Tukey - Konya - Day 2

The morning went on the usual way. I thought of going to the gym, then barely scraped myself together for breakfast. I tried to get some pancakes, they ran out. There were less tourist-type people about, more business people. Otherwise, I watched YouTube videos while having breakfast. 

I had some work to do, interpreted some. I’m afraid I won’t be able to go into more details on that, my dear readers. However, I did realise something that just never really struck me before. Turkish people use “too much” instead of “a lot” when speaking in English. This can lead to misunderstandings. In fact, for the rest of my trip I looked out for this, and this turned out to be a common thing, and not only in Konya, but Istanbul as well. Now I don’t know enough Turkish to be able to tell if this is a first language error - an error made by a speaker because of their native language -, or maybe it’s some sort of a language teaching error. However, it is very strange, and I continually had to correct them in my head while translating to Hungarian. Didn’t make my job very easy.

Then we went on to the Kyoto Japanese park.

On the way to the park, I reflected on the city planning in Konya. There is a central old town, but the city spreads out in a wide area. You think that you left the city proper, and then come onto another district, with mostly new houses. In such a district was the park we were going to.

The park is in Konya, because the sister city of Konya in Japan is Kyoto. It's located in one of the many brand new districts. The style of the park is conceptional. It feels more like something that wants to mimic your stereotypes of a Japanese garden, than being an actual one. In fact, one of the ponds was filthy, which I doubt would happen in an actual park in Japan. It just made me want my actual trip to Japan to be here as soon as possible. I did have fun making the video, but the whole thing just felt out of place.

We went on to have lunch at a kind of Turkish family restaurant (Cemo Etliekmek - Selçuklu, also have a look at my Tripadvisor review). It was in an unremarkable building, in an unremarkable part of town. I had okra soup first. It was fine, though I'm not a fan. Then we had an assortment of meats. It was all delicious, and I knew I wouldn't have dinner that night. Turkish people are great at meat dishes. There was some dessert, but as it was sprinkled with walnuts, I only scraped a little from the side.

After lunch we returned to the hotel, and I went into the city by myself. I walked past the big cemetery that’s not far from the hotel. It took a while to get to the city proper, but I soldiered on. Online I saw a covered market that I wanted to check out. On the way, I passed some very not tourist-ready shops. Kind of run-down, only Turkish around, staring at my blonde hair. I laughed a little in my head, because I noticed a small tea shop. Turkish people love their tea. They basically constantly drink it, and near businesses you always spot a small tea shop. They have servers who run around with a tray that hangs on metal wires, and is usually filled with their small tea cups. Turkish tea is very strong an I love it, but those glass tea cups baffle me. They become very hot, very quickly, and burn your fingers when you try to touch them. I usually take a napkin, wrap it around the cup, and pick it up that way.

I did reach the covered market, and made a little video there. It was filled with produce. Lots of onions from the really small ones to big ones. The outer rim of the market mostly has cheese shops. They all carried this extremely mouldy cheese - check my video -. I did see it at breakfast too, but I was too scared for my stomach to try it. Must take care of all your penicillin needs though. Also on the market people kept calling out to me. I have no idea what they were saying, because my Turkish is very limited for now. So I mostly just ignored them. I left the market without actually buying anything, but this is when I wish we used Airbnb. Then I would have a kitchen and try out some of the ingredients there.

I just started randomly walking down the street, though I did have a general direction in mind. I wanted to explore the bazaar section of the city more. I saw it the day before, and I was intrigued by the two-storey buildings there. When I got there, it reminded me even more of the bazaar. There were sections for different things. You got a whole square of bed linen, then lots of clothes, gold, shoes, anything you could think of. The white buildings with brown trim looked old, but modern at the same time with the clean lines.

I did get some weird looks, but I couldn’t decide if it was my blonde, uncovered hair, or the camera. I also took some pictures of the Kapu Cami. It’s a pretty big mosque, but kind of tucked away among the buildings. There are even shops for men’s clothing in the underside of the building. I thought of going in, but I wasn’t sure how to go about it, and just decided against it. Didn’t want to get into a situation. While walking, I noticed an old-fashioned shoe repairman. He was very old and sat in a very dirty shop. I thought of taking a picture of him, but didn’t feel that it was appropriate. He’s a human, not a spectacle.

I kept on walking, and took a picture or video of everything I found interesting. I reached the end of the bazaar, and just wandered around more. I knew that on the other side of the Alaadin hill there was a more modern part of town. Among the interesting things that I saw were a little mosque, a Christian church, and topsy-turvy buildings. By the time I got to the more modern part of town, the sun was going down. All the young people were hanging out there, talking, having tea. It looked like any other Western city, with young people enjoying the evening. The muezzin sang, and no one made a move to pray. I found it a bit amusing. I was getting very tired at that point, but my favourite Turkish clothing brand, LC Waikiki had a store right there, so I went to have a look around.

After I exited the store, I wished I could take the tram to the hotel. There was a stop right next to the hotel, but I haven’t figured out how to use the public transport in the city, so I forced myself to walk off the rest of my lunch, and headed back on foot. I climbed up the hill to use it was a shortcut. I’m not sure if it actually was though. I passed the Mevlana museum, and took a few pictures of the very pretty night lighting. As I was filming it, a young man came up to me. He was about 20, had a stone in one ear, cigarette in the hand. I told him I don’t speak Turkish. He then switched over to English and said “money, money”. I was kind of outraged. He was clearly not poor, not even sure where he got his money then, but I generally don’t give to beggars. I’m not going to go into details why not now. So I kind of told him to go away in English, and he wandered off. Besides, he was very young, strong. I’m sure if he wanted a job, he could get one.

I went away a bit, just to make sure that he wouldn’t return or follow me. Made my final video, and hurried back to the hotel. The surrounding area of the hotel can be very dark, and as I tried to make a shortcut, I stepped into something sticky. I was very annoyed, but so glad to get back. I was still glad I went and explored Konya more.