The haze is slowly lifting from the mountains, and the evenings are drawing in. It’s still nice weather to go to the park, though.

Antalya always knows somehow when September is— this was how the sky looked on the morning of the first, and it poured rain both in the morning and in the evening. We hadn’t seen rain in a couple of months, so it was a welcome relief.

Hard to believe we’re already almost a week into September. All the good parts of the year are coming!

The quality of the light is changing everyday… I dig it.

How much more harvesty can you get? I love these things with a passion.

Like the rail, nothing is ever straightforward.

Sometimes you just have to do the obligatory stemware shot.

Sometimes it’s skill, and sometimes it’s just being in the right place at the right time.

As we inch toward September, I’m getting some of this end-of summer stuff out of my system. I’m really, really looking forward to autumn, so expect more harvest-themed photos starting very, very soon.

Meanwhile, it’s still good swimming weather in the Med.

I don’t usually do a lot of food photography, but it was my half-birthday last week, and I couldn’t resist picking up a cake from The Cheesecake Lounge. It looked great, and it tasted okay, but honestly it didn’t hold a candle to the cheesecake at Vanilla Lounge, which is still the best in Antalya, by far.

The set is coming along nicely. It’s here.

For the past couple of weeks I’ve been staying at a friend’s house in Fener, which is on the other side of Antalya from where I live. I decided I should probably go and see the fener that Fener was named for, and here it is. It’s kind of a January-looking photo considering I took it just a few days ago, and if you were hoping for something a little warmer, here’s another shot I got of it a year ago from a distance:

I don’t know, all lighthouses kind of look the same to me. It is very well maintained, though.

Sometimes even when you’re sitting on the balcony in the August sun, you can just feel autumn around the corner. For me it’s the most exciting time of the year, looking forward to not having summer anymore (as summer is a wretched season with no redeeming qualities whatsoever).

Dragonflies. Definitely an August/September thing.

It’s almost the time of year where the sunsets get galactically beautiful again. It’s wonderful to watch the seasonal transformation into autumn.

Quite a lot of you over the years have asked me about Vipassana and my daily meditation practice. I’ve never been good at explaining meditation in general, as for me it is an experience that transcends words, and Vipassana in particular is a tricky nut to crack. But most of the questions come not from people who are trying to understand Vipassana, but rather those who just want to begin a daily practice of some sort and are looking for a place to begin.

The Chopra Centre are currently offering a 21-day online meditation challenge, free of charge. It’s a series of downloadable audio files, all quite short, that lead you through the basics of different types of meditation, focusing on one aspect per day. I’ve listened to a couple of the audio files out of curiosity, and they’re certainly suitable for any beginner, even if you’ve never meditated before, and Davidji (the man who guides the meditations) has a pleasant voice and is even humourous at times.

I’ll admit I don’t know a lot about Deepak Chopra, though I’ve heard plenty of reports both positive and negative, so I can’t really vouch for the overall quality of the material his organisation puts out. I certainly don’t think you should go into this 21-day challenge expecting to come out enlightened, or even an expert meditator, but that’s hardly the point. The point is to create the habit of daily meditation while exposing yourself to the different techniques that are available to you. I suppose the hope is that after you’re finished with the course, you’ll want to pursue meditation further, either on your own, or by seeking more formal instruction. So if you’ve always wanted to meditate but never managed to get the momentum up, now’s your chance. Link

One of the best parts about travel is all the interesting people you meet along the way. I spoke with Mónica for more than an hour before she mentioned that she’s a television reporter in Spain. So if you ever watch Comando Actualidad on TV1, she’s already a familiar face to you. We had a great conversation, and I owe her a big thank-you for noticing when I’d dropped my phone on the ground!

I just love these old, decaying balconies on Meis. Gentle reminders that everything passes.

Downstairs: drinks store. Hell yeah.

Morning at the Kaş marina.

Not a bad place to hang your laundry.

I was lucky enough to see this sea turtle last week in the water between Kaş and Meis. It’s a bit of an abstract shot, but you get the idea.

There was also this guy, which has now been identified as a shamefaced crab. He’s about 15cm-20cm in diameter. I’d never seen anything like it before.

If you haven’t seen Sita Sings the Blues, it’s the perfect thing to watch if you think Creative Commons is for people who can’t get a contract with a “real” production house, or that crowdfunding is for artists who aren’t good enough to get “real” sponsors. This is one of the best features I’ve seen all year. Of course it’s free, so you’re not risking any money, and I personally guarantee it’s worth your time. Do yourself a favour and download the best quality version your bandwidth can handle (i.e. not YouTube). Watch it when you’re in the mood for an intelligent, light comedy.

My favourite part is that Nina Haley is a self-taught animator, and she made the entire film at home on her Mac, using Flash and After Effects, and scanning in some hand-painted watercolours.

I was not all that familiar with the Ramayana before this, nor the music of Annette Hanshaw, but now I want to know everything about both.

We’re finally starting to get some great Istanbul chain restaurants down here. I never thought I’d be so happy to see a chain, but SushiCo is certainly a welcome sight.

Fresh sushi hand-rolled by real Japanese sushi chefs.

They serve all kinds of Japanese, Thai, and Chinese food, and so far everything I’ve tried is amazing. SushiCo is a bit pricey, but if you want decent Asian cuisine in Turkey, you pay what you have to.

This may seem like a crazy thing to say in the middle of August, but I’m feeling autumn pushing its way in… slowly but surely. I couldn’t be more happy about it.

At the risk of becoming a walking advertisement for my favourite places in Kaş, I thought I’d mention the Hideaway, as for my money it’s the nicest boutique hotel in all of Kaş, and I wouldn’t stay anywhere else. They haven’t paid me to say that; I recommend it only because they provide clean, beautiful rooms in a gorgeous setting, and Ahmet and Marie are the best proprietors a guest could ask for.

Balcony view.

The pool, always clean and rarely crowded. Also, lots of shady trees, so you can stay down there all day without getting fed up.

The rooms have a wonderful vintage Turkish feel about them.

The roof terrace bar, with a spectacular view of the Mediterranean:

If you ever get a chance to go, tell Ahmet and Marie that Melissa sent you.

If you’ve not heard of Cittaslow, it’s a spin-off of the Slow Food movement. Certified Slow Cities are those who can show evidence that they are committed to the values of slow living, both in both in theory and practical application.

When I first heard that Kaş was applying to be Turkey’s second Cittaslow, I didn’t really think they would do what it took to make it happen. Cittaslow has a very strict set of conditions that towns have to meet before they can be certified. One of the conditions is that there cannot be any motor vehicle traffic in the town centre. Well, I went to Kaş last weekend, and lo and behold, they’ve already blocked off traffic on the marina road, and several other streets have become completely pedestrianised. So it looks like they’re serious about doing this. I can’t wait to see what these changes will bring, because one of the things I’ve always loved about Kaş is its quaint and tranquil atmosphere, and I think the Cittaslow movement is exactly what the doctor ordered for the Gem of the Riviera.

I was setting up for another shot when these two ladies came around the corner. It was an unbearably humid day, and they had to trek home up a steep and long hill.

The beautiful outdoor dining area:

When I was eight years old I made a 25-year time capsule, which sadly got lost and I never got to open it. I’ve been experiencing some rather childish and useless bitterness over this, so in an effort to get over myself and have some fun in the process, I’ve decided to start again and make a new time capsule. I bought a box for it a couple of days ago (a kiler box!), and I’ve set a date of 16 November for the sealing ceremony. If all goes to plan, I’ll be opening it up again on 16 November 2035.

Thinking of things to put in the capsule seems like much more of a heavy responsibility now than it did when I was a kid. I read somewhere that cultural anthropologists find most time capsules boring, as they include a lot of very general information that these days can be looked up on Google, and they don’t cointain very much in the way of personal letters, photos, and evidence of what daily life for the participants was like at the time of the sealing.

With that in mind, I’ve got about a hundred days to try to sum up my life in 2010, in a way that future-me will hopefully find interesting and enlightening.

If you’re ever in Kaş, you must must must have the tavuk sarma at Lola. Don’t even bother with any other restaurants. I’ve eaten Turkish food a million times at a million different places, and Lola’s is so above and beyond the others that it feels wrong even to try to compare.

For once I managed to get a photo of my meal before I destroyed it.

Voices newspaper is reporting problems in Altınkum stemming from a recent ban on excessive noise after midnight. The new law has kept nightclubs and bars from playing loud music after 23.59, which, according to the owners of these businesses, has caused a huge loss of tourist traffic.

To my mind, the issue here is not noise, but a complete absence of the concept of zoning. In most places in Europe and North America (perhaps elsewhere, as well), there are certain areas that are zoned for commercial, areas that are zoned for entertainment, areas that are zoned for residential, and so forth. In Turkey, this apparently doesn’t exist, as in most towns you get a random assortment of houses mixed in with businesses, and so forth. This means that you could be a young couple with a baby, moving into a lovely, quiet apartment building, and then three weeks after you move in, the hairdressers downstairs closes, and a they open a bar in its place. Then, without having done anything, you’re now living above a noisy bar, and it’s hard enough to keep the baby asleep without trance music thumping through your floor at four in the morning. So you complain to the council, and once enough complaints come in, they have to do something.

I don’t think this is the solution, though. Forcing tourists not to celebrate their holidays in holiday towns is a bit ridiculous. I think they’re going to have to start designating specific areas where clubs and bars can operate, and designate residential areas a certain distance away. But will they see that? Well, stay tuned.