Traditional Greek Cuisine

Greek vegetable soup

Kalamarakia Gemista

Semolina Halva

Classical Greek salad

Greek Seafood Platter

6th day: wondering around a shopping district

Greece is surprisingly known for their leather goods. We just discovered that when walking around Plaka. We were in black market selling original prada, christine dior, louis vuitton, and hermes bag. It is very good bargain though, like almost 90 percent off? You only pay 350 euro for a hermes bag, the one rosmah najib always wear, instead of 7000 euro and 2 years in the waiting list. Haha. We did not know that there are leather goods here. If not, we could bring more money to shop.

We climbed a hill to see full view of Athens. That is the hill we dont wish to climb on at first. As soon as we reached the top, the picture the we get to see was just magnificient. That summed up our photo collection of Athens. As I forgot to bring my straw hat and the one that Amirah lend me also tear off, I was left with nothing except my sunglasses. So that was the day my face was directly sun burned. Haha. Pretty tanned! But never mind, as far as my family could still recognise me, I'm okay...

We ate good lunch at a restaurant which treated us very nice. Thanks to the previous malaysian tourist who came to the restaurant and showed good impression about malaysia. We even got free traditional greek dessert after the meal. We tried stuffed kalamari with rice. The delicacy was just tasty. Even though the one that we actually wanted to try, fish soup was finished for the day, luckily we enjoyed the replacement appetiser vegetable soup.

5th day : non productive visit

As we were quite tired yesterday, we started our day today a bit later. We headed to visit Angora place first. The best part was it was again free of charge, so we did not have to spend money on entrance fee. We showed the tickets we had from our last visit to Acropolis, the she stamped today's date on them. We walked around those merely nothing rocky area and learned from the exhibition. All altars were not there anymore, the statues were left without heads, the office building and temples were seen as flat rocky area. As we both are engineer and doctor to be, the artifacts left were meanigless to us. There were a few works still running at some parts of Angora. The archelologists seemed to be digging and searching for more hidden artifacts in the soil. The sad part we found was about 12 gods altar that had turned into electric railways. I know they have so much of the historical areas and rocks, but... Hurm... Nevermind, it is none of my business.

We planned to go to pireaus tour, i.e blue route using the bus tour. But, as soon as we arrived to the main terminal, we were quite lost as we did not know what to do there. The area where the bus stopped had nothing except the big cruises. So, we decided to stop at the next stop, i.e Lion gate. Also, there was nothing except stupid thin lion statue in the middle of an open restaurant.

The next bus came to fetch us to the next stops. Along the way, we could view Marina Zea where all boats were docked. The view was beautiful but the bus did not really stop at the bay. We had to walk further if we wanted to go the beach. Who wants that, right? Okay, maybe others could walk there, but not us. We prefered to stay on the bus and waited for Planetarium stop.

Again, Planetarium stop dissapointed us. The show and the exhibition could only be opened after 5.30pm. The receptionist gave us an English guide. From there, we learned that it is only opened to general public during the weekend and school groups during weekdays. Nonsense! I guess they just want to save more money on utilities. In that way, they don't have to pay higher electricity bills. Lol.

Left with no plan, we went to The New Acropolis Museum to see more artifacts from past history. The entrance fee is free but we are not allowed to take any photos as it may affect the artistic marble from the Parthenon. The museum looks modern and the exhibition is just about marbles and soil, ranging from vases and statues. We learned about how The Goddess of City, Aethina saved the city from the Eartquakes Giants. I know this sound ridiculous but that was their belief. We watched a show about the architecture of Parthenon. It told us about its symmetrical design, together with the top decorative statues. Zeus and Aethina were in the middle, followed by the ancestors and animals.

We had our dinner at Monesteraki area. We ordered Greek salad, and seafood platter with ham and cheese roll. Oh my God, we did not know that it was ham, so we ate some bits. When we tasted the meat, we put it aside and finishe the rest. The salad and seafood were fresh, tasty and juicy. Sweet flesh of squids and octopus really made our day.

We bought some souvenirs along the way to The New Acropolis Museum and Monesteraki. We managed to find a reasonable average price for fridge magnets and postcards. We just know about a flea market at Monesteraki. So we planned to go there again tomorrow just to buy pretty cheap strawberries and other fruits. Can you imagine having a kilogram of starwberries or cherries for a euro? I'm so not going to let it go.

4th day: Discovering 3 famous greek islands

First, we were welcomed by loud blaring of music from the saxophone. Cool huh? We paid 99 euros, so of course we deserved it, ain't we?

1st island: Hydra
The port was full with small private boats docking along. The water is as blue as azurite gems. We felt like jumping into the water, unfortunately we did not know how to swim. The weather was so nice that we could capture a few of breathtaking photos. Hydra is famous with donkeys. We were approached by a few donkey owners with an offer of 10 euros per ride per person for 10 minutes. For me, the price is not reasonable as they are not much to see there and we could even have nice drinks or souvenirs with that money. I went crazy a bit when browsing for book of postcards. Although they are quite expensive, but it worth the money and energy. So I don't have to find any postcards later. Smoothies had became our favourite drinks these days. We stopped at the very end of shop street to buy a strawberry slurries. The taste was wonderful and we got high a bit when sipping the slashed ice to quench the thirst. Once we were on board again, most of the cruise passengers had already started having their lunch at the lower deck. The buffet menu was awesome as we had given the opportunity to try Greek's specialties such as fish in special made sauce, vegetables dishes and roasted meats. Of course we just had vegetarian meals as the meats were non halal. The taste of the fish was sweet and fresh. I love it. We sat at the middle deck to enjoy the scenery to the next island. The breezy wind added to the pleasure of the cruise enjoyment.

2nd island: POROS
There is not much to say here but I would say this is the most beautiful island among those three that we visited. But we were given the shortest time to stay at the island. We did not have much time to discover the whole walking distance coast so we just went shopping for souvenirs at the local shops. When we mentioned our country origin, one of the shop owners started listing name of places she went during her visit to Malaysia, i.e Penang and Kuala Lumpur. After getting postcards and fridge magnet, we headed up to the cruise ship again, waiting to be transfered to the next station.

3rd island: Aegina
What would be on your mind when hearing the word Aegina? Is not it sounded like medical term? Haha. Aegina is the biggest and the closest islands among those three. We opted for a bus panoramic tour but the bus went fast that we could not take capture nice still photos. What a waste. The tourist guide was mentioning about the traditional Athenian house, the one with white walls and blue doors and windows. She did mention about The Goddes Aegina when we passed by her green copper statue. The island was named after her. Her son gave the name Aegina to appreciate her mother, as the island was given to her by his late father. After finishing touring at the coast, we went up to see the hill parts of Aegina. The heart of Aegina was surrounded by farms of olive and pistachio. The pistachio was first brought from Syria. It was then planted in bigger mass as to support the locals living. We stopped at the monastry of Santa Sophia, a church which had been inaugurated on 1994. The dome has not yet done as to give chance to the eraction of an hospital. The marbles come from different areas of Greece and funded by the richers. The two levels above the ground floor are only opened for women two days per year, so there will be big celebration at the christian ortodox church to celebrated those days. As to sum up the short tour, we were brought to a shop to have a taste on local pistachios.

3rd day : Athenian weirdo

Guess who the title refers to! Capital letter US. Mungkin rarely people with hijab come and visit Greece. So they give us the weird look almost everywhere. Dah we are here to enjoy so I wont let this kind of thing ruin our holiday, so ignore je mereke itu

Jumpa gay couple, *kegayan agak terserlah disitu* ambik gamba peluk lelaki dgn lelaki, hihik geliiiiii uhhh. Tapi dia lah yg tolong ambikkan gamba kitorg berdua

Spanish girl yg menetap dh lama di UK. Travel sensorang agaknya, tapi macam dh biasa. Sempatla chat sepatah dua, memandangkan english dia quite not bad

Lepas tu kannnnnnn..... Jumpa mamat San Francissco yg hot. Uhhhh cair hati aii, tak smpy hati nak lap peluh dia yg melekat kat camera masa dia tlg ambikkan gamba.*thats a long ewwwwwh actually* but hes kinda cool, spending 6 months travelling alone around the world. Nak cari wifey ke encik? Well im here *blushing*

By amirah

2nd day : journey to athens

We started our day quite late in the morning as the beds were so comfy that we did not want to get up. We headed to the bus stop for airlink 100 bus to the airport. And again edinburgh was pouring while accompanying the walk out.

As we had done the check in, we went straight to the security area and got ready for our trip ahead. There was a mother-daughter couple who were quite annoying queuing behind our back. Amira got annoyed with their busybodyness and we tried to escape our view from them.

We arrived Athens at dawn. We missed the suburban train to Larissa station. Instead we fetch the metro towards Syntagma Sq and changed to the red line heading Metaxiourgio. We thought we had lost the way as the street was not busy as we thought. Lucky there was one women who kindly save us, she showed us the direction we were actually on the right track.

The condition of the room? We could not expect more with the rate paid. It is 1* anyways. After we performed our prayers and enough golek2 on the beds, we went downstairs and ate our supper i.e instant noodle in cup. We did our revision for tomorrow's plan as there was only strong wifi connection at the living room, pretty bad in the room though. Frustrating!

Looking forward for daylight tomorrow. The temperature at night had already made me sweat. Off to maggi now.

1st day of my true summer holiday

It was not yet fun though. We started with an arguement with a train conductor in the morning while heading to edinburgh. He found out that we were on the wrong train. It was supposed to be cross country, but the one we were on was east coast. Though he sounded angry, we were not being fined. Lucky enough. Phewww :|

Edinburgh did not treat us nicely. It showered us along the day that my shoes were completely soaked with water. All I care was my wet socks that unease my walk.

The panorama was not scenic at all. They were covered by sort of hazy looks. The weather was freaking cold too that I had to borrow my friend's winter garment during the tour. Can you imagine some sort of winter summer weather? Oh UK's weather is so unpredictable. You can be either taking shades and straw hat or rain coat on the same day. What a weather. But to be on the positive side, we call it rahmat. Rains pouring are rahmat from Allah which shows His bless towards the area. Wallahua'lam...

So, we did not really finish visiting to all must see places because of the bad weather. Pity to my travelmate, Amirah as this was her first time in Edinburgh, yet she could not see everything nicer.

We shall continue our journey to the exact destination, Athens tomorrow. Pray for us!

BBQ 112 Dilston

Di saat aku struggle study untuk next paper, aku sempat meluangkan masa dengan housemates ku yang lain untuk pergi berasap belakang rumah. What? Belakang rumah? Yeah, our tempat sidai baju tu ha. Haha. Menu? Banyak gila. But unfortunately, it was not me pon yang prepare kan all those food. They did. Aku tolong makan je. So we have bihun singapore, ayam and daging bakar, sosej pelangi, buah oren, air sirap, and mango sorbet. Beriyer la semua orang makan.

Kitorang letak BBQ pit on top of a box. Masa nak start bakar tu pon satu hal. Haha. Since none of us is smoking, so we have no fire lighter. So we have to take the flamed paper from the stove, and carried it to the BBQ pit. My first attempt, FAIL. Aqiedah did it. Aishhh fail aku jadi budak kampung. After a while, box underneath the pit terbakar. Bermula lah babak kelakar. Orang bandar dah masing2. Api kecil pon nak bersiram satu baldi. So, orang kampung la padamkan api tu.

We finished bakar2 kat luar around 8pm. Then kitorang masuk la rumah, makan kat living room. Nak dijadikan cerita, ada palshipping people datang untuk ambil Qieda's boxes. Sedang-sedang diorang berurusan, tiba-tiba mamat tu cakap, "sedap bau". Tetttt. Terkedu semasing. Ajak pon x, respond pon x. Diam je semua orang. Haha. Kesian gila.

Bau masing-masing dah bau asap. Tapi alhamdulillah, perut kenyang gila. HAPPY =)