Rome - The Preview...

Coming up in the next post....

Barcelona - Gaudi

It's Sunday and it's Church day.... and some images from La Sagarda Familia....should be the greatest most stylish church ever built when it's finally completed. Gaudi was and is just a great architect to have all these designs in his head....too bad he got run over by a tram!!

i love this side (Passion facade) the most, with it modernistic sculptures

the stained glass window inside

the lone figure of Christ over looking the construction

haiya....dunno how to read signs ah??

Casa Milla is another one of Gaudi's unique creations. It's actually an apartment block....could just imagine living in an apartment here. You'd know the architect thought about ergonomic of his furniture and how to design the place so that you'd get the most of the natural lighting....

Entry was 10€ each but quite worth it la to get to see his unique designs...

the rooftop of Casa Milla, notice that the roof is not level, it's supposedly so that rain water is easier to drain....quite smart eh...

where else can you find desings like this??

a huge chimney

they said on certain summer nights, got cocktail parties up here, so nice....

the intricate design on a door frame

the ergonomic door handle, quite cool

even staircase also so nice....

That's it for Barcelona....next up, the Roman experience....that's going to be filled with loads of pictures!!

Barcelona - The Food

I was just looking back at the photos of Barcelona that i have and realized that the pictures from yesterdays post, is just the tip of the iceberg!! Got soooooooo many more photos that shows Barcelona.....i think it can possibly fill up a whole photobook also!! And that was just a 3 day 2 night stay summore...

So what's a Barcelona post without some pictures of the food we had right??

First day we arrived, was way past lunch time, just chucked our bags to the hotel and headed back into the city to the promise of cheap shopping at Zara, Mango and Camper. Zara makes some good men shirts too. Kinda forgot that we were hungry too....lucky there was salvation next door....a McD's!! HAHAHAHA

always must try a McD's in a foreign land to see if it tastes better with babi in it.....

And yes, it tasted just slightly better.

Actually, we were really stingy with our €, since our RM seems so small. But what the heck, when are we going to Barcelona again. So we stopped converting and treated everything as it is in €.

Guided by the list that Amy gave us, we embarked on our quest for good food. Thank goodness for Amy, if not for her, we'd never get to do Barcelona a bit like a local, especially the food and beach parts. Thanks Amy!!

She recommended us this place called Sagardi...loads & loads of tapas on the bar top, just take your pick and they calculate later....just like lok lok, just take what you want and the guy counts your lidi (sticks)...same la, only here they use toothpick....hehhehh

beer on a hot afternoon, and tapas.......

sagardi, took us a while to locate this place, must bring gps next time we travel....

the tapas spread

Quite ok, but the bill came up to be about 30€ for a couple of 8 or 9 tapas and 4 beers.....NEVER CONVERT to RM!!

That was our 1st indulgence in good Spanish food.

The next day after spending too much on the entrance fees to the Gaudi attractions, we decided to spend less for food, so we went to another fast food place, but at least this one was local and had jamon!!!

the fast food sandwich place .... this is a jamon sandwich, part of a meal set, 2 sandwiches, 2 cokes and 1 fries for 8€

Later that day, nearly about dinner time, we passed by this courtyard. I think I've seen it before in some travel review or something, it had nice restaurants and some street performances and all that but we resisted the temptation to spend too much for our dinner.

nice place to chill and people watch

But later at night, after a whole lot more walking and looking for cheap food....we realised that it's going to be our last dinner here in Barcelona and decided to just #%@* it and just spend la!! We're not coming here again till we're 60 years old...yeah, we want to come back just to see the finished La Sagarda Familia!!

examining the prices first!!

chorizo, meatballs, calamari....and beerrrr!!

churros!!

churros glasses!!

money well spent. Although the churros could have been better if we had ordered chocolate sauce to dip it in. Oh well......

The last day, we went to the famous Boqueria Market to see the cured babi and all that and we stumbled to this place that was quite packed. And since it's quite packed, and the food smelt nice too, we also kiasu and just sat down and ordered la.

fried potatoes with some spicy mayo thingo....good!!

meatballs again...with some spicy sauce

chorizo with some other spicy sauce

sauteed mushrooms with garlic

the aftermath!!

this was just at the next stall, but we were just too stuffed to eat more jamon.....now, i want jamon....

where to get jamon in KL??

Barcelona

I've just printed loads of pictures from 2009 thus far, so now I've got loads of pictures to blog about. Getting to be quite boring around here, heheh......starting a new job soon and will not have a lot going on besides 'real' work.

before i forget about this Barcelona trip, I'd better blog about it. This will be a really condensed run through of the trip.

Head out to the city on the metro (subway). Really nice modern trains, very informative when it comes to getting on and off your stops, quite easy to understand subway map. BUT can get VERY STRESSFUL when it's packed like sardines coz you'd be worrying about your bag getting pickpocket-ed!! Everyone holds on tightly to their handbags on the trains. Pickpockets are like part of the tourist experience when in Barcelona....

train not so packed, so can afford to be a bit lax and drink coffee

Tourist attraction time!! This is La Sagarda Familia. Basically it's a church designed by Gaudi back in the very late 1800's and construction is still on going till today. It's expected to be complete by 2040. It's truly an amazing sight when you see it. Really love Gaudi's work.

the construction site

the spiral staircase in one of the towers

Barcelona has lots of quaint small back lanes. So while trying hard to locate food, we get lost in these back lanes, but they are quite nice, so that's quite alright with us. Get to explore the local areas.

Then we went off to the beach. A really long stretch of beach. We started at one end and walked to the other end. And there's different 'areas' on the beach. There was a kids area, an 'adults only' area (you know where not wearing clothes are ok), there's a 'boys only' area, there's even a casino by the beach (in a grand building of course), and loads and loads of bars. So nice the beach, you can buy beer & sangria, enjoy the chill music and just chill by the beach. And the sun sets at 9pm, so at 8pm, you can still hang out at the beach.....nice!

sangia and estrella on the beach

Gaudi was like really popular. It's because of his unique designs, you'd never expect buildings to look like this! It's part of the Modernist movement. How often do you see wall that are wavy and bones shape on your grills of the balcony?? Gaudi was very into designing his stuff based on nature, that explains all the curves in his designs. He also designs furniture which are supposedly very ergonomic.

Casa Milla

Casa Batillo

love seat?

mosaic. see the nature influence? it's honeycomb-ed shaped

the door behind us was cool

Parc Guell was an adventure to get to. It's away from the city, takes 2km to get there from the metro station and the roads leading to the park was uphill, just as bad as San Fran's hills!! It was so steep that they decided to build escalators!!

girl chilling in the sun reading a book. we were so grateful for the sun coz we've been in wet & cold London and miss the heat. Now that we're back in KL, we run away from the sun!

told you they have escalators to get you up the hill

yup, it's THAT steep!!

more funky mosaics

Parc Guell, with the 2 funkilly designed houses at the entrance

how cool is that? a dragon design on the hinge

So when in Barcelona, the 3 main Gaudi works that you'd best want to see is:
1. La Sagarda Familia
2. Casa Milla OR Casa Batillo (they're both on the main high class shopping street, Passeig de Gracia so you can see these when you go shopping
3. Parc Guell (the ginormous park which was supposed to be a high class residential area)

Food is also good here. After you have gotten over the currency conversion that is. I didn't print any food pictures, so there'll be no food pictures in this post. But food was good. Tapas, churros AND jamon.....porky pork....yumm....yumm....babi bagus!! I think i'll go look for some babi pictures and post it later la.....yum yum.....

a cafe in the market, got loads of people, so when you unsure of where to eat or where to go, go to where there are crowds, guaranteed to be good!!

Next post will be food pictures in Barcelona!! Woohoo!!

And still got Rome, New York....Boston, Vegas, LA, San Fran......

which car should we get?

I miss my old waja. It was a nice size, comfort to drive, does not sound like it's falling apart whenever it goes over bumps and the mileage was quite decent.

Now we're left with a DAMN old Satria, which rattles like it's going to drop whenever it goes over holes and bumps in the road and the mileage is DAMN high!! RM60 and it gets me only 300kms!!

So we're looking to get a new car.

We applied for the Naza Bestari 206, a locally assembled Peugeot which was re badged under the Naza name. The interest rate for this was just stupendously low, it's 0% for the full loan amount (which is the cost of the car) for up to a maximum of 12 years!!

The Pugeot 206
(photo taken from http://paultan.org)

Hope we get this car!! But we did not have proper documentation to apply for the loan....but we're keeping our fingers crossed!!

If we don't get the Naza 206, what should we get??

A Proton Gen2? Looks quite sporty and all that, but it's a Proton after all, and paying RM60k for a Proton (again) doesn't sit too well with us.

the Gen2 Special Edition
(photo taken from http://paultan.org)

Or the New Honda City. This is a really nice car, and at RM88k, it's a bit on the high side but it beats a Proton any day and the legendary mileage of a Honda City, would allow us to cuti cuti malaysia more often!!

the Transformers looking Honda City
(photo taken from http://paultan.org)

Or the Mitsubishi Lancer. At RM120k, definitely too expensive have. But it looks like damn nice to drive and all. Got paddle shifts on the steering wheel summore. And if looks can kill, this car will kill!!

The Mitsubishi Lancer
(photo taken from http://www.mitsubishi-motors.com.my)

this guy damn smart, with the cool number plate

Read from http://paultan.org that Proton and Mitsubishi are in discussion to work together to produce cars again. Hopefully it comes true and the new model that replaces the old Waja would look exactly like the Mitsubishi Lancer, only with the Proton badge and a cheaper price. Then I'd buy that one!!

The New Proton Waja....hopefully
(photo taken from http://paultan.org)

In the meantime, keeping fingers crossed for the Peugeot 206 (refuse to call it a naza!!) and if that doesn't work out, then we'll just have to settle with having a Transformers car in the car park....good choice??