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With reports of yoghurt being hurled at authorities on the streets, Greece was on my radar but certainly not in my travel calendar.

However, when a Greek-Canadian friend proposed a fortnight around several lesser-known islands in the Aegean Sea, she painted a more serene picture awash in white and blue. Nicky told me about her Athenian friend, Adonis, who had built a house on a hill in Paros with a handsome garden of grape vines, fig trees and a million-dollar view. We were welcome to stay.

It was exactly as I imagined, only better.

Before embarking on the route less travelled, I insisted on a weekend in postcard Mykonos. With its suicidal scooter drivers, mouthy drunk divas and dinnertime power outages, the cosmopolitan island lived up to its reputation and I left ready to find peace. To be completely fair, there are some spectacular beaches around Mykonos and certainly a few quiet spots, but none worth four times the price.

Adonis met us at the port in Parikiá on Paros and we drove directly to Léfkes, a small village in the hills with the charm of a simpler world, where we would pick up fresh bread from the bakery and take in a long, lazy lunch.

Tucked into a corner of town is a company where the cutting edge is part of everyday life.

SOG Specialty Knives and Tools Inc. grew from a niche business in 1986 in the apartment of owner Spencer Frazer in Santa Monica, Calif., to one that ships knives and other tools to thousands of customers across the world from its headquarters in Lynnwood. The company employs 70 people in Snohomish County.

"A knife is man's oldest tool," Frazer said. "It is still essential for modern life, and it is part of the fabric of society. They play a part in survival, preparedness and convenience. Knives won't be outdated by technology; they will be better with it and will continue to evolve."

Frazer, 56, has had a hand in designing every knife and tool produced by the company. And he continues to do so even though he sold the company in 2009 to a private equity firm, which in turn sold the business to venture capitalists last year. His role now is designer and chief technology officer.

His first knife was based on one used by a Vietnam War-era covert special warfare unit called the Studies and Observation Group. The unit served as inspiration for the company's name – SOG.

Since then, he's strived to incorporate technology in making his knives and tools more useful and stylish. The business also has embraced technology in selling its knives. It's grown from advertising on the back pages of Soldier of Fortune and Survival Guide magazines to connecting with customers on the Internet.

Customers who buy SOG knives are hunters, outdoor enthusiasts, law enforcement, collectors and gadget hounds – and mostly men.

"Our business is about offering personal things," Frazer said. "Women have more items available to them for self-expression. There is fashion, scent, jewelry. Men have very few personal items of self-expression available to them outside of watches. Knives offer distinction."

Despite the predominance of modern garments on the streets of Tunis, traditional dress still remains popular among some Tunisians.

In the capital city of Tunis traditional clothes are part of the national heritage and identity. Traditional Tunisian dress, once common in Tunis, today is mostly limited to religious events, concerts, weddings, and circumcision ceremonies.

When you take a look around the old quarters in Tunis, or if you are invited to attend a Tunisian wedding or circumcision ceremony, you will notice that many Tunisians - both men and women - still wear traditional clothes.

Some men still wear the Jebba - the most popular male costume. The Jebba is made with both wool and silk and covers almost the whole body except for the forearms and calves. The Jebba can be worn with a vest called the Farmla (less commonly the Sadria or Badia), a jacket called the Montane and baggy trousers, or Sirouel, cinched at the waist with a silk sash. The Jebba comes in many colours and is considered a ceremonial garment that evolved from Andalusian Arab and Turkish influences. Before any circumcision ceremony, the mother and her son buy the Jebba, and the Chechia, the traditional round felt hat, which is now confined to religious occasions and worn by few elderly men.

The Jebba can be covered with a Barnous. Seen in the Star Wars movie that was shot in Tunisia, the Barnous is a well-known Tunisian garment. Since his election in December 2011, the Tunisian President Moncef Marzouki has become famous for wearing a light brown Barnous in public life. Many elderly men in rural regions also wear this garment - especially in the winter season. The Barnous is a long hooded woolen poncho-like coat with no sleeves. The Barnous is also widely used in Morocco, Algeria, and Libya. It is a piece to crown traditional costumes like the Jebba and give them a special prestige.

The Fouta and Blouza, two pieces of the same ensemble, are traditionally made in the capital city of Tunis. The Fouta is a dress made of silk or cotton, which women wrap from their waists to their ankles. The Blouza forms the bustier part of the outfit. If one attends any marriage ceremony in Tunis, one will see the bride wearing the Kesswa Tounsia. Lined with crystal beads and rhinestone, the Kesswa Tounsia is two-piece ensemble made of a bustier and baggy trousers, and was inspired by bridal dresses worn in the past.

The Balgha and the Kontra are traditional shoes appreciated by both Tunisians and foreign tourists. The leather shoes are closed, and often pointed or rounded at the end. Both the Balgha and the Kontra are worn by both sexes, but in practice are more frequently seen on men. The Kontra is a beautiful and light shoe made of leather, sometimes totally organic, and is an essential accessory for the Jebba or the Gulf-syle Siroual, especially in the summer.

Evocative of the past, the Sefsari is large scarf made of natural white or yellow silk that covers the entire body of Tunisian women. The Sefsari is still worn in rural areas by older women, but has mostly been abandoned by young women. In Tunis' Medina and souks, too, there are still many women wearing the Sefsari. They are frequently of an older generation. Often, they do not cover their faces, but simply wrap the Sefsari around their body and over their head, leaving the front open so that their face remains visible, and so they can use both hands comfortably.

Khadija Ben Mrad, a 71-year old woman living in Tunis is one of the few Tunisian women who did not abandon the Sefsari. Ben Mrad said that she grew up in an era when this "decent garment" was worn by all women, regardless of their age. Ben Mrad expressed regret that most women abandoned the Sefsari in Bourguiba's era after the independence of Tunisia, when he tried to encourage women to adopt western-style clothing.

On the surface it may not look like The Return of The Dapper Men, Hawkeye and Mockingbird, and Mind the Gap have much in common, beyond the fact that they are all written by Jim McCann. One’s a fairy tale, one’s a straight up superhero comic and the third McCann describes as a “thriller mystery” with some “preternatural” elements.

But McCann says they have more in common than you might think, or at least that I thought. Last week when I interviewed him about his new Image series, McCann drew parallels between Mind the Gap and those two previous projects, noting that he had plans for a big central mystery for his run on Hawkeye and Mockingbird that never came to pass.

“With Hawkeye and Mockingbird, unfortunately that series was cancelled, but I had a two-year plan for that, and it started to lay a couple of seeds early on,” McCann told me. “Brian Bendis picked up on one of them that occurred in the last issue of Hawkeye and Mockingbird, issue #6. There was a brief moment between Clint Barton and Jessica Drew that was supposed to set up a fling between the two of them. We had talked about that before, and when the series ended he was able to take it and run with it. So there are still some ideas out there that were able to live on. I like to plan things out no matter what the story is. I think it’s important to know your ending, and I think it’s fun to plant Easter eggs and seeds.”

In Mind the Gap, which Mccann is doing with with Morning Glories cover artist Rodin Esquejo and colorist Sonia Oback, the writer has developed a big central mystery around the main character. Elle Peterson is in a coma when the series begins after being attacked by an unknown assailant on a subway platform. “Within 30 minutes of the attack happening, you meet the majority of the characters and what they’re doing around the time of the attack,” McCann said. “But play close attention–there are clocks, or watches, or timepieces in every single panel with every single person, so you can see that time has passed. Some of these people may not really have alibis for the attack.”

McCann said he has developed relationship charts to keep track of how everyone is connected to Elle, to the attack and to each other, forming a puzzle the reader can start to put together.