Not-so-bad Things About Kadikoy

Everyday I live a different life. Music is different, weather is slightly different, the apple tastes different, the same people are different, the smell is almost always different, complete layout is totally different. One day feels like a film noir and the next, it's The Lord of the Flies... My whole comprehension is so different from one day to another that I sometimes have doubts about whether it is OK to have so many epiphanies in a row. An enlightening sentence I read, a tune I hear... they all change the scene. And there are some places where this scene-changing-stimuli are in abundance. One in Istanbul is Kadıköy, the Camden Town of Turkey. It's an Anatolian beauty that people overlooked until the last few months, and it means a lot to me. I had another visit there yesterday:

It's on the other side of the bosphorus, so I needed to get on a boat first.

"The boats are taking off from the other terminal now" said the officer.
"Really? since when?"
"January"

January?! I haven't been to my favorite place for almost a year? It was hard to believe it had been that long. What was I busy with? I stepped on the good-old boat and was shocked once more: the boat was a new one with wide seats and a shiny deck. In line with the new technology, the trip was much shorter, less than 15 minutes. I landed right at the entrance of the main street and walked upwards as I always do.

Surprise. Kadıköy was transformed in the last few months, dramatically. It's now publicised and crowded with people that clearly don't belong. It's full of cafes with catcy names, orderly streets... There is something "made" about it. It's not really dead but it has too much make up on.

I've been going there almost every month for the last six years and as I know it, Kadiköy has been an amateur intellect hub. It's never been glamorous or attractive. It's not a place for the rich artist. It's a place for Bukowski, Cocteau or Camus. Rough & Tough. Full of scattered bookstores, movie houses, designer stores, lots of underground bars, lots of wannabe teenagers and lots of tattooed & red-haired middle aged people who are here since they were lame teenagers. Kadıköy has a slight touch of the dark side or an imitation of it. It's the place for confusion and constant deviation. And if you believe that "confusion is the highest state of mind" or if you want to feel something different for a day, maybe something deeper, Kadıköy is the place to be.