Santorini, Greece, (Part 1) ,1 Jan 2019

To go to Greece in January was not my intention in the first place. Had wanted to go in end Oct to early Nov when it is not so cold and windy. However, Shan's holidays started in mid Dec and Bao had camp till 30th Dec. After some discussion in the chat group, Lai finally came up with a perfect solution. 

Lai had decided to go to Barcelona for Xmas. They spent a few days there before flying to Athens ahead of us. We flew to Athens in 1 Jan and together we flew to Santorini.

2 days before we went, Lai watsapp from Barcelona, the temperature at Meteora was horrifying at -11 degree! He told us to bring more clothes and heat pad!

RM10k and we got around Euro2k.

On 31st Dec, at 9.45pm we flew to Spore. Transit for 4 hours, then we took Scoot to Athens. 12+ hours later, we reached Athens, waited for 7 hours for our flight to Santorini. Finally at 4pm +, we reached Santorini! It was really a very long journey!

KLIA.

Beautiful Changi Airport! 

Changi Airport, sorry to say, but it is so much more than our KLIA.

Got lucky, next row was empty, so the father sat over and we occupied 3 seats!

Scoot, SIA budget airlines.  

Being a budget airline, couldn't expect much for food.
The aircraft is great but not the crew.

Great view outside the window!

We thought it would be really dreadful to transit for 7 hours, in fact it wasn't bad at all. We waited in a cafe to have some snacks. They arrived about 3 hours later.

Happily browsing the duty free shops.

Took some food before boarding.

Happily met up with Tess and her family.

Aegean Airlines.

Hello Santorini!

We were greeted with the sun setting.

Finally, a trip long overdue.

Nice to meet you!

Safely landed. Very small aircraft.

Our car rented from Sixth car rental. Tess Lai and Shan in another car.

Collected our cars at the airport. Drove to our villa straight away with the help of our best navigator, GPS!

It is left-hand drive!

This is Santorini!

The dusk in Santorini.

First glimpse of the unique houses.

Reaching our villa.

The staff was waiting for us at the end of the road as promised. He instructed us to park our 2 cars by the road. And we followed him closely to our villa.

The moment, it was "WOW" ! and "WOOHOO"!

A bit of walking down on the cliff.

Seeing the picture and being there was totally different stories all together!

The path outside our doorstep.

The fantastic caldera view!

The villa which is on the cliff and directly facing the sea is indeed worth the price of 5k for 3 nights. It was super clean with lots of small touches at every corner. We really enjoyed the stay with a huge balcony and a swimming pool.

Our duplex villa, Villa Dakoronia, Fira, Santorini.

The staff brief us on the villa and some guides with the map !

Lower level, the Blue room. Double bed and a day bed, with heater.

The sofa bed in the living area. The theme here is blue, even the toilet. 
Her tired face was reasonable, after 5 days camp, and 20 hours on the road!

Steep steps to upper floor. 
His playground!

Tiny but really clean. The thing is that the note says no paper in the toilet!
Lai told us these are toilets where the sewage system can't take toilet rolls so we have to throw the paper in the dustbin even the "big business", I simply can't accept this! 

The green room upstairs, attached bathroom.

Very small room but it was comfortable.

The room upstairs open to this fabulous balcony!

The balcony with this view to die for!

We were really tired after spending 20 hours to get there. The 2 gentlemen went out to tabao dinner of pizzas and spaghetti. And then we brought the birthday cake from the fridge which was prepared by the staff (pre-arranged with them). The birthday girl was actually fast asleep on the sofa bed and we had to wake her up.

Candles brought by Tess. Love at the boys's curious face! And the sleeping beauty!

And yeah, Happy birthday, my girl!

"All plans about having dinner and candles blowing with complimentary wines at the balcony did not happen because it was freezing cold and everyone was super tired."

Shortly after we ate the cake, everyone happily climbed into the bed and slept! Haha....