I found this giant scarab beetle outside my house last week, shortly after a freak summer rain.
This was not the first time I'd found horned scarabs outside my garden, but this particular beetle was probably the largest I've ever seen.
So heavy! The giant scarab compared to my hand. I think this is something of the genus Orcytes, perhaps even an O. nasicornis like the one I'd found before, only a female. Of course, one can never be too certain...
After my last post about Bodrum, here is a a follow-up on certain aspects of the nightlife of the ever-popular holiday location.
A detailed discussion of Bodrum's thousands of bars and clubs, of course, will be patently impossible and pretty boring. Instead I want to tell you about the places that mattered to me, my close friends and the 1000-2000 other young people that frequent them.
We were struck down with grief when the old BBC closed down to become one of the omnipresent "holiday discos" found throughout Bodrum. In 2007, however, it reopened as a rock bar, with the original trashy decoration meticulously "restored" to evoke the old days. However, people had moved on...
...to other places, Bodrum's labyrinthine streets among them. Here is my brother and his friends during last year.
They were busy preparing and drinking vast amounts of a notorious concoction called "Karışım," which was made out of beer, wine, vodka and tequila, among other things. Naturally disgusted by alcohol, I could only fathom one sip - which tasted like stale oil.
If the streets are not to your liking, you can always try the real bars that lie around Bodrum's landmark castle.
The first, and the most popular of these is called Körfez, which is always crowded to the brink and has not updated its playlist of songs since 1999.
These factors, however, do not deter people from having a good time, as this couple I shamelessly spied on can attest.
Other good places to go apart from Körfez include the newly-opened Tower,
...and the ever popular Adamik. If you spend your holidays in Bodrum, chances are your nights will be spent tracing infinite triangles between these three bars, and... nowhere else!
All of these pictures were taken last year. I wonder what this summer will bring? By the way, this is not my first post on Bodrum's nightlife. Check this out for the last report!
With summer in full swing, I, like many other people in Turkey, am having daydreams about being in Bodrum, the country's Mediterranean glory hole.
Tequila shots costing as little as 2 Euros are advertised on this beautifully hand-drawn street sign. You guessed it right, a lot of drinking goes on in Bodrum.
This handwritten ad, on the other hand, seems to be composed by the screenwriters of Borat. "We also Happy here, Bodrum Turkey OK ENJOY TIME!!!" 
Moving on to more serious, but no less interesting things, this mural shows Nazım Hikmet, the celebrated leftist-romantic poet. As with many other liberal places in Turkey, Bodrum has a local political stance that combines leftist ideals with...
...a frenzied love for the nation and its leader, Atatürk. A pretty weird and sometimes ungainly combination, but it works well enough to guarantee a liberal, secular lifestyle. The place seen here is the Bodrum branch of the Turkish War Veterans Association.
Istanbul is getting to be such a cosmopolitan (!) city that even the warning signs for rubbish dumpers are getting subtitled in English.
Nope, these are not scans from one of H.R. Giger's amazing books.
"If not, then what?" You might ask. Well, these pictures are all on walls.
And the walls belong to one of Istanbul's largest and oldest rock bars, Kemancı.
These murals were painted here by one of the students of Galip Tekin, one of Turkey's most famous fantastic comic artists, who ran this place as a "hobby." Some hobby!
Kemancı used to cover three whole floors, with different concerts and music on each. These intricately copied paintings decorate the stairs between different floors.
They are all reproductions, but these pictures were so good that a local legend soon grew, that Giger had painted them himself, and what's more, these pictures were the originals!
Of course, something later happened that put these images slightly out of context.
That "something" was R&B music. As hardcore rock and metal music lost its audience in Turkey to newer genres, Kemancı became an unsustainable venture. The establishment first sold one, then two, then all floors off to a new R&B club called Riddim.
So now Kemanci is Riddim, and sizzling rap hits echo off the same walls that once rang with Metallica and Slayer. The beautiful pictures have been left untouched by Kemanci's new owners, so now people like me can enjoy the doubled pleasure of grinding with hot chicks while admiring quality reproductions of top fantastic artworks. Rock on!
Sorry for the silent week, dear readers. I'm rather busy now on a new film project, and it is taking up all of my time. Still, here's a new post to keep you busy.
I saw this metallic green beetle in Old Street, London, on the day Turkey beat the Czech team in last month's Euro 2008 craze.
Although this critter looked like a Tiger Beetle with its large eyes and large-ish jaws, certain differences in its body and wings led me to think it was something else... but what?
I frankly do not know. Speaking of London and insects, however, one of my friends has also started a new photoblog about the invertebrates and other wonders she keeps finding in London and elsewhere. Please pay Fez's blog a visit!
Parasite Wasps of London: Two species of unusual wasps I encountered last month in the British capital. This first one seems to be a male ichneumonid wasp of some kind. These wasps are notorious for rearing their eggs inside living caterpillars.
This second one, on the other hand, is probably an Eumenid potter wasp. They are called "potter wasps" because these insects construct special mud nests for their offspring.
Two brilliantly colored vans from the streets of Istanbul.
I saw these vehicles around Besiktas and Cihangir, respectively.
Over the last week, I realized that my blog had quietly passed its first anniversary without anyone noticing. But the truth is, my attempts to record my adventures date back to far older times. Before blogs, me, my brother and our friend Necdet would take pictures and paste them in "adventure folders" complete with swashbuckling annotation.
This specific "adventure folder" belongs to a recent trip to Buyukada, or Prinkipo. Dating back to the first months of 1999, it is gloriously titled "The Buyukada Expedition Journal by Interpid (sic) Adventurers Memo and Neco and Photography Assistant Kaan." (These are all mega-sized pictures so you can click on the images for a zoom-in.) One of the most striking aspects of such "adventure folders" is their invariably boisterous language and contrived poses, which, years later, leave me wondering whether I should laugh or cry. Also note the "blood samples" on the cover, another sign of juvenile self-aggrandizement.
"The challenging wilderness looms ahead."
"Our heroes conquered a steep slope at first sight. Kaan fell and almost broke his legs."
After a bit of fooling around in the trees, we arrived at a park that we dubbed "the park of horrors" because it was "...rudely built inside the forest."
Soon after entering the park, we encountered a pile of rubbish that offended us greatly as self-appointed protectors of "nature." The second photograph purportedly shows a smoldering fire, but now I have to confess that the "smoke" is nothing else but an over-exposed shot. We did clean the rubbish, though.
"Disturbed by this mess, our heroes were commanded by expedition leader Memo Kosemen (back) into the forest."
"In the untamed wilderness, our heroes went boldly where no man had ever gone before, and discovered strange artifacts such as a footprint and a bird's nest."
This was among the stranger episodes of the "expedition." We found some random bones, possibly belonging to sheep or other BBQ leftovers. We put them together to resemble a dinosaur leg and photographed it, pretending it was a "strange fossil." As you can see, it's probably the most bogus dinosaur fossil ever forged.
"The photographer then noticed an unusual and possible abandoned old building nearby."
"Upon arrival, our heroes were confronted by an ancient stone wall. They quickly scaled it and sneaked inside. The disturbing sight of a dog house discouraged them, however, and our heroes were forced to retreat."
This photo, however, is true. We did climb to the top of one of the peaks and snapped this fascinating vista. Here is what this view looks like from the sky.
And here is the Epilogue: "After their unforgettable avdenture, the tremendous trio spent the rest of their time playing computer games."
