任是无情也动人

Our last destination in Greece this morning was the Temple of Poseidon at Sounion. A very pretty place, but it was on the way there that I had my completely unrelated epiphany on just why the Hetalia character for Greece was a narcoleptic cat lover.

If I had to estimate the number of cats I've seen so far on this tour, it would be *at least* 5, per *day*. And I'm not talking half wild cats that are appropriately wary or humans. These are all domesticated felines just placidly waiting for tourist to coo over/pet/feed them.

Also, Greeks have a waaaay easy lifestyle. Most retail stores only open 3-4 days a week, and even places that do open daily for tourist have short hours by US or Chinese standards.

Also noticed that even the middle of Athens is closer to US suburbia in the amount of foot and car traffic you would typically see on the street. That is to say, very little of anything seems to be going on. The only places that are full of people are the tourist spots.

Comparatively, arriving at Istanbul this afternoon was rather reminiscent of arriving in China (or HK or Taiwan, etc.) in terms of all the masses of people, construction, and general activity.

(Current time is 9:15 pm)

Current time is 9:25 pm.

My last 3 or so days were spent on a cruise ship, where Wi-fi was hella expensive. So didn't get a chance to post interim updates. Figured I'd just do a data dump now.

Day 3

Took all morning to check onto the Celestyal Olympia. My first time on a cruise ship, so lessons learned: they take your passports for the duration of the trip, but on the bright side, we didn't need to present either passport or visa on our one stop in Turkey.

Jetlag mixed with a bit if sea sickness was the pits on this first day, but it cleared up mostly after a night's sleep on board.

In the afternoon, we stopped at the island of Mykonos, a cozy and windy seaside tourist trap. Has dinner there as well. Grilled fish, although fresh, was rather meh. The tiger shrimp were slightly better.

Day 4

Landed in Kusadasi, Turkey for the morning, and the cruise also provided a local guide. This guy was the best tour guide we had so far (up to day 6).

First tour destination was the House of Virgin Mary. I'm not Christian, so it was kinda meh to me.

Second destination was the ancient city of Ephesus. Now this was more like it. We walked for hours in the archaeological site of the Roman city, covering everything from the gymnasium, forum, temple, fountains, baths, bathrooms, library, to theater. All marble all the time. It was pretty awesome.

On our way back to the ship, we also stopped at Turkmen, apparently a government sponsored place to do/teach/sell handmade carpets. Unfortunately our tour group were all American-Chinese, so no one bought anything.

There was another tour announced in the afternoon for Patmos, another religious place, but I wasn't interested and didn't go.

Day 5

Morning was Crete. We saw thwe archaeological site of the Minoan palace of Knossos. Not was intact as Ephesus but it is a much older city. Then we did a brief tour of Heraklion, apparently the capital. But as it was Sunday, not much was open.

In the afternoon we arrived at Santorini to look at the sights. Unfortunately thick clouds rolled in about 10 mins to sunset, sono one got to see it that day. Not that we'd have been able to anyway, due to bus and ship schedules.

Had lobster on the ship for dinner. While the lobster was quite big and cheaper than in the US, the cooking was mediocre.

Day 6

Docked back at th Piraeus port in Athens. Apparently this major Grecian port is now 60-80% Chinese owned nowadays. Hah.

Then had a 2 hour drive up to the monastery of St. Lucas. Expacted sights of medieval religious building.

Had lunch at this random place, which was actually rather good.

Then drove over to Delphi and the archaeological site of the temple of Apollo. Not much remaining to see...

Finally, our hotel tonight is in a random small town on the way back to Athens, called Nafpaktos. Ok place, good view of the bay at least.

Currently 11:47 pm in Athens.

It was a 13 hour flight to Instanbul (over the US and Atlantic), and then a transfer backwards to Athens. Eh, something something prices I guess.

Turkish Airlines was kinda meh. No adjustable fans for cooling downn and food was blah. Watched 3 in flight movies and stuck to light stuff like Ice Age (Collision Course), Kungfu Panda 3, and Lego Batman. KP3 was a great laugh, but I thought the other two were trying too hard.

Also, while waiting at the airport, I browsed a bit on the details of the new Star Trek Discovery pilot. Not too impressed, honestly. Sounded to me like they tried to do Kelvinverse style squished into Prime universe, and I'm not just referring to the lens flares.

To wit: A tramatised faux-emo main character which is going to a actual main character (since when has any Prime Trek had a series MC?) and whose backstory reads like a bad fanfic Mary Sue. Seriously, haven't they learned from the last time they tried to give Spock a sibling?