Turkish Daily News ran a story today about Itsumi, a high-end sushi restaurant in Istanbul. The article goes on to mention several other sushi restaurants in Istanbul, and then continues with speculation as to why sushi has not caught on in Turkey the way it has in the United States and Europe. At the end of the story the author points out something I have been complaining about since I first moved here: “the ingredients needed to prepare Japanese food are exceptionally difficult to find in Turkey.”
I am a huge fan of sushi and Japanese/SE Asian cuisine in general, and the lack of Asian restaurants here (especially in Antalya) is baffling and frustrating. A couple of the local hotels here do boast sushi bars, but on every occasion that I’ve tried to book a reservation or even drop by unannounced, the sushi bar has always been closed and I’ve been told that “it’s not open very often.” I’m glad to see that sushi finally seems to be catching on somewhat in Istanbul, even it if it is mostly fueled by the Japanese community there… sadly I don’t think we have enough of a Japanese population here in Antalya to follow suit. Link
Random question: I am just starting my blog, but how did you start gaining readership? was it just natural? I mean how did people start finding you?
Hi Philip – it was natural in the sense that I’ve been around on the internet for many, many years (like, since the late ’80s, no joke), and so I literally have thousands of internet friends in different places, and I’m active in a lot of communities (twitter, facebook, livejournal, flickr, and so forth). If you’re trying to build up your numbers, my advice to you is to be active in as many different places as possible, and don’t be a douche about promotion – if you link to new content on your site once or twice a day, people will tolerate that and check it out; if you spam them with links every ten minutes (especially if there’s no new content and it’s just the same link over and over), they’ll just block you and tell others to steer clear of you, if you see what I mean.
Also, make an effort to keep the same username wherever you go, and it helps if it relates to your blog name (for example, my blog is melissamaples.com, and all over the internet I use the name melissamaples, no matter which site, and I never use a different name). That makes it easier for people to find you, and it helps build your “brand.” Linking to other blogs from your blog also helps. Oh, and put the url of your blog in your e-mail signature.
At the risk of sounding cynical, it also helps to be a chick with big boobs and long hair, but I don’t suppose you’ll be able to swing that. 🙂
Anyway, hope some of this is helpful to you – where is your blog, may I ask?
Random question: I am just starting my blog, but how did you start gaining readership? was it just natural? I mean how did people start finding you?
Hi Philip – it was natural in the sense that I’ve been around on the internet for many, many years (like, since the late ’80s, no joke), and so I literally have thousands of internet friends in different places, and I’m active in a lot of communities (twitter, facebook, livejournal, flickr, and so forth). If you’re trying to build up your numbers, my advice to you is to be active in as many different places as possible, and don’t be a douche about promotion – if you link to new content on your site once or twice a day, people will tolerate that and check it out; if you spam them with links every ten minutes (especially if there’s no new content and it’s just the same link over and over), they’ll just block you and tell others to steer clear of you, if you see what I mean.
Also, make an effort to keep the same username wherever you go, and it helps if it relates to your blog name (for example, my blog is melissamaples.com, and all over the internet I use the name melissamaples, no matter which site, and I never use a different name). That makes it easier for people to find you, and it helps build your “brand.” Linking to other blogs from your blog also helps. Oh, and put the url of your blog in your e-mail signature.
At the risk of sounding cynical, it also helps to be a chick with big boobs and long hair, but I don’t suppose you’ll be able to swing that. 🙂
Anyway, hope some of this is helpful to you – where is your blog, may I ask?