Nasty Magazines from Greece

You like that, bitch? The unintentionally funny cover of a pulp erotic novel I saw at a kiosk in Thessaloniki. I wonder why the publishers choose an innocent, cute hedgehog as their mascot?

Freemasons Rule the World

The silent entrance of the Freemasons' lodge near Asmalimescit, Taksim. Like their counterparts in every other country, bullshit conspiracy theorists generate a lot of confusing slander about the Freemasons in Turkey.

An Ophisaur

A friendly Eurasian glass snake (Ophisaurus apodus) I'd kept as a pet. As you can see from here, these creatures look superficially like snakes, but possess a very un-snake-like rigidity, almost like the hose of a vacuum cleaner. This is due to the presence of armor plates under their skin.

Furthermore they have external ears, something which no snake is lucky to have. I bought this ophisaur from one of the horrible petshops near my house, and rehabilitated it for a few weeks before releasing it to the wild on the plains outside my city. For more on ophisaurs, (or Scheltopusiks, as they are better known,) read this article on Wikipedia.

A Dirty Trick

Nope, it's not what you think it is. Just put your heels together and hold the camera as to clip off the edges. The results, as you can see here, are remarkably similar to close ups of a transvestite's private parts.

Haydarpasa

The Haydarpasa railroad station in Kadikoy, one of the Asian districts of Istanbul. From here you can take a train and go to Ankara or Eskisehir, as well as more outlandish destinations such as Van, Baghdad, Damascus and Tehran.

Built by the Germans during their quasi-imperial "alliance" with the Ottomans in 1906, this building is the only train station that is surrounded on three sides by water. Many people from inland Anatolia get their first glimpse of the sea at this place.

You can see the German-made clock set in the facade, as well as one of the station's earliest steam locomotives in the foreground.

Octopus Delight

Softly grilled octopus, probably my favorite food on the entire planet. Once every year, I go to a seashore restaurant in Bodrum and tell them to prepare an entire octopus for me. I eat every arm individually, plus I have the thing's head filled with calamari rings and rice, and eat that too!

At the end of the night, I leave the table as distended as the restaurant owners' pockets.

At the Weavers' Bazaar

The Sepetçiler Kasrı (translated as Basket Weavers' Bazaar?) on the shores of the Golden Horn has been reincarnated as a concert venue.

I know my posts have been getting a little lazy these days, but hang on. Soon enough, you'll be drowned in an orgy of new posts... Just let me finish choosing and re-sizing the images!