Turkish Mahjongg?

After dinner, our tour guide and I went to wash down our meatball dinner with ... no, not the anise-flavored raki (strong hard alcohol with the scent of anise), but instead the strong tea that I've bee talking about ... at 3,5 Lira, it's not cheap (about $2.50) but it's one way to pass the time away.

And if you have a group of four people, you can have an affordable wa of passing the hours with friends ... playing Turkish mahjongg, with the same sort of tiles and racks as mahjongg. Of coures the numbers are written normally and not in Chinese, but the meaning is still the same ...

Here's a description -- check out the photo. Is this mahjongg or what? And the name, okey, pronounced "okay."

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Okey

Ortakoy: first port on the Bosphorous

Just north of central Istanbul is a port of calling known as Ortakoy. Here you can find a number of restaurants and cafes serving fish and also the Radisson SAS hotel. Far from the city center (maybe an hour in heavy traffic), it looks out over the Bosphorous strait and also the Golden-Gate style bridge that connects the "European" and "Asian" parts of Istanbul.

As you can sense it feels European but still yet the mosque does not feel that so out of place.

I walked inside to visit it and at the entrance took off my shoes as if entering a Japanese house. Near the entrance are lockers to place your shoes and in the center of the mosque is a carpeted area not unlike the tatami-grass mat tiles on the interior of many Japanese shrines. But what was most impressive was the silence in the center of the mosque. No organ playing, no chanting, just people looking up at the walls with the Arabic characters, or the crystal chandeliers dangling from the ceiling, or the ornate decorations on the ceiling ... quite a holy silent place, so much so that I declined to take a photo inside that space.

Oh, and the women and men worship in different places, the women on the second floor, secluded from the men who worship on the main level. This part I can't say that I approve of, but it's the way of worship at this mosque and so I can do nothing but accept it.

For dinner, I ate kofte meatballs with the guide and we talked about some aspects of Turkish life. Meanwhile, the other French members of the group ate fish for dinner (and had wine, of course) in a restaurant near the pier. I enjoyed my time tremendously and ate my kofte hamburger meat balls (actually flat slabs of meat) with the Turkish equivalent of harissa sauce! And to the side dish of white beans and salad I added the Turkish triumvirate of lemon, vinegar and olive oil. Yummy!

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LINK:

Ortakoy Mosque
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ortak%C3%B6y_Mosque

Sultanahmet Koftecisi restaurant
http://www.sultanahmetkoftecisi.com.tr/

Day 2 and Day 3

These two days passed by very quickly. In the morning we've had classes and in the afternoons, two trips to various Turkish organizations. Yesterday (Day 2), we visited a company affiliated with the Sabanci Group (one of the biggest conglomerates in Turkey -- see the home page at the link below and, mind you, the ever so kind sponsors here during our stay at the Sabanci University) that makes polyester and nylon fibers which are used in -- get this -- tires!

Apparently amidst all the steel and the rubber used in tires, there are durable fibers that need to allow the tire some flexible while it's out on the road. You never notice this sort of thing, but I mean, how many of us pull apart tires to see what's inside?

As it was a guided visit, they took our passports and asked us not to use our mobile phones and digital cameras during the tour (and of course being dutiful French citizens we all complied.) Originally a joint venture with American chemical company DuPont the group now manufactures chemical-based products for the Big 5 major tire manufacturers among which number Michelin, Goodyear, Bridgestone and so on ....

Today (Day 3) we visited a small/medium-size enterprise support organization, KOGSEB (http://www.kosgeb.gov.tr/) which extends loans to local manufacturing companies and which also helps them find channels with which to export their goods. They also help these companies advertise their goods on the web through a sort of online bazaar where interested parties can see what the sell and how to contact the distributor.

However, these trips were one hour from the school in either direction and after both of these all of us were just so tired! Even though we're not doing a lot of work physically, spenidng a lot of time in the bus does take its toll after a while.

In the school we have guest lectures by academics and businessmen and they are really quite interesting. Yesterday was a discussion about Turkey's economic performance, which is comparable to or even better than some of the other members of the EU. Today was the perspective from a Turkish citizen who emigrated to the US, hit the hight-tech boom in the early 80s and 90s and who has now returned to Turkey to be an "angel investor," or a venture capitalist (VC) who takes an interest in fledgling companies not only financially but also with the intent of sharing his or her expertise gained from years of experience in that particular field or industry. Heady stuff, and encouraging to hear that Turkish expatriates remain optimistic about their country's future. And plus, while everybody's attention is fixated on the Far East, this remains, in the words of the VC, "one of the better kept secrets." Of course investing in Turkey is not without its risks but I've come away after these few days with a certain optimism about its future place in the European Union whether politically or economically.

More telling than anything is the Turks' own bewilderment that they are seen as non-Europeans. At least in Istanbul the feeling is just as it might be in Eastern Europe ... and much cleaner than France ..!

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LINK:

Small and Medium Enterprise (SME) Promotion -- KOSGEB
http://www.kosgeb.gov.tr/
(only in Turkish)

The Sabanci group of companies -- they have everything!
http://www.sabanci.com/En/grup_baskanliklari.asp

Cay (CHAI), or Strong Turkish Tea

NO doubt you've heard the term "Turkish Coffee," where the coffee grinds are put in direct contact with a volume of water, before drinking, resulting in (so I've heard) a bitter cup of joe.

But what a surprise! Tea the color of coffee. There really is something to be said about the tea they brew here, it truly is "black," as they sometimes translate it in English. (Compare this deep color to the light red colors that you sometimes see in other English teas, or the much finer shades of brown or green that you find in China or Japan.)

The word itself, too, is Cai, pronounced "chai," apparently the same word that is used in Kenya, India, China and Japan. How funny the word for tea has travelled across such distances!

It's served dark next to hot water, and you dilute it to your level of comfort. For those of you not immune to caffeine, I suggest you fill up only half a cup or even less, then fill the rest with hot water. It's powerful stuff, but refreshing.

By the way, the cookies here in the photo are interesting. Most are bland, almost bread-like, but the green one here is interesting. It's a soft, chewy coconut garnished with (I think) pistachios.

Day 2: Postscript / Desserts along the Shopping Street

While setting out along the main shopping street (I actually was there not looking to shop, but rather to find the post office located on a side street along the way), I passed by two desserts shops, one with racks of lovely desserts, another with helva, the light almond? hazelnut nougatlike dessert.

Day 2: Downtown Istanbul: European architecture?





For those of you, expecting a land of mosques and nothing else: well throw your impressions out the door, on the western side of Istanbul (the "European" side) the architecture could be taken somewhere out of Eastern Europe. In fact, some of these shots here reminded me of my time in Prague.


I'm running out of time to write commentary on these photos (it's almost midnight here, while a rock band rages, jamming away in the ampitheatre outside our dormitory), so I will let you be the judge.

One thing: like Paris, with its narrow passageways, here the architecture is similar: a European facade, and then once inside, cavernous passageways with wall-to-wall shops.


PS I apologize for the sideways photos, I have no time to edit and rotate these photos at this time. Please bear with me and turn your head sideways to see the photo. Promise it'll be worth it!



PPS Bonus: Dog on the main shopping street (Istiklal street in Beyoglu district, just below Taksim, the business district)where I was walking.

Blogging Tip #389: Shoot photos at a lower resolution (Duh! Common Sense!)

For so long I've been blogging using my mobile phone camera, since I can send the photos I take immediately to a mail address and can upload the photo without editing it for size.

Normally if you take a photo at 3 megapixels, you will first have to downgrade the resolution to something more mangeable, otherwise the upload times to the blog are unmanageable.

However, my camera has a "simple mode" (beauty of the LUMIX camera -- yes, this is a plug for that camera!) which has only three settings, including resolution size. I downgrade the photo quality on this for the photos that I am taking only as memoirs ... the way I used to take snapshots of certain things just as a record and not because I was planning to develop them.

I read somewhere in the newspaper that more and more people are doing this sort of thing, preferring to take photos of lower quality which they will never decide to develop prints of. Even then at this resolution a photo taken at this level (approximately 1 megapixel) fills my screen. More than enough, especially for the blog or when sending via e-mail to friends and family ... you be the judge.

Mosques and Minarets

Driving in from Istanbul airport, from the highway we could pick out the mosques nestled among the red-roofed houses. With their minaret towers, two spokes pointing up towards the heavens, they stood out amongst the three or four-story houses surrounding them.

When I pointed out to one of the teachers chaperoning our group that it was odd to see mosques spaced out at such close intervals, he replied, well, think about back in Lyon: we have churches every where, spread out at the same distance, we just never notice it because we're in the midst of it.

But really! these minarets are terrific. Apparently the grand Blue Mosque over in the old quarter of Istanbul (Sultanahmet area), which we will visit on Friday afternoon, has not two, but six such minarets. Can't wait to be overwhelmed!


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LINKS:


Minarets (Wikipedia)
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Minaret


Mosques (Wikipedia)
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mosques

Turkey: Day 1 / Three hours from Lyon, and in another world? Not quite.

Funny that in the West, when we talk about going into Muslim countries we often speak with preconceived notions of how such countries should be. Me. even having been to Morocco, I had my own ideas about what Turkey might be like, but over all, so far I've been pleasantly surprised.

Monday: 12:00 Noon. Twenty-two French and one non-French gather at Lyon St-Exupery airport for the trip to Istanbul. The airplane is a well-used (but maybe not second-hand) Boeing 737-400, long-haul type that Southwest or discount airlines prefer to use for fuel-efficiency. But definitely not for comfort. I normally always sit in the aisle seat, but due to my lack of caution, ended up in the middle seat of three: halfway through the trip I opted out and found an empty seat in the last row of the aircraft. The seat didn't reclined but at least I had leg room and space to breathe. It's been so long since I was in the middle seat!

The service on Turkish Airlines, incidentally, was not bad, a little bit rough and curt but nothing out of the ordinary. Duty-free made a quick pass down the aisle (not stopping for anyone!). Meal was a chicken dish, lemon tart, salad and a block of cheese. Too bad, since I had packed myself a toasted brie sandwich, preferring not to pay the inflated prices at the airport ...

The flight to Turkey lasted three hours -- surprising since I had had the impression that it was an intra-Europe flight ... but when I checked the mileage (1200 miles) ... it made more sense. (Yes, Dad, credited it to American AA Advantage, hope it takes!)

Ataturk (named after the "Father Turk" (= Ataturk) who founded the country) airport is a modern airport set up almost like Munich, with long flat terminals but laid out such that everything is on one level. Pretty efficient.

The French citizens got through passport control without a visa, but, moi, I was obliged to fork out $20 for a visa stamp, a small seal that gets stuck on a blank page in the passport. Talk about blatant robbery! Raking in the foreign currency reserves! No, just kidding. It's just one of those things, those costs of traveling you accept. If you're ready for it, it's not shocking. It's something else for those who arrive there asking "What's this charge for?"

Weather, you ask? Hot and muggy. 30C, or about 80F. Fortunately not as bad as what summer might be like, but not too bearable without air conditioning. The minibus we rode to the campus (about an hour's drive from central Istanbul) was only barely enough for us, and, with all our large suitcases, for a moment it seemed like we were destined to set the oversized bags on the roof .... but we made it all right.

We're being housed in a hotel-like wing of the Executive Education section, with private bathroom, impeccably clean and quiet (no TV or mini-bar in the room).

Meals are in the student center just across the path, which has dining facilities along with a bank, travel agency, computer shop, and supermarket inside. Given that most of the students have to live on campus here (we are one hour from central Istanbul and it's simply not possible to commute) it makes sense to have all the conveniences in one place ....

Meal on the first night: lamb chops, rice balls wrapped in fig leafs, and two different kinds of cold and hot vegetable dishes. For dessert, some kind of cake-like dessert and then some plums? apples? mountain apples? along with strawberries.

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LINKS

Ataturk Airport:

http://www.ataturkairport.com/eng/index.php

Sabanci University

http://www.sabanciuniv.edu/eng/

(Language of instruction = English!)

Akbank Bank

http://www.akbank.com/

(It's all in Turkish, I can't read it, but you should check it out if you're curious what Turkish looks like. Reminds me of the Czech in Praha that I had no idea what it meant ....)

Three weeks without a post!

Sorry about not posting these past few weeks. School has been going all right and not that overly busy, but have been finding it hard to sit down for a few hours and write to the blog. It's not really a problem of time: there is always enough free time if one sets out to find a free minute or two, but to feel settled, feel unencumbered enough to set aside a few hours to write or be "creative" --- well, that's something completely different ...

I've had to prepare CVs, sit through lectures ad nauseum, start searching for jobs ... but never feeling like I've spent enough time on any of these. Hence the sort of "paralysis" that's kept me from writing.

But now that I'm in Turkey, watch our for the posts, here they come!

No riots, per se, but random acts of vandalism following Sarkozy's election



In a previous entry, I noted the acts of vandalism and gatherings in Place Bellecour. Well, as it turns out, some of the rabblerousers headed uptown towards Hotel de Ville and sprayed hideous graffiti on a local shoe store (vicious epithets against Sarkozy, and also decrying the "waste of electricity that the shoe store was engendering by keeping its lights on all night").

More shockingly, on the day that I left for Marseille, I was shocked to find in the middle of the road, the recycling silo (filled with empty glass bottles) overturned and in the middle of the road. There it was, emptied of its bottles (read: projectiles for use against the police), and dumped unceremoniously in the middle of the streets.

Further down, near Lyon Part-Dieu station, where I was to catch my TGV train, a wastebacket, melted after being burnt.

Blair gets in on the act: Message for Sarkozy

Even outgoing prime minister Tony Blair sent a message, in French, no less to Sarkozy, after his victory in the elections.

He speaks very well during the video although it's possible he's memorized the speech or is reading (very discreetly from a teleprompter). His rhythm sounds good but in some spots he just sounds funny. Listen for the "aujourd'hui" which French pronounce as "oh-jer-di" but he somehow pronounces as "oh-jer-dwee."

Anyhow, enjoy.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=P6Cu9187tCY

CHEESE / Ossau Iraty -- What the Heck?

The other night, at my friend's house, I had a cheese called Ossau Iraty. Didn't even sound remotely French, so I was surprised to hear that he'd chosen it from the cheese selection at a supermarket near my house.

It turns out that this cheese is actually from the Pyrenees area and is made from brebis, or sheep's milk, which imparts to it a delicate taste much different from goat cheese. In fact, what struck me about the aged cheese was its similarity to the sharpness of aged parmesan cheese.

What a great combination it was! and so, of course, I went to buy some at Carrefour. Not cheap (14,50 EUR/kilogram or about $10 a pound), but if you slice it really, really thin a little bit goes a long way.

The interesting thing about this (besides the name, which suggest Basque origin, since the area i very close to the border with Spain), is that you can drink both white OR red wines with this cheese. Or at least, that's what they say in the guidebooks.

For more info: (LINK)

http://www.fromages.com/cheese_library_detail.php?id_fromage=59

http://www.worldsfoods.com/view.asp?prod_ID=2968

Street Cleaning in the Morning

Despite what the old French chanson describe romantically about the street sweepers cleaning the sidewalks in the morning as France (Paris) wakes up, there is nothing glorious or low-tech these days for the street cleaning crew. Sharp, high-powered blasts of water scrape off the dirt and grime (and doggy droppings) from the sidewalk and wash them away into the gutters.

It was really funny though. Some French are so stubborn, even though they know that the guy there is spraying away, will insist on walking in front of him (instead of walking on the street or changing sides to walk on) and force the guy to divert the sharp spray. And then they look surprised when after he resumes his cleaning some of the spray strikes them!

MACARON / Tricolore

I had gone to Place Bellecour, in the center of town, incidentally to see the damage, but more importantly to catch a glimpse of these macarons (meringue-based cookies) done in the colors of the French national flag (sometimes referred to as tricolore). As those of you who have tried Dalloyau or Laduree macarons before, you might know that these light, crispy meringue cookies come in yellows, pinks (strawberry or raspberry), chocolate or even purple (cassis), but it's not everday you see blue macarons.

From what I understand they were selling these until the end of the elections, which finished yesterday. So I was lucky to get this last shot off before they removed it from the shop window!

Elections: Sarkozy victorious, but the aftermath ...

Yesterday, voter turnout was high in the elections and the scene in each quarter was similar to what you see here. Rooms were set up inside the mairie, or town hall in each arrondissement, where people voted for the two candidates. Unlike in the US or in Japan, no data from exit polls was allowed to be broadcast until polls closed at 8:00 p.m., meaning that the only data made available to news services was the voter turnout, which even at 6 p.m. was being reported to be at record levels.

At 8 p.m., early returns and the results of polls confirmed that Sarkozy had defeated Royal by an estimated 53% to 47%. It was in response to this result that some minor rioting took place not only in Paris but even here in Lyon.

I was up until about midnight last night and I heard crowds of protesters chanting in the distance and the din of police sirens went on for some time. In my area, only shop windows were broken. Apparently in the center of town, demonstrators burnt things and broke windows and challenged the police, who resorted to tear gas midway through the demonstrations.

** Never once during the night did I feel unsafe, no matter what kind of stories you might've seen on the TV. After all, I do live on the upper floors of an apartment building, in a residential area. One time it's good to live away from the city center ...

The result, as you can see, were windows broken in several places, not all shops, but the ones that were convenient targets.

My colleague who lives right near Place Bellecour in the center of Lyon, sent me a link to some of the chaos that overtook Place Bellecour. Apparently he and some friends had just gone out to get some ice cream, when the rioting got out of control and the police sent tear gas grenades into the air. Be amazed at the footage!

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LINKS:

http://www.dailymotion.com/relevance/search/bellecour%2Bsarkozy/video/x1x0i4_arrestation-a-lyon-6-mai-2007

http://www.dailymotion.com/relevance/search/bellecour%2Bsarkozy/video/x1wxnj_manif-6-mai-lyon

Stage 2 of the Elections; One Week to Go (Next Elections: 6 May)

Here are some of the posters for the two candidates running in the second round of the elections, but as you can see, the posters have been defaced already and, in fact, since these photos were taken, even shredded in the middle. Royal for her part is dismissed as a political lightweight or a Blair-type Socialist who is betraying her traditional left-wing base; Sarkozy is accused of being a polarizing figure who panders to the extreme right.

Funny then, watching the coverage on TV over the last few days, where both of them have called large Republican/Democrat-styled conventions in large arenas such as Bercy, in Paris, and asked for testimonials from celebrities, musicians, and so on to demonstrate just how "inclusive" they really are. Sarkozy himself had admitted as much, that he would run to the right to co-opt the extremist platform of LePen, then run towards the center in the second stage of the election.

With one week left, there is little of substance left in this election, save for the crucial debate on 2 May, during (unfortunately) the Champions League soccer match between Manchester United and AC Milan. In a recent debate with Francois Bayrou, the "third" candidate, Royal sounded more convincing and at ease with figures than in her earlier months. It should make for a lively debate this Wednesday, but it's hard to guess whom France will choose come this Sunday.

====

• PS The photos above have not been retouched, the graffiti on the posters was already there when photos were taken. I do not personally in anyway approve of such defacings, and am simply recording what I saw.
• PPS, I've just realized this, but if any of you have thought that you've seen Royal's posters before, they're done in the style of the artist Barbara Krueger. I recommend you see the artwork here, on the artist's official site. Whether she did the posters or not, or whether the similarities with her style were intended or not, I'm not sure.
• LINK: (highly recommended: the similarities are stunning!)
• http://www.barbarakruger.com/art.shtml

Shopping before the May Day Holiday

With nothing open on May Day (1 May) and the TCL metro and buses not running, yesterday I made sure to stock up with goods for at least another couple of days. While at Carrefour though I also picked up some unusual items, which I show here in the photos.

Carrefour is running their "50% points back promotion," which offers you 50% back of the price back in points which you get back in the form of a voucher. So if you buy something (as I did) for 1,22 EUR (4 cans of lentils) you get 0,61 EUR credited. Almost all of these products listed here were thus essentially half-price. In the left photo, canned lentils, chocolate with bits of orange peel in it, dark chocolate with a coulis (sauce) of caramel inside; on the right, salted butter caramels in the black box (not discounted, unfortunately), Saint Agur cheese (blue cheese with parsley in it), well-aged Camembert with Calvados-scented flakes on top, and white asparagus (not discounted).

After Carrefour, I also made a stop in the Chinatown section of Lyon near Guillotiere metro stop, for soy sauce. With Kikkoman running close to 5 EUR ($6) a bottle, I decided to go with the large bottle of Chinese soy sauce costing only 1 EUR. Across the street, on the "Arab" side of the area I picked up desserts: Turkish delight (or something like it); the old standard makroud; and then deep fried samosa-shaped triangles filled with almonds, close to baklava in taste. I had these after dinner with mint tea, and they went very well together.

Finally, on the way back, I stopped by for bread to go with the camembert and blue cheeses, but what a mistake! With the shops closing at 7pm, everyone was doing their last-minute shopping at the Monoprix. I waited for twenty minutes in a line that stretched 15 customers deep just to buy a loaf of bread. What patience these French have! But at least I have bread today to eat with the vegetable soup I made yesterday ...

Another week of classes -- passing by in a blur!

Last week I had a full week of classes, starting out with a bruising three-day seminar on Key Account Management, which dealt with how some firms retain particular, "key" clients by providing a higher level of service to them and finding out "entreprise solutions" that "create value." All of it seemed quite logical, but so much of it got theoretical (terms like KAMs and GAMS (Global Account Managers) were being thrown about) that by the end all of us were exhausted and (sad to say) not paying that much attention to the lecturer, a former salesman turned KAM advocate now living in Bordeaux.

After these three grueling days, a number of us (oh -- and by this, I mean, the half of the EM Lyon class that has remained here not going on exchanges, in addition to a large HEC-Montreal contingent of about six and six other students from Spanish MBA programs) endured another two days of "creativity in organizations." Some of the games we were introduced to were like IQ games or riddles; it was difficult to see how this would be implemented in an organization, and more than a couple students asked how the techniques we learned -- brainstorming, deBono's "Six Hats," or Concassage -- might work in a large, conservative organization. By the end of the presentation, our lecturer became extremely agitated and began challenging people instead of encouraging them to open up: the usually vocal Canadian contingent shut up and (despite some of my efforts to keep the discussion alive) the class ended thirty minutes early, the professor so nervous at the end that he kept taking a swig from his water bottle, fiddling with the cap, taking a gulp of water and then screwing it back. An ugly scene, if you know what I mean.

That evening we all got together for the first time in Lyon. Past midnight we headed over to the boat bars that I wrote about earlier, the barges docked in the Rhone river that serve as late-night dance clubs (think: since you're not in the middle of the city, you can make all the noise you want, until the wee hours).

This coming week of classes should be a little better. Finance-based courses taught by a EM-Lyon based professor: that always helps.