and the Marmara Sea. One segment of the triad was Asia and the other two, including Mikla and my hostel, were Europe.The first courses came promptly as a couple rounds of amuse bouche. Bite sized fishy stuff. These were accompanied by a basket of bread with goat cheese butter, from a goat named Yagmur. I sat there at the table to take it all in: I was in Istanbul. At the best restaurant in the city. Eating exquisite food and savoring a view of the whole thing. I couldn't have been happier.Throughout my meal I watched Turkish playboys trickle in with their exquisitely dressed blondes in tow. Each of the women was dressed in white. Every single one of them. It might have even been the same white dress. They also appeared to have had the same plastic surgeon do their boob-job. Regardless, no one failed to show up in anything but their finest duds. Myself included.I looked up from my book from time to time to take stock of the other patrons. I noticed the woman next to me carefully dabbing tears from her perfectly made up eyes. Then she started smiling. I could never quite figure out why. Eaves dropping didn't help, as the conversation was not only subdued but in Turkish. Istanbul is a city of mysteries. A couple was seated next to me. They were the same age. They also sported the same just barely elevated casual that I did. The girl was Asian; the guy was difficult to tell. They were speaking English, neither natively. I fantasized that they were lovers who met in a distant land and could only continue their affair meeting in Istanbul for all-too-brief romantic encounters. The tasting menu seemed to be a bit exotic for their tastes, as they prodded at the fishy amuse bouche experimentally with a fork and a pair of quizzical looks.Eventually I decided he was German. He was talking about the country as if he was from there. I could tell she was Korean. But then again he was uncharacteristically tan for a Teutonic lad. Turkish German, maybe? Anyway, doesn’t matter. There were more excellent dishes to be had. I was out by 8:50, as promised, and fully sated.After dinner I was eager to stretch my legs in the streets of Istanbul. I called first at a bar that I'd identified as promising on the way up to dinner. It was adjoined to a hostel. I walked through the lobby and a spacious diner to open air patio in back. The walls were festooned with flags and books, as if someone loaded cultural artifacts into a canon and shot it all the wall. Every table was filled. There was a Volkswagen van parked in a corner of the room. Bob Marley and his musical offspring were featured heavily in the musical selection. The place had vibes for days. On the cocktail menu were a bunch of Turkishly named drinks without an ingredient list. I ordered the Fahrettin, for reasons of phonological pleasure. The bartender, a busy guy to be sure, dropped my drink while presenting it to me, spilling on me and my book. He said sorry then wandered off, which I thought was a rather neat trick of nonchalance. What remained of the cocktail was quite good—tequila-based, accompanied by a mysterious concoction in the traditional idiom of Istanbul. He comped me the drink, which seemed like a fair trade for having to wear part of it.Time to hit the streets again. I reemerged into the humid Turkish night and set my course down the steep hill. It was steep enough that if you took a tumble, you’d continue rolling until you spilled out onto the level street a half mile below. I was clearly in a hipster area. Every storefront had a shop, a cool one. There were lively bars, vegan kitchens, and The Pure Love Café. Groups sitting at tables spilled out from restaurants into the street. All the people were good looking and appeared dressed to attract mates. The street featured a modest strip of sidewalk, wide enough to comfortably fit my three leftmost fingers. Enabling a safe place for walking ranked relatively low among its priorities. Mostly it was dedicated to other things, like rubbish bins, cellar stairs, stray cats, their generously proportioned milk bowls, and scooters thrown onto the sidewalk as if abandoned by a fugitive who had escaped down a nearby alley. The texture of the street was a comely but treacherous cobblestone, so the entire thoroughfare was a sort of a mini obstacle course at ground level. The street lights were spaced just far enough apart that when your shadow died in front of you it resurrected behind. Scooters and cars whizzed by as if finding themselves fifteen minutes late for a meeting on the wrong continent. Being a pedestrian in the city requires a certain extra sensory perception for knowing when to be in the street and when to get off. Istanbul is a game of inches.The street dilapidated as I descended. It was no longer populated by hipsters, as it had been near the top, but mothers and aunties sitting outside while mending clothes and folding laundry. At length I found myself back on the main road, which I took in the direction of my hostel. I followed signs to an underground "tramvay" which proved to be a closed market, shuttered for the night. After a few subterranean turns and what seemed to be too far to just cross the street I began to fear I'd been trapped in another Moscow metro maze. Then I resurfaced right in the metro stop that I'd aimed for, where I promptly boarded the next tram. I had learned an important lesson from the Russians—always offer your seat to elders, women, and children. This was taking me far in Turkish etiquette points. I no longer needed to be waved off by elderly men on the subway, but actively offered my seat when they came aboard.When I got off at the stop by my hostel, I noticed a massive hole in the sidewalk where some men were working. It hadn't been there when I left. The men wore plaid shirts, jeans, and one was knocking back a beer (obviously, he was the supervisor). I'd like to think they weren't engaged in any officially sanctioned work but rather indulging in their Saturday evening hobby of amateur ditch digging.I went back to my hostel. In my room I met a young man my age, named Dylan, from San Francisco. He was clearly of a strain of human being known as West Coast Bro. I told him I was also from the West Coast, Seattle. West Coast people have a certain way of communicating with one another, as if everything the other person relates is a cause for minor celebration. The excitement just sort of leaks out. He told me he and his buddies had covered 16 miles the day before."Dude, nice!" I responded."The asian side is pretty chill," he told me "You should go.""Hell yeah, man."This is another thing about the West Coast. The most prized attribute of anything is chill. As in: man, that party last night was chill; I went on a date with a girl, and she was pretty chill, man; I failed that exam, but don’t worry, man, it’s chill. One of the primary reasons why I don’t fit in on the West Coast is that, at 98.8 degrees Fahrenheit, I don’t have an ounce of chill contained anywhere in my body. For example, I go on rants about how silly the notion of chill is. That’s decidedly unchill. But I put on a cool front with Dylan, not to alert him to my lack of chill. In this I achieved a level of success sufficient for him to invite me to hang out. “Hey man, Kevin and I are about to take some vodka shots in his room. Wanna come?”"Sweet!” I told him. “Maybe I’ll meet up later.” I didn’t plan to meet up later.I took leave of Dylan and went up for a drink at the rooftop bar. We had a view of Sultan Ahmet in the evening air. I met an Indian girl who worked as banker in London and a Slovenian professor of public health. We bullshitted for a while. I wasn't quite ready to retire for the evening, having spent much of it sitting at dinner. I went for a walk to take in the evening streets of old city Istanbul. It was not exactly bustling, but there were still people out, mostly in search of food and drink. Restaurants yearned for customers. Turkish men stood outside of their eateries and implored you to dine in their establishments. I'd like to think that if I were really undecided about where to enjoy my next meal that I might actually be swayed by their amicable inducements. I do love to be courted. I returned to the hostel bar, where my friends lingered. We bullshitted more, until late, like 1:30. The Slovenian girl took a look out the window and remarked, “That's an interesting view." Then I retired for the evening.The next morning I was eager to get going. I sprung up, showered, and went out in search of one of the handsome cafes I had passed the night before. I realized as soon as I left that I had no idea where anything was—the grand bazaar, which mosque was the Ayasophia, how to cross to Asia. About three blocks away from my hostel I equivocated for a moment, pacing back and forth as I changed my mind several times over. First I decided f**k it, just wander; then I noted how short of a time I had in the city and I should be prudent about how I use it; then I went back to the first mindset, how hard can it be to find the grand bazaar? It’s pretty big, right? Ultimately I about-faced and went back to the hostel. I pulled out my map and my food recommendations, noting the major landmarks and eating destinations. I had a cup of strong Turkish coffee while I deliberated, along with heavily seeded watermelon. I located the Grand Bazaar, figured out which mosque was the Ayasophia, developed a game plan for my transcontinental crossing, and picked out a breakfast destination. Time to hit the streets.Where Russia is fixed and inflexible, Istanbul is fluid and free flowing. The rules here are like the addresses, an approximation, meant only to get you in the neighborhood. I had begun to understand this the night before when I looked up the address for Mikla and found that it took me to the right block but didn't commit me to any building in particular. The same was now true for my breakfast spot. The Russians would, however, I think, be quite fond of the way the Turks lay out their streets. They couldn't possibly be more convoluted.At length I tracked down my destination in an enclosed market with several different food stalls. I called at the one serving Menemen. It was unclear where exactly the seating area ended and the kitchen began. I presented myself to a gentleman standing vaguely in the part of the restaurant dedicated to preparing food rather than eating it, and asked for some Menemen, please."Only one?"Yes."Please take a seat."That kind of protocol would never have flown in Russia. I still would have been waiting for attention from the waitress when, mere minutes later, I was delivered a bubbling cast-iron pan of egg, pepper, spices, sausage, and tomato, more spice red than yolk yellow. Turkish omelette. After setting it down, the guy took the lid off a Tupperware container, exposing about two whole loaves worth of bread. I eyed it, appreciating the generosity, but not sure what I was supposed to do with about ten times more bread than omelette, by volume. I also ordered a Turkish coffee. I soon realized that what I had at the hostel had not been strong Turkish coffee at all. That was a strong cup of American-style, brewed drip coffee. I had just forgot what strong drip coffee was like, since the Russians enjoy a rather lighter cup. This was the size of an espresso shot, served in an oriental ceramic set. It had the consistency of melted chocolate. The gradient of Turkish coffee starts as liquid and ends as solid. Instead of fork and knife, I used pieces of bread to scoop up the omelette. By the end of my meal I looked over and saw that the Tupperware container was mostly empty. I was immensely satisfied.Before I headed out from breakfast, I spread out my map onto the table. It was a physical copy I had obtained at the airport. I always pick up the free tourist map whenever I touch down in an unfamiliar city. I forgo Google Maps if I can help it. The problem with Google Maps, you see, is that you can never really be lost. It tells you where you are, so you never have to figure it out for yourself. Getting yourself unlost is the best way to quickly become familiar with the layout of a new city. And gaining familiarity with a city’s layout is one of the most efficient ways to gain a sense of intimacy with the place. This was a cityscape I wanted to get to know. I pocketed my phone, resolving not to appeal to its GPS-augmented maps.I set off in the direction of the Grand Bazaar on a circuitous route, for there was no other kind available. I quickly became nowhere in particular. I was not on any discernible path or route. Istanbul is laid out not as a grid but rather as the pattern glass takes when you throw a small rock at it. It’s as if the road-builders made only game-time decisions about where the road should lead as they were laying the foundations. If you set off down a particular thoroughfare you're just as likely to find yourself circling back to your present junction as going on straight ahead. There’s simply no way of knowing. The other thing about the streets of Istanbul is that you never know what you’ll find on them, but you can be pretty sure it will be some sort of informal commerce. If Paris is a moveable feast, then Istanbul is a permanent market. As I wandered—potentially in circles, I couldn’t tell—I wondered where all these textiles come from. There’s a seemingly limitless supply of cheap clothes, shoes, gadgets, bags, household supplies, and provisions of every nature. Whence the demand? Who, for instance, needs four hundred little girl’s wedding dresses? As my mind slowly returned from its absence I grew concerned with whether I would even know when I breached the Grand Bazaar. Everything I passed was a bazaar. All of it seemed pretty imposing. I wasn’t confident I’d be able to distinguish the minor ones from the Grand One. Eventually I discovered I had ambled in correct direction, and I strode in through an arch labeled GRAND BAZAAR, est. 1461.At once I was thrust into a sort of capitalist cathedral with high ceilings and densely packed rows commercial stalls rising toward the heavens like a downtown avenue of product-laden skyscrapers. The scale of it resembled the Sistine Chapel, had it originally been zoned for commercial purposes. Salesmen lingered at their stalls like doormen at a building. In the section I had entered they sold mostly familiar sartorial wares: knockoff Gucci, LV, jerseys from the major soccer clubs, that sort of stuff. They didn’t look to be much engaged in the act of selling. Mostly they stood there drinking tea. The tea was delivered by couriers carrying hanging trays that looked like one side of the scales of law. Many of the salesmen yelled to colleagues across the way, or shared quiet confidences with their business partners in the stall. Most of them were just sitting or standing idly, seeming to take it all in, or at least facing the right direction to do so.I perused a few different boroughs of the Grand Bazaar. There was one with lots of jewelry, shiny and brightly glaring. It was like walking through an intergalactic market hawking small star systems. There was another area, labeled the "Old Bazaar," that sold antiques, like lamps from which you could solicit the services of a genie. The comparatively modern bazaar offered an array of goods without any unifying theme: picture frames, chess boards carved from marble, ceramic plates, glass tea sets, and rakish canes that would seem apropos in the wobbly grip of an octogenarian pimp. Kitty-corner to the stall I looked at now was one with much the same wares—the same chess boards, the same tea sets, though here they were featured in conjunction with various spice jars and décors of an Islamic bent. It occurred to me that something seemed fucked up in the supply and demand system here. There's an awful lot of supply. Turkish economics must operate by different rules, I figured. On the other hand, I wanted all this s**t. It was beautiful and unreasonably cheap. It wasn’t like the flimsy, crappy knockoffs on offer in many such markets. But I didn’t purchase anything, mostly because I didn’t want to have to lug it around. Still, it made me think about the guy selling the stuff. That guy could stand in front of his stall every day for the rest of his life, make his pittance of Turkish Lyra per diem and sell only a handful of goods every so often. It didn’t seem right.As I continued my stroll I noticed a band of policemen: three guys in jeans and Nikes with Polis vests, one strapped imposingly with an AK-47 diagonally across his chest. This is not an entirely uncommon sight around the world, but it is still somewhat off-putting.It wasn’t until I chanced upon the borough of preserved food—with teas, dried fruit, and the like—that the dynamics of Bazaaro economics started to jibe. The supply and demand was amortized. The timescale was that of many years, not of now. It was the opposite of scalable and innovative, the prized economic considerations of the modern West. But it was sustainable, which though highly-touted in the West is a much more low priority distinction. I was struck with the realization that all this would continue to carry on after I left, as it had since 1461. The supply could sit there and the demand could wander in as it may. It wasn’t a simple function of this point in time. It left me with a deeply seated appreciation for object permanence, that things are there even when I’m not looking at them. The world continues to go on, whether or not I appreciate it. And I was sincerely grateful just to see it, even if momentarily.In sum I’ll give the Bazaar points for Grandness, as advertised. But truth be told I expected the Bazaar to be, well, more bizarre. Perhaps I felt it should be filled with turbaned snake charmers, or a well-suited James Bond escaping from a band of international criminals on motorbike, careening off a nearby roof to unsettle a table of civilians just about to sit down for a large family meal. I don't know exactly.It proved easy to exit. However, it was not easy to know where I had exited once back in the unruly constellation of satellite bazaars. I had no idea which direction I was now oriented. When I stopped to get my bearings I saw a huge mosque. Surely, I thought, this would give me a landmark by which to establish my position. Not the case. When I surveyed the area surrounding the Bazaar on my map, I identified no less than a dozen mosques which I could have been gazing at now. For all I knew, this one could've been too minor even to be included on the map.I soon discovered that all roads lead back to the Grand Bazaar. I needed to get the hell out of this area to have a hope at establishing my whereabouts. It took me mere seconds to become completely lost. I was suddenly out of range of the main market and ambling helplessly through a sepia-toned hedge maze of storefronts, delivery trucks, and product-strapped couriers. There were no landmarks and no visibility in any direction. There weren’t even any right angles. There were however half a dozen guys unloading a shipment of approximately seven tonnes of the same little boys underwear. At length I found what seemed a promisingly distinctive landmark: a stately building with a plaque labeled ISTANBUL LISIPI. After a bit of scanning I found it on my map. I appeared to be situated on a street that led directly to the main drag. Nope. I ranged up and down the street, trying both directions, but it refused to spit me out anywhere besides nowhere in particular. I was totally lost again. By now I had made the worthwhile discovery that only sixty percent of the streets were on my map, which was already packed with detail. Only about twenty percent of the included streets featured names. When finally I found the main drag I had been searching for I pieced together post hoc from street names that I had been looking at wrong Istanbul Lisipi. I had been at Lisipi Zirkek, not Lisipi Kiz as I had suspected. Of course.I headed back toward my hostel for a reliable toilet. I found a Starbucks along the way and contemplated a cold coffee. This is something that the rest of the world has yet to figure out—when it’s hot, it’s nice to have the option for an iced coffee or a cold brewed coffee or whatever. Starbucks is the only global institution which reliably abides this philosophy. Also, Starbucks, like me, is from Seattle, so there’s an ounce of hometown pride involved in the process. I have the authority to inform the barista, “I’m from Seattle, so I really know what I’m doing here.” I'll often congratulate the manager on everything being up to snuff. At any rate, the queue was too long, and I desperately required the services of that toilet.Once relieved and back on the street, I realized that I expected Istanbul to have more smells. Even the roasted corn purveyed on the sidewalk is mostly scentless unless you get a really big snootful. I sort of imagined there would be an ever-present light dusting of za’atar or ras el hanout, like Turkey was actually located inside an oven cooking something exotic and seriously delicious.Speaking of seriously delicious, I decided to get some ice cream—something to tide me over until I made my way to Asia for lunch. I fetched up at an ice cream stall, where the gentlemen was engaged in serving a family of a mother and four little ones. Whereas the service of ice cream in the US involves a dim-witted, pimply eighteen-year-old scooping from one of thirty-one barrels and inquiring as to whether you'd prefer a sugar or a waffle cone, Turkish ice cream is served with a demonstration, like a hibachi chef at Benihana. This guy had flair. A magnificent mustache, too. He stood at a cart with a refrigerated cavern housing four barrels. The cones were stacked in a leaning tower on the side of his cart like a human-sized scimitar. Above the ice cream man were bells that he’d swat at deftly and rhythmically with his rapier. In his other hand he held not merely a scoop, but an ice cream spade. He served each child individually. I watched him start the little girl off with a cone on which he dolloped a scoop of pink ice cream. Then he thrust his rapier toward the little girl, who would recoil and giggle. While she was distracted he stole back the scoop he had just moments before conveyed to her. This stirred in her brief consternation followed by more giggling. Thus continued a cycle of dolloping, swatting bells, giggling, stealing, thrusting, and more giggling, until the girl had a cone piled high with four colors of ice cream. She was immensely gratified. As the family left still giggling, the man asked me, “Do you want all four flavors?” His voice was about an octave higher than you’d expect for a man whose upper lip was part wildebeest. “Yes, please,” I told him. My presentation was less elaborate, as I was clearly of a more esteemed clientele than his previous patrons. Thankfully, he still smacked the bells a couple times with his rapier. Then, just as he handed me the cone he upended it, and pretended to drop the ice cream. He performed the act so convincingly and with such conviction that my heart dropped and hit the floor at approximately the same time as the cone would have if he had actually dropped it. I giggled like the little girl. Getting Turkish ice cream, I noted, was one of best decisions I’ve ever made.As I gummed down my ice cream—it was chewy, flavorful, and unrepentantly delightful—I walked past the Sultan Ahmet mosque situated next to my hostel. I reflected on its grandeur, a sort of fractal monolith. Buildings were much better when we built them for God.I descended the hill on the other side of Sultan Ahmet, headed vaguely in the direction of the famous Ayasophia. I watched as the Bosphorus river shimmered in the distance, like the eponymous cymbals. It was a stroke of brash, spangled sapphire in the otherwise dusty cityscape of Istanbul. I thought I was on a street that would take me directly to Ayasophia. I wasn’t. I intended to cut smartly across the residential hillside, but instead I ended up at the bottom of it on an arterial street that more or less circumscribed Istanbul where it meets the water. I walked along that street. Clearly I would make it to Ayasophia eventually if I just stayed on this street. I spent forty-five minutes walking along, at first admiring the shimmering Bosphorus but then realizing that it was about high time to ask where the f**k this mosque was. How the hell do I get there? I knew I was getting close because I had to pick my way through a kilometer long queue of idling tour buses, their drivers napping in their vans. I still couldn’t see anything of significance. Impatiently, I glanced at Google Maps. I didn’t feel as though I was on the verge of becoming unlost. When at length I found my way there, I became confused. That’s it? I thought to myself. There was no real sight, just a mosque. There are mosques every seven or eight steps in this city, so that’s not exactly a big deal. It wasn’t even large. I guess its esteem derives from the fact that it is exceptionally old. As I scrolled unromantically through Google Maps to see if I was indeed missing anything, I realized that I hadn’t even been looking at the famed and idyllic Bosphorus river, as I had thought. It was actually the Marmara Sea. I stormed off, incredulous that I had gone to such trouble just to ogle at something so underwhelming. I later discovered that I had not visited the Ayasophia but the "little" Ayasophia, whose diminutive I had failed to notice. Totally different site. At any rate, I was ready for a new destination. I was ready for my transcontinental crossing to Asia.I gambled that a bus could take me along the waterfront to the Eminönü ferry terminal. I didn’t know that it would. But it seemed a good bet, since I was on a main drag headed toward a central location. I walked along but there were no bus stops. Magically, as with Catbus bounding out of the darkness in My Neighbor Totoro, a bus appeared with the word Eminönü on top. I waved the bus over, it stopped, and triumphantly I stepped aboard. Not only did it drop me at the intended ferry terminal, but I realized quickly that I was about a manhattan block away from my pide recommendation. I knew this would give me the strength necessary for my transcontinental voyage. Pide is essentially Turkish pizza, but greasier and meatier and therefore better. It comes in an elliptical shape, with a folded galette shell. It’s like a pizza crust orbiting a galaxy of meaty, saucy goodness. I happily inhaled a full serving before setting off for Asia.I had no explicit destination in Asia. My plan was just to get on a ferry and see where I ended up. There were three ferry terminals, all with vastly different destinations, spanning multiple continents, though I couldn’t quite tell which one went where. I boarded the one I evaluated to have the highest probability of terminating in Asia. I hoped at the very least it would end up somewhere still in Turkey. I boarded the maritime vessel along with six hundred of my closest Turkish friends, and together we set sail for I knew not where. I was one of the last aboard, as I had more or less hopped on whichever ferry left soonest. There was precisely three quarters of a seat available when I got on, and I wedged myself in on the top deck next to some Turkish youths. We took a sharp right out of Eminönü, back along the waterfront where I had taken the bus from Ayasophia. I looked at the hill of Istanbul from the water. After about thirty minutes the boat docked. I went down to the gang plank to discern whether I was at a decent location to disembark. I stood there while the boat’s ramp met the dock. No one got off. Several hundred new passengers stood in wait to pile on. I had no idea where we were, or where this boat would go next. I asked a few people around me—"Excuse me, where are we?" Everyone’s reply was uniformly unhelpful, "Sorry, no English." I equivocated, then at the last second I jumped ship right as boat was kicking off. Good thing, too. I believe the boat was going on to Beşiktaş, back in Europe.I had made it to Asia. But before I got to exploring I needed to make arrangements to get back to Eminönü. I couldn’t afford to be stuck in Asia and miss my flight. Luckily, the ferry official standing in the vicinity of the terminal was able to direct me to the proper concourse where I found the schedule. There were ferries back to Eminönü every twenty minutes. Perfect.It was time for a quick jaunt around Asia, a sort of warm up lap before I headed there in earnest. In front of me was a grey and sprawling business district along the water. The action clearly was located on the hill behind it. I ascended. Immediately, I was struck by a feeling of recognition. I was in Hong Kong. It felt to me like an Asian San Francisco, built on a hillside, with brightly lit storefronts catering to an amalgam of eastern and western sensibilities. There was an idiosyncratic flow to people’s movement, also as in Hong Kong. They move with the same purpose they do in West but on the madhouse, strewn-about streets of Asia: Manhattanites in a maze. I wandered into a used bookstore, the delightful kind where the proprietor values books more than organization. He delivered me to the English language section, and over-explained to me how the system worked. I appreciated the earnestness, but I had ascertained everything I needed to know pretty early on: here are the books. At any rate, the Turks must be avid readers because they have a s**t-tonne of book stores. I called afterward at a hipster coffee shop. They had cold brewed coffee in a carafe lingering in a space of frigid clime. Amazing.I sat outside and listened the conversations of the other patrons. They were all conducted in Turkish. As I matched words to menu items, I realized that spoken Turkish words begin the way I expect, then terminate in something completely indecipherable. At length, I descended back to my port-of-call for a late afternoon trip from Kadıköy, which I learned was the name of the terminal, to Eminönü. I sat atop the ferry in the dusky light of Istanbul.Eventually I arrived back in Europe. Then I headed to the metro, almost embarked, but decided against it in favor of one more stroll through the streets up to the hostel. At a three way intersection I saw a pavilion with mini chairs and tables, oriental table clothes, and these tiny Turkish teas I’d been seeing all day. I wanted one. It was perfectly positioned to watch the people traffic, too. Strong black tea in a glass three inches tall. Slightly more than a generous shot glass. I repaired back to the hostel bar just in time to watch the evening's soccer match.It was five, or just after. I looked out over Sultan Ahmet. Then a noise. Let me just say, there is nothing more exotic than the five o’clock call to prayer over the loud speaker in a Muslim city. It is the most non-Western sound in the world. It sounds to naive (and potentially blasphemous) ears like a sitar player drunk on a far eastern spirit, crooning a love song you'll never know the story to. It continues for just about ever. The cadence is such that it dies down, and just when you forgot about it, begins blaring again at the highest register, making the descent all over again.There was one last stop on my Turkish agenda: Asmalı Cavit. It is an eating establishment located by Mikla—by now feeling like an old haunt of mine—and serving hot and cold meze. When I presented myself to the maitre d’ I inquired about procuring a seat in the restaurant. “Inside is complicated,” he told me, enigmatically. Then he brought me round to an adjacent corridor, which was filled with white-clothed tables. This area was less complicated. I could take a seat toward the back, if that was fine with me. Happily, I accepted. The corridor was terraced, so there were three levels of diners. Since I occupied the furthest back it was also the highest and most regal. I wouldn’t even have to leave my seat to make my usual rounds of inspecting what everyone else is eating. When the waiter approached me I confided in him that I wasn’t sure what to order but I wanted lots. He required no further information. “I’ll bring you a plate of cold starters.” I’ve never felt so understood. As he turned to submit my order I called out, “Wait!”“Yes?”“I’ll take an order of Raki, please.” Turkish absinthe.“With water?” he said, and raised an eye brow.“Sure,” I acquiesced. I wasn’t sure how one was supposed to take Turkish absinthe, so I went with the house recommendation. The Raki came out swiftly. It was served as a triptych. There was the shot-glass worth of absinthe, a tall glass filled with ice, and a small a pitcher of cold water. I set to work on my build-your-own Turkish cocktail, dumping the absinthe over the ice wholesale. I settled on a portion of water somewhere between my masculine inclination for neat spirits and the rather large volume the glass would contain. Of a sudden, the concoction turned ghostly white—chemistry meets conjuring. I took a sip. “Jesus Christ!!” This seemed the only handle by which my mind could grasp the experience. The drink felt like a swift kick to the nuts, but it happened where my face should have been instead of further south. I ventured another sip. Another audible “Jesus Christ!!” was the only response I could produce. There was something eminently realistic about imbibing this drink, like reality shone through with startling clarity after every intake. Two sips in, I could feel clinically interesting effects come on. I tried to recall whether I had passed any banks on the way up here, and I flirted with the idea of sticking them up. Just as I remembered I forgot to bring my pistol, my cold starters came, a plate of delicious mysteries. I was filled with a child’s wonder as I surveyed a landscape of variously colored and textured entities I knew nothing about. I stuck them in my mouth to learn more. The servings resembled what you’d find in the prepared section of your local deli, but it was as if they were assembled by a martian who was given a slate of fresh earthly ingredients and a keen incisiveness for eliciting delightful gustatory experiences. This alien had none of our usual prejudices about how food should look or be combined. There were spicy little green beans (actually seaweed), fava beans, spiced tomato paste, all with a vibrancy and color palate that felt at once exotic and lucid. I took another cool hit of Raki-inspired reality. “Jésus Cristo!!” It came out in Spanish this time.I took a break from the plate and surveyed my surroundings. I cast my gaze skyward. There was no sky, it was simply the interior façade of an apartment complex. I was seated almost in the inner courtyard. I dispatched with my food much as a dog chows down on her bowl, though with the addition of much happy and rewarding experimentation—“what if I dipped the seaweed in the tomato? Exquisite!” When I was finished and ready for another go-around my waiter was nowhere in the vicinity. I searched around for him, but all I could see were the goblins hanging from the AC units of apartments above and the other patrons in the restaurant wearing grass skirts and dancing the hula in unison. I made visual contact with the waiter from across the room. I gestured that I was ready for the next round. He made a circular motion with his hands and mouthed the word next. I nodded. He gave me the thumbs up and left, never to be heard from again. The goblins must’ve got him. I sat patiently for about twenty minutes before getting up, collapsing like a felled tree, dusting myself off, and inquiring with the only remaining familiar face—the Maitre D’, he who spake of complicated matters—about whether I had an order forthcoming. “No,” he told me politely. I told him I'd like to fix that. I ordered the lamb chop, which I had been eyeing. Then I added, “I’ll have another plate of starters, too.” What I had meant to convey was that I’d like a different plate of starters—a martian landscape as mysterious as the first, perhaps sweltering this time. I thought since my terse order had been so deftly intuited the first time around, I’d be just as lucky the second. I wasn’t. I got the exact same plate of cold starters, which I still wolfed it down, scattering bits of kibble across the white-tiled kitchen floor. I paid the reckoning, then at the moment I reached for my last dose of absinthe I was sucked into it, like a flushing toilet, and all at once found myself back at the hostel. It had been a Portkey.Intrigued by this newfound form of transportation but otherwise undaunted, I collected my bags from Cheers and bid farewell to my friends, Ahmed and Sinan. “Later, man!” they called as I scooted out along the cobbled streets of Istanbul to grab a train back to the airport.I took a seat on the train—old men, women, and children be damned. I pulled out my phone, connected the train’s Wifi (yes, Americans, even economically imperiled developing countries offer this service now), and began to watch the second half of a World Cup game, Portugal versus someone. As I streamed the match, I saw the white-mustached Turkish gentleman next to me eyeing my screen, surreptitiously, as one eyes a dirty magazine tucked away in the far corner of the rack. I inclined the screen toward him, a gesture of international goodwill. He nodded in appreciation, and together we gazed at the figures jaunting around on the otherwise verdant illuminations of my phone. Moments into our shared and intimate viewing experience, the Turkish man leaned in to share a confidence.“Beşiktaş is number one team in Turkey.” He gave me a wide smile. “Beşiktaş is my team,” he clarified, pressing a thumb to his chest and then an index finger distantly toward, presumably, the glorious municipality of Beşiktaş.“Oh?” I said, impressed.Then he pointed at the screen, “Pepe plays for Beşiktaş.”Pepe is a Portuguese defensive stalwart. He is one of Portugal’s most internationally prominent players, after Cristiano Ronaldo. Not only that, the man relayed as further intelligence: the Beşiktaş outfit also boasts among its numbers Ricardo Quaresma, who is a less distinguished footballer, but notable as one of the few Portuguese players who doesn’t identify under a mononym.“Oh, wow,” I intoned, convincingly, as if playing an Owen Wilson character.This Turkish-American connection via the Portuguese pleased us both and we sat there in happy silence for a few minutes. Then he retrieved his phone from his shirt pocket. He scrolled through and offered me a picture of him and his daughter at a game, indicating that this was Beşiktaş. “This is very nice,” I said. In return I offered a picture of Haily and me at our Portugal game in Russia and explained how I had actually been at World Cup before coming to Turkey. The man was keen on this information, as of course he was, because Beşiktaş is technically in Europe.When his stop came we parted as friends, as two men who had just before been strangers and in the intervening moments shared with one another intimate experiences held closely to our hearts and connected on a deeply-felt, fundamentally human level, which only an event like the World Cup brings out. Soon the train pulled up at the airport terminal. And as I hopped off the train I reached into my jacket pocket where I felt the smooth surface of a foreign object. I looked down and pulled out a manila envelope. It was stuffed with reams of neatly wrapped, bank-marked two-hundred Lira notes. “Now where do you suppose these came from?” I said to myself, depositing them furtively back into my pocket and making my way through the automatic doors of Istanbul’s Ataturk airport.I got to the airport at 11:30 PM for my 1:30 AM flight. The muslim girl at the Turkish Airlines check-in counter greeted me cheerfully. I handed her my passport. She banged away on the keyboard as airline clerks do—about a thousand clicks for what you imagine can only be about a dozen bits of information. Then she pulled a phone up to her ear and made a call. It wasn’t a short call, either. Not a good sign. She was speaking in Turkish, but I could make out the word “standby.” My stomach dropped. This had happened to me once before, in Mumbai. I had booked an intercontinental flight (on Air f*****g France, for the record), which was slated to depart in the wee hours for Paris en route back to America. There had been a tinsy miscalculation, and the doggedly optimistic algorithms at Air France had, unfortunately, unexpectedly, inexplicably, overbooked the flight. I was one of a handful of ticketed passengers denied entry. As you can imagine, I wasn’t happy. But as you also might be able to imagine, there were people who got more heated than I. One guy started yelling at the poor Indian girl behind the desk, “You can’t DO this to me! Do you know who I AM? I have somewhere to BE!” She did her best to assuage him. At first I understood his rage, empathized even, at least in the sense of mirroring his emotion. I thought he was a douchebag for yelling at her, sure, but I understood where he was coming from. He continued in this vein for tens of minutes. “Where I have to be is IMPORTANT! And I am getting on that PLANE!” Eventually I couldn’t watch anymore, because he was taking his anger out on this girl who couldn’t do anything about it. “Do you know who I AM?” He yelled at the clerk. “Yes, fuckhole we all know who you are,” I chimed in. “You’re a pompous, self-important, poorly-adjusted jerk. So just sit down and shut up like the rest of us.” I didn’t actually say that to him. But I did intervene and attempt to soothe him, which worked and the girl shot me a look of sincere gratitude.Anyway, the muslim girl on the phone had still not addressed me directly. She went over to her colleague for a brief conference. Then she returned and told me to follow. We went over to another counter. She consulted again with her colleagues in Turkish. After they reached a verdict, her colleague printed me a boarding pass. The girl handed it to me, smiling, and said, “Your gate is not open yet, but you can go through customs.” I looked down at my ticket.“Is there a problem?” I asked. Where my boarding pass should’ve had a seat number it just said “JMP.”“The flight’s overbooked,” she told me. “Just wait at the gate until everyone else is boarded. Then see if you get on.”While I’d been waiting I had noticed a sign that said you should request a compensation brochure in the event that you’re bumped from a flight due to overbooking. I requested one.“I don’t understand,” she said, suddenly not an adept English speaker.“Brochure,” I said, pointing at the sign.“No brochure,” she countered. “You’ll be fine.”I gave her a blank look for three silent seconds, then dismissively rolled my eyes at her and huffed off. As I walked away I thought about how that wasn’t a very nice thing of me to do and, reminded of my time in Mumbai, turned back and yelled, “Do you know who I AM?”I was in the throws of uncertainty concerning one’s destiny that only a waylaid transcontinental flight can bring on. I threw down my bags at the gate I was slated to fly out of and took a brief leave of consciousness, which was the most productive thing I could bring myself to do. When I awoke I was still marinating in qualms about the stochastic nature of my flight assignment—would I be able to get on another flight? Would I have to go back into the city? Would Sinan and Ahmed take me back? Of course they would, I assured myself. But it didn’t help.As the seating area around the gate filled up, I started to see them—white Africans. They were headed to Johannesburg, like me. They were speaking Afrikaans. I would’ve found this very exciting if I weren’t so nervous. One by one I watched each of them be graciously accepted onto the plane. Once the great throng of people had boarded the plane, I presented myself at the counter to be installed into any unclaimed seat. They said they were still waiting for a few passengers to trickle in. I took a half step away from their desk and tried to put on a patient face as I waited. Joining me in hoping that the stragglers had succumb to some unfortunate scenario were a couple of backpackers and an asian girl, with tattoos, in her thirties. We shared brief commiserations. A pang of kinship shot between us while resting in the clammy and masculine hands of Lady Fortuna.“Hope we get on,” the Asian girl offered to me.“Yeah, me too,” I replied.A family with two small children came running through the terminal, waving their tickets, and petitioning the agents not to close the door just yet.Then as the doors were closing, in dramatic slow motion, the clerks went bang-bang on their keyboards and out popped a fistful of boarding passes. They presented them to me and the two backpackers. They told the Asian girl there was no room for her. The three of us gave our comrade a doleful look as we were ushered down the runway. I wished her luck. Then I promptly forgot about her. For me, this was a happy occasion. I was on my way to Africa.Next Episode:Thanks for checking out Season 1 of Notes from the Field. If you’ve enjoyed it, please consider becoming a premium subscriber. I’m trying to do more of this kind of travel writing in the future. But as you can imagine, it’s hard to have these kinds of experiences while also holding down a job. Your subscription goes a long way toward helping me to do that. Use the link below, and you’ll get 50% off an annual subscription. Thanks! This is a public episode. If you’d like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit codykommers.substack.com/subscribe

History's first ever gourmand, foodie, hipster of the Ancient Greco-Roman world!The question of Archestratus life story had me puzzled for ages! I wanted to write an episode for a while now, but the more I looked for information about his life and works the more unanswered questions I have had! Admittedly, countless classicists, historians and food writers have been puzzled through the ages too, with the same burning questions.Imagine the worst foodie hipster (I zest here, I am one!) friend you have; The one that visits the local farmers market every weekend, goes to Borough Market as if on a religious pilgrimage at least once a month and also on top of that knows every single Vietnamese store in Hackney or the South-American food stall in Seven Sisters Indoor market. He also seem to know the food trends, the new ingredients and read the reviews on Eater for the cheapest eats at the outskirts of South-East London for some reason! (as if he or she will ever visit south east!)Well your friend doesn't compare to Archestratus little finger! If you thought your friend was bad for visiting the mercado de san martin in San Sebastian, mercado San Miguel in Madrid and La Boqueria market in Barcelona, mercato delle embre in Bologna, Grand Bazaar in Istanbul or Varvakios Market in Athens spending hours looking at fish that cannot buy...you know the friend who watched all the episodes of Anthony Bourdain's "Parts Unknown" and can quote all his lines...Well, our dude Archestratus, was a lot worst!New tastes, the freshest ingredients, so local and seasonal and simple, that even the inhabitants of the nearest town wouldn't have heard them, well he would have been there first, straight to the local fishermen begging them for a fish. Well this is Archestratus! The tourist who went to every food market on every city he visited; only he accomplished your feat 2500 years ago and all by sail!In the interconnected world of the ancient Mediteranean we then find Archestratus, a Sicilian who circumnavigated the world to satisfy his hunger - and even lower appetites, as a Roman scholar said once quite disparagingly. He was though an inveterate traveller. How else could he have found out about the specialities of all these places, small seaside cities over 50 of them from Sicily to the Black Sea? Remarkably what he writes rings true, as sometimes their specialities are exactly the same now as they were 2400 years ago. Archestratus loved the taste of Lesbian wine but also praised the aroma of the Phoenician wine that came from Byblos. (Although he though it to go off quickly)"When a libation to the gods you make, Let your wine worthy be, and ripe and old; Whose hoary locks droop o'er his purple lake, Such as in Lesbos' sea-girt isle is sold. Phœnicia doth a generous liquor bear, But still the Lesbian I would rather quaff; For though through age the former rich appear, You'll find its fragrance will with use go off." We know almost nothing about him, apart that he was a Sicilian Greek from Gela (or Syracuse) and that he wrote a now lost, remarkable and unique poem "The Life of Luxury" (Hydipatheia). The poem is dated variously around 350BCE.What we know of the poem, is mostly from Athenaus from his work "Deipnosophistai" -Philosophers at Dinner- which was composed in about AD200. This, is our only source for Archestratus work, which is telling. Lost works of ancient literature - poetry, drama etc- are usually reference by multiple ancient authors; however this lack of interest demonstrates the status of food and recipe books. Not high literature and therefore not carefully preserved for posterity.What would I give for the chance to glance upon the book on bread-making by Chrysippus of Tyana or the book on salt fish by Euthydemus of Athens! Sadly both are lost completely and only know of their existence through second -hand passing accounts from other authors! Lost masterpieces!Archestratus cooks the fish simply, boiling roasting or grilling with light seasoning and oil added if its quality fish. Freshness and quality are his watchwords and these features mustn't be damaged by strong sauces based on cheese and pungent herbs. His favourite fish tend to have firm-textured and strongly flavoured meat; rather than mild tasting flesh like the white fish we are now used in French cooking as the vehicle for sauces. He also shows much interest in eels; common, conger, mooray. He emphasizes flavour and the oil/fat of the fish, where the taste and interest is to be found. There is much interest in texture of the fish, the different cuts and parts, from head meat, fin, tail, belly as well as in the varieties of fish.OK I will stop now and let the audio do the talking! Happy listening!Links, sources, further reading:Andrew Dalby, "Siren Feasts": https://books.google.co.uk/books/about/Siren_Feasts.html?id=wtLgAAAAMAAJ&redir_esc=ySally Grainger, Andew Dalby : "The Classical Cookbook" : https://books.google.co.uk/books/about/The_Classical_Cookbook.html?id=T7S5iC3pZp0C&redir_esc=yDeipnosophistae https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/DeipnosophistaeAncient History Encyclopedia: https://member.ancient.eu/article/911/carthaginian-trade/Athenaeus of Naucratis: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/AthenaeusSupport this show http://supporter.acast.com/the-delicious-legacy. If you love to time-travel through food and history why not join us at https://plus.acast.com/s/the-delicious-legacy. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

Traveling throughout Europe, you can find the legacy of the Ottoman Empire just about everywhere. But if you want to experience a place that has lived through the ebbs and flows of the empire, and connects us through more than 500 years of history, you need to visit the Grand Bazaar of Istanbul. My guest on today's show is Chris Mitchell, of the travelingmitch blog, who until recently lived in Istanbul, and knows his way around its landmarks. As Chris told me, while some things have changed about the giant shopping district, many things haven't. And if you want to learn about a country, especially a country as rich in customs and commerce as Turkey, you head to the bazaar. The Grand Bazaar's Early Days Chris told me the Grand Bazaar was first built in 1455 and was really up and running the 1460s. Known as the “House of Gems,” the giant, covered warehouse became home to 3,000 vendors (not too far off from the 4,000 that populate the spot today). The Bazaar was the creation of Mehmet II, the emperor in the mid-15th century, who saw the opening of the warehouse as a means to raise money for the Hagia Sophia, the place of worship nearby. The bazaar attracted interested parties from all across Europe, and helped establish Turkey as a center for commerce and trade, as manufacturers, traders and various trade guilds sprang up around it. There were (and still are) mosques in the warehouse, as well. The Grandness of the Grand Bazaar The 30-hectare space contains two bedestens, or covered markets, the first one being built shortly after the first, once they saw how quickly the Bazaar was expanding. There are 18 gates to enter, and 61 streets inside. As Chris told me, the Bazaar became more than a market, it became a symbol of Ottoman control and a testament to the empire's reach. There were goods available there that simply weren't elsewhere, and it became fashionable around Europe to have something from the Ottoman Empire. But, as the Ottoman Empire's influence began to wane, and it began to lose control of lands across Europe, that was reflected in the commerce happening inside the bedestens. The Grand Bazaar in the 20th Century After World War II, Mustafa Kemal Atatürk became the founder and first president of the Republic of Turkey. He pushed for Turkey to become a secular nation, one that put more emphasis on research and development, and—as Chris said—aimed to catch up with its European neighbors. But Atatürk recognized the need to honor the history of the Ottoman Empire, so he had to walk a fine line. He saw many of the structures from the past were important to the country's future, so even as he pushed for the modernization of the country, he preserved its heritage. All of which helped make the Grand Bazaar the destination it is today. Traveling to the Grand Bazaar As Chris told me, in 2014 more than 400,000 visitors a day passed through the gates of the Grand Bazaar. That number has likely dipped, with a tightening on tourism to Turkey. But Chris gave listeners great tips on other destinations around the Bazaar and around the city, so if you can get a visa, it's worth making a trip to the bustling shopping area. “Make sure your haggling skills are sharp,” Chris says, and be ready to consume more chai tea than you thought humanly possible. Because this beautiful, historic, teeming shopping district is a living reminder of the grandness of the Ottoman Empire. Outline of This Episode [2:00] Introduction to Chris Mitchell [5:44] Mehmet II and the creation of the Grand Bazaar [10:19] Discussion of the physical layout of the bazaar [15;14] How did it change over the centuries? [20:20] What changed with the creation of the Republic of Turkey? [29:05] What it's like in the Grand Bazaar now [35:32] Travel tips for Istanbul [39:02] Are there safety concerns for visiting now? Resources & People Mentioned travelingmitch Chris on Facebook Chris on Twitter Chris's appearance on the Amateur Traveler Grand Bazaar Hagia Sophia Balat Bebek Galata Bridge This Week's Giveaway! The prize for this week is a $20 Amazon gift card! To enter, simply be a newsletter subscriber and leave a comment on this blog post: https://historyfangirl.com/istanbuls-grand-bazaar/. The contest ends Sunday, November 5 at midnight. Connect With Stephanie stephanie@historyfangirl.com https://historyfangirl.com Support Stephanie on Patreon