When You Love A City, Miss It

When a city is on two continents, just don't expect returning home feeling ordinary -- even after a year has passed.

I'm finding myself reminiscing Istanbul these days. Many times, if my lecturers blurted out 'Rumi, Rumi', the theme for the up and coming architectural workshop this May in Shah Alam, images of dervishes in Istanbul's many Sufi lodges came into my mind, men in white swirling into ecstasy. But there's more to Rumi as there's more to Istanbul.

I miss the summer splendour and the winter breeze, spreading over the Bosphorus like a kind mother flourishing love onto her child. I miss getting lost in the bustling bazaars -- in the midst of carpets and antiques, the smells of spices in Mısır Çarşısı, the warmth of cay offered by the vendors sipping into your mouth -- free of charge and the exhaustion your mouth gets when you chew the lokums of various flavours. And the bustles of Beyoğlu and Taksim, Nişantaşı and Teşvikiye, Ortaköy and Beşiktaş, Fatih and Beyazıt... the lovely domes and minarets, and the lovely people. The lovely Istanbullus.

Heartless are those who didn't fall in love upon setting foot on it.

PHOTOS Top: Empty cay cups near Nuruosmaniye Mosque (Nuruosmaniye Camii); Middle: A vendor sells nuts while commuters walk pass his stall by the Eminönü side of the Golden Horn near the New Mosque (Yeni Camii); Below: Pigeons flock at a square near the Egyptian Bazaar (Mısır Çarşısı) while two Turkish women watch over them. All photos captured December 2007. No edits.

note: ( 'C' is to be pronounced as in 'j' in 'joker'. Ç is to be pronounced as in 'ch' in 'cheat' or 'c' in Malay 'cawan'. ş is to be pronunced as in 'sh' in 'shut' or 'sy' in Malay 'syok'. An 'i' is pronounced as in the 'i' in tin, or 'it'. 'ı' is to be pronounced as in 'e' in 'her'. 'ğ' is to be pronounced as near as 'gh' in 'Baghdad', but thinner, as in 'Hugh'.)