Going into the Grand Bazaar, the “mother of all tourist traps…anything but pleasant”, in Frommer’s book, I was wary. Coming out of it I was so high, I wasn’t walking – I was floating. It wasn’t the shopping, no (I did lose myself, for half an hour, in the cute clutter of the children’s shop, Deli Kizin Yeri Junior). It was the men. One man. Half Turkish, half Italian, completely sexy.
What was it about him? He said he would sell me a “dream jacket” but after I stepped into his shop he squired me, with my hand on his arm, to another of his shops, sat me down for a cup of tea and started selling himself. He was a cook at “Sir Raffles Hotel” in Singapore. He lived in Hong Kong years ago. Oh, and he was, is and will be trim. For ever and ever. “Ganetics,” he said. “Genetics…? Yes, your Italian gene, yes,” I said. (Was I sounding breathy? Why was I sounding breathy?)
He wasn’t the only one to give me tea and his number. But he alone didn’t make me uncomfortable: He didn’t feel my hand up as he was shaking it (one man did and I had to scram when he tried to take me in his arms too); he didn’t ask what my room number was (another man did and I had to say I didn’t remember); he didn’t use “Turkish hospitality” as a pretext for inviting me into his shop.
What was it about him? Our fifteen minutes were so snug, it might last me a lifetime of never again being chatted up.
2 comments:
Yes. Hehe. Turkey is a good antidote to looking-unexotically-like-everyone-else in Sg. I made the mistake of wearing a miniskirt one day walking ard the old city and I had to beat the men off with a stick.
where were you? was it also the grand bazaar? i don't know about you but seems they talk to me more in touristy zones... in beyoglu, istanbul's orchard road, where there are more turks and fewer tourists, they tend to let me be.
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