To God be the Glory

I have many things to be grateful to God and I want to give thanks to Him.

A wonderful hymn with meaningful lyrics.

To God be the Glory !

Thank you 

 

23rd Sept 22 Day 6 Santorini x 2 Videos

 

                                                            Santorini Pool from our Suite. 

This view must be one of the highlights of our island tour of Santorini. The crisp clear air of the island (a calderra, or a crater made millions of years ago),the clear blue waters of the Aegean Sea and the sight of the massive cruise ships in the distance all make this view so spectacular. 

There are several quirks about the island. 

1. The sewage system is inefficient so, it is advisable NOT to throw any toilet paper into the sewage ! Yes, that is true about Santorini. You are advised to wipe your behind and throw them into a special plastic bag which will be collected daily from the room service people.

2. The main town is called FIRA and the second one is called OIA. OIA is a very picturesque place and warranting a high number of marriage proposals due to its awesome views (in a later blog post)

3.You can actually view the sunset from a place high up, I have the video and it is awesome. 

Would I want to live in Santorini ? No.

Its just a dry calderra, with many tourists. I would be out of my wits if I worked as a cashier or a bellhop in a hotel on the island.

There are numerous farms (which just look like dry tumbleweed) which shocked us when the tour guide showed it to us.

Because of the fertile soil and lack of water, the structures for creepers and other vegetables are wound like something looking like a round concertina barbed wire.

I have photos and will post them in an upcoming post.  

23rd Sept 2022 Day 6 Santorini

 

22nd Sept 22 Day 5 Paradise Beach Mykonos

 

Video taken at Paradise Beach, everyday Happy Hour starts at 10 am till 6 am the next day  

Fun Fact 1 : Mykonos has a stable population of about 10,100.

Fun Fact 2  : 1 Million tourists visit duringthe summer months of June - September ! 

So 99% of the people you meet in Mykonos are tourists ! 

Freddy Daktylidis, a well known figure in the community had a vision that the island could be a hotspot. But for what ? In 1969, in the south of the island, he opened a restaurant in a secluded stretch of beach and called it 'Paradise'. It was and still is a place to go to get high. All manner of people (gays, lesbians, transgender and straight) would make a beeline there. 

Word of mouth  soon made this place THE place to be. 

Fast forward 50 years, and it is in the top 15 league for parties   WORLDWIDE (rave, house, electric and the like) and top DJs like Avici, David Guetta, Tiesto all played there. 

View taken from our Hotel Room showing the Cruise Liner in the distance and the Blue skies overhead.

So in 2022 it already marks 53 years of top partying with no end in sight. The magic and the name draws the people from all over the world out for a good time.

Beautiful Mykonos Alleyways.

Little Venice in Chora

The peak season is actually from July to September but it feels like it is still chock a block full of tourists. The COVID - 19 pandemic has made people so desperate to travel that every country (with the exception of China) is rolling out the red carpet to tourists to boost up their ailing economies badly hit these last 2 years. 

White Washed Church - a symbol of the Greek islands 

If there is one symbol which typifies the Greek islands, it must be the white washed small buildings and churches at every turn. The Greeks are Orthodox Christians and the Disciple Paul made his was here to preach the Gospel in the 1st century AD. 

If not for the Christian outreach, who knows whether the gods of the past would still remain in the minds of the modern day Greeks ?

We were blessed with brilliant sunshine and weather all the 5 days (so far) of our trip. I am really fortunate to make the 2 week holiday practically a must do since 2016 and the memories accumulated hopefully will last a lifetime. At least this blogspot site is my go to site when my memory starts fading (hopefully later than sooner) 

Chora View 

Narrow Alleyways always sunny

Party Time In Paradise Beach 

 

21st Sept 2022 Day 4 - Mikonos - Party Island

 We didn't know it then, but when we mentioned the island 'Mikonos' most of the people we spoke to straight away said : "Ah Party Island" and " LGBT friendly", I knew this was going to be a real fun 3 day 2 night stay. 

MIkonos is in between Athens and Santorini. Greece has some 6000 odd islands and islets, and there are inhabitants in less than 300, so if you actually wanted to visit all the inhabited ones, assuming you stayed 1 week in each one, you woudl spend 227 weeks or roughly 4 years and 5 months just visiting each and every one !

We had a transfer at 6.00 am for a ferry at Athens port to take us to Mikonos. The Seajet ferry is both a vehicular, and passenger ferry and can easily seat 1000 passengers plying the major islands of Saxos, Mikonos, Santorini and many others.

Our hotel called the Elena Hotel was perfect for us ; situated at near the top of the mount, all we had to do was to walk downhill via the narrow alleyways, and we are in the main downtown street of the capital, called Chora.

The place has a buzzing vibe. Coupled with clear tourquise blue waters, the windy waterside is everything a holidaymaker would want. Great seafood restaurants by the waterside, touristy shops selling souvenirs, whitewashed buildings with their blue domes (greek home churches). The vibe here is relaxed and friendly

Tourists are mainly from Europe (Germany, UK and French make the largest gorups) and then there are the US (North and South). I recall standing in a bus full of noisy Italian tourists from Palermo. They were obviously happy and drunk just to be here and their extended family and friends numbered over 20, or almost half of the bus capacity.

Lunch was at Kadena, waterside restaurant, and we seem to be the only Singaporeans here. Several of the shopkeepers thought I was from the US, and when I told them that I was from Singapore, they were genuinely pleased.

Tourists from Asia are well received, as we (as a rule) cause no or little problems and tend to be (relatively) big tippers to the serving staff and tour guides.

In the afternoon, we headed off to Paradise Beach.

That, in itself is another story for another blog post.

CARPE DIEM. 

  

Can I get 150K views by end 2022 ?

 

I have one small wish, can I get 150,000 views by 31st Dec 2022 ? I will try to show more interesting content so please write me a comment on how to improve my blog. 

Surprisingly, I am still at it after almost 16 years on Google. 

I aim to get good at the presenting better Youtube videos, and improve my Blogspot blog.