get ready kids for the brightest city in the world- ATHENS (ah it's so white!!!)

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We originally wanted to island hop through the Aegean Greek islands to Athens, but as the summer tourist season had not quite started, the ferry services were too unreliable. So we caught a sleeper train from Istanbul to Thessaloniki, which proved to be a thousand times more luxurious than that Vietnamese overnight train of absolute hell (and vomit). We felt like royalty, as we had a little cabin all to ourselves, even with an in-room sink so we did not have to venture to the shared bathroom to brush our teeth in skanky conditions. The only annoyance of the 12 hour journey was that we had to wake up at 1:30 am and again at 3:30 am to get our departure stamp from Turkey and entry stamp into Greece respectively.

Upon reaching Thessaloniki at 11am the next day, we hurried along to purchase our train ticket to Athens, which was meant to be a short 4 hour trip on a comfortable inter-city Greek train. Alas, all tickets for the day were sold out, and the next train was at 11pm, which meant arriving in Athens at an ungodly hour of 3am. We had to catch a '5-hour' bus trip which actually ended up being 7.5 hours; when travelling it seems wise to increase the promised travel time by 50% when in doubt.

I have read many accounts of Athens being a city which not many fall in love with. As soon as we entered the city's outskirts I realised why. The grimey and massive urban sprawl, hundreds of thousands of cars gridlocked in the concrete jungle, the homogenous monotomy of building after building, and the intense pollution. Not just an attack on our noses from all the cars and trucks, but also visually the city is just filled with probably thousands of billboards and large-scale advertisements. They pop up everywhere; on streetsides, on buses, on bus shelters, on top of buildings. And maybe 90% of them advertising cigarettes. No wonder 9 out of 10 Athenians smoke; when we were stopped for a toilet break we witnessed a 4-year old girl faux-dragging a cigarette using an old lollipop stick whilst her mama sucked on the real thing.

However unappealing the modern city of Athens is, the Acropolis makes up for it tenfold. Set on top of a hill to the south side of the city centre, the ancient site houses a number of temples and theatres utilised by the Greeks in honour of various gods and goddesses (Athena, Dionysius and Hephestos come to mind). The Parthenon is the main attraction of the tourist circuit, which is still being re-constructed after decades of planning. Only the facades stand at the moment, and they are currently working on the eastern wall. It was still nonetheless breathtaking, and I recounted Architectural History 101 and differentiated between Doric, Ionic and Corinthian columns.

Deciding to escape the hectic chaos of city life for a few days, we caught a late ferry to the island of Santorini, located in the Cyclades region...

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Comments

[Elise]

Love the pics boys! Very model-esque of u both! and ur both lookin hot! especially the one with the noodles Jian! Loves it!!! Love and miss u both....ur adventure sounds amazing Im so so so so happy and excited for u both!!! xXx

[Emma]

Ahh its so pretty!!!!!!!!!! I want to be there! So not fair! And I didnt know about athens being polluted and all. And Im not suprised about the smoking. No wonder my dad my smokes like a chimney.