13 things to do in Athens

To chronicle the memories of our recent Europe trip, I'm finally blogging it down before I forget about everything. 

In my previous travel post, I blogged about our pre trip planning with useful tips on where to book value-for-money flights, accommodations and how to stay connected in Athens, Santorini and Italy. 

Today, I'll start with blogging on our first stop - Athens. 

Sharing with you our travel memories with 13 things to do in Athens. 

Arrival night:

It was night time when we arrived at Athens, we took a cab from the airport to our accommodation. Our host, Evangelic, was a super host. When we arrived at the airport, I texted her and she was fast in responding to my messages. She advised me on the various modes of transport to her accommodation. She was really nice and even agreed to wait for us on the street in case we couldn't locate the place. The taxi fares were indicated at the taxi stand - a flat fee of 38 euro before midnight and 50 euro after midnight. However, after we board onto the cab, the cab driver increased the cab fare and reasoned that the place was very far away and not around the region for this flat fare rate.. bla bla bla. These were all lies for them to earn extra from us. Luckily, after we arrived, our host argued with the driver and we paid him the flat fee. 

Here's my advice for the 13 things to do in Athens 

1. Stay with a local 

We were super glad when we arrived at our accommodation. It was so pretty, spacious and cozy. We were really happy as we got to enjoy our private space with the entire house to ourselves and also the privilege of having a local host who stayed next door that shared travel tips with us. Best of both worlds.

Our host was very helpful and showed us the list of food, eateries and attractions to visit! 

2. Get a local sim card 

The first thing on our list was to visit the Cosmote mobile shop to get a SIM card. We felt handicapped without internet connectivity so it's a must to get on our first day. We bought a 3 GB data plan for 15 Euro (could not remember the amount of talk time and messages as our main interest was the mobile data to access to Internet). 

3. Eat breakfast like a local 

There were many bakeries in Athens and they served local pastries and delights such as Kataifi which are extremely sweet but something that we have to try in Athens.

Throughout our trip in Athens, every morning, we look forward to our breakfast from a local bakery recommended by our host. 

The shop have a wide variety of sweet delights, pastries, cakes, sandwiches and they sell coffee and drinks too. 

4. Visit the Syntagma square 

On our first day, we took a metro to Syntagma where we visited the the Syntagma square and saw the Hellenic parliament.

5. Enjoy nature walk at the National Garden & visit the Zappeio 

On our way to the Temple of Zeus, we walked through the National Garden to hide from the scorching sun. It was peaceful and nice to walk through the park. There were even people mediating and sleeping underneath the trees. 

6. Visit and capture moments at the Temple of Olympiad Zeus 

7. Visit Acropolis Museum before climbing the Acropolis 

It's a MUST DO thing to climb the Acropolis when you visit Athens. 

Acropolis is a historic site which you can climb all the way up to see Pantheon and other historical structures. To make your climb more meaningful, I suggest to visit the Acropolis Museum first. 

At the top floor of the museum, there is video screening of the history of Acropolis. I'll advise you to watch the video as it summarizes the history so it's easier to digest.

Admission fee to the museum is 5 Euro per person. 

Admission fee to Acropolis is 20 Euro

Link to the Acropolis museum: http://www.theacropolismuseum.gr/en

8. Walk and take pictures along the beautiful streets at Plaka area

9. Shop around Plaka, Ermou street and the many streets where I cannot remember the names. 

Walk the area and explore the streets yourselves!

10. Eat souvlaki like a local 

You can never miss having a Souvlaki in Greece. It's a MUST! 

Souvlaki (stick meat) with or without a pita bread. 

Places for Souvlaki: 

Meatropoleos 3
Kolokotroni 39
Kostas at Agia Irini square
Savvas
Tylixto

11. Watch sunset wherever you are 

12. Watch the night view of Acropolis from a rooftop restaurant. 

There are many restaurants near to the Acropolis which allow you to dine at their rooftop for this stunning view. 

Restaurants with rooftop view:

A for Athens
360 Degrees
Cityzen
Couleur Locale

13. Visit the many other historic sites to take more pictures

Other historic sites:

Ancient Agora

Temple of Hephaistos

AgII Apostoli

Stoa of Attalos

Roman Agora

Hadrian's Arch 

With love,

Mommy eve

All photos are credited to Twentysixoctober 

Aedan's Birthday Party in Singapore by SacchaJoy

Hi all,

Recently, we celebrated baby Aedan's 1 yr + 1 mth birthday party in Singapore! The party was a joyful one. It was great to meet our friends and family again after being away from Singapore for some time. There were lots of chit chat and laughters... we talked about our life in Israel, their culture and how different it is from Singapore. During the party, besides catching up on each others' lives and playing with baby Aedan, another thing that caught our guests' attention was the super awesome Batman-Themed Dessert table. 

It was soooo pretty that we couldn't bare to touch the desserts and we took 1001 pictures of it. 

A few days ago, I posted a picture of the dessert table on Facebook/Instagram and have received Facebook messages from readers asking who made it.

I wish I could tell you that I have done it myself but the truth is it was set up by my friend who is the co-founder of SacchaJoy. 

It has been long since I last shared a story of inspiring mommy entrepreneur. Today I'll share with you the story of SacchaJoy! 

Who is SacchaJoy? 

SacchaJoy is an event / party planning company which helps to plan and coordinate events to ensure that it is smooth sailing and memorable. They specialize in baby shower, birthday parties, weddings, ROM and festive parties. As long as you have guests in the house, they are ready to help you create a blast.

Who is the owner?

SacchaJoy is managed by a sister team - Sheryce and Shirlyn.

Sheryce is a mother of 2 boys with a full time career. Shirlyn is my friend who also have a full time job. They are both passionate about event planning and they manage the business together.

What inspired the sisters to set up SacchaJoy?

Sheryce mentioned that it all began when she was planning for her 2nd son's 1st birthday party. She was very excited and eager to hold a memorable party for her boy which everyone would enjoy. She thought it will not be too difficult but when she got down to doing it, she realized that it was much harder than expected. There were so many things to plan and coordinate. It was too time consuming for her since she has a full time job and 2 kids to juggle on top of the daily chores. Luckily, she has her sister who helped her with the planning. 

After going through the planning once, she realised that many parents would face the same issue. It will be easier for parents to find someone who have the experience and expertise to plan the party. Given her own experience and contacts with vendors, Sheryce and Shirlyn started helping other mommies to plan their parties. Every party, they tried to improve on their decorations and concept. Also, being a mommy she understands the needs of mothers and try to make it as hassle free as possible while not forgetting to listen to each mommy's ideas to help them draft their dream dessert table. 

Soon SacchaJoy was established to extend their service to a wider audience and other events.

What're SacchaJoy's future plans?

SacchaJoy aims to expand their events planning to cover more personalized services. They strive to achieve their motto of creating priceless memories for their clients. Some of the services they are working on includes personalised cake smash outfit and baby rompers quilt. You may look up on their Facebook page for more updates. 

What Twentysixoctober thinks about SacchaJoy's service?

Before I engaged my friend, Shirlyn, for help, I thought I could save money and be creative by DIY-ing the dessert table myself. However, having to take care of Aedan, being overwhelmed with the planning of our Europe trip and not being physically in Singapore, it was difficult to plan and purchase items for the party. Luckily, my friend offered to help me so I gladly accepted it. :p

As I was in Israel before the party, I liaised with Shirlyn via whatsapp to discuss on the dessert table decoration and designs. 

1. Understanding the budget 

At the beginning, I told Shirlyn that I do not wish to spend too much for the party. I have opt for a "no-birthday-cake" dessert table as firstly a customized birthday cake can easily cost $200-500. Moreover, I personally think serving cupcake is a better option as it is presentable and requires no cutting to serve. Lastly, the party is not for Aedan's 1 year old birthday. It's more of a belated celebration for friends and family to see him when we are in Singapore. 

2. Theme of the party 

After understanding the budget, we needed to decide on the theme of the party. For me, I have long decided to have a Batman party. The got this idea when we bought a very cute Batman shirt for Aedan at H&M. We thought it will be good if he could wear it during his party. Batman is a pretty cool superhero as well. :) 

I like this Batman's quote: "We fall so that we can learn to pick ourselves up and rise"

I hope Aedan will be able to learn from failure and not be afraid to fall. 

After deciding on the theme of the party, Shirlyn sent me a few sample dessert table designs and we started to draft the idea. 

3. Decide the design for the backdrop 

My initial plan was to use black construction paper to cut out a city landscape and yellow construction paper to draw the light with a Batman logo within. However, Shirlyn suggested a better option which is to print poster design. It's more durable and I could place the poster in Aedan's room as decoration. The end result turn out really well. 

4. Selection of desserts 

SacchaJoy offers a wide variety of desserts selection. You can choose your desserts and the number of pieces depending on the number of guests. My favourites are their customised Aedan's cupcake, strawberry shortcake and batman poppies. They were really pretty and yummy! Many of my guests commented that they like the desserts because they tasted not too sweet. 

5. Design of the memory board 

Initially, I have opt out of having the memory board. However, my friend is very sweet to give it to me as a gift. All I have to do was to give Shirlyn the content to be included on the memory board together with a few pictures of Aedan. The end product was so pretty!! Though there was a small typo (spot the typo) but overall it's still very pretty. On hindsight, this could've been easily avoided if we had requested a soft-copy draft from them to check. 

After the party, I have to say that I am so glad that Shirlyn has helped me! It was so easy on my part as I only need to tell her what I want through whatsapp and the dessert table was so so nicely done. I couldn't ask for more! The cost of her service was not too expensive too. 

This diaper cake was made by me! :)

I heard from many mommies that they took at least one month of planning plus lots of stressful nights to DIY a dessert table. Yes, they managed to save a bit of money but given the time and effort spent...It may be more worth it to get a professional who have the expertise and contacts to do it. Time can be saved for better things and parents can fully enjoy the event without having to worry about coordinating and setting up the dessert table.

As a friends and consumer, I highly recommend her service. 

Discount code: 

We are spreading love to all our readers. If you are interested in their service, you may quote TWENTYSIXOCTOBER to enjoy a 10% off their service and a complimentary A2 memory board/collage foam board. This discount code is valid till 31st Dec 2016.

Plan your next party by contacting Sheryce and Shirlyn through sales@sacchajoy.com

Facebook page: https://www.facebook.com/sacchajoy/

Instagram: link @Sacchajoy

With love,

Mommy eve

Pre-trip planning tips: Greece & Italy

Hi all,

Daddy, baby Aedan and I have just came back from our 13 days & 12 nights Europe trip where we travelled from Israel to Athens, Santorini, Rome, Florence, Venice & Pisa before returning to Singapore. 
It was one of our best trips in our lives! Though it was exhausting to travel with a baby, the joy from travelling as a family made it all worth it. Glad we did it!
After this trip, we are more motivated to travel more before Aedan turns 2 when we will have to pay for his flight ticket. :p

Today I'll be sharing with you my pre-trip planning with useful travel tips!

1. Flight ticket

If you have not heard of Sky Scanner or have not used it to purchase your flight tickets, you may be paying hundred or even thousand dollars more for your flight tickets.

It's only after i started using sky scanner that I realised flight tickets can vary A LOT from booking via different platforms. It can be a few hundred or even thousand dollars difference! Moreover, sky scanner helps in filtering the best value travel period and airline. 

We travelled with our baby so we were not looking for the cheapest tickets but the best valued tickets which were not too expensive, direct flight (without multiple transits) with short flight hours and good departure/arrival times (avoid too early or too late flights). There were many considerations and sky scanner worked awesome in helping us find the best options! 

We flew from Tel Aviv to Athens to Santorini then to Rome before flying back to Singapore. 

Price stated below are for 2 adults plus one infant

✈️ Tel Aviv to Athens via Aegean, 2 hrs: SGD 704.01 

✈️ Athens to Santorini via Sky Express, 45mins: SGD 369.09

✈️ Santorini to Rome via Blue Express, 2hr 15 mins: SGD 800.37

✈️Rome to Singapore via Singapore Airline, 12 hrs: SGD 1414.42

We managed to fly to 4 destinations with only SGD 3288 for 2 adults and one baby. 

Link to Sky Scanner: https://www.skyscanner.com.sg

2. Accommodation

To save on staying in expensive hotel, we stayed at local apartments and booked via Airbnb. Besides saving money, another good thing about staying with locals was that we got to learn from them the best places to see and dine and to avoid tourist traps.

Moreover, we got to use the kitchen to prepare food for our baby. :)

🏠Athens (3 nights): SGD 188

🏠Santorini (3 nights): SGD 462

🏠Florence (4 nights): SGD 432

🏠Rome (3 nights): SGD 363 

We stayed for 2 nights in Rome but paid for 3 nights as I got the check-out date wrong. I thought we were departing Rome on 31st Aug but instead it was 30th Aug ("dunno what I was thinking"). Paid the price for my mistake :( 

It costed us total of only SGD 1445.28.

We booked our accommodation at Athens directly with the host so there's no Airbnb fee!

All our accommodations are very spacious, located at central area and near to public transports. 

Link to Airbnb:

Receive SGD 45 credit for your first Airbnb booking when you book from this link: https://abnb.me/e/scDPZuwsXI

3. Connectivity

To me, travel is easy when we have Internet access.  Everything will be within your reach and you will never get lost with Google Maps. However, while planning for the trip, I have problem deciding whether to purchase a pocket wifi or to get a SIM card. After much research, we realized that it's cheaper for us to get SIM card as there were only 2 of us using the Internet and we only need to purchase one SIM card as the other person could simply use personal hotspot teetering. It will be more worth it to purchase pocket wifi for large group of travellers as it can be tapped by up to 10 users. 

In Greece, we have purchased a SIM card from Cosmote mobile operator that costs only 15 Euro for 3 GB of mobile data. We got it from their outlet near to our accommodation.

In Italy, we purchased SIM card from Vodafone that costs 20 Euro for 2 GB of mobile data. We got it from a booth located at the train station at Fiumicino airport. 

Frankly 1 GB is more than enough. We never exceeded 1GB usage for each country. Moreover, it's convenient that we have a local number to make calls when necessary. 

Link to Cosmote: https://www.cosmote.gr

Link to Vodafone: http://www.vodafone.it

4. Transportation within country 

Throughout our whole Europe trip, we mostly travelled by local public transports. I personally love exploring a country via public transport as not only it's cheap, it's also a good way to "feel" a country. We avoided taking taxi unless it was late at night or we have to catch an early flight.

In Athens, we managed to explore the country via their metro and by walking a lot. It costs only 1.40 Euro /person/ride. 

In Santorini, we explored the country via their public bus which costs only around 1.8-2.0 Euro /person/ride. We managed to visit most of the attractions via their bus from Fira bus station. 

In Italy, we took their regional high speed train to Florence, Venice and Pisa and spent our time walking around the city. The ticket prices vary depending on destination, time and train. You can book cheaper tickets online (remember to print hard copy as it's required for checking) or purchase on the spot. As we were travelling with baby and it's harder to be on-time, we purchased our tickets 15 mins before departure at the train stations. You can check the train schedule online. 

Link to metro route at Athens: http://www.ametro.gr/page/default.asp?la=2&id=48

Link to Santorini public bus time table: http://ktel-santorini.gr/ktel/index.php/en/services-eng/timetable-summer-eng

Link to train booking in Italy: https://www.italiarail.com

I hope these tips will be useful to you. I'll blog down our travel memories in other post! :)
Going to stay in Singapore for a month.. there are so many food, people and places to visit in a month.
Also, we are having Aedan's one year + one month birthday party this coming Sunday. 
I can't wait to meet my friends this Sunday! 

Never stop exploring the world ... even with a baby!

- Mommy eve

Happy 51st Birthday Singapore!

Happy Birthday Singapore!! 🎂

I only truly realized the beauty of our country after living outside of Singapore.

So many things that I have taken for granted.

Our beautiful garden city,

Super accessible public transports (bus, mrt, taxi, etc),

Wide variety of 美食 (awesome food),

Clean and free public toilets,

Air conditioning almost everywhere,

Our peace and security,

The beauty of different races living in harmony.

I thank everyone who have played a part in making Singapore such a wonderful place. 

The people who defend our nation and keeping it a safe place to live in;

The people who sweat under hot sun to build our country;

The people who clean our country; 

The people who work to keep Singapore an attractive destination for investors; 

The people who continue to work so hard to maintain our prosperity; 

The people who impart knowledge to our future generations.

I love you Singapore. 

家还是最好的

I hope our country will continue to be clean, safe and beautiful for our future generations. ❤️

- Mommy eve  

An open letter to my baby: Happy one year!

Aedan, you have turned one year old!! 

Happy Birthday to you!! 🎂

It has been such a journey! I have to say my life has changed so much (for the better) because of you. 

I still remember the feeling of you living in me, especially when you kicked me so hard during the last trimester that it seemed like you couldn't wait to come out. I was so afraid that you were going to destroy your home (my womb).

I remember the day when you were born. When I waited 17 hours after my water bag broke and pushed for more than an hour to finally see your face. That day was miraculous. It was tiring but all worth it when I saw your face and hear your cry. You cried so loud. 

I remember the many moments we had when I breastfed you. The first time was indescribable. You looked into my eyes as you suckle like you were trying to tell me "thank you mommy for feeding me". I'll never forget the look. The feeling that I'm able to provide for you. No words can describe this feeling. Also the painful first month when we both were still learning. Now we are both good at it. It has been one year.. Every day and night, we have so many moments together.

Life is such an adventure with you. You've shown me your new tricks everyday and it's fascinating to see how you have grown so fast. Many times when I look at you (especially when you were sleeping peacefully at night), I thank God (or whoever is there watching) for giving me such an angel. Life is so much more complete with you. 

There were so much precious memories although it has only been one year. Many more years of adventures with you. I hope I can remember all the memories forever.. Even if not, I hope my blog will help me remember all these beautiful days and moments with you. 

I love you so much! 

Thank you for coming into my life. ❤️

Though you certainly will not understand this letter now.. But I hope you will read it many years later.

- Mommy eve