J00sterJournal: Kebab Quest Part 7: Counter Culture Kebabs

To round out 10 epic days in Turkey, it's back to Istanbul for 24 hours before the final boarding call to JFK. Only this time around instead of exploring the Queen's mysterious past it's all about her frenetic future. The neighborhood of Beyoğlu is only a tram stop from the old city, but the real distance is measured in millennia. Here, in the narrow, graffiti-covered alleys of a once ignored corner of the city the youth of a nation are forging their own destiny. It seems fitting that the great thoroughfare of Istiklal Caddesi runs straight through the heart of Beyoğlu and ends at Taksim Square, the battlefield where the dreams and fears of a restless generation collide in the summer heat.

On the graffiti-to-street art meter Beyoğlu scores firmly at the street art end of the scale. That means instead of being mugged you're likely to offered a mug of a microbrew craft IPA.

When the plate doubles as a table top you know you've come to a good spot.

Urban Dictionary defines hipsters as often having "degrees in maths and sciences, which also require certain creative analytical thinking abilities." That's a good thing, because you need all that analytical ability to solve for the maximum shots-per-lira ratio, subject to the constraint that you must be able to stagger home in time to make your flight.

That's a big kebab for a little girl.

Istiklal Caddesi is an aorta of energy, a path to destiny for the young, the impassioned, the brave, the foolhardy, and the wearer of skinny jeans.

If one had to pick a single image to sum of a country of contrasts, this would be it.

Just one of hundreds of hipster cafes that have sprouted out of the decay of abandoned houses and decrepit warehouses. We also have here one of the hundreds of impostor hipsters; you can tell by the fact that he doesn't know his Balzac from his Proust. Oh, and he has, like, a job.

Gentrification is like the steady drip of a Swedish pour over.

All this hipsterism is making my jeans feel way too loose. Don't worry, there's a freshly baked chocolate chip cookie with a bespoke blend of 85.261% dark, organic cocoa - sourced from a microfinanced, women-owned farm on the shady slopes of a tropical volcano of course - that should solve that problem.

Kung Fu Zhu.

Hoodies are hip, until society realizes that Big Tech is just as evil as Big Banking or Big Oil.

As if there was any doubt that this is the cool side of the block.

Cochine, hidden down a narrow alley behind an unmarked door, is a Vietnamese restaurant and speakeasy run by a Kiwi chef. Go figure.

A welcome respite from endless kebabs. And the Earl Grey Martini is like discovering that your boring English aunt's afternoon tea party is really a Tinder-fueled orgy.

There are parties, and then there's Beyoğlu on a Saturday night. Who needs a Boom Boom Room when you've got a Boom Boom Street?

Morning dawns a little blurry after a wild night, but there's still a few hours till airport time so let's get cracking slackers, there's boxes still to be ticked.

The dance floor of an old Dervish House. To get closer to their deity, the Dervish whirl themselves into a trance-like state in a spinning dance that can last for hours. Team J00ster doesn't need to do any spinning to enter a trance, last night took care of that.

Yep, definitely hipster territory. If you've shaved your facial hair in the last 90 days you're not welcome. If you did the shaving with a straight razor though, you may get a one-off exemption.

One lira for fresh juice? Now there's something that the hipster premium hasn't hit yet.

Galata Tower offers stunning views over the skyline of one of the world's great cities. The towers of midtown Manhattan and the glass canyon of Hong Kong harbor have a worthy peer.

So many galleries, coffee shops, and vintage boutiques and so little time. Rock's ironclad rule that one must be at the airport a minimum of three hours early is starting to be sorely challenged.