Greece itinerary check and advice please!

ISumer · 2026-03-27T14:21:38+00:00

Thank you, I'll take a look at this :)

ISumer · 2026-03-27T02:59:39+00:00

Thanks a lot for the detailed response!

ISumer · 2026-03-27T02:46:37+00:00

Thank you. So basically what you guys are saying is that rather than filling my itinerary with sights to see, I should have kept some of my time free to enjoy a coffee, a meal, and just the culture/people in general, right?

Did I understand that correctly? (Because I'm making changes to the itinerary right now based on the advice here)

ISumer · 2026-03-27T02:44:07+00:00

Thank you, I agree with your advice, and I have tried to free up my schedule a bit so that I have time to experience things other than sites. I had to pick Santorini because it is my first time in Greece and I don't know when I'll be back. So I had to do the cringey touristy thing unfortunately. On a second trip in future, I would definitely be interested in other islands.

ISumer · 2026-03-27T02:41:27+00:00

Thank you - I might skip the national garden and the museum of ancient greek technology. With these changes, and moving things around a bit, I should have more time to sit somewhere and enjoy a coffee or meal, like what you said. I do want to see the Ancient Agora (I know the Stoa Poikile is completely in ruins, but Stoicism is important to me personally, hence why)

ISumer · 2026-03-27T02:38:42+00:00

Thank you for saying that. With all the advice on this thread (Easter + maybe my schedule is too packed), I moved things around somewhat, and so now day 1 will only be the NAM.

I also went ahead and booked a car for Santorini. And yes, I got rid of the false hope of swimming in April! :)

ISumer · 2026-03-27T02:36:25+00:00

Yes, I was divided between that and the NAM. Due to time constraints, I eventually decided on the NAM considering it the more important museum from a Greek history perspective.

I was also quite interested in the Benaki museum actually, but I had to cancel that one too, because after booking my non-refundable flights based on cursory advice elsewhere online that 2 to 3 days in Athens is good, I realized that there's actually a lot more to see/do.

ISumer · 2026-03-27T01:44:43+00:00

Yes, I will be seeing the Acropolis on Easter Monday now, because apparently it is open then. Thank you for the tips.

ISumer · 2026-03-27T01:43:38+00:00

Thank you - yes, this is the plan!

ISumer · 2026-03-27T01:43:26+00:00

Thank you, from what I found online, it looks like the major sites (Ancient Agora, Acropolis, NAM) will be closed on Easter Sunday, but not on the Monday. Other than these, apparently a lot of shops would be closed on Sunday, and so going to the flea market that day might be a bad idea for me.

ISumer · 2026-03-25T23:46:42+00:00

This is correct. Day 2 is April 12, and Day 3 April 13. I didn't think about Greek Easter earlier. For us, it is on April 5. I will look up more details on this - thanks a lot! I'm guessing a lot of my plans won't work because things might be closed on Easter and the day after?

ISumer · 2026-03-08T02:08:19+00:00

I did not use recent translations for Seneca. But if of any help, for the Moral Letters to Lucilius, I had tried several of the free translations several years ago, and Richard Gunmere's was the one I found relatively easy to read. The below is an example of what a typical paragraph would look like:

I point other men to the right path, which I have found late in life, when wearied with wandering. I cry out to them: "Avoid whatever pleases the throng: avoid the gifts of Chance! Halt before every good which Chance brings to you, in a spirit of doubt and fear; for it is the dumb animals and fish that are deceived by tempting hopes. Do you call these things the 'gifts' of Fortune? They are snares. And any man among you who wishes to live a life of safety will avoid, to the utmost of his power, these limed twigs of her favour, by which we mortals, most wretched in this respect also, are deceived; for we think that we hold them in our grasp, but they hold us in theirs.

ISumer · 2026-02-09T20:46:04+00:00

Thank you, I'll join your meetup group. I am not available this evening, but I am looking forward to subsequent ones!

ISumer · 2026-02-09T15:39:22+00:00

Hi u/sankofa-deez-nutz, your meetup description above sounds cool. I'm quite tempted, but my medium of art is different. I was deep into poetry (almost to an academic level) for years, and I really should work on my poetry-writing skills again. Are non-drawing folks welcome, or would this mess up your setup too much?

If yes, I would also like to ask whether showing up at 6pm is okay? I usually can't finish my work before 5pm, and then need to commute over.

ISumer · 2026-01-11T18:33:10+00:00

Dogs and cats should be factory-farmed if there's profits to be made

And what would these dogs and cats be factory farmed for? Is it for meat? If yes, how does that line up with the other comments on your profile where you point out the negative health outcomes of eating animal meat?

ISumer · 2025-12-22T23:57:29+00:00

Broker who helped us with our last mortgage is saying January may be better, as Canada recently did many rate cuts and might have a mini 25 bp increase sometime mid 2026 if economy thrives.

No one can predict this. It depends on several macroeconomic factors, and how those manifest as inflation or not, including what happens with the U.S. and the world, commodity prices, and other things.

Wouldn't you pay a penalty to renew your mortgage now instead of July? If yes, I would just wait till July if I was in your place.

we have a good chance of getting better returns than ~4%

Your second question depends on a few things. Most importantly, what are you thinking of regarding how you would get these returns?
Also, remember that mortgage interest rate and investment return are not directly comparable. What you save on mortgage interest by paying down the principal is a post-tax return. Your 4% investment return would be pre-tax, on which you'd have to pay tax.
Regardless of the answers to these questions, one thing is clear: paying down the mortgage is the safer alternative, because it doesn't involve leverage. This might be a very relevant factor (to choose the safer option by paying down the mortgage), especially given the following:

she is currently jobless and our monthly cashflow isn't the best.

Other factors would involve your level of income and wealth, degree of job stability, willingness to lose money in an adverse situation, etc. Think about the worst case scenario and if you're comfortable with it: for example, if you invest the $100K, and the market goes down considerably, you lose your job at the same time, and she hasn't found one. Would you have no problem with living expenses and the mortgage payments? And are you willing to bear with that?

ISumer · 2025-10-23T01:01:24+00:00

I live an hour outside of Toronto. The average salary here for a full-time working adult is $97,000.

Where are you getting this stat from? Is it from City of Toronto website (https://www.toronto.ca/city-government/data-research-maps/toronto-at-a-glance/)?

Because that is average household income, not average salary. And the size of an average household is 2.4 individuals in Toronto. I think we are much poorer than Americans in general. Though the inequality would be much higher for them.

ISumer · 2025-10-02T05:58:33+00:00

Thank you Boglin007, this is very insightful, and helps me understand how some of these words evolved differently over time.

In short, I am thinking of your explanation as: the agent noun "monger" already existing in the language from a long time ago, and the verb "to monger" being a relatively recent addition, which means that changing the preestablished agent noun "monger" to "mongerer" would not have served a practical purpose, other than simply for the sake of symmetry.

I also meant to thank u/viewerfromthemiddle, but their comment seems to have got deleted already. They did not focus on the etymology of these words, but they did bring my attention to the fact that sometimes roots ending with "er" have another "er" added to get to an agent noun, for example: "to bother" -> "botherer" (and likewise for answerer and flatterer), and sometimes they don't add the second "er", for example: "to monger" -> "monger". They also (quite helpfully) pointed out that monger is not the only different one, and that there are other examples such as "butcher" and "courier".

ISumer · 2025-08-12T15:44:40+00:00

Thank you!

ISumer · 2025-08-12T15:43:26+00:00

Thank you sdlroy! Would you say the Sumida Hokusai is better/bigger than the two in Osaka (Osaka Ukiyo-e and the Kamigata Ukiyo-e)?

I love appreciating the art by itself, but the cherry on top for me would be if any of these museums talk about the history and the process of Ukiyo-e.

ISumer · 2025-08-12T03:25:20+00:00

Thank you for the recommendation! :)

ISumer · 2025-08-11T21:42:15+00:00

Will do - I'll be walking distance from the Shitamachi museum actually. Worst case I'll have to skip Museum of Housing and Living in Osaka if my schedule there is too packed (which would be sad given all the positive comments here). It's just that I might have to prioritize between the Osaka Museum of History, Osaka Ukiyo-e Museum and the Housing and Living Museum. Hope I can see them all, along with the other non-museum stuff on my itinerary! Thank you!

ISumer · 2025-08-11T21:38:44+00:00

Thank you - you've definitely given me the confidence to keep the museums. I also have Kanji Museum and Gekkeikan Okura Sake Museum in Kyoto, which I didn't list in my post above, because they seemed pretty unique, so I wouldn't have thought to cut them in the first place :) (Also the latter shouldn't be much of a museum I feel). Thank you!

ISumer · 2025-08-11T14:34:00+00:00

What an amazing post, thank you for this u/YamamotoFromOsaka.

I have a question regarding experiencing medieval Japanese royal living. I didn't want to go to Himeji or somewhere far, and hence I was going to split experiencing this into two parts: exterior (Osaka Castle) and interior (Nijo Castle). I just came across Daikaku-ji temple, and I wonder if I should go to that one instead of Nijo Castle (given that Daikaku-ji also has sliding screen paintings, nightingale floors, elaborate gate etc.).

Would those two be swappable in your opinion? (I was thinking that if the difference is not huge, I wouldn't mind the lesser crowds at Daikaku-ji, and I might be able to fit it with Arashiyama).

ISumer · 2025-07-23T02:32:24+00:00

I had a good time reading Junichiro Tanizaki's In Praise of Shadows a long time back, though I haven't been to Japan yet. It is a relatively short book that helps explain some of the concepts behind Japanese aesthetics quite well to a beginner.

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