Nate and Kara Buchanan vlog about day two in Istanbul, starting on a patio awakened by early mosque calls to prayer, trying local street food (grilled corn; a lamb-and-vegetable bread) and taking the ferry from Europe to the Asian side to find a local Tuesday market. They struggle to locate the market (asking locals, getting lost, a seagull incident), eventually discover and explore a large, mostly local market with cheap goods and friendly vendors, then return to Europe by ferry. The tone is observational, travel-focused, and informal.
Chapters
Well, good morning.
The place that we're staying is in between like 10 different mosques. And this isn't that bad when it's white outside. But this is exactly what happened at 4:45 this morning. And we were sleeping with the windows open. It's a very early wake up call.
Today is day two in Istanbul. It is another absolutely beautiful day. And we've just been sitting up on our patio enjoying the sunshine, the views, and getting some work done and hearing.
The call to prayer. You may not know this, but the city of Istanbul is split onto two different continents. So yesterday we were in Europe all day, but today we're going to Asia.
But first we're getting some lunch. How much of these?
Okay, Two. Two of these. Nice.
I really hesitate to say this because it's going to tell you just how far our videos are behind, but tomorrow starts Ramadan, which in the Islamic faith means that they basically fast for an entire month from sunup to sundown. Nobody eats. And so for us as tourists, it would be impolite to just go eating food in. We're not exactly sure, like, what happens, but we think the majority of the street food is going to disappear tomorrow. We've seen these corns everywhere on the street, so we wanted to make sure we had a chance to try it. It's just like corn cooked on the grill.
It tastes like corn cooked on a grill. It's just a great little street snack that'll leave stuff stuck in your teeth for the rest of the day.
Probably should have done this towards the end of the video. I need some fl.
We have found our next street food spot. As you can see, there are tons of people here. That's when you know it's good. We're still not quite sure what it is, but we saw it yesterday and we tried to come back for dinner last night and they were closed.
What time do you close?
So we're super excited that they're open and we're gonna try it.
I just said two. I don't know what it is.
He gave me a knife. All right, who's next? What do you. It's just chopped up veggies with some meat.
What is it? Lamb. Lamb. Lamb.
It's lamb.
Looks great. Thank you. That's a lot of grease. I love it.
How much is it?
Thank you. That was really fun. The guys remembered us from last night when we came and were almost in tears because they were close.
Nice to meet you. See you tomorrow. Good night.
So they invited me in the kitchen. I was chopping stuff Up. I got to see all the spices that they're using. These look amazing.
That is fantastic. They took the bread, they cut it in half, and they hung it over the grill so it's nice and toasty. And then the meat has these flavors, spices in it. It's like the tastiest lamb I've ever had. And of course, grilled vegetables are one of my favorite foods in the world all together. Oh, my gosh.
Oh, my gosh. It's so good.
All right, now we're going to eat these on our way to the ferry to take us to Asia.
You can buy a stone boom card from this menu.
Yes. Okay. Please take your card and co from return tray below.
Wow. So many coins. We hit the jackpot. Oh, my goodness. I got to buy another one. It's leaving. One more. One more. Oh, I'm so bad. Okay, this one.
One pass ticket sales menu.
Just give it to us. Come on, come on, come on, let's go.
We're going to make it.
We're going to make it. We're going to make it. We're going to make it.
Don't leave us.
We made.
We were having trouble figuring out how to use the ticketing machine, and, like, everybody was getting on the ferry and we were about to miss it. I have no clue how often these run. There could have been another one in, like, five minutes, but it also could have been an hour on the same page there. All right, we're going to Asia.
How crazy is it that you could go to another continent for just a dollar? Like a little over US$1 to go to Asia? It's worth it just for this nice, cool breeze on this boat. Feels amazing. Welcome to Asia.
So the reason that we wanted to come to the Asian side of Istanbul today is because there's this big local market that happens every Tuesday, and we thought it would be really cool to come check out. The problem is when you start searching for it in English on the Internet, there's not a lot of information about where it's actually located. So we have the name of a street in Google Maps, and we're just walking in that direction.
Been walking for about 30 minutes now, and we are currently in the spot that we were walking to on Google Maps. It's a construction zone.
No signs of a local Tuesday market. Like, zero signs.
Okay.
So you speak English? English.
We're looking for a market. Market. Market.
So I think we're heading in the right direction. We've asked two locals who said they didn't speak English, but Then after I asked them where the market was, they both pointed in the same direction, so I think we're getting close.
What just happened?
We're still lost. And I just got pooped on by a seagull.
And all over the camera. I guess it could have been worse. It could have gone on my shirt. Oh, it just feels so gross. I can't get this off.
The craziest thing about this situation is I just happen to have germ eggs in my purse. And out of nowhere, I decided to keep the napkins from lunch and put them in my backpack. I don't know. Why don't you quit talking about it.
And give them to me?
They're not in my pocket. And quit touching me with your poopy hands.
All right, hands are clean. The hunt for the market continues.
One more reason I hate birds.
That was, like, your worst nightmare.
At least it wasn't a pigeon. They're the worst.
I think seagull's poop is a lot bigger. Yeah.
Go ahead.
Thank you. According to that super nice family, we are going in the right direction, and we have about four or five more minutes. Then he said a bunch of street signs I should be looking out for, but I didn't understand any of them, so that doesn't really help me much. But I feel good that he knew what we were talking about.
Okay, just a little update. We found a young guy who spoke pretty good English, and I think we finally got across what we were looking for. I'm not positive, but I think there's a chance that everybody else that we talked to may have just been pointing us to the nearest grocery store, which just all happened to be in the same direction. So now we're. We've changed course, and I think we're going to the right place.
He seemed pretty confident.
We're a good, like, hour at least into this walk right now.
It has been very interesting, though, because we're away from the coast where all the boats come in, so there haven't been any tourists, and we're just getting to see what life is like in Asian Istanbul right now.
That's right. It's been a nice walk.
Yeah, the kid was right. This looks super markety. I think we found it.
Sam.
I.
YouTube. YouTube.
This is the largest loaf of bread I've ever seen.
Thank you.
This has quickly turned into one of my favorite markets ever. First of all, it's massive. It's like a really local version of the Grand Bazaar. Everything is so cheap. We got these earrings for three lira, which is less than a dollar. Everybody is so nice and very accepting of the camera. A guy just waved us over to smell some of his spices, and then he wanted us to take his picture. It's the coolest. They have everything. Clothes, jewelry, shoes, vegetables, watches, sunglasses. I mean, everything. And there's hardly any tourists. It's great.
Is this. Is it like bread?
I don't know English name, just Turkish name.
Thank you very much.
All right, we are leaving the market, and we're gonna try to find our way back to Europe. Hopefully, it won't take quite as long as it took us to find it.
It's a good thing we found it when we did, because we closed them down. Everybody's packing up now. It's only. Oh, wow.
It's almost five, almost six.
Oh, I haven't changed my watch.
Wow. All of this is the market that we just walked through.
