Topkapı + Aya Sofya
Today I decided to do what every tourist should do: visit Topkapı palace and Aya Sofya.
I thought I was early, but there were already crowds outside Topkapı palace.
Outside the entrance to the palace (no need to have tickets to enter here)
After walking through a huge garden.....I arrived at the 2nd gate.
2nd gate (need to have tickets and have to go through security checks before entering)
And after walking through another smaller but still huge garden...I come to the 3rd gate. 3rd gate 
After the 3rd gate, I finally got to the 3rd court where exhibits such as jewels, swords and Prophet Mohammed's footprint in clay, etc are.
But, long lines were outside every exhibition halls.... 
And I toured Harem as well. Another ticket has to be bought to tour Harem, despite that the it is in the palace and visitors already paid to tour the palace .
A passage in the Harem; more specifically, the Eunuch's dormitory section of the Harem. 
Model of women in the Harem
After the palace, I went to Aya Sofya. It was initially built as a church, but was later changed into a mosque.
Before entering the mosque, a boy came up to me and pointed at his camera. I thought he was asking me to help him take a picture of him and his friends, so of course I agreed. But it turned out that he wanted to take a photo with me. Soon, I was taking photos with every single one of his friends (about 6 of them I think). Guess they hardly see any east Asian looking people, and since I was alone, I was probably easy to approach...
Anyway, my camera can't take good pictures in dimly lit places...and Aya Sofya is dimly lit, so I'm not going to post many pictures of the mosque here.
Got this from wiki - exterior of Aya Sofya
I took this picture - maintenance work inside
But if my camera is better and if there is no maintenance work, the inside should look like this (from wiki):
The sign says this marble jar is from the Hellenistic age. Seems to be in pretty good shape for something so old...
After leaving Aya Sofya, I did something really dangerous. An old man came to me and started talking to me. I shouldn't be talking to strangers, but I did. He then invited me to his store which sells carpets. Silly me decided that since he was so friendly, I could go take a look. Turned out that his store was in a quiet alley...and I got scared. But I still went with him. In the store, he showed me many carpets and explained each carpet to me. Well, it was obvious he wanted me to buy the carpets, but I am not interested in carpets. He kept saying he had a good price for the carpets, so I randomly asked the price of a carpet, the size of which would probably just fit under my desk in my dorm., and it cost 120 Euros! Seriously, I think he must be out of his mind to think I can afford that. I told him I am really broke and there is no way I can buy any. He said it was ok because he is my friend. He gave me his business card and said I can look for him anytime.
Well...glad nothing happened, but I should really ignore strangers from now on.
Signed off by Priscilla