Author Archives: sumi

Flying dresses and sailing

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Pokin had booked a photoshoot this morning.  There’s this thing called a flying dress.  With Santorini being pretty windy, it’s a thing to wear these long flowy dresses, hog up the prime spots around town and look stupid in front of the tourists with these dresses as you stick your legs out in funny positions.

I didn’t get the appeal but Pokin thought it’d be fun.  She  got a package for her and my bud, and then another one for Chris and Julia.  She booked makeup and hair as well, meaning all of us had to get up at 7AM in the morning to do hair and makeup in time for a 9:30AM photoshoot.

It’s early.

I sat and listened as the hair and makeup artists got to work.

Tasha is from the Ukraine.  She was displaced during the war and settled here to work.  She works on everything from photoshoots to weddings and is one of the seasonal workers.  She will be back to Athens in November.  The other makeup artist grew up in Santorini, but is pregnant and will be having her baby soon.  She also spends her winters in Athens.  Both of them have been working non-stop 10+ hour days to get as much business as possible before the dead season.

I meant it when I said Santorini is seasonal. The whole island shuts down by November and about 5000 residents remain.

At 9:30, the photographer and the assistant Edward and Irene arrive.  They help Pokin change into her first dress and I am super impressed.  I was very skeptical when they said the dress sizes were XS – L, and L – XXL, but it turns out the fabrics twist and turn very accommodatingly.  So they twisted and turned and adjusted the fabrics and voila, it fit.

We started the photoshoot on the hotel property before moving all around town.  My bud was dressed in a suit and as the day got progressively hotter, I felt bad for him.  But he was a good spot and we moved from spot to spot.

Now that I knew what a flying dress photoshoot looked like, I saw them all around town.  All the girls and their buds looking uncomfortably hot with their entourage. At one point there were so many of these groups we had to wait in line for our spots.  Until now, little did I realize how busy things were.  Luckily some areas were chained off only for photographers, or else we wouldn’t have been able to elbow through crowds.

Two hours later, the shoot was over and it was time to scramble, as we were headed to our next destination.  A boat.

Nicholas decided that the one thing you had to do in Santorini was do a boat cruise.  And it had to be on a catamaran.

So we booked one with food for sunset. The cruise location was pretty far away and required an hour commute (mostly because of the windy roads), so we had to be picked up at 1pm for a 2pm boat time.

What Pokin didn’t tell Chris and Julia is that she had booked a private catamaran cruise.  And so when we pulled up to the dock, Julia wondered – “where is everyone?”

“This is it, the boat is just for us,” my bud responded just as the crew came out to greet us.

There were 3 crew total – the captain, the chef, and an extra person.  We got settled in (shoes off), and off we went.

I have to admit, I wasn’t such a fan of being on a boat, but it was pretty worth it – especially doing it on our on boat.  We got to go at our own pace, to explore all the islands and photograph everything.

We even had food made by a chef. I took note. No cocoa.

We went from red cliff to white cliff to a diving spot, before making our way around towards the volcano.

The whole round trip took 5 hours, which was a lovely leisurely pace.

Pokin took Dramamine and was still recovering so she passed out at one point, but I hung out with my bud on the front of the boat.

When we got to the volcano centre, I noticed a hut and a church – “what’s going on?” I wondered.

“Oh that’s the fisherman who has no wife” came the answer.  Cryptic.

Turns out there was a BBC documentary made about this person.  He wasn’t a fisherman, but rather a lovestruck sailor who had fallen in love with an Italian lady who promised to return and never did, but not from lack of trying.

Turns out she had already been betrothed to someone in the Italian mafia, and when they found out tried to hunt him down, leading him to escape to this island.

He is now around 87 years old, and apparently can still be sighted on the island in just his speedos or no clothes, yelling at the tourists who float by.

Suckers.  I’m glad my priority is just gaming and hanging with my bud.

The volcano was the turning point, so we turned around and headed back to the harbour as the sun set behind us.

A pretty nice day overall.

I like sailing on a private catamaran.

The Greek Medical System

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The next day Pokin decided it was time to see a doctor.  My bud’s family was arriving and we needed to make sure we could all share a room.

We went downstairs for breakfast by the pool area. Ate a nice assortment of breads.

And then it was time to search for a doctor.

A quick online search revealed there was actually a doctor in Santorini, and in fact luckily the doctor was located right in Oia only a few minutes walk away.

Since check out was at 11am and check in wasn’t until 3pm, Pokin decided to first crawl to bed till check out time before going to the clinic.

The clinic is located right by the main church square a few steps down.  On arrival, it turns out the doctor wasn’t available (he was at the hospital), but they arranged for him to arrive 30 minutes later.  Before seeing Pokin, they required a Covid test (negative) and shortly after, she was seen.

The doctor determined Pokin had a chest infection, put her on a nebulizer to dry out her lungs, checked out my bud for a good measure, and it all came to €200 – much more reasonable than we expected given the lack of insurance.  The drugs next door came to another €80, and Pokin was all drug stocked up in time for Julia and Chris’ arrival.

The room wasn’t ready, spo at first we chilled out on the roof top deck. Apparently the highest point in Oia.

We were now settled into a new hotel, Canaves Sunday Suites.  Pokin picked this place because it was one of the properties that had a 2 bedroom suite, allowing us to stay together while still having our privacy.  The staff were kind enough to allow us an early check in, so Pokin was actually able to get in by 1:30pm. 

This was the only day to do the famed Oia to Fira hike, but Julia had an evening photoshoot planned, so the guys only had a few hours to do the hike.  Online accounts said it could take up to 4-6 hours, so everyone got ready fast, ditched Pokin and off we went. 

The hike basically connects two of the main tourist cities in town, across streets and dirt roads.  Families used to take this trail between celebrations and so it was well marked and easy to do.

My bud, Julia, and Chris flew across the trail, me bumping around in the bag, and we managed to finish the hike in under 2 hours before grabbing an Uber back into the hotel.

That night Julia had a photoshoot so she took off, and we all sat on the rooftop to get drinks while we waited.  I chillaxed.

My bud had the idea to get matching outfits with Chris so we spent time getting photos of the matching guys.

Julia came back. I watched her at work.

It was getting close to time to eat.  Pokin asked the hotel for restaurant recommendations, and the restaurant wrote back with one.

Roka.

Ok, I guess if that’s the recommendation, that’s where we went.

Turned out to be probably the best restaurant on the island apparently.  Everyone liked everything they ordered.  And the best part is the restaurant is open year round!

Because I didn’t know this – Santorini is incredibly seasonal.  Most people come in some time between February and November because the pay is much higher on Santorini before spending the winter seasons in Athens.

I had remembered the country was struggling but I am really reminded of it when I hear of the wages.

In Athens, guides might expect to earn 8 euros an hour whereas they can get closer to 16 an hour in Santorini.  Yet most people didn’t start with the intention of guiding.  They often had very advanced degrees but just realized tourism was better pay.

Everyone had a very early photoshoot so we all went to bed early.

The drugs helped a little but Pokin still kept everyone up a bunch all night.  I’m getting so tired.

Early arrival to Oia

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Oia (pronounced E-ah) is where all the stereotypical photos of Greece come from.  It’s a town perched on top of a caldera seeming to come right out of the cliffs.

From afar, the clusters of buildings on top of the caldera look like clumps of snow.

Oia was originally inhabited by ship builders and their crew.  The region faced constant attacks by pirates (particularly from North Africa) and to help fend off pirates, a lot of the steps were designed to be irregular to make it more difficult to run up in the event of an attack.  Because the area was seismically active, ironically oceanfront land wasn’t considered valuable until the 1980s, where the world began to recognize the area as a tourist destination. Oia is located on the island of Thira, and the whole cluster of islands is known as Santorini.  This ring of islands was formed by a partially submerged volcano, of which the centre core is still considered active.

To save on building costs, the initial cave houses were carved out of the naturally occurring pumice stone.  This also made it easier to keep the buildings cool as the region got very hot in the summer, and very windy in the winter.  The houses get their signature white colour from a mixture of ground up limestone and salt, because those building materials were the most easily accessible. The white white helped reflect light and keep the buildings cooler, and as a bonus, this combination created a slick finish that allowed rainwater and fog to be captured and funneled to water basins.

We weren’t supposed to be in Oia yet.  We were originally going to be in Imerovigli but due to Pokin being sick, we thought less transfers were better.

So after we waved goodbye to Artemis and his wife Ana we got onto a transport towards Katikies Oia Santorini.

The main throughway is not open to pedestrians (it used to be open to donkeys), so we were dropped off on the main road where hotel staff greeted us to help transport our luggage.

And help we needed!  There is hardly any flat ground here, and the entire hotel complex was spread across multiple steps and levels.

At reception we were greeted by a fellow who helped us sort out the remainder of our travel hiccups, before giving us a quick tour of the property.

We were settled into room 14, which was luckily one of the most secluded buildings on the property.  One word of warning – depending on what you book you could find yourself situated in a high traffic or high noise area, but not our room – it was located at the far end of a pool tucked in its own nook. 

Once we got situated, Pokin crawled into bed, and my bud and I settled into working on the balcony deck.  Pretty nice.  Pretty nice view.

At one point it was nice enough that my bud wondered if we needed to have a mid life crisis and just move to Oia and run our own hotel.  I like the sound of Bear Villas.

Before we knew it, it was night time.  Pokin surfaced for us to try a hotel recommended restaurant -Melitini.

Then she crawled back to bed. I got to check out the night view of Oia though first. It gets abruptly dark once the sun goes behind the caldera.

That night none of us slept. Pokin wouldn’t stop coughing.  Basically all night long.  It was a long night.

To Greece

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Today we arrived in Greece.

We had all sorts of plans.

And it looks like things aren’t going to go quite according to plan.

First of all, Pokin was really sick the whole flight. She tried to rest a tonne before the flight, but after all sorts of flight delays and missed flights we arrived to Santorini airport at 12:30AM and she was exhausted.

In order to get to bed as soon as possible, Pokin booked us a car transport to our hotel so we would have someone to pick us up.

Except when we got to Santorini there wasn’t anyone there for us.

Confused, Pokin called the hotel only to be informed the driver had just left, after waiting for a while.

After some back and forth with the hotel reception, it turns out not only did we have no ride, but actually our travel agent had booked us a hotel in Katikies Mykonos, instead of Katikies Chromata.

By now it’s like 1:30AM in the morning as we are trying to figure out what to do. The airport is deserted. The travel agent is closed and no one is answering the emergency line.

As we are at the airport trying to figure out what to do as the Katikies hotels try to figure out if there’s any way to accommodate us, Nicholas was approached by a fellow.

“You need a room to stay?” He asks.

Nick eyes him suspiciously. “I think we’re ok,” Nicholas answers.

“Well if you need something, I’m just 7 minutes away. I’ll give you a special price, 50 euro.” Pokin gets a phonecall from the hotel – they are are still figuring things out as they need permission from our travel agent.

“What’s the name of your place?” Nicholas asks, and tries to look it up online.

Everyone is exhausted. We don’t have our lodging resolved.

“Screw it, let’s just go stay at this sketchy guy’s place for 50 euro, we probably won’t die.” Nicholas decides.

And in we pile into a white van drive by the fellow, who introduces himself as Artemis.

We drive through the dark, past the airport and down all sorts of windy roads. A few minutes later we arrive at a property.

Artemis takes us to this room, gives us a quick run down on the room, and we pass out.

We wake up the next morning and it turns out we actually had a pretty incredible view. We were situated beside the ocean with this view.

Pokin was pretty sick so Nicholas went and scouted the property. He ordered some breakfast boxes, talked to Ana (Artemis’ wife) and learned more about their property. Artemis grew up nearby and this was the land his family would come to view the ocean. When he grew up, his mother spilt the property between all his siblings and he converted his parcel into a hotel. Artemis frequently goes to the airport late because many hotels shut down during the pandemic, and he often finds travellers that land only to discover their hotel doesn’t exist anymore.

By this time, the original hotel situation was getting partially resolved, and Pokin and my bud decided to move early to Oia to make transiting the next day go easier. Artemis waited till we actually got a ride before we all waved goodbye to continue to our next destination.

Grand Canyon Pt. 3

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Remember last year when I said I was going to make my bud run the Grand Canyon next time? Well, I did it. Here he is all sweaty after running back up. New year, new attempt at the Bright Angel Trail. Pokin and Wing didn’t do the whole hike last year, so they went back to try again.

The morning started bright and early. We were taking the shuttle over and because Pokin was worried about having enough time to do the hike, she made them take the first shuttle out. It meant they started the hike when it was still dark.

It being dark apparently didn’t prevent all the runners from booking it as soon as we got off the shuttle. I was trying to be considering and so I was with Pokin as I watched all the lights blink and rapidly disappear down the canyon.

I could see my bud was feeling jealous and feeling impatient. But we all stuck together at first.

Soon the sun came out, and it appears like it’ll be an overcast cloudy day! Lucky for Pokin, as it’d be otherwise a scorcher of a day.

What started out as relief of the cool day turned into worry as it looked like it was going to start to pour. I wasn’t feeling thrilled.

My bud though – he got the opportunity to run! Wing and his friend weren’t feeling great from the hike (because they started injured) so my bud ended up running up Grand Canyon – first back to the hotel to drop off his bags to come back and assist.

In the end we all made it up, and I managed to stay dry, so everyone was happy. Grand Canyon 2023 edition was a success!

Bear in Glacier Bay

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I am back on a boat. In Alaska. With my bud.

It’s been a while. Apparently 9 years ago was when I went on the same route as the Titanic from London to Boston.

Despite growing up in the Northwest in the Vancouver Costal Mountains, I’d never been up to Alaska.

Last minute, Pokin’s mom decided she would like to go on a cruise, so my bud, my bud’s work bud Gabe, Pokin, and I hopped on a flight up to Anchorage for a cruise aboard the Majestic Princess down from Whittier Alaska down to Vancouver.

The first days were predictably very wet. No way I was going out anywhere.

Then we got lucky. The day we were supposed to be in Glacier Bay turned out beautiful.

After some time I decided I wanted some ice cream.

Turns out so did the rest of the ship.

Pokin had to wait a long time for my ice cream.

Eventually I got it.

It wasn’t very good.

Thank goodness I didn’t have to do the waiting in line. It took over an hour for her to get this sundae.

But I’m feeling good. Nice to be back in my home turf.

Big Bear Costa Rica Birthday WTF

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So my bud is turning the big 4-0. To celebrate we’re doing an epic guys trip to Costa Rica! I’m so excited, it’s going to be so much fu — wait what? I’m not going? HOW DARE. Apparently Nicholas and his other best bud Drew who is also turning 40 are going by themselves. The only reason I’m even posting some of these photos is to make Nicholas feel bad for excluding me and remind him of all the adventures he owes me.

First they landed in San Jose and chartered a small plane to take them to Corcovado National Refuge.

So angry.

Then they had a crazy driver take them in a jeep across the jungle over rivers to a boat that took them to a resort on the ocean and river called “Aguila de Osa”.

Real nice. Yeah, real nice guys.

They went hiking, kayaking, did a private tour through the jungle looking for wild animals including monkeys, bats, my nemesis coatis and other exotic things, and even went on a night tour looking for giant frogs, spiders and other jungle crawlies.

Blood boiling.

Then back to San Jose where they hung out in the city for a day before taking a bus to a family coffee plantation for breakfast and then to the next resort in the middle of the jungle that is only accessible via white water rafting. I guess given that it’s only accessible by water I feel a little less upset. But it was fleeting. I’m mad.

ANOTHER 5 STAR RESORT IN THE JUNGLE? Yeah this time it had a tree house with ziplines, buried in indigenous land where they were able to visit with the natives. It’s called Paquare Lodge and it’s situated on the Paquare river.

I’m not even going to talk about the rest. I’m too upset. There had better be an even better trip to make up to me. Soon. You hear me Nicholas??

Bear in at Hoshinoya Kyoto, Arashiyama

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Today we were headed to a hotel Pokin was excited to surprise Michael and Savannah with.

In her research of Kyoto, she came across a property near the Arashiyama bamboo forest that could only be accessed via a short river boat.

“Sounds middle of nowhere fun!” Thought Pokin. So she made the whole gang check out of their Kyoto hotel, take the transit system for 40 minutes to the edge of Kyoto, haul their luggage for 30 minutes over cobblestone, to check into some hotel for one night.

Arriving to the pick up spot for Hoshinoya involved heading to a small building across from the river with a couple covered river boats. We were told we could drop off our luggage, but that we couldn’t check in till later. No matter, there were things to see around here like monkeys and a bamboo forest.

We started with the Iwatayama Park since it was right beside us.

Rumours were there were monkeys. In a park. This park happened to be located on top of a hill. We we paid our admissions fee and started walking up and up a path.

Turns out the monkeys were all just hanging out near the top of this mountain, in a clearly with a purpose built feeding hut.

We got some apples to feed them. That was fun. The monkeys were kind of rude though.

After we had our fill of feeding monkeys we headed back down to what looked like a carnival stand.

Michael challenged my bud to a game, so they spent some time on that and ended up collecting all sorts of random things.

Then it was back across the bridge towards Arashiyama Bamboo Forest.

Arashiyama Bamboo Forest, is one of the region’s main sites. It’s a grove of naturally occurring mōsō bamboo — some of the biggest bamboo stalks I’d ever seen. These are pretty cool.

By now, it was getting close to our check in time, so we started making our way back towards the Hoshinoya boat dock. As we were walking down the main street though, something caught my eye.

There was a whole store dedicated to a bear named Rilakkuma!

I was intrigued. We stopped in.

Not only was there a full store of things worshipping Rilakkuma, but there was even a shrine. Well this I can get behind!

After we paused long enough for me to appreciate how much other cultures appreciate bears, we made it back towards the Hoshinoya boat dock where we waited for our transport.

It was a pretty short wait. We had just enough time for tea and then it was time for our boat ride.

Hoshinoya Kyoto is a small 25-room resort perched on the side of a river. The grounds were peaceful and groomed the way you would expect Japanese gardens to get groomed.

While we were overlooking the river, the balcony wood deck in front of us made it a little difficult to see the river, but we could definitely hear it.

Since you get in and out of the hotel via a boat ride, we pre-arranged dinner reservations. Interestingly it’s not included so the poor souls who don’t know to book in advanced are left with instant noodles? Not really sure. We had reservations for a kaiseki dinner which had all sorts of mystery foods for my bud.

We took some time to enjoy the property and then relaxed for the night. Me, with the incense making kit, my bud, in the wooden bathtub they had in the room.

Kill Bill

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After a day of cafes, I checked into a new hotel. Not bad, except that they didn’t have the matching jammies in my size. Unacceptable.

For dinner we went out to the restaurant that inspired Kill Bill. It looked pretty awesome. They didn’t give out katanas though. Disappointing. My bud will just need to make me a katana to make up for it.

The Best Cafe

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Day 2 in Tokyo and we ended up in some cafe. Meh, thought I.

What I didn’t know was that this was an art cafe, where the staff are trained to create 3D foam art with your drinks. With the choice of drawing anything, Nicholas had the smarts to pick the only real option.

I love this place.

We also went to some crazy animal cafe where they had a bunch of strange pets you could hold. I already have way too many pets, so I just asked if we could go back to the other cafe.