Bursa

We had a long weekend for Children's Day, a national holiday in Turkey, so Elizabeth, Allana and I took a short ferry trip to a bus to another bus to Bursa--about 3 hours outside of Istanbul. Bursa is famous for silk, skiing (there is a large ski place there called, Uludağ), Iskander (a Turkish dish with slices of lamb laid over squares of bread smothered in tomato sauce and yogurt) and for being the birthplace of Turkish shadow puppetry. We found Bursa to be a complete and welcome change of pace from Istanbul-- it is clean, modern and organized.

My favorite things from this weekend?

Stumbling upon a Children's Day show and watching these young men do ceremonial dances with sabres and shields.

Spending 2 hours in a shop in the market with one of the few people who still know how to do traditional shadow puppetry. They did a show just for the 3 of us in our honor. One man did 3 or 4 puppets at a time while another man sang and played tambourine during the scene changes and the belly dancer show.

Going to a traditional Ottoman village outside of Bursa called Cumalıkız, which was like stepping back 150 years in time. We felt really out of place in our tennis shoes and with cameras attached to our hands.