Going Athens Sightseeing tour with "Akihabara-geek” Greek

This is Ken.
It means “Thank you” in Greek.

My Greek friend Thassos, who loves Japan and Akihabara, appeared on Greece arrival report

He invited me to his place this time.

Thassos owns a real estate business, and his apartment is located in one of the exclusive suburbs in Athens which is about 20 minutes drive from the city center, overlooking the Athens Olympic Stadium from the balcony.

And as I entered his room, I encountered tons of geek goods such as collection of character figures, as well as collections of Manga and animation cartoon DVDs, filling up the every inch of the shelves.

Even there is a station sign toy that written "Akihabara"

Then he made me watch “Our maid in a maid cafe Live DVD” and asked what I thought…!

I confessed to him that “I have lived in Akihabara once", he looked up to me with full of respect.
He also showed me his treasures he obtained from when he visited to Japan a few years ago.

The photos were taken at movie village in Kyoto.

The photo was taken at an Akihabara maid café, of course!

He is an Akihabara geek or whatever he is, it still makes me happy to see people are interested in Japan and Japanese culture. 

He was introduced to me by my friend, and since he likes Japan, I was with him almost everyday and he took me many different places during my stay here in Greece.

Now it’s lunch time.
This could be a food report which we haven’t done for long time.

Incidentally, in Greece, cheap bistro style, like so called greasy spoons are more popular than restaurants.

A bistro after a bistro on the street. It will be packed in dinner time.

In Greek, this bistro is called"Taverna (taveruna)” which means “don’t eat” in Japanese.
Oh, please don't say that.

A famous Greek food "souvlaki"

This is a pork skewer. Delicious with lots of spices. 

After the meal, it’s coffee time.
At the foot of the Acropolis, which is famous for the Parthenon, there are many cafes along the street. It’s the best spot having a cup of coffee while looking at ruins of worship. 

Always packed when sun is out.

By the way, the Greeks love coffee, and they never stop chatting over the coffee.

This is their culture. I wonder if the development of Greek philosophy was born from such a small talk.

And moreover, the Greeks love this iced coffee.

The iced coffee is called "Frappe". It’s kind too sweet.

After finishing our lunch, we hopped on a sightseeing bus to go around the city of Athens.

These buses can be seen in cities around the world. You can buy tickets and hop on and off anywhere in one day. It comes with audio guides (available in Japanese as well here in Athens). I don’t recall something like this in Japan.

We visited the Parthenon, which I just mentioned above.
Up the hill by bus, Yey! Easee, peesee, Japanesee!

It was just under the construction. 

I wish I could have taken a decent picture as I see it in a photo book.

I learned the history of the Parthenon in the museum nearby. The Parthenon in this beautiful white building was used to be decorated with colorful pallet. It's quite surprising to learn.

More than half of which had been broken was caused by bombing attack, when other Europeans invaded Greece long time ago, not from natural weathering.

Much debris from the site was taken back to the Britain, and are still kept in the British Museum. ]


Apparently the Museum of Athens keeps only copy of original, not real ones.

The panoramic city view from the hill, where the Parthenon is located.

We waved goodbye to the ruin of Acropolis and headed to "Panathenaic Stadium”.

Here, the stadium hosted the first modern Olympic games.

Not in 2004 Olympics, but back in 1896. It is more than 100 years ago.

Unfortunately, we were not allowed to enter spectator sites where seats were made of marbles or a track with shape of a horseshoe. All we could do was taking photos from outside.

Now, for all the football fans, does "Panathenaic" ring a bell?

Yes, the Greek powerhouse Panathinaikos is an Athens-based team.

In fact, for the past 12 out of 13 years, their rival "Olympiakos" has won the tournaments, but in this year, Panathinaikos is going powerful and 5 points ahead of second place, leaving four more segments to go.

Known as the Greek version of "Classico”, the two teams will play heads to heads in the Olympic Stadium in Athens (the new one) on this weekend.

Apparently this is the one, and not only inside the Stadium but the whole Athens going wild and excited…

I wish I could somehow get tickets, but my beloved Greek partner Thassos is “Akihabara geek” … OMG

We’ll see…

In this round-the-world trip, our experiences usually end up with Japanese conversation with Japanese people and our opinions are often from Japanese point of views, because Atsushi (who is my travel partner and also Japanese), and I are normally travelling together, and we have more occasions meeting up with Japanese people who are waiting for us wherever we go.

However, this time is different. The experiences I had over the past few days were fresh for me. 

I had to speak English with Thassos whose mindset is completely different to Japanese one.

I reckon it was good because not all about sightseeing, but rather enjoyed having chats with Thasos over the coffee as the locals do.

Speaking of Thassos, my beloved Greek friend, is planning to visit Tokyo after the World Cup.

I suspect his 10-days visit will be consumed mostly in Akihabara.
Of course, we promised to meet up again.







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