Mr. Mehdi, the Keeper

After a 2 year hiatus of focused writing, I’ve remembered how much of a positive impact it has in my life. It encourages my reflection, forces me to concentrate my thoughts, and allows me to share my life with the rest of the world. So, for the first time in about 2 years, here’s another adventure from my life, this time, in Istanbul, Turkey.

Overlooking the Spice Bazaar in the Eminonu district of Istanbul stands the old Buyuk Valide Han, an Ottoman square that has housed traders and merchants for over 400 years.

Thanks in part to Daniel Craig and the 2012 James Bond film, Skyfall, the backstreet market has received a slight increase in tourism over the past few years. Bond (Craig) flies through Buyuk Valide Han on his bike, traversing up staircases and then onto roofs at the Grand Bazaar to chase a man who has a list of undercover agents.

Skyfall

Mendes, Sam, director. Skyfall. Metro Goldwyn Mayer ; Columbia ; Albert R. Broccoli's Eon Productions LTD., 2012.

While the film is enticing and the action ranks highly among the Bond chase-scene aficionados (YouTube commenters), the quick pace leaves the viewers with minuscule glimpses of the surroundings and particularly breathtaking views.

Often called the best view of Istanbul, the top of Buyuk Valide Han has a viewpoint at the rooftop that Instagrammers and urban explorers alike sought to get to. This can prove to be rather difficult when the area is primarily workshops and residential spaces that are frequently used by locals.

If you were to look up Buyuk Valide Han reviews for the sunrise, there are two frequent comments you will find. 1) You will witness one of the picturesque sunrises of your life and 2) It is nearly impossible to find the entrance to the top without direction. It is even more difficult when the urban explorer chooses to search for the market at 6am in the pitch black, unlit streets with little knowledge of Turkish.

In my experience, there is nothing more daunting than traversing an unknown, abandoned building in the dim hours of the morning with no understanding of the local language, and having your phone as the only light source. I honestly felt like a video game character on a quest, navigating through dark hallways and climbing up stairs in hopes of finding the door to the rooftop. The only sounds were grunts of blacksmiths and craftsmen at work, toiling away to make handmade goods to bring to the Grand Bazaar hours later. There were seriously moments where I felt like I was about to be robbed around the next corner, or I’d run into some company I was not supposed to run into. It was eerie.

Enter Mr. Mehdi (click link to see the cutest old man ever).

70 years old, standing at about 158cm (5’2”), and equipped with the cutest, friendliest voice you will ever imagine, Mr. Mehdi is the keeper of the view. Mr. Mehdi stands watch at a behemoth iron gate leading to the top, and only by slipping him a few Turkish Lira ($1) , would he allow you to enter using his keys.

Unfortunately, due to tourists and locals going up and jumping on the rooftop domes, the original way up to the rooftop has been closed. Roofs have been broken, people have gotten injured, and the government has put the rooftop under “restoration", except no progress has been made at all in a couple years. It’s essentially closed.

Nevertheless, the enterprising Mr. Mehdi found another rooftop on the opposite side of the square, where he continues to guide wanderers to the most outstanding viewpoint of Istanbul. You can see the tops of the religious bastions the Blue Mosque and Hagia Sophia, as well as a perfect shot of the Yeni Cami. You can feel the bustle and trade at the Spice Bazaar as well as the famed 700-year old Grand Bazaar. You can hear the ferries on the Bosphorus and through the Golden Horn. You stare into Galata Tower in its 1550th year of existence.

I love how you can witness the cosmopolitan heart of humanity across centuries and millennia in a simple view. Mr. Mehdi will offer you a cup of Cay (“chai”) which is the traditional Turkish black tea. Cuddle with one of his tens of kittens on your lap while you overlook the world, or let one climb into your bag and claw at you while you try to wake him from his nap.

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across the golden horn

Some stranger ruining the beautiful view

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Check meow-t

Good thing I’m not allergic to cats at all…



Mr. Mehdi, I highly doubt you’ll ever read this but thank you for sharing your rooftop with the world. It encompasses eons of culture and heart.

New Week, New Me

In the course of a year, I've graduated, moved into an apartment with three roommates in a new city, played in an adult baseball league, been a principal in a commercial, started a job, traveled around the country, cheered on the Dawgs in the Pac12 'ship, and so much more. Needless to say, 2016 was a wild ride.

With the start of the new year, one of my driving goals is to experience San Francisco more. I started today by visiting the CityScape Bar above the HIlton (which happens to be the tallest hotel on the west coast!) and downing a glass of wine while blogging and collecting my thoughts. This is quite possibly the best view of the city, and is 360 degrees. I plan to come here MUCH more often.

Credit to Zagat on this pic. It's raining today, but I plan to come up here more often and grab some awesome shots.

Credit to Zagat on this pic. It's raining today, but I plan to come up here more often and grab some awesome shots.

 

Over the course of the next year, I hope to learn something new every week, enough that I can blog about it and write an expository piece that makes sense. At the same time, hopefully I can be able to look back at this time next year and see 52 things I've learned, accomplished, seen, tried, etc.

This year, I hope to get better at cooking and keeping track at what I spend on food, in a sustainable but fiscally responsible way. One of my roommates and I have decided to try cooking through Cooksmart, which helps align our grocery lists to recipes. Basically, it allows us to simply our shopping trips by consolidating the ingredients to buy, and converting them into a bunch of meals. Yesterday, my roommate made a spectacular soup with lentils, chard, Italian sausage, and other ingredients. I was honestly astonished at how delicious it was, how filling it was, and how easy it was to make (aka I was taking a nap while he made it). The soup was flavorful, had enough food to fill me up (which is a saying a lot!).

Financially, I'm trying to keep track of what I spend on food by charting in Excel and using PivotTables (thanks, OpMgmt major). It may not be the most efficient way or best visual display, but it's fun for me to apply some of the things I did in school and work to my personal life. For example, yesterday we went to the grocery store and spent a fair amount on groceries. Some of those are perishable, some can be kept forever. Some we'll use up quickly, and some we wont. Additionally, we've signed up for a service called Imperfect Produce, which delivers 'imperfect' fruits and veggies to your door. These are the ones that aren't sold in supermarkets because they're deemed 'ugly'. Imperfect produce for imperfect people sounded like a perfect match to me, and it also supplies my apartment with fresh fruits and veggies we can plug into our Cooksmarts meal plan, at a reasonable price!

Lastly, I hope to take more pictures of my life. I'm thinking this site might become more of a weekly blog (assuming I have time, which I really hope I do), of what I've done, what I've learned, and the person a postgraduate 22 year old millennial living in a metropolis is evolving into. By this time next year, it'll be interesting to look back and see who I've become.

No more plain chicken, rice, and green beans for a while (hopefully).

Bannerwood.

Over the past few months, I've been playing in a summer adult baseball league called the Puget Sound Senior Baseball League. Last year, I was really interested in playing hardball again, and I found this league. Little did I know that I'd find one of my old high school teammates already playing on one of the rosters. I immediately reached out to him, and although it was too late to join, I made sure he'd follow up with me come the draft the next year.

Well, sure enough, I was greeted by a text in early March. And I didn't even have to go through the draft process, my friend "buddy-picked" me to ensure that I'd be on the same team as him.

I started out the season with minimal practice. I hadn't seen more than a few live pitches, had only caught a few fly balls recently (thanks, softball), and hadn't really thrown a competitive pitch since 2009-10. Yeah. Like 7 years ago. Crazy, right?

Playing on this team has been such a blast for me. I have by far the lowest batting average on the team, but I've had the opportunity to play a lot in centerfield where I grew up playing. Additionally, I've had the chance to pitch and can confidently say that I throw harder now than I did in high school. 

My favorite part about being on the team is that we play games all around the Sound, so Seattle, Bellevue, Redmond, Tacoma (ugh), and all locations. Today, I got to play at Bannerwood Park in Bellevue where I played in high school, and my dad was able to come to the game. That was really neat for me.

Overall, I've loved this whole experience. Getting up and going to the batting cages to swing a wood bat just feels so right. My team is a ton of fun. It has players all over from ages 18-35, and it's neat being able to play with people so much older than I am. The love for the game never dies. Lastly, we're all on somewhat of the same skill level. We're almost .500 and in the middle of the standings, and it's competitive baseball. I've missed it so much, but I'm so glad I got to do this in my last summer here.

Thank You, Dominican Republic

Three years of love, friendships, baseball, sunshine, kids, Jesus, and the week I look forward to most every year sprouted from a relatively spontaneous decision to go to the Dominican Republic in 2014. After joining The Inn and looking for more ways to get involved, I finally decided to step out and sign up for the trip, only kinda knowing two other people in the 60 person group. At the very first team meeting, Ryan Church, the head of The Inn as well as one of the staff leaders on the trip, told us to reflect at some point while we're down there, to say "This is living."

 

Three plus years later, I can say that each and every day I spent in the Dominican Republic was an opportunity to live. The first year, I got to experience the trip in full. Everything was new, everything was fresh, and everything was exciting. I had no idea what was going to happen when I woke up every morning. Some days, I played baseball. Other days, I helped do some Spanish translation work. I interacted with the kids in my limited Spanish (thank goodness for Spanish in high school, amiright?) and got to play the sport I love in the beautiful city of Barahona, with the beautiful Dominican people that will always have a place in my heart. We sang and danced on the bus more times than I could count. At the end of the day, the team would relax in the pure aquamarine wonder that is the Caribbean Sea, with wave after wave pummeling us into the sand. We'd eat a delicious dinner of fried chicken, rice, and other things (but chicken was the constant), and we'd spend the rest of the night listening to a message, worshipping, and splitting up into our small groups where we got to know each other more. The first year allowed me to explore, create, and find out. It pushed me to make connections with people I didn't know- connections that now are some of my best friendships I've made in college, whether it be with the people I see in my business classes, the street, my littles in the Greek system, or the random people I've run into across campus. All the people I met, the joy of singing and dancing on the bus, and the baseball I played, to me, that was living.

The second year was the year that challenged me the most. I signed up almost immediately to be on the Break Missions team, the team that helps put together and leads the trip. I wanted to return so badly. It was a lot of meetings, a lot of planning, a lot of teamwork, and a lot of "I'm not really sure how the trip is gonna go, but I'm excited anyway!" days. To me, this trip was the hardest because I didn't want to compare it to the previous year. I've heard every year is different and changes, and that is so true. It's 55+ new people. It's different projects. It's a new small group and a new mindset altogether. But it's the same mission, and it's the same place. This year, I had to put a lot more preparation into the trip. Every morning, I had to wake up at 7am to attend leader meetings. I tried. Can't say I made it at 7am to very many. I got to lead a small group on the second year which was a ton of fun, hearing stories and discussing everything from movies, life, and how many kids were braiding our hair that day. I gave a small message in the morning about Joy. It was just different being on the other side of the trip. That said, I loved it. There's nothing I'd rather do with my Spring Break. The challenges were new and were exciting. The team was different and unique, but everyone brought excitement and loved the trip in the same ways I loved it when I first went. All the early morning sunrises, all the waterfalls, all the laughter and smiles and new people I met, all the work that the team put into it and saw come to fruition, that was living.

My final year was lived mostly through a lens. I don't mean that in a bad way at all. In some ways, my third year in the Dominican was the year I got to observe the most. I spent a lot of time taking pictures, and simply watching people interact. Interacting with the children, interacting with the local staff, interacting with the adults in the villages. And I loved it. I think I felt the trip this year the most, because I got to live somewhat vicariously through everyone else on the trip. Yes, I got to play some baseball, I got to play with some kids, I got to do some medical work, but for the most part I really, really valued watching everyone else. One of my best friends and close brothers in Christ finally went on the trip this year after another tripgoer and I begged him to come. My favorite part of this trip was talking with the local staff of Children of the Nations, the organization we work with. I gave it everything I had when communicating with them, and quite honestly, it felt so good just to put everything I had into use. Franklin, one of the COTN workers, was impressed with my Spanish even though it's been nearly 5 years since I've taken a formal language class. Most of the trip, I was taking pictures and capturing moments. This was something relatively new to me, but something I found myself getting more and more into. The team was different yet again, but I learned to appreciate every year for what it is, as opposed to comparing it to the other years. I think this helped my appreciation of all my trips to Barahona, not just this year's. All the Spanish I (attempted to) speak, all the children and baseball players who clearly remembered who I was, and all the memories and sentiments I reflected on that trip, that was living.

Some people have negative feelings about short-term missions. I think certain reasons are justified. Other reasons are a bit more iffy. In my opinion, this "mission trip" is not a short term one. It's been happening for over a decade, and will continue on for a lot longer. The people know who we are when we arrive. They look forward to seeing us just as much as I looked forward to seeing them. The longevity and continuity of the trip is just awesome to me, and is one of the reasons I am such a big fan of it.

To say I enjoyed my time in the Dominican Republic would be selling the DR way short. I thrived there. I loved the people. I treasured the baseball game. I'm not sure I can fit into words how much this trip meant to me every year I went. Every year, I come back and go to The Inn and see 50 new faces of people I met and people I know by name, people I've sweat with, and people I've laughed and shared memories with. To all the people on the trips who I went with who made endless memories, Thank you. To the staff of both the church and of COTN who put this trip together every year, Thank you. To the men and the women at Casa Betesda, Ponte Vedra, and every other place we stayed at, Thank you for the wonderful meals, the incredible hospitality, but most for the joy and smiles that radiated from you every time I saw you. To the children who may never read this but lit up my world with the smiles, 'besos', and shared moments on the diamond, Thank you. This trip truly has been one of- if not THE highlight of my college time. It was living.