Trip to Greece videos - Delphi Part 1 & Part 2

My trip to Delphi during my 2003 journey to Greece.

I found it hard to separate the Delphi clip into 2 parts. Depicting Delphi with only either of modern Delphi or ancient Delphi could hardly be Delphi at all. The two seemed inseparable. Separated, "modern Delphi" would lose the essence of Delphi, while "ancient Delphi" on its own might be too monotonous. Together, the clip would be too long. So now in the modern Delphi clip, I've added some images of ancient Delphi.

Trip to Greece - Delphi Part 1 - Modern Delphi

If you could read my videos, then you'll know I was happiest when I was at Delphi during the whole journey in Greece.

At first, I didn't expect much of the place, as I had got quite tired of visiting ancient sites. But Delphi was different. Soon as I got there, I was captivated by the majestic mountain scenery all along the main road.

And the small hotel room offered charming mountain views from the balcony. It's spiritually refreshing and inspiring. How could I not be happy?

Next to ancient Delphi, modern Delphi was a small village that you could walk through in little time. Quiet, relaxing and superbly located, it could be an excellent place for relaxing and reflections.

The small-apple tree outside a village house was my favorite bit. It fascinated me just to watch the little apples falling down as the breeze caressed the tree. Perhaps, feeling dumb throughout the trip, I secretly wished to gain some small wisdom from the small fallen apples, if not to be seduced by some small guilty pleasure. Little apples of wisdom, little apples of desire, you didn't make me a little wiser. Yet, you seemed to me symbolic of the secret spirituality of Delphi, of which the essence and soul was the sites of Ancient Delphi. I was so delighted that I almost felt like enlightened.

I had made a lot of footage of the mountains. It's really hard to edit the clip. Now and then there were these similar images of the mountain scenery. Mountains, mountains and more mountains, it just dazzled me. Of course, the mountains in the video retained little of its charm.

To bring out the spiritual wonder of the place, I have used ethereal music by Love Spiral Downwards and Shelleyan Orphan.

Watch my video:

Trip to Greece - Delphi Part 2 - Ancient Delphi

Ancient Delphi here shows the World Heritage listed ancient sites, mostly the Sanctuary of Apollo, along with some images of the Sanctuary of Athena.

To respect the sanctity of the ancient sites, I did not put music to the clip, except in footages outside of the site. I thought it's best to taste the place quietly. Perhaps there's already a musical quality in the architecture and the relics itself, so it would not be too boring to watch it quietly, if you are not boring, that is.

Frustration:
Have just uploaded the new video of part 2 of my trip to Delphi - Ancient Delphi on YouTube. The video quality is much poorer than the original clip, like some other videos of mine - missing details, awful colors...Sighhhhhhhh!!

I've tried to uploaded the video on MySpace, and the video seems better there:
Trip to Greece - Delphi Pt 2/2 Ancient Delphi

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I liked Brad Renfro too

Got the video from his fans' MySpace site:


The music is crap (turn off the sound!), but I like the photos.
Let it be? No, it's so wrong.
Many beautiful and talented people love to hurt themselves. They are so fragile and they tend to die easily (as my unscientific but rather accurate research on the relationship between longetivity and attractiveness shows).
What's wrong?
Every time when a young hopeful like him disappears, people say more or less the same thing - love him so much, will always remember him, he's so wonderful.
It seems that all this love is quite powerless. (Fans, don't overrate your love!)
And the mystery remains, and then again another beautiful boy would disappear, and another, and another...

There's no consolation.

Reality is crap. History is crap.
(Well, sometimes...)

Notes to the 2-stars video killer and other sensible viewers

What the hell!

A certain mean people has just rated my formerly unrated "Iraklio" video 2 stars (quite a failure, right?) only! Yes, my video was not Pro. But I thought it would worth 3 stars. (Yes, I am quite a humble person!)

Why? Envy, envy, envy! Perhaps because it's lucky enough to be listed near the bottom of the first page when you searched "Iraklio".

I fear that no one would watch it anymore, all because of a certain viewer of either extremely refined taste or extraordinarily awful taste. Then again, he may either be a great lover or great hater of the city of Iraklio. And what if he is simply an utter nutter and a professional 1-star or 2-stars video killer of unrated videos? Woe is me!

Most YouTubers rate videos generously. As a debutante amateur video maker, I thought getting 3 or 4 stars was good enough, and I was overjoyed when viewers generously gave some of my videos 5 stars. 2 stars? It's not fair, especially when many travel videos on YouTube which were more mediocre than mine easily got a few 5 stars. Compared to some professionals and talented video makers, I felt like a primary school student. But at least I did my homework well and with sincere efforts. And it's not those sloppy video clips shot with a mobile phone (and usually less than 1 minute long) without editing.

2-stars video killer, perhaps you are looking for travel videos like these:
a) Long-windedly narrated by someone, pretty or ugly, pleasantly dressed or distastefully dressed, showing themselves or not. They would show you a red apple and tell you that it's a red apple, or something like that.
b) Sights and places indicated with subtitles, and labouriously introduced by these subtitles or in the video description (perhaps mostly copied from guidebooks or the Netpedia).
c) Made up of a series of pretty enough photos, but usually linked up by a variety of tasteless and naïve transitions.
d) Accompanied by some corny music that often does not match the video throughout. And all the city sounds and noises are muted.
Sorry, my videos are not your cup of tea. I am not working for the tourist office or travel agency. And I am no teacher of geography or history. I just want to share some of my impressions and convey some aspects about the place, which I happened to capture during my travels.

2-stars video killer, you have succeeded with your scheme, soon my video has dropped out of the first page of the "Iraklio" search.

In fact, this "Iraklio" video is my favourite among my earlier videos. The elements are rich and varied, so are the sounds of the city. And some scenes were even tastefully edited. In a word, it's quite interesting to watch, if not informative or practical enough for the middle-of-the-road music lovers.

Earlier, it was rarely viewed. Then recently the viewing grows faster than other videos of mine, despite their common low view counts, perhaps because it's listed on the first page of the search. Now it's murdered, (as the Chinese saying goes -- snatch rice to eat from the begging bowl!) and I am trying hard to revive it.

So if you happen to watch it, and if you have some sense and perhaps a great deal of generosity, please give it at least 3 stars.

RIP, my lovely "Iraklio" video!

P.S. - Ha Ha! My video has been revived! Forget about the hopeless killer!

Trip to Greece video - Naxos Part 2 Tragaea

Part 2 of my trip to the delightful Greek Island of Naxos in my 2003 journey to Greece. It's a pleasant excursion in the Tragaea region, with its unspoilt villages, lovely roads, olive gloves and various fruit trees.

It's an enjoyable day… and a fruitful one.

At first I got lost. I got to a small square nearby some olive groves. No one was around. It's all so quiet. Nonetheless, the sun blistering, it was good to sit in the tree shades and relax. There I had some blissful moments admiring beautiful trees swinging and singing in gentle breeze.

I wanted to walk to the small village of Damarionas. After walking alone on the quiet road for a while, a young man riding on a scooter passed by and offered me a lift. I boldly left my fate to the Greek gods and fortunately he did carry me safely to Damarionas. The popular ghost of the serial killer hovering in my head was immediately replaced by a heavenly miracle.

Walking on the road to Halki from Damarionas was a great joy. It was not wide (of perfect human scale), with olive groves and orchards on both sides. What's more, there weren't fierce dogs. Neither were there other people. It's quiet and serene, not creepy.

My secondary task of the excursion was to pick samples of all kinds of fruits on the road. My partial success included two fig fruits, a small green orange, a small pear and an olive, but I failed miserably to get a bunch of grapes and a pomegranate. Here and there I tried hard but failed to pick grapes, which were bountiful but always just about one inch away from my reach.

Halki was somewhat disappointing then. Its run-down Venetian houses seemed dull rather than charming. It's hardly photogenic, and perhaps that's why I had hardly made any video there.

I walked back to Filoti from Halki, the starting point of the excursion. There I had waited for quite a long time for the bus. You really have to learn to wait in Greece.

The video is accompanied with beautiful songs by Tim Buckley and Guy Chadwick.

Watch my video: