Crossroads of Europe and Asia

We arrived in Istanbul today for a full-day tour of the only city that straddles two continental plates at once. Having read so much about Istanbul before, I had been expecting it to be rich in history and culture at once, while still bustling with modernity. I was a little disappointed by the latter (well, coming from HK, what do you expect, I suppose), but certainly not disappointed otherwise.

For a religious-architecture afficionado like me, Istanbul is absolutely fabulous. I could have spent hours in the Blue Mosque or in the Hagia Sophia Museum just staring at the domed ceiling and wondering how they had the technology to build that thing so many years ago. Or just wandering about the streets and soaking up the atmosphere. It was amazing to walk down a street of seemingly new buildings and all of a sudden come across a centuries-old mosque, or to be watching the metro go by and notice that it was passing next to an old city wall. The downside was our tour guide, who seemed to be on a quest to break the speed record for showing a group around Istanbul. I was tempted to leave our group several times, but then she was so conscientious about making sure that everybody was on the bus, I decided not to go about causing trouble.

One thing that I have noticed about Turkey: the Turks seem to absolutely adore cats. I finally gave up on my usual practice of taking a picture of every cat I see on the street. There are just too many of them hanging around. The nice thing is that all of them seem to be happy and well fed. (Okay, not too surprising, but I just came back from Hubei. Ask Stephen what those kitties look like.)