Last Sunday, I stepped out into a street in Bebek and did not see a cat. I went in search of a coffee instead and nipped into the nearest Starbucks. Starbucks isn’t my favourite, but there is one in almost every city and it works just fine if I run out alternatives (or tissues or friends or energy). I was amazed and delighted to find two surprisingly good things in the Bebek Starbucks: the stunning view of the Bosphorous (from all three floors) and a sleeping ginger cat, curled up on the chair opposite mine.
The cat slept deeply, undisturbed by my children, the customers or the staff. I felt fairly certain that the cat wasn’t planning to give up the best seat in Starbucks, so I drank my coffee and left.
My plan was to find a birthday present for a friend, but my children were distracted by a display of origami flowers in a shop window. One entire wall of the shop was covered in bookshelves and it didn’t matter to us that the books all appeared to be in Turkish. This must happen all the time, as the shopowner immediately showed us a few shelves at the far end of the shop, where she keeps translations of her favourite Turkish novels. She had read them all and could recommend one she thought I might like.
This shop, “envai” has been in Bebek for over 45 years. It is yet another Istanbul gem. It’s full of handmade Turkish craft items, textiles, ceramics and books. I will probably go back for some origami paper flowers one day, just because I have no need of origami flowers and they would provide a delightfully impractical excuse to visit again. I left with a handpainted ceramic cat for my friend’s birthday gift (one can never have too many ceramic cat ornaments!) and for myself, an English translation of “A Momento of Istanbul” by Ahmet Umit.
I had my children with me and they were hungry, so we went to Little China for lunch. The fantastic mural of the Japanese geisha holding a glass of red wine, drew us through the door and the food was delicious too.
After spilling a lot of soy sauce on the table and arguing about how to use chopsticks correctly, we said goodbye to the gracious and friendly staff at Little China and stepped back out into the streets of Bebek. There were cats everywhere, sprawled on the side walk, jostling about on the street and sidling up to the artichoke sellar. We didn’t feel like following the cats anywhere, so we jumped into a taxi (with our ceramic cat gift) and headed home promising ourselves that we would soon learn how to prepare artichokes the Turkish way. That would mean we could return to Bebek for artichokes and paper flowers!