Vantage Point

Tonight, Ekin called and asked if I was interested in seeing a movie called "Vantage Point" and since I saw very interesting previews about that movie, I said yes. By the way, that movie comes out on April, 11th in Turkey.
So we went, with Ekin and Senem in this very small theater beneath a building in our neighborhood upon the invitation of Columbia Pictures.
The result is that despite the very interesting ideas and the movie concept, the story falls flat after a short while and we witness another Hollywood-like movie where the American president the hero. Too many clichés in this movie that could have been a very good thriller.

Teknosohbet Day 04

After having breakfast in Besiktas with Engin and Reyhan, I went to Meydan, a open air mall on the Asian side to do some questions asking about Sony (again!) in front of the Mediamarkt store.
I met with Timur there and spent about 2 hours there. I then met Ekin with her dad and we went to visit Ekin's brother's (Umut) new house (still under construction but almost done).
At night I decided to go to the office (at teknosohbet) to see how the editing was going since the deadline is tomorrow and we have a lot of footage. Murat is doing a great job since he's not an editor. They're looking for one by the way, If you know anyone.

Miss Pizza

Tonight we went to Miss Pizza, in the Cihangir (Djihangir) district with some friends (Engin & Reyhan, and Ceylan). Big night tonight, there was a derby soccer game between two of the three Turkish team : Besiktas and Fenerbahçe. Fenerbahçe won 2-1.









Before going into Miss Pizza (one of the best pizza place in Istanbul) I saw this little composition standing there on a wall. A sandwich, an empty bottle of wine and a 'waffle'. Interesting...









Then, when we came out Engin and Ekin wanted to pose in front of them so yu can admire them at will now.


















On the way to the car we saw this funny board with this writing meaning : 'We do modern circumcision'. Whatever they mean by 'modern'. In the circle, it says 'Cihangir Health' with a 'k' next to it. Zhat is the 'k' for ? I thing it might stand for 'klinik's 'k' but who knows ?

Teknosohbet Day 03

3rd day in a row, I'm on fire ! Today we were on the Asian side to ask those same questions about Sony. while going there I saw this real estate agency's street Board called Perek Emlak (Perek Real e. a.) and misread it, I thought it said Emre Parlak, which is a friend of mine. Yeah I know, but remember I'm working my 3rd consecutive day.









Then I sat in a cafe to have a tea and the shop next door was a pharmacy but its front window looked more like ad billboard. The guy even put ads on the ground.











We first went in front of a TeknoSA (BestBuy wannabe store), but the guys from the store told us that we weren't allowed to do that there. At which we replied that we were in the street and that we could do whatever we wanted but just to be clear we called Timur (one of the host of the show), who called the Head manager of all the TeknoSA Company and 10 minutes later, the guys came from the store telling us that we could even shoot inside if we wanted too.

Oh and I saw this nice street art on a wall on the main Street.

Teknosohbet Day

I've been working all day long and if you noticed two days in a row, I'm not used to that.
Google/Turkcell press conference this morning :









Ericsson press conference this afternoon :








Then we spent all afternoon in the street asking people questions about Sony products and that's when we met Klif, crazy funny guy from the States. As he told us, he loves Turkey and Turkish people, he wants all Turkish people to be his friend, he asked us to give his email, aim/msn nicks, facebook name and website on the show. He also told us having more than 400 friends on msn. The guy is very friendly but he made me think of Jim Carrey in The Cable Guy. A bit creepy.





On the way back to the office, I spotted this little sticker made by this anonymous artist who also does stencils of this little fly everywhere, mainly in Cihangir. It represent the commercial image of the Bonus Credit Card given by the bank 'Garanti'. You can an old ad here, or pictures here and here. I actually, mainly took this picture for my friend N. and for his website Skulladay.

Teknosohbet.tv

Timur has gone wild

Youtube is back

After 3 weeks fo being blocked, youtube is working again in Turkey.

Hairdressing Day

Before

After

Well I forgot to take a picture... just take a look at the next days, you'll probably find an awesome picture of me.

Oreo & Family

Every day, Oreo's brothers and sisters come by the kitchen window, but there is one coming more than the others : his sister. Their coat aside they look very similar, meow the same way. I wish we'd taken her too at the time.

I thought I saw a pussycat

Every time we open the windows I noticed that Oreo always went to the same window, and here is the reason why. I wonder when he's going to take the big jump.

Turkish Style window

I'm guessing that this family preffered having a smaller window in their kitchen, but did they have to do that ugly sttuf instead.

Full HD ? HD Ready ?

Teknosohbet.tv day today. We went out to ask people questions about Full HD, HD Ready and Blu-Ray. On the way to the office I saw this cafe place where the guy had all of those ads for Digiturk inside. Digiturk being a satelite televesion provider.

at night, with Ekin and Serhat we went to this new neighborhood near ours in Besiktas that recently opened. The all district was under renovation and has open recently. İt has become a fancy and wealthy place with luxuruous stores and expensive condos. As we were taking picture, a guy from a security company told us that taking pictures was forbidden. Ahhh money, you can buy evrything with it. We took pictures anyway, since this is a public street, I don't see how they can forbid people from taking pictures. That's insane.

Kocani Orchestra

Tonight I worked at teknosohbet.tv and afterward I joined Ekin, Serhat and Selda to a nearby bar called Roxy where they have live concerts. Tonight the Kotchanee (Koçani) Orchestra was playing. It was really great. It's a brass band playing music from the Balkans like the one played by tzigans. If you like Emir Kusturica's movies and the music in them (by Goran Bregovitch), you'll like the Koçani Orkestra.

Serhat is still here

We went to see the new mall center in Istinye,called Istiniye park. Serhat being an architect, he was really looking froward seeing this new place. Everytime he comes to Turkey, there is a new mall opening. Last time it was Kanyon mall center in Levent.













after only half an hour we went back home and played with Oreo.









Then went out to meet with some friends and Ekin.









Ekin went to Yoga with Meltem and when they came out, we found out that someone had ran into Meltem's car. The ying and the Yang ...

Serhat is here

Serhat is visiting from Germany.

Jake's Bday

Happy Birthday Jake.

Tonight : Restaurant

Abdul came from France, we all went together to a restaurant (Porte, pronounce 'portay'. it's a music 'tab') in Cihangir. Kamil was here too, visiting from Ireland.

Teknosohbet

Teknosohbet.tv day again. We mainly talked about the blocking of Youtube in Turkey. So you know now that I can't watch youtube anymore. Well I can, of course but it's not that easy. You have to change proxies and stuff. So I use alternative websites.

Vive la Democracie !!!

Kartalkaya

Yesterday and today, we went to Kartalkaya, a ski resort between Istanbul and Ankara. It took us 3 and a half hour by bus to get there. The weather was really nice. I really like snowboard, it was a lot of fun and we were a lot of friends. It's not a great ski resort but it was still great.








More pictures here.

Star Wars Teknosohbet

Today was a special Star Wars Day on Teknosohbet.tv. Serdar being a big Star Wars fan. As you can see we even talked about the headscarf problems.

Black Sea Trip

Today we decided to go to the Black Sea at the entrance (or exit) of the Bosphorus, up North. It was a beautiful day. We brought Engin, Reyhan and Deniz along. It's very close to Istanbul. It takes 35-45 minutes when there isn't too much traffic, it's at about 40 km from the city center.

































































M. Deniz is thinking by the seaside. By the way, in Turkish 'Deniz' means 'the sea'.







M. Engin is as silly as ever. Pretending to climb the ground.


































After thinking for 40 minutes, we finally decided to eat at yüzevler restaurant in Etiler. A nice and fancy Kebap place.