Snowy white Cotton Castle–Pamukkale [YQrtw Day 53 May 30]

Location: Pamukkale, Turkey

Our bus reached Pamukkale town around 6:30am. Fortunately, our hotel had a free twin room and we were allowed to check in ahead of the official timing.

We went for breakfast–half knowing that this probably wasn’t covered in our hotel charges–and ate loads of carbs to give us energy for the day. (Later, the receptionist confronted us about the breakfast. We paid 7 lira each for it.)

Originally on our itinerary, we were supposed to have a free day today and have our tour the next day. I decided that it would be too tiring for us tomorrow to finish our tour at 4pm and hop on the bus to Selçuk 30 minutes afterwards.

So I went out to ask if we could do the tour today instead. I bumped into a person who claimed to be from the travel agency–I found out much later that he wasn’t–who said we could do the tour earlier.

The man also creepily asked me to sit in an empty shop to “chat”. I gave an excuse that I need to bring the Wi-Fi password to mom so I could not stay even for 1 minute.

Later during pick up time, we were approved by the real tour company people to go on the tour today.

I’ll just skip the first two sights that we visited, although they are quite amazing on their own.

First we saw the red hot spring source. The water had a lot of iron in it so the mineral would deposit on the sand and leave red marks. The water did taste like blood, as the tour guide said, due to the iron inside.

Then it was Heriapolis where we saw about 2km of stone coffins, tombs and mausoleums. We also saw the ruins of the city itself, with plenty of columns around.

I was disappointed when the tour guide told me that there were no ghost stories about the necropolis that we were walking through. I want ghost stories, please!

Visiting the Cotton Castle

The highlight of this tour was the Pamukkale terraces. The hot spring water that had much calcium in it would deposit the mineral and leave the side of the mountain looking like it was covered in snow

Pamukkale’s name is Turkish means Cotton Castle, which I think is a really cute name. Cotton Candy Castle will make it even sweeter.

Since we had 2 hours of free time, I took the opportunity to bath in one of the hot springs pool. Entrance fee was 32 lira, a little steep but I felt that it was worth it since I did not have to be in the sun. I hide in one of the shades of the flowers.

* If you want to swim in Pamukkale for free, do it in the terraces where the calcium deposits are.

The walk down from the hill top was treacherous. Mom and I had to take off our shoes so we don’t spoil the pristine white surfaces.

Water kept flowing and parts of the ground was slippery or filled with water that passes an adult’s knees. Luckily, we made it in the end without any major catastrophes. A minor bump during our walk down was when one of my shoes fell into the water.

Later in the evening, I went with the hotel shuttle bus to watch sunset on top of a mountain. There, I managed to slip on a little slope and hurt only some small parts of my hands.

More on the blog:

Last week, I was travelling from Athens, Greece, to Istanbul, Turkey, on an epic 15-hour bus ride.

Joining the ‘Green Tour’ of Cappadocia, Turkey [YQrtw Day 52 May 29]

Location: Goreme, Turkey

It’s a little funny how all the travel agents in Cappadocia have the same itinerary. (I didn’t do a scientific test but 5 out of 5 tour companies I’ve seen have the same route.)

Today was our turn to go on the “Green Tour” route which would take us to Göreme panorama, Derinkuyu underground city, Ihlara valley, Yaprakhisar, Selime monastery, Pigeon valley viewpoint.

The only thing I was expecting from this tour was the 3.5km walk in the valley. Remember, walking and I are not the best buddies so I wasn’t looking forward it to that much.

A bus full of Asians

Our minivan arrived at our hotel slightly past 9:30am. Mom and I got on the wrong bus before this so we were careful to check that this was the right bus.

The bus picked up several people from their hotels and from the travel company HQ. Interestingly, the bus was full of people with east Asian heritage (so PC!).

There were two men (who we later found out to be from Singapore), us Malaysian Chinese and 7 Korean people.

Statistically speaking, the chance of having a bus full of Asians here in Cappadocia is not that high so I wonder if someone pulled some strings, thinking we would be more comfortable with each other, or something.

So as the itinerary said, our first stop was the Göreme panorama. Panorama stops are a big thing here in Cappadocia because the landscape is pretty amazing.

These pointy mountains are the result of residues from volcanic eruptions. The walls of the mountains are soft, allowing the residents to cut through the stones to make cave houses for themselves.

While waiting for the bus, we spotted a pomegranate tree with baby fruits. It’s a shame that it’s not pomegranate season now because I could use some of those juicy seedy fruit.

Derinkuyu underground city

After a long journey during which I napped, we arrived at Derinkuyu underground city. We could only visit up to the 8th underground floor of this now-abandoned city but it was fun hiding inside the cool caves.

Some of the more interesting points of the tour was the visit to the graveyard/morgue which did not have any dead things in currently.

It wasn’t very fun crouching and climbing the stairs to get to one floor or another so those with back problems should be aware of this before signing up for the tour.

Ihlara valley

After the underground city, it was a 50-minute bus ride to the Ihlara Valley where we had to walk a lot before we could lunch.

Even though the valley was pretty, the exercise I got getting down the stairs into the valley made me a little grouchy.

At the end of the staircase was a little cave where cartoon Christian frescos remained. The paintings reminded me of this news when compared with Renaissance period Christian works.

Our 3.5 km walk didn’t seem too long since there was a little river with clear water and the trees shaded us from the sun.

In between the start and the end, there was a small rest area where enterprising locals made 3 lira orange juices and boys chased ducks.

Mom and I survived the 3.5 km walk. Everyone was treated to lunch by the river. Drinks of course require extra payment.

Yaprakhisar caves

Following our itinerary, we arrived at the Yaprakhisar caves which included the Selime Monastery. There is more than enough climbing for a lifetime at this place.

One of the cave chapels still have signs of frescos but everything was covered in what looked like black soot.

Far from this location was the set for the filming of Star Wars Episode I: The Phantom Menace. From where we stood, we saw pointy mountains with holes as windows and doors, but not anything more.

Surprise location

Well well well, one of our last stops turned out to be a souvenir shop that sold onyx and other jewellery.

I managed to win a low-grade onyx paperweight by remembering that Cappadocia meant “beautiful horses”. (My answer was actually, “Many horses? Beautiful horses? Strong horses?” I need to cover every possible answer.)

Right next to the shop was our last stop: the Pigeon Valley Panorama.

There were a few pigeons around but I was more curious about the stall selling “Turkish Cappadocia Naturel Viagra”. I never found out what the place sold.

Back to the bus we go

That night, we still had to take the bus from Goreme to Pamukkale. The bus ride was about 11 hours and I was stuck in front of a lady who seemed to be leaning forward alot, bumping into my seat from time to time.

I couldn’t recline so I ended up with a stiff neck when I woke up.

More on the blog:

Last week, I was in Greece and I visited Delos, the birthplace of Apollo.

Sri Lanka: Travel costs & summary

[I always like reading travel cost posts by other bloggers. Now, I’ve finally got started with my own travel cost post. Enjoy!]

It’s been 50+ days into my travels and I haven’t been telling you about the cost and my thoughts on the different places.

Sri Lanka was the first stop of my trip. I’m very glad that I’ve visited Sri Lanka first because it was tough compared to the rest of the places.

For one thing, Sri Lanka’s tourism is not really prepared well for the cheapo traveller like me.

If you have the money, getting drivers/ tour guides to bring you around is easy and very relaxing.

But I have a budget to adhere to so I did everything on my own–even taking the long-distance public transport on the eve of a major public holiday.

Sri Lanka’s travel costs

In April, Sri Lanka’s exchange rate was 101 rupees to 1 Singapore dollar (something like that).

Oddly, getting my money changed at the bank in Kandy gave better rates than the airport did.

Summary

Total spent (rupees)	# of days	Daily average
35,937.5	8	4,492

By Category

Accomo	Transport	Food	Museums/ sites	SIM + data
15,025	3202	5450	7,575	1,210

I’ll be honest, I was trying to squeeze my money in Sri Lanka (even though there’s really no need to) because I want to see if I can spend less than S$50 a day. I think it worked out rather well.

Stat

Duration: 8 days (3 nights in Anuradhapura, 4 nights in Kandy, 1 night in Colombo).

Photos taken: 549 photos

Rice and curry eaten: 7 (On the last day, I had fried rice instead.)

Random

Best room: While my room in Colombo was pricey and had all that you want in a modern hotel room, it was the Kandy hostel single room with shared bathroom that rocked my trip. For the price of a dorm bed, I got a whole room to myself. Woot!

Not-so-good room: My room in Anuradhapura was large but the only electrical socket was deliberately hidden behind a dressing table. The socket was falling apart and I was afraid of killing myself every time I plugged my charger in.

Best meal: Khotu, I LOVE YOU! This stir-fried dough stripes has the right amount of charred taste from the pan and the generous chicken bits are so tasty. I want to eat more of this!

But I like khotu a lot more than hoppers.

Most valuable item bought: Umbrella. Do you remember how I got sunstroke from Sigiriya? If I had bought an umbrella, I would be as healthy as a bull.

Favorite part about Sri Lanka: The price of 3G! It’s so damn cheap and quite fast.

Biggest surprise: Christian shrines at the roadside.

Jesus loves you and wants to give you a hug.

Best experience: Kids boldly saying, “Hi.” to me and asked me where I’m from. Also, a kid asked me in a temple if I was from Japan or Korea and if I knew a particular Korean popstar.

Worst experience: Sitting in crowded third class train carriage with a monk sitting on the aisle across. The old monk’s hands grabbed at the sides of my seat, leading me to squeeze away uncomfortably as I did not think that it was proper for any parts of my body to touch his hands.

Later, some passengers had a shouting match with the monk. One guy offered me his his seat next to his mother.

Another man in purple shirt asked, “Did [the monk] harass you?”
“I don’t know,”I answered honestly.
“If he did, we need to report him,” he said, looking very pissed.

I know that monks are given reverence in Sri Lanka so I wasn’t very sure if I was taken advantage of or just too silly and not just let the monk grab parts of my seat.

Biggest rip off: Anuradhapura scared city entrance ticket for US$35. I know the money is used for conservation but the actual sites that you need to show the tickets are not that splendid. I could have listened to advice on the Internet and cycled in for free.

Biggest regret: Staying for too long in Anuradhapura and not staying a night at Dambulla.

Is Sri Lanka suitable for a solo female traveller?

Before I set foot in Sri Lanka, I asked two girls who have been to the country alone what they thought about solo travel there. Phebe from The Travelling Squid and Stephanie from Pearls and Passport both liked the country and felt it was OK for a single woman to travel there.

After being in Sri Lanka, I think that it’s quite safe to travel as a single woman in Sri Lanka, but some sights are better suited for this than others.

For example, I was more comfortable in Kandy than in Anuradhapura where I didn’t see another East Asian-looking tourist. The beach areas should be tourist-friendly too.

However, the journey to Sigiriya from Kandy was very tiring since I was one of the few single female walking about. Standing on a cramped local bus for 3 hours didn’t help with my level of comfort at all.

In conclusion, I think Sri Lanka is a place that is best visited with a buddy to look out for you. If you really want to travel to Sri Lanka alone, I’d say, “Go ahead!” It’s a safe country but as some of the places are not as lazy-tourist-friendly as Thailand.

If you are interested in reading more about my days in Sri Lanka, check out the archives.

Living in the caves of Cappadocia [YQrtw Day 50 May 27]

Location: Göreme, Turkey

If it were up to me, I might not have planned a trip to Cappadocia. Instead, I would have spent many days in Istanbul.

However since my mom was visiting, my sister was very helpful and enthusiastic in looking for sights to see. She found out about cave hotels and balloon rides in Turkey and even helped us book 2 nights in a cave hotel in Göreme.

After a 12-hour bus ride from Istanbul, we arrived in the little town of Göreme. The tour company picked us up from the bus terminal but took a little while looking for our hotel.

When we got there, it was too early for check in but we were allowed to have breakfast. The spread was more generous than what we had in our Istanbul hotel.

Since we couldn’t check in so early, we decided to visit the Göreme Open-Air Museum (15 lira entrance, extra 8 lira for Dark Church).

It took us quite a lot of walking to reach the museum from our hotel. Along the way, we saw the many caves and mountains that are famous in this region. The rocks look quite funny.

One of the more famous rock formation is called “fairy chimney” but for my 15-year-old teenage boy mind, they look more like pen*ses (I looked up wikipedia for the plural of pen*s.) See for yourself.

After a gruelling walk up and down some hills, we finally reached Göreme Open-Air Museum. Thank fully the entrance fee wasn’t 25 as I previously thought it was.

Göreme Open-Air Museum, worth the visit

Before coming to the museum, I read a few conflicting reviews about Göreme Open-Air Museum on Tripadvisor.

The place was actually nice since I really like Christian Byzantine art for its “unrealness”. But the caves are really small and we needed to elbow a few other tourists to visit the tiny little chapels in the caves.

The best church among the caves was the Dark Church which requires an extra 8 lira entrance fee. Inside, the walls and ceilings are covered with art works but most of the saints have their faces chiselled off.

On our way back, I caved in so we got back on a taxi for 10 lira. It was well worth the money since the noon sun was even more cruel.

Six hour power nap

After a lunch in the little town, we head back to the hotel. Our room was ready and our bags were brought into our cave room.

The cave hotel room was cool even though it was blisteringly hot outside. With our double bed and light, the whole setting didn’t look very much like a cave. Instead, it was more like the walls having funky uneven patterns.

Unfortunately, the room was rather humid and nothing would dry if we hung it inside. Thankfully we have a little porch with two sofas. We took the liberty of hanging a few of our laundry outside.

Since we took a night bus, our sleep quality the night before wasn’t very good. The room was so cool that we fell into a nap very soon.

Mom’s nap turned out to be 2 hours longer than mine. I admired the sunset and worked on May 26’s blog post during that time.

At night, we went to a restaurant suggested by Foursquare. The place was awesome as the tea and apple tea were served free and for as much as we want. Yum!

We walked back to the hotel in the cool night air and rested at 11:00pm to prepare for our early morning hot air balloon ride the next day.

Welcoming mom and her jetlag to Istanbul [YQrtw Day 48 May 25]

Location: Istanbul, Turkey

As I mentioned in my old post talking about Turkey, my mom has joined in on my round-the-world trip during the Turkey leg (lol) of my trip.

This is the first time that she’s travelling to Europe so I promised to pick her up when she arrives. The hostel I was staying at had a 5:15am shuttle for 5 euro and I gladly paid it so I do not need to figure out the public transport.

Since there was not much traffic at 5:15 am, the bus reached the airport in 15 minutes time. That was majorly fast.

When the shuttle bus dropped off passengers at the international departure hall, I asked the driver if he was going to the international arrivals, thinking that he would pick up the other passengers.

Mom didn’t come out into the arrival halls until an hour after the plane landed. We took the tram from the airport back to my hostel.

We got off our tram one stop too late because I didn’t remember the stop correctly. However, we were in luck as the famous pastry shop, HafIz Mustafa 1864, was just in front.

We breakfasted on three buns, Turkish tea and a cafe latte. The food in the display window looked more attractive than our brown buns but no one was buying the Turkish delights that early in the morning.

We got back to my hostel. I quickly packed my things and we shifted to another hotel down the road. The new room was huge and has three beds. How awesome is that.

The next thing I had on my to-do was less awesome. Remember how I bought a new SIM yesterday? Turns out, even though I paid 25 lira for 1GB internet, the data package was never linked to my phone. (I found out from the guy working at Turkcell in the airport.)

Despite being confrontation-phobic, I had to go back and plead for my 25 lira package.

When I got back, the lady who served me wasn’t in. None of her Turkish colleagues spoke enough English but one of them have the bright idea to bring up Google Translate where we “chat” with translations.

After they found out about my problem, they had a heated discussion and even called someone up. However, they did give me my 1GB data back so I am very thankful.

List of places we visited:

When was the last time you travelled with your mom? How was the experience?

Day trip to Delos, the birthplace of Apollo [YQrtw Day 45 May 22]

Location: Mykonos, Greece

Today was the day of the day trip to Delos, the sacred island where the sun god Apollo and his twin Artemis are said to be born.

To get to Delos, you need to take a boat, run by Delos Tours which has a counter at the docks. Without a tour, the price of the return trip is 17 euro.

The guided tour package is 40 euro for a 1.5 hour group tour and the return tickets. I chose the tour group because I haven’t done my reading on the island. The tour was booked through my hotel.

The boat for the guided tour leaves at 10:00 am. The lady at the hotel told me it would be better to reach at 9:30 am so I had to call for a cab.

Along with the booking fee, the cab fare was 7 euro from the hotel to not-even-near the Delos dock. The meter seemed to jump really fast. Each 3 meters, it jumps by 1 cent, leading my heart to jump along with it.

With my voucher, I collected my boat ticket and a sticker that signified that I was on the guided tour. The boat that went to the island was quite large and had two levels.

I really wanted to stay in the shaded lower level but felt that it looked odd when everyone else was on the upper deck. So I head up and sat under the sun.

The trip to Delos seemed to take forever as the sun gave my left shoulder a good sizzle. Even covering my shoulders with a shawl didn’t seem to help much as the heat still soaked through the thin synthetic fabric.

Tour of Delos’s residential area

The boat finally landed at Delos. Everyone swarmed out and there was a slight confusion as no one really knew which area to gather for their own tour group.

There were two English tours that day. One had a Union Jack as a sticker while the other, which I was on, had a half smiley face sticker.

Our tour guide was Joanna who wore a Beatles t-shirt and a baseball cap.

Our first stop was the residential area of Delos. The only remains left of the place were stone walls with stones stacked high without using any cement. This was the Greek way of building walls: stacking stones with smaller stones in between so everything would stay put.

The walls that we saw were mostly stone but in the past, the Greek would put a layer of material outside of the walls so that the surface is smooth.

At the House of Dionysus, we saw a replica of a marble mosaic that had a head with wings, floating on a tiger.

The head and wings belonged to Dionysus, the Greek god of wine, entertainment and theater. Dionysus was popular among the common people because everyone likes to partaaay.

In the same house, we could see the remains of a stone staircase heading up and also a room with a drain which functioned as a private toilet.

At another house, we saw a window with marble frames. On the marble, there were holes. Back then, there was metal railing in the window and the room was a bank of sorts.

Next stop, Joanna brought us to the ancient theater. Most of the marble seats were gone but some of the front row seats were intact and even had backs.

Our visit to the residential area ended after looking at the House of Cleopatra where two statues were found. One of the statues had the name Cleopatra so the house was named that way. This wasn’t the same Cleo as the one who died of a snake bite.

Apollo’s temples no more

Next up was Apollo’s sanctuary and his alleged birth place.

Here on Delos, there wasn’t much left of Apollo’s sanctuary. There were marble foundations and some lonely columns lining the paved road to the temple but it required a very good imagination to see the things as it was in the past.

In the distance, a single palm tree marked approximately where Apollo was born. There used to be a lake there in the past but the present archaeologists filled the lake up because it was breeding malaria-carrying mosquitos.

There were also a line of marble lions near the temple. The replica lions were rather slim and had the same ravaged looks as the original.

When the tour ended, we had time to spare. There was a boat leaving at 1:30pm but I decided to stay on the island and leave on the last boat at 3:00pm.

When the boat that leaves at 1:30 pm left, I was worried that I would be bored with the island. In the end, I wasn’t bored at all.

I went around exploring after I took a look at the museum’s rather sparse collection. I had wanted to climb up the tallest hill but I gave up. It was a little embarrassing that I couldn’t make it to the top as I saw many retirees sprinting up.

Halfway up the hill, there was a temple with the sign Temple of Isis. The half broken statues of a goddess inside didn’t look like the Isis I know. It had a flowy robe.

I took a wrong path on my way down. The path might have led somewhere in the past but I only had plants that clung to me desperately and an end that required me to jump down 2 feet to the ground.

Many lizards lived on the island. Most of them were colorful with stripes of bright green or blue.

The boat back to Mykonos sounded its horn 30 minutes before departure.

When we left, Delos turned back into the empty place with all but the archaeologists, birds and lizards staying back on the sacred island.

Mykonos, effortlessly beautiful [YQrtw Day 44 May 21]

Location: Athens -> Mykonos, Greece

When I was planning my RTW for Greece, going to the Greek islands wasn’t in my list because

I do not like getting sunburnt
I do not like warm sea water
I do not like to party

In short, I’m a terrible island tourist.

But when I was in Athens, I found out about some cheap island packages to Santorini and Mykonos. It was cheaper than me trying to cobbling up everything from scratch so I decided to give one of the Greek islands a try.

That, plus my 1-week Athens transport pass was expiring.

The travel agent picked Mykonos for me to fit my bus schedule. I’m kind of wary about Mykonos because I heard that it’s a party island.

But when I arrived in Mykonos, I realized that I like the island is not just about partying.

Follow the black tar road to Mykonos

My hotel is quite far from the city center. It’s a 1.5km journey, according to the hotel. There are buses to town but they come at an hourly interval.

After checking into the hotel, I took a long rest before heading out at 4:00pm. I thought that 4 hours in town would be enough and I would be able to head back before sunset.

The road to town was easy enough. I just had to follow the coastal road till I reach the populated area.

The walk was lovely. On the right were the cliff and the beautiful multi-coloured Aegean Sea. On the left, there were hotels built in the white Mediterranean style.

Of course, I would get jealous of people riding their monster scooters or driving their cars past me. I had to rely on Bus 11 (my two legs) instead of a private transport.

Beautiful Mykonos town

Mykonos’s town center is painted with a limited selection of colors. White was predominant as all walls were as white as bleached cotton. Doors, door frames and window frames were painted blue while churches had red dome roofs.

The limited color made the whole town beautiful. No building was competing with others for attention. Some buildings had green vines while others had bursts of bougainvillea framed by its green leaves.

The streets were narrow. All the time I did not know where I was going but it didn’t matter because I will find my way when I get to the sea.

I did want to find a particular restaurant that was recommended on Tripadvisor. My Google Maps took me into tinier and tinier lanes until I finally saw the shop.

I ordered two pitas: pork gyro and pork souvlaki, since I did not have lunch.

The restaurant owner must have thought that I was getting a takeaway for someone else as well because he had my order tucked into a aluminium wrap.

I was too embarrassed to say that I was the only one who will be eating the two wraps so I paid my bill and went to find a picnic spot.

Maybe having the picnic was a better choice since I had the view of the sea while I munched away at my pita wraps. That would keep me satisfied till tomorrow morning.

After my meal, there was more walking. I eventually stumbled upon the famous windmills and Little Venice. This means that I will have less to tick off my check list tomorrow.

No swimming in the sea

I decided to go swim in the sea when I got back to the hotel. There’s a tiny patch of seawater in front of the hotel, near the yatch docks.

When I got to the water, I realized that the sea was freezing cold. The sun was about to set so there was no rays to heat up the water.

In the end I just looked at the bottom of the sea. The water was so clear that I could see tiny fishes swimming about.

There were also some sea plants so I figured that not many people swim in this part of the sea.

Same as always, I head back to my room as night fell. Tomorrow I’m going to the island where Apollo was said to be born.

Have you been to Mykonos? What do you recommend doing here?

Tix to Mykonos bought! [YQrtw Day 43 May 20]

Location: Athens, Greece

Today was a very mellow day because most museums were closed and my 4-day Acropolis museum pass expired today.

I did buy my tour package to Mykonos in the morning so the day did have a slight climax. I initially wanted to go to Santorini but I told the travel agent about my time constraint (bus to Istanbul leaves at 17:00 on Thursday) so he chose Mykonos.

Since the day was a bit of a bore (lunch of gyros; nap; coffee at Public Cafe; back to hotel), I’ll discuss a little about my plans for Mykonos.

Mykonos

CC Photo by Apel.les

I’m staying in Mykonos for two nights. The hotel I’m booked for seem to be low on Wi-Fi so do not fret if you don’t find any updates.

I heard that Mykonos is a party island. And if you know me, I’m not party-going person.

I also found out that Mykonos is “one of the hottest gay holiday destinations that Europe has to offer”. This probably means that half of the men out there play for the other side of the team. (So much for Eat, Pray, Love huh.)

I’m not that much of a beach person so I’m glad to find that Mykonos has plenty of museums. (I can hear the facepalms from my friends now.)

There’s also a magical island nearby. I’ll definitely head there on Day 2 morning.

Early bird

My ferry to Mykonos leaves at 7:35am so I need to leave my hotel at about 6:00am. This also means that I need to wake up super early (and pack today too).

So that’s for today! I promise I will start packing soon.

Changing of guards at Syntagma Square [YQrtw Day 42 May 19]

Marching ceremony at Athens's parliament

Locations: Athens, Greece

In front of the Parliament building, there are guards dressed up in fancy costume, guarding the Tomb of the Unknown Soldier.

The guards are sort of like the those at Buckingham Palace–standing straight with no expression.

At the start of each hour, they have a changing of guards thing going on. The guards march with high kicks.

But on every Sunday at 11am, there’s an even more elaborate “show” with band music and many guards marching down the street.

Since I’ve not caught any of the changing of guards, I thought I should head down today to catch the most awesome of the show.

When I reached the area, I saw that many people were already lined up at the square in front of the Parliament. I went closer and looked between other people’s shoulders to find that the guards were already doing their lining up.

I had to look between others’ shoulders for a part view of the procession.

Then something caught my eyes. It was the very good looking face of a young policeman.

Why are Greek policemen so handsome?

I think I now sound very much like a creep. And based on the photo above, you’ve probably removed the bookmark you had for this blog.

But I have to ask: Why are the young Greek police people so good looking?

Since coming to Athens, I have been stunned by how good looking the younger police officers are. (The policewomen are also gorgeous but there are more policemen around to look at.)

How is it statistically possible for this place to have so many good looking police people? Do they have a “good looking meter” that recruits have to pass?Someone, tell me!

Anyway, after the marching, I didn’t linger around for more stalker shots so that’s the one and only photo of Clark Kent that you’ll see here.

Benaki Museum and lunch on the rooftop

The Benaki Museum was just around the corner. Since today was International Museum Day part 2, it was free entry to the 3-storey museum.

The collection in the museum was great. Finally I get to see art that wasn’t related to Christianity (those are great too but there is a limit of how much Marys one can handle in a week).

Since Museum Weekend was on, there were a lot of events for children as well. I wished I had those when I was a kid but then I might rather stay at home than hang out with a crowd of stranger kids.

The Benaki Museum has a nice rooftop restaurant that is shaded by umbrella. I decided to treat myself to some nice lunch since I’ve been keeping within my budget in Greece.

Lunch was moussaka–which I dub eggplant lasagna–and a pricey frappe. The creamy moussaka took a lot of effort for me to finish.

Damn you Google Maps

Next stop, I thought of going to the Byzantine Museum, to see the wonderful…Christian art. (Wait, who was it that said she cannot stomach more Marys?) I like the Byzantine Christian works because the characters are deliberately stiff.

So using my trusty Google Maps, I mapped out my route. Hmmm… A 40 minutes journey? OK, I do have a lot of time.

I waited for the longest while before bus 132 came. The bus went through a long route before I got off.

Following Google Maps’s direction, I arrived at a residential area, in front of a house that did not look like a museum.

I got out my phone and checked Foursquare. The app told me that the museum was just next to where I got on the bus, near the Benaki Museum.

DAMN YOU GOOGLE MAPS.

Other things that happened today: Got back to city center; sat at a nice cafe, reading; went to see the public cemetery of Athens but the gates were not open; saw creepy lady in cream blouse and skirt while walking away from cemetery; got back to hotel; bought club sandwich for dinner; read Jezenbel.

Greece day 4: Let’s go shopping at the Ancient Agora [YQrtw Day 41 May 18]

[I just spend a good part of the past hour reading up comments on Game of Thrones! Let’s get some work done.]

Location: Athens, Greece

Today’s my fourth day in Athens but things are still exciting.

In the morning, I decided to see the Central Market and maybe try out some tripe soup recommended on TripAdvisor.

I never saw the tripe soup stall but I did enter the market’s meat, fish and vegetable zone.

There were so much seafood on display. My heart longed for the huge squids lying on their bed of ice. Sadly, I do not have a kitchen I can cook the squids.

Next on my To-Do list was the Temple of Zeus. However, I wandered to the wrong place and visited an ancient public bath.

The public bath was housed in a small house. The inside of the place was cool, a great escape from the heat outside.

There wasn’t any water around but they showed some marble washbasins and benches.

I was disappointed to see that the women’s section was much smaller than the men’s.

Shopping at the Agora

Just down the road from the bath is the Ancient Agora. My tickets to the Acropolis covered this sight as well so I dropped by.

Turns out I didn’t need my ticket. It was International Museum Day and it was free entry to the sight.

At the Ancient Agora, I followed Rick Steve’s brilliant walking tour.

Halfway during my tour, an older American couple followed my route with their audio tour on speaker. It was so annoying having their audio tour on so I waited until they left.

The Ancient Agora was where the ancient people met for town meetings, theaters and so on. Most of the buildings were turned to rubble so having the audio tour helped make more sense of the place.

I tried to look for the Temple of Aphrodite Urania but couldn’t find it.

It was past lunch time when I finished seeing the Ancient Agora. I head back to the Central Market area where I had spotted souvlaki shops.

For lunch, I had a delicious meal of kebab in pita with a cold Coca Cola for only 3.30 euro. The pita bread was still piping hot when it came to me but I wolfed it down rather quickly.

The afternoon sun was too punishing so I head back to the hotel for a quick shower. Despite having coke for lunch, I finished a tin of carbonated lemon to cool down. I think it was worth the calories.

In search of a bus station

When it was past 5pm, I headed out again. This time, I needed to find the bus station where my Istanbul-bound bus will leave next week.

The directions given by the travel agency where I bought my bus ticket was fuzzy. Even with the help of the Internet, I couldn’t figure out exactly where it was.

I followed the advice of the travel agent and took bus A15. Luckily, Google Maps helped me narrow down the area and I spotted the bus station.

Since I had nothing planned, I continued my bus ride until its last stop. The bus stopped at a residential neighborhood on a very steep hill.

I tried walking up but gave up before the last staircase. Even standing on the pavement made me feel imbalanced.

While I walked down back to the bus stop, I passed by a family of a grandfather, a father and two twin toddlers. They were playing baby football (the ball is kicked gently to the kids). The boys followed the father’s cheer “GOAL” when the ball reached their feet. It was so adorable.

The bus back to town was uneventful. We passed many shops that were closed. Maybe it’s a Saturday so everyone’s out.

The bus eventually ended near where I boarded. Luckily for me, that’s very near my hotel.

At Carrefour, I did a little shopping for feta cheese (Greek cheese is so yummy!), milk (equally yummy), body lotion (I hadn’t tasted it yet) and a big bottle of lemon soda.

The rest of the evening was spent on the internet. Good night!