Friday, September 20, 2013

Grand Bazaar

The Grand Bazaar of Istanbul is in the old section of town, two stops from the Sultanhamet district where we were the day before.
 photo from Wikipedia

It is hard to capture this immense place in a photo, or in words. This is all indoors, packed with vendors and shoppers. The photo seems to be cleaned up. To me it was dimly lit and cavernous.There are a few main streets, and lots of connector streets. It is an old place that at one time was the center of commerce in this part of the world. I am guessing that you could take Crossgates mall, multiply the number of stores times 1000, and reduce the size of each store to maybe the size of your living room, you might get the picture. Then add a small front area about the width of the living room for displays, and racks of goods, and you have it. The Bazaar is divided into sections for gold, silver, copper, bronze, etc., jewelry,dry goods, spices, carpets, and more. there seem to be hundreds of shops in each category. No price tags on anything, forced an interaction between the shopper and the vendor.
So Meg, Khaled and I ventured into this huge building with a few things in mind: a shawls, some trinkets, and a handbag. Meg wanted to get a Longchamps bag. We looked over a number of bag displays, and what I thought looked good, she dismissed as cheap knockoffs. We then inquired in one shop about Longchamps bags. The vendor did not carry that line, and a young boy was assigned to us to usher us through the streets to a Longchamps supplied shop. His first attempt was incorrect, and that vendor had him lead us to another shop. We came to a display of bags, and he said something that made us believe we had arrived at bag almighty.
Soon, a young man approached us, and we told him what we were looking for. He opened a door next to the display and we were in handbag heaven. It was a bright, air conditioned room, way smaller than your living room. Handbags on the shelves. No Longchamps on display. Another man came in. Meg described what she wanted. He told us to have a seat, and he would be right back. He probably went to what we would call the basement or store room, and returned in 5 minutes with an armload of Longchamps in a variety of colors. He poured them out on the floor. Meg seemed to know that they were genuine, and she chose a color that the vendor agreed was very beautiful. "How much?" Meg inquired. "90 lira."  "Will you take 60?" she shot back. "No! Maybe 80." She offered 70 and the deal was struck at 75. " Would you like another?" he asked. But Meg declined.
Meg wanted to see the carpet section. The bag man had a friend who sold them, and another young man ushered us to the brother's carpet shop. We were ushered into a secret room, and the pitch was about to begin. Meg explained that we were not about to buy anything. The man was nice enough to back off, and let us admire the rugs. Upon leaving that shop, we noticed another that was more open. On the back wall there hung a huge carpet, worth $25,000. It was beautiful, way better than Huck Finn's Warehouse. But we could not carry it so we didn't buy it.
We were looking for some gifts for me to take back for friends and relatives. Vendors of shawls were all over. We came to a place that had wool, cotton, silk, pashmin, and blends. Honestly, they were all beautiful, and every one of them as priced seemed like a bargain. 40 lira was the highest priced. Nevertheless, Meg would not settle for their price. She manged to get the price down 5 lira on a mid-priced shawl, and then we chose one that was a traditional Ottoman pattern. The silk felt elegant to touch. We looked through some of the gold and silver shops on our way to find some memento type jewelry for gifts.
On the corner, a  bracelet display caught Meg's eye. When the vendor came up to us, he gave us some prices, and then found some that we less expensive, and oddly the price was not bad. Meg haggled a bit. We bought three bracelets. When the man found out that it was Khaled's first birthday, he pinned a traditional "evil eye" charm on him to ward off the evil eyes (poverty, disease, etc.) of life.
My honed math skills came in handy here, The three bracelets cost 30 lira. I had only 20 lira and one ten dollar bill in my wallet. I  offered the ten dollar bill as partial payment. The man said sure. So I  gave him just 10 lira and the ten dollars in payment. He was hoping for the 20  lira, plus the ten. He was obviously disappointed, but knew it was right.
We eventually left the Grand Bazaar, had a drink of bottled water, used the public WC where you had to pay a lira to urinate or squat in a trough. We made our way to the Metro.
After dinner, while relaxing, the phone rang in our room. It was for baby Khaled. The management had a complimentary birthday cake to deliver to him. It came with two candles...one for the first year and one for the upcoming second year. Two layers of chocolate sandwiched slices of banana. Delicious.
It was a great beginning for the second year of life. (More to come)

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