4 Oct: Santorini

After almost 24 hours without sleep, we boarded the plane which took around an hour to Santorini.

the clouds kinda reminds me of home

Having been to airports around the world, shuyi is amused by the single luggage carousel in the arrival hall.

what was I thinking I was thinking again?


someone takes security seriously

Ok, this is our personal joke. Don't ask.

George (yea, every dude in Greece is George) from our hotel picked us up.

The sky was clearing up but we were really tired to fully appreciate it's beauty. It'll have to wait.

We reached the hotel too early and was told to come back a couple of hours later to check in as they need the customers to check out and to prepare the rooms.

We wanted to rent an ATV to hop around town but it was too early. So we wandered around. Just around the back of the hotel, we saw...

The first animal in Santorini to suffer at the hands of shuyi

please be gentle, i'm only a donkey


life sucks

The donkey was just parked there, doing nothing. An occasional crap maybe but nothing much in particular.

We bought some bread from the bakery for breakfast while waiting for the ATV rental shops to open.

The morning sun was lovely and I took this small window of opportunity to take a few shots.

After this picture was taken, they turned off the lights. I had another shot 16 seconds later which is totally different from this one. The light just went off right before I hit the shutter.

A slight nod in that direction.

A sample of what kind of buildings we are going to see for the next few days. Sometimes they really carry the 'white & blue' thing too far.

George told us '10€ for an ATV a day! Nothing more'. He informed us that this is the down season rate and showed us where are the rental shops. After we did a round, those assholes quoted us prices from 15€ to 20€. And the Greeks are too proud to counter quote you when you turn and leave.

We had to go back and confirm with George again. He directed to one particular shop (which we went before) and I had to quote George to get the 'correct' rate.

So we got our ride and a few more hours before check in. Time to hit the roads. The beauty of this trip is that there is no strict itinerary (I planed it to be unplanned. Honest!). We started to drive around.

Driving on open roads without the false security of a car body as protection is quite new to me. Shuyi done the ATV before during her last trip to Santorini. The other cars on the road takes it relatively easy and are not so eager to kill you, unlike in Singapore. I used to cycle on the roads so I know first hand how that felt. The very reason I have not been cycling for years. The other reason being the fact I have no bicycle any more (obviously).

Anyway, Shuyi met her old friend. Can anyone tell me what this animal is? Some kinda special Greek horse? Pony? Mule? It kinda looks like Alf. Really old school American sitcom character.

Alf

Shuyi said that it was the exact size as it was a year ago when she saw it. She kept saying

'it is even shorter than ah xuan!'

Insensitive.


ouch baby, very ouch.

That's a lot of facial hair for someone so small.

Before shuyi proceed to give the animal premature balding, I dragged her out of there.

Wandering around aimlessly, we followed a map George handed to us. you couldn't really call it a map... more like an illustration of sorts. I can't read maps anyway.

not your typical vineyard
more about that on a later date

When we saw this signs that points to a church, we thought that it is of some significance and went up the hill to check it out. It was sunday and there was a mass going on. Due to the small size of the church, they had to broadcast via speakers for the people outside.

Nothing much, but with high places comes great views.

Time to find us some beaches. There are 3 beaches that are quite famous in Santorini. 2 black ones and a red one. Yea. Couldn't be bothered with the names. You've eventually find out why they are colour coded.

Being the down season, the beach was pretty much deserted. We had a good little nap on the beach chairs (nobody is collecting money for those, being the down season). You can also spread your towel and lay anywhere because they just own the chairs, not the beach.

can you tell why they call it black beach now?

The black volcanic pebbles gave the beach that unique look. But they are not the most comfortable stuff to walk on.

After a refreshing nap, it was about time to check in, so we rode back to town. Not before shuyi stopped again and stroked the little horse.

Another pit stop along the way.

Santorini is littered with these


levitation

We stopped over at the supermarket to get some food for lunch as we decide to dine in. I bought a piece of parmesan cheese that would tide us throughout the trip. It's a tad daunting when the fat Greek woman is waiting for you to choose the cheese and you:

1. don't have much knowledge of cheese
2. don't think she'll appreciate letting me sample all of them

So I blurted out, parmasan. It is the one safest savoury cheese I know. The others I know are more like pizza toppings. And we had our fair share of feta.

chips, cheese, cola, tuna and bread.

The hotel is this small villa with not more than 10 rooms. Interesting little place. You can see the sky from the ground floor. Interesting open air concept.

While waiting for the rooms, I was branded.


my property

Shuyi was not pleased when the group of giggling Australian chicks were given drinks while waiting. No freebies makes 女王real angry!

We finally got our room: a small room with a bathroom and balcony (which works). And it look like a brothel in Bangkok (reason to be revealed on a later date)!

Pepsi > Coke

We grabbed some utensils from the kitchen at the basement. There is a disgusting collection of stuff left over by the customers. Half used sugar, condiments, instant food etc. All up for grabs. I found some teabags we could use. Freebies!

We lazed around some and decided to hit the town to do a little sightseeing before we head to Οία for the famous sunset.

Us and the ATV.

The acceleration is thumb operated. You really can drive it with one hand.

eyes are advised though

The roads are narrow and cars just park anywhere they want. No carpark aunties around in paradise. But with patience and some responsibility, everyone gets along just fine.

even Optimus Prime managed to get around

The caldera was a stone's throw away. I meant that literally. We felt stupid driving the ATV there. But parking was a breeze. The idea of free parking just anywhere and not expecting any parking tickets when you go back is a new concept and took a while to get used to.

We love the stuff in this shop.

All the things inside are nautical inspired. Not nautical as in yacht and rope knots. 'Seafood inspired' is more like it. Simply beautiful but crazy expensive. Nobody says things are gonna be cheap in paradise even in down season.

We love this ring a lot. The crude finishing and the simple setting of the diamond really appeals to us. Ian was to later inform me that this is called wabi-sabi. No I don't mean wasabi you jerk.

The weight (or lackof) of the gold and the speck of diamond made the price even harder to swallow.

unrealistic beauty

Some views of the caldera. The entire place was so bright, you could not manage without any shades on.

Little buddy here playing sheriff.


come here you cowboy!

The grecian dresses were horrible touristy rags at crazy prices. Disgrace.

The wind was crazy. And I read that it gets worse towards the end of Oct, to the extent that some ferries would be cancelled due to strong winds. Conspiracy theorists suggests that the services used the strong winds as excuses to cancel the less-than-full loads which would not be cost efficient to run.

Frank came out for some sun



There are 3 ways to get down to the sea where the old port is:

1. walk
2. donkey
3. cable car

Both options cost 5€. The cable car option was kinda boring but shuyi had a moral conflict about the donkeys. She told me that she was crying behind her shades when they whipped the camels when she was in Cairo.

From the numbering of the steps, you can understand why people pay 5€ just to 'get down a flight of steps'.

really?

We had enough of the shops around the caldera as we have 2 more days for them. Time to head to Οία.

Οία is a small fishing town on the northern tip of Santorini. It's famous for being one of the best places to watch sunsets. We'll see about that.

Before we left town, we drove pass a couple doing a wedding shoot. I parked the ATV by the side of the road and went to take some pictures of them.

The bride is gorgeous. That dude must be pretty rich...

To do wedding shoots in Santorini! What were you thinking?

taking the phase 'glowing bride' to the next level


comfort is king

Shuyi looking cute in the little mushroom helmet.

'I wanna drive' said shuyi with a pout.


can you say no to this?

I got on the backseat and took pictures paparazzi style.

It was late afternoon and we left the busy town of Fira. The roads got lonely and winding, the scenery changed and the winds start howling. Hordes of cars and tourist buses overtook us along the way. There's gonna be a crowd at Οία tonight.

We reached a place where there are some nice terraces and stopped for a break. The thumb will get tired one ok!

Wise cat making it's escape.




yeeaah! (say it like lil Jon)

Further down the road, we finally reached Οία. It was getting kinda late and the crowd there was crazy. We pushed our way through the narrow alleys filled to the brim with tourist. Isn't it supposed to be down season?! It would suck a lot if you drove an hour (or was it two) to Οία and miss the sunset by minutes.

When we reached, the WHOLE GANG was already there. All the possible places were taken. All the cameras were out with tripods deployed.

Man these people mean business. The chinese tourists came packing some serious heat. All the top end dSLRs and lenses. I even seen an uncle hang 2 dSLRs on his neck. He got like $20k on his neck, easy. All of them are trotting some serious equipment. Even their spouse are spotting some high end compacts. Them chinese people are shitting money. Time to kowtow to the chinese you ang mohs.

looks whose holding all the big cameras?

Before the trip, I was still worried that I will become robber-bait walking around with my camera with my big-ass lens. Now I am assured that I would be the last on the list for robbery. Horay!

There was a man paragliding there and there were 2 dogs who wouldn't stop barking at the paraglider. Where ever he goes, the dog would run over and park at it. Everyone was amused by the crazy dog's antics.

a step away from certain death

The paraglider would taunt the dog by doing reach close and is obviously enjoying the attention. At certain points, he would even take out his camera for some shots. I couldn't imagine myself that high up in the sky and enjoying myself.

The sunset was coming and the dog just wouldn't stop.




Shuyi is amused by the dog


one day i'll get you...




Koreans, Taiwanese and Chinese. This place is flooded with Asians.

Ok. Sunsets here. Time to start clicking!

These assholes hogged the placed.

I did some bracketing and dabbled in some HDR processing. The results looks artificial but yet interesting.

Normal



HDR

After the sun went over the horizon, you do a 180 degrees turn and you see...

the moon coming up. How convenient!

Normal



HDR

Now I did say that the dog is loony right? After the sun set, we walked back into town and the dog was already there waiting for us. Like this.

It stayed in this position for a good few minutes in the middle of the road. That's crazy for me.

shop selling English translated works of Greek writers.

What was appealing about the shop was the décor. There were books on shelves and there were books spewed everywhere. All this, set in a cosy environment complete with a bed.

The chinese tourist proceeded to exercise their crazy spending powers and bought everything in sight and filled up the restaurants. They were buying things like they were in a grab-all-you-can supermaket gameshow.

As the place was crawling with chinese tourist (we're chinese and tourists too. I know), we decided to head back to town. When we reached our ride, we found our helmets with rubbish and even a banana skin. Great. Apparently there is some retribution for careless parking around here. I gingerly emptied the trash and popped the helmet on. Never too cool for safety. Didn't you go to road safety park as a kid?

Riding the ATV under the moonlight on winding mountain roads is another experience we will not forget for some time. We had a simple dinner at Lucky's that night. Turkish kebab wrapped with pita bread with fries and sour cream is the cheapest dinner one can get in Greece. But it was pretty darn good.