Day at Deepo

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.