• Why is America the ‘no-vacation nation’? – “So despite research documenting the health and productivity benefits of taking time off, a long vacation can be undesirable, scary, unrealistic or just plain impossible for many U.S. workers.” More fool them, I say!

This weeks PhotoFriday theme is “Many.” I saw these many pastries of some description in Tokyo.

Please also vote for my entry in last weeks challenge, “My World.” I’m entry number 171.

The east coast of Rhodes has all the big name destinations, Faliraki and Lindos, but I figured that the west coast was worth a visit too.

The first thing that I passed (other than the airport which I wouldn’t be going to for another few days) was Pataloudes, better known as the Valley of the Butterflies. However, despite the name there were no butterflies.

There are two reasons for the lack of butterflies. The first is the time of year. The bugs are attracted to the damp, shaded part of the island during the main heat of the summer. The weather was decent in April but hardly what you’d describe as “the main heat.”

Before I left for Rhodes, I’d read that the island has a pretty good public transport system and was very tempted to try to complete the week using only buses and coaches. The bus from the airport convinced me that just getting as far as Lindos (nearly 50km from Rhodes Town), much less seeing anything when I got there, could well take a considerable chunk of a day. It also looked as though there might be some other interesting things to see on the way — something that would be tricky to do on a bus — and so I decided to hire a car.

• “1945-1998” by Isao Hashimoto – Cool visuals of the cold war.
• When We Tested Nuclear Bombs – Amazing and scary images. I didn’t know that there had been so many tests — over a hundred in one year alone.

Please also vote for my entry in last weeks challenge, “Manufactured.” I’m number 161.

This weeks PhotoFriday challenge is “Manufactured.” These bottles, found in a shop in Lisbon, were certainly manufactured.

Please also vote for my entry in last weeks challenge, “Primary Colour.” I’m entry number 176.

• Yahoo! Finds! Buyer! For! Doomed! Delicious! – Hopefully good news for Delicious.com.

I was determined to make at least one boat trip to another island and there were no shortage of options from Rhodes Town. There were some other famous locations within range, Kos and even some Turkish resorts, but in the end I decided on Symi. It’s a much smaller island, known for its attractive harbour, and I thought it would be a good contrast to what I’d already seen in Rhodes.

Can anyone explain the significance of this? I was in Rhodes Old Town and stumbled across this scene. Why would you put a plant on a door like that?