The Asian Side

A few days ago Ari and I woke up excited for a relaxing day at Prince's Islands (chain of islands off of the main land of Istanbul). We packed our bathing suits and towels, and headed for the ferry terminal. I led the way through a pack of tourists and felt "local" as I bypassed the line to buy tickets and used my transportation card at the turnstile. Ari followed me, surely impressed by my ease in navigating us around. However, after the boat took off ten minutes early, we realized we were on the wrong boat. The boat was heading towards the Asian side of Istanbul...

Instead of spending the day on the beach sun bathing, we walked around the Asian side. Most of the time we were lost since we didn't bring a map with us and couldn't find a map anywhere. I hardly took any pictures for this very reason. I was busy trying to figure out where we were going and did not pay much attention to where we were.

We visited a number of mosques and markets.

The mosques on the Asian side looked like the mosques on the European side, except there were no tourists visiting them and people were praying in them.

Mosque on the Asian side

The markets on the Asian side were similar to the markets on the European side, but they were less touristy, cheaper, and felt more authentic (probably because tourists don't usually go to the Asian side and prices aren't inflated in places where there are no tourists (duh)). 

There were a number of different fruit and vegetable markets, as well as a few antique markets.

The antique markets were really fun to shop at. There were really fancy antique stores with lots of furniture and decorations like chairs, gold clocks, and chandelliers, as well as really cheap antique stores with a whole lot of junk like old lunch boxes, lighters, and prescription glasses.

Two "Fancy" Antique Stores

After we shopped a bit, we had lunch and went home. Although we did not expect to go to the Asian side, it was really interesting and quite nice to see a part of Turkey that most tourists don't see and to experience a Turkey that is a bit less influenced by Europe. 

There were many things about the Asian side that felt different from the European side for me. Many more women wore headscarves and many more people prayed. The streets were wider and there was less congestion of people buying things from other people and people selling things to other people. The Asian side also seemed poorer. My guidebook was sure to tell me that this is not true, but from what I could tell, while there are a number of very wealthy people who have summer homes on the Bosphorus, the vast majority of people are not rich and will probably never be rich. 

The feeling I got on the Asian side was a totally different feel than I have being on the European side. For me, Istanbul indeed seems split socioeconomically and particularly religiously between East and West.