The island of Naxos

On 3rd July we landed on Naxos at the port of Hora and made our way to the Hotel Orkas Beach at Mikri Vigla. This proved to be a good choice as it was situated next to the Flisvos kite surfing centre which had an excellent cafe with great Italian cuisine.

The temple gateway which looks out across the causeway and is one of the most noticeable things you see on arrival in Naxos. It is also something of a mystery as  it has no inscriptions or surviving documents to record to whom it was dedicated. The two leading candidates are  Dionysos and Apollo. Its most common title today is the Temple of Apollo. hatever it's original purpose it provides a great photo opportunity

On the 29th June 2008, we arrived by Ferry at the port of Parikia on the Island of Paros.  We made our way to the Hotel Niklas just along the coast from the port.

The narrow winding alley ways of the main town  provide some shelter from the sun for tourists just as much as the local kittens found basking on the cobbled streets.

Parikia, the island's capital, lies on the west coast and is also its main port. Its oldest quarter occupies the same site as the ancient city, more or less at the center of the town and is clustered around the hill on the Southwest side of the harbour.

The center of Parikia holds the ruins of the old castle and around it we discovered many small alleyways containing tiny white houses decorated with flowers, The  views out across the sea from the ancient wall can be seen from the shade of the small church situated at the top.

The harbour gives much needed opportunities for acrobatic balances and back arches on the large rocks which make up the sea break.

The island's many kittens  provide some great photo opportunities too.

UK China again had a successful year at SENI. We met up again with many people who had come to visit us last year and also some regular customers who had ordered from us over the last couple of years.It's was good to spend time with so many people who recognised the quality of our Heng family swords.

We've definitely landed with a thump! absolutely no sleep on the flight although the others faired a little better. We got through the airport in reasonable time and out on to the maglev train for the exhilarating 8 minute 432Km/hour trip!

Our first welcome to China meal from Jiaxuan, the perfect hostess, was in one of those great fish restaurants that you can see what you get swimming around before you have it cooked and also included other dishes including goose, lamb and beef a cornucopia of delight washed down with plenty of Tsing Tao!

We decided a walk through Peoples Square would let our dinner go down where my family instantly turned into small David Baileys and spent a lot of time saving me from having to take photos for my blog.

Sleep that night included about 4 hours hardly making up for the trauma of the flight the night before followed by Breakfast starting with a typical Saturdays dim sum bonanza, I'm pretty sure I'll never need to eat again! Startling everyone by showing a massive breakfast for 6 came to about £15

I reluctantly decided to leave the folks the pleasure of climbing Pearl TV tower for the views of Shanghai by themselves followed by the Shanghai exhibition at its base with the agreement to meet up with them on the Bund later in the day. I left to go and visit the local hospital to have a look at my foot which had been causing me some pain over the last wee while. So after a fairly short wait and shifting from one location to the next I was seen by the doctor and quite a few other patients waiting in the same waiting room (privacy values are a little different here, I wonder if its the same if you have a colonic or the rubber glove treatment??) Anyway after an x-ray and a short wait apparently I've been walking round for the last four weeks since Walthamstowe festival with a broken foot - so that's why it's painful....!

So now conscious of my injury I have now walked around most of Shanghai, introduced the folks to Sichuan cuisine and the Shanghai bar district

Time for bed I think!