Ahhh, the comforts of shopping

I've been in Istanbul for a week and a half, and I already know where 4 of the 5 major shopping malls are (there are of course more than 5). It's good to know where you can just relax and have some retail therapy. Shopping malls are shopping malls whether you're in Jackson, MI or Levent, Istanbul. Joy and I figured out the route to take to get to Metro City, the mall right next door to where she's interning. Kanyon mall is a 2 min walk away, but it's got more expensive stores. We went there to look around. Istinye Park is the shopping mall where I eat lunch (I haven't had a chance to shop there yet). Capitol is a mall on the Anatolian side of Istanbul, about 5 or 10 min from the university dorms. It's an older mall. The last mall I know of is the mall in Pendik, near the airport. I haven't been to Capitol, nor have I been to the mall in Pendik...yet. So anyways, we took the minibus to Üsküdar where we rode the ferry to Beşiktaş and then got another minibus to Levent. It was a fairly uneventful trip, which I'm definitely not complaining about. We didn't buy anything unnecessary either :).

I did, however, buy some groceries while we were out. I realized that the lady at the market down the street from me took advantage of my foreigner status and overcharged me for the off-brand nutella! That's the end of our business together. 

RECAP (IN NUMBERS) OF TRIP THUS FAR:

Clothing items purchased:  2
Chocolate and hazelnut spreads tested: 4 
Band-aids used because I'm accident prone: 7 
Bottles of water purchased: 10 <-this is low because I started to refill at the office :)
Consumables tried: 20ish   
Number of cars that have honked at me: 129837923023497932 
Seeing historical sites and enjoying life: Priceless