This is just a courtesy post to put some minds at ease— a couple of days ago I said that when looking at a certain photo of myself I noticed I desperately needed a haircut. I got a torrent of e-mails and messages after that (mostly from male friends and readers) asking me not to cut it. But what (most) boys don’t understand is that it’s not about making hair shorter, it’s about keeping the ends of the hair healthy. Hair gets to a point where the split ends just make it look ratty, and seeing as I hadn’t had my hair cut in about three years, it was way past the point of rattiness. Also, it gets to a stage where the ends start breaking off, and this means it never gets any longer and the bottom of the hair looks fluffy and uneven. So it needed cutting, end of story.

Having said that, I was hesitant myself. The reason I’d gone so long without a haircut was because after I moved to Turkey, I became afraid of salons. It wasn’t just the language barrier, it was the artistic ego of many Turkish hairdressers. Turkey is absolutely saturated with highly-trained hairdressers (almost all of them men, for some reason), and they appear to be trained not only in the skill of cutting hair, but also in the art of looking at clients and making judgements about which haircuts will go with which faces and so on. This means that over the three years I’ve been here, I’ve seen countless friends come out of the salon crying that the hairdresser did what he wanted rather than what they wanted. One friend who had hair down to her waist asked for a trim and came out with a chin-length bob; she said the hairdresser had her facing away from the mirror and by the time she realised what was going on it was too late. I’ll admit, I thought the haircut looked great on her— I’m not denying the skill of the Turkish hairdresser, only his willingness to follow directions. It was enough to keep me out of the salon for a long time, but I knew eventually I’d have to take a chance on someone.

So yesterday was the day, and Emirhan took me to a salon way across town, one that had come highly recommended from a friend of mine. I made sure Emirhan sat with me there the whole time— he can appear and sound quite intimidating when he wants to, and I needed someone to threaten the hairdresser with castration if he chopped my hair off. He spoke to the guy for a few minutes while I had my hair washed, and I was assured by both of them that a bare minimum of hair would be taken off.

So I let him near me with the scissors, and I’m pretty pleased with the result. It’s not too short, and I haven’t had layers for a while, so it was nice to do that again for a change. It’s not the most outlandish haircut I’ve ever had, but that’s okay. I just wanted him to prove to me that he could cut hair and follow instructions. He passed the test, so maybe next time I’ll get something more unusual (I used to be the queen of weird haircuts).

In any case, I just wanted to post a photo so that those of you who contacted me with your concerns could see that I haven’t gone crazy and shaved it off just yet. I don’t know though— when August rolls around and the temperatures soar up into the 50s… I can’t promise anything.

Emirhan was blessed with a rare day off work today (people in this part of the world aren’t necessarily guaranteed days off like they are in the West), and since I’m in his most favourite person right now (see also: iPod Shuffle), he told me we could go anywhere I wanted and do whatever I wanted to do (but to be honest, he treats me like a princess anyway). So I chose a day out at Deepo, our local indoor outlet mall, because we could kill several birds with one stone there— shopping, seeing a movie, having lunch, and best of all, lounging around in the air-conditioning. Here are a few photos of what we got up to.

We slept late and skipped breakfast, so first on the agenda was lunch at the food court. The food court at Deepo has a mixture of fast food and “real” restaurants. I’m a huge fan of iskender kebap, which is like a normal döner kebap but with red sauce and yogurt, so we headed to the Turkish restaurant and pigged out. Lunch was followed by a Turkish rice pudding for dessert and a fruit plate. I ate way too much, but we don’t go out for food very often (scheduling constraints), so this was kind of a special occasion.

After lunch we checked out the movie times so we could plan the rest of our day around that. It turned out we had a little bit of time to kill (no pun intended), so we headed to the arcade. Emirhan discovered that shooting things on a screen with a fake gun is not the same as shooting with a real gun. Not that he has any experience with real guns, mind you. I mean, as far as I know. Pretty sure, at least. Oh, and see that game to the right of him, Police 24?…

…These are the warnings on it. Holy god, they must be completely paranoid about lawsuits. Or this game is really, really good.

These were the Turklish instructions on one of those “whack-a-mole” games (or “whack-a-dog” in this case). No wonder Emirhan scored so badly.

Before the movie, a quick trip to the washroom, and across the hall is something you don’t see much in the West— ladies’ and men’s prayer rooms. Muslims pray five times a day (well, theoretically), so if you’re out all day at the outlet mall, it’s convenient if the mall provides a place for you to stop and pray.

After the film (which was pretty good), we started in on some heavy shopping— and shopping in Turkey wouldn’t be complete without Turklish! What’s happened with this “3 get 2 pay” sign is that someone literally took the Turkish sign and just substituted English words from the dictionary without regard to English grammar or word order. In Turkish the verb comes at the end of the clause, you see.

The small print at the bottom of the sign is the best part, especially because you know what they mean.

Looks like someone at least made a vague attempt at English grammar here. But I’m still baffled, because both of these signs were found in the window of a major Turkish clothing chain, one that definitely has enough money to hire a native English speaker to write their posters.

Deepo has recently opened a little ice rink in the middle of the food court. We were surprised at how good everyone was, considering that this is probably the first ice skating facility in Antalya, ever. We didn’t see anyone fall or even stumble. I wasn’t able to convince Emirhan to go, probably because he’s also never skated before and he knew that every move he made would end up in a photo post.

After we exausted everything Deepo had to offer, we decided to head home, and made a quick stop at a steel doors shop on the way. I’m not exactly sure why, but steel doors are a big deal here in Turkey. In Antalya alone there must be hundreds of stores selling these things, and most of our neighbours have them. The doors are textured to look like wood, but when you touch them you can feel they’re metal. We’ve finally decided to give into pressure and buy one. We’re having that one in the middle— I’m a fan of squares, and I thought the other two doors looked really feminine. If our door is going to be strong, I want it to look manly.

On the way home from the door shop we ran across this DVD rental place. I just thought it was ironic that the name was “Funny Center,” but the best they could do for a visual representation of that sentiment was a poster of Kill Bill.

Finally, we saw this guy on the road near our house— I guess no one told him that the bazaar isn’t until tomorrow. No, seriously, those are probably some of the best-tasting watermelons on earth.

We came home feeling accomplished and happy and tired. Tomorrow I’ll show you what I bought (hint: it’s more stuff to do with marathon training), and there’s one other surprise, and don’t forget that tomorrow is bazaar day, of course. See you guys then.

I decided yesterday that if we were going to be training for a marathon, then the first thing we needed was something to set the training mood. When I run I generally take my iPod with me, but it’s one of those big manly 60GB ones, and I thought Emirhan and I could both do with something more portable (and he didn’t have a music player at all, so that certainly wouldn’t do).

Several hours and four electronics stores later and we had his-n-hers iPod Shuffles (mine pink, his silver). I had to go to so many places because I had trouble finding a shop that had both the colours I wanted in stock (the first three places were sold out of the silver). I have to say, after years and years of toting a big iPod around, this one is a shock. My big iPod has one of those remote controls, and the Shuffle is smaller than that remote is. I took the Shuffle out for a test run this morning, and I didn’t even notice it was there, so it’s definitely suitable for training, and nicer than listening to Antalya traffic. And it’s sooooooo sexy. I nearly chickened out and got a silver one for myself instead, but in the end I’m so glad I was brave and got the pink. Road less traveled and all that. Girl power extreme.

Now I just need to name it— I’ve been calling it PinkPod, but I’m sure you guys can think of a more creative name than that. Any suggestions?

Next up will be new shoes and a couple of cute running outfits, which we’ll probably sort out tomorrow on Emirhan’s day off. We’ll see. I’m thinking about suggesting that we run to the mall instead of taking the bus. After all, the training itself is almost as important as looking good, right?

No, don’t you worry, I’m in the hands of a professional— thanks to the helpful nature of my friend Chris Brogan, Mark Iocchelli over at completerunning.com has me under his wing and is setting up a suitable training program. Details of that when I know more, probably later this week.

I’m always amused by corporate slogans that have some vague sexual innuendo (which is most of them, I find). Emirhan brought this coffee mug home a few days ago, and I thought the Qatar Airways slogan sounded like a cross between prison shower humour and a Ralph Fiennes joke. [Apologies for the photo quality— taking decent pictures of shiny silver things is hard.]

This one, on the other hand, wasn’t so subtle. I giggled out loud right in the street where I saw this yesterday. I mean, come on.

You guys have other questionable slogans? I’m perpetually on the lookout.

No sooner do I express my worries that Turkey is being assimilated into Britain… now Turkish Daily News reports that Coffee Republic is to start opening stores all over Turkey in July. Great. And yet we still don’t have a Starbucks or a Gloria Jean’s (either one enormously superior to Coffee Republic) down here. I bet we’ll get a Coffee Republic, though, you watch.

I’m officially annoyed.

At a few minutes before six this morning, I woke to the sound of crashing thunder and rain slapping against the apartment. About a month ago I mentioned how slowly the summer was approaching; now it’s nearly the middle of June and there’s still barely any sign of it. It’s been raining off and on all day here, and the temperature has barely broken into the mid-20s. This sort of thing is unheard of in Antalya in June.

For me, it’s great news. Last summer was unbearably hot, with record high temperatures in July and August (the highest of these was 53 degrees, which is 127 in old money). Like many Turks, we don’t have air conditioning in our apartment, so when the peak of the summer comes there’s not much else to do but stay as stationary as possible during the day and only move around at night when the temperature drops from blazing down to a mere scorching. Last August I was taking about four cold showers a day just to keep from melting. Going outside in the afternoon was pretty much impossible.

So I don’t understand what’s going on this year— perhaps it’s one of those global warming anomalies where we’re one of the places that gets more rain and less heat. I’m not exactly sure how that works, but in any case I’m not a fan of extremely hot weather, and especially now that I’m training for the marathon, the cooler the summer the better. Is it too much to hope that this mildness will hold straight through until September when autumn sets in? Probably, but a girl can hope.

Running and I have one of those love-hate relationships that makes you roll your eyes. We argue a lot. We break up. We get back together. It’s good for a while. Then I cheat. Then we break up again. Two weeks later, he calls me wanting to forgive and forget. We get back together. This is how it’s been for years.

It started back when I was a kid. I was quite an athletic child, always top of my class in gymnastics and accomplished in several styles of dance. When we had those standardised fitness tests in school, I always came out at the head of the chin-ups and sit-ups charts. I was also a very strong swimmer and played softball for a couple of seasons when I was nine or ten.

But running was a different story. We used to have to run the mile in phys ed, and for some reason I could never do it. I’d get about a quarter of the way and be in such agony that I had to lie down, on the track if necessary. My legs felt fine; it was my lungs that were screaming for me to stop. My P.E. teachers always said that it was because I was out of shape, but I didn’t see how that could be possible— I was an active child who was exercising everyday. To this day I wonder if I had some kind of asthma or other condition that kept me from completing the mile like everyone else. Even the little weaklings in my class could run the mile, but I just lay on the ground gasping for breath, my lungs on fire.

It annoyed me that I couldn’t do it, so running became this Thing with me. I looked for ways around the breathing issue. The obvious choice was to not run such a long way. I have strong legs, and I quickly discovered that I could sprint well over short distances. In high school I became quite good at the 50 and 100 yard races. I could even pull off a 400 if I had to, but that was my limit. Any more than that and I couldn’t handle the breathing.

As I phased into adulthood and left structured exercise classes behind, I started to wonder if I could train myself to run further. Over the years I’ve struggled with this— I’ve managed a couple of 5ks in my time, but nothing longer than that. My breathing problems settled down a bit as I got older, though I still struggle to some extent. When I was in my early 20s, I started to get this idea in my head that I wanted to run a marathon, to prove to Running that it was I who was the boss of him and not the other way around. I made plan after plan to run various marathons. In every case, I’d let my training get to the point where I could run about 5k, and then I’d plateau and eventually give up.

So now I’m 34, still running semi-regularly for fitness, still not breaking the 5k barrier. I had kind of decided that maybe I was just a 5k runner and there wasn’t any horizon past that.

Then, back in March of this year I discovered that we have a marathon right here in Antalya. Right here in my face where I can’t ignore it. Because I’m a location blogger, it made sense to cover the event. I got a press pass from the organisers, and Emirhan and I rode the press bus all the way around the course during the race. This was the first time I’d ever seen a marathon in real life, and I was both inspired and frightened by what I saw. Those who finished did so in great agony, and some of the unlucky ones were picked up on the course by ambulances. It made me wonder why people put themselves through it. It also made me wonder if I should take up marathon training again.

After the race Emirhan and I had a talk. He’s a bodybuilder and athlete himself, and seeing the marathon up close really made him want to do it. I shared with him the story of my lifelong battle to run. We sort of shrugged and said, “maybe next year,” but at that time we had some tentative plans to do some traveling abroad and we didn’t think we’d be here in March 2008. In any case, we made a vague promise that if those travel plans fell through, then we’d definitely do the Antalya marathon instead.

Well, this week we learned that we won’t be abroad after all. We’ll be right here in Antalya in March of next year. So I guess that means we’re officially training for the marathon now.

I’m terrified. I’m going to take some convincing. I’m not worried about Emirhan— he’s unbelievably fit and could probably run the marathon tomorrow. But I don’t want him to have to worry about me. I want to be prepared enough so that he can concentrate on his own race (which will be over much sooner than mine) and I can concentrate on what I’m doing.

This means I have to start training now. Summer is coming, and with it the 50-degree heat that Antalya is famous for (that’s 122, folks). Can I train in those conditions? Maybe, if I train at five in the morning. Am I going to encounter lung issues again? I won’t know until I start running longer distances. Maybe I’ll have to see a doctor about that. I’ll definitely have to get some new running shoes. Some good socks. Maybe a couple of cute outfits to motivate me. And I’m going to have to keep a serious eye on what I’m eating.

Having said that, I don’t want to get so obsessed with all those things that the fun gets sucked out of running. I actually enjoy running now, and if something stops being enjoyable then I just won’t do it, end of story. I already gave up my heart rate monitor because it was turning me into a numbers freak instead of a runner. So I have to strike a balance. I know that for me, my internet support network is important. I have lots of online friends who know lots of stuff about running, and I’ll be calling on them when times are tough. I’ll probably also join whatever social networks I run across. I’ll find ways to keep this fun.

I still don’t quite believe I’m up for this, but maybe that’s just because I’m tired today and even doing the laundry seems like a lot of effort. Everyone I’ve asked so far thinks I’m definitely capable of running the full distance, so that’s a good sign. I have very supportive friends. Now I just need to find it in me to live up to my half of the bargain. Watch this space. But until further notice, you should consider this an official declaration of my intention to run 26.2 miles here in Antalya on the 2nd of March next year. It makes me nervous just to say that. Yikes.

First of all, thanks to everyone who weighed in on the mystery of the Hiragana shoes.

I also contacted JP over at japundit.com about the shoes, and this is what he had to say about them:

I took a look at the text, and it is, indeed bogus hiragana.

I also read it as dzu-me-da as you did, with improper diacritics on the second character.

I also had my wife take a look at it, and she read the first character as “u”. The following shows the difference between “zu” and “u” (I hope your computer can handle Japanese text).

zu =づ

u = う

Based on what my wife said, I guess that someone tried copy the Japanese name Umeda (うめだ) and got the diacritics wrong. As the text is written, I does not really mean anything, but the story behind it is pretty interesting so I will write something about it on Japundit with a link back to your site.

By the way, did these characters come on the shoes when they were purchased?

Thanks for sending this along, and please keep us in mind if you run across anything else that might interest our readers.

Well, funny you should mention— as it turns out, I saw this yesterday at the bazaar:

Again, for various reasons I suspect at least some degree of nonsense (as you would on any $2 t-shirt that says “Dolce & Gabbana fashion company”), but as I mentioned before I’m hardly an expert, so I thought I’d leave it to my Japanese-savvy readers and the kind folks at Japundit to tear it apart. What do you make of this one?

Oh, and yes, the Hiragana shoes came that way from the bazaar… and I’ve just today discovered that my housemate actually has two pair of them, both with the same nonsense message. I guess he really really liked them.

I went out late last night, and to my surprise saw quite a few of these guys. I’m not sure what they are (some kind of beetle, no doubt), and I’d never seen one before, but all of a sudden yesterday they were everywhere. I saw maybe 20 in total over the course of an hour. I think they’re pretty cool. They’re about two inches long (5cm), and they don’t appear to be much on flying— they just sit there minding their own business. I was able to get very close to this one, and he didn’t show any signs of moving. I saw another one on the ground kicking and struggling to turn over onto his front; I helped him out by letting him grab onto my finger and then putting him in the grass right side up. He didn’t bite me, so I guess they’re not aggressive. Anyone have any clue what they are?

Well, the category reshuffle thing went well last night— hopefully you guys will find the categories more useful and the site easier to navigate now. Meanwhile, I’ve been down at the bazaar gathering goodies to show you today, and here they are.

[click on each image to see a larger version]

White hand metro polis— I’m not sure that’s particularly news…

This made me giggle because “sexy” and “romantica” are pretty much the same in Turkish, and yet that didn’t stop them putting those words on a kids’ basketball jersey.

I’m getting ever-so-slightly annoyed with this new trend for printing on shirts in metallic colours— silver and gold don’t photograph well with a cameraphone, so I have to turn the contrast way up for you to even be able to see what the shirt says. In any case, this one bears the profound message, “every time if lady walking with dog she can be carefully…”

Again with the metallic print— “colours in flight magnificent spectacle.”

There’s the obvious Bob and Doug McKenzie joke at the top, but if you look carefully there’s also something for the Nine Inch Nails fans at the bottom.

This happens a lot with these shirts, they print a perfectly acceptable message on them, and then sew the seams up in an unfortunate place. Or maybe they really did mean to say “swet heat.”

God save the time for filth and fun! Amen!

The official motto of Bill and Ted.

I don’t even want Dollywood University temporarily.

Helping other people with their identity crises.

If you want to see more of these, the bazaar archive is here, and don’t forget that the online bazaar shop is coming very very soon!