Thursday, September 06, 2007

"Baddie" Barcelona

Hey, finally, we've come to the next highlight of the trip!! TA-DAH!! Barcelona (I love the chinese name, Ba Sai Luo Na), Spain!! Wow, when I think of Spain, I think of people in bright colourful dresses dancing away, think of partying and merrying amidst the booze and Spanish music, think of bull racing, think of Meteor Garden (aka Liu Xing Hua Yuan). =) Told jw that I wanna find the fountain that Shancai drank from, and the church that Shancai and Dao Ming Si pledged their love. Keke.

Anyway, it was a smooth flight from Paris to Barcelona. Our first flight together during this trip, via Ryan Air. It didn't take us too long to find our hotel, along La Parellel. (I think we are becoming experts at map navigating =p). We checked into Hotel Auto Hogar. Weird name, but we got a clean and comfy room, with a spoilt safe. Haha. Well well. It was the first time we could enjoy continental breakfast every morning! though that would mean we have to crawl of bed by 9am (breakfast is served from 7.30-9.30am)! UH OH, 2 lazy pigs, can make it mah? *yawnz* Well. For our first meal in Barcelona, we finally tried steak!! Our first steak in Europe. Quite yummy though the waiter looked quite suspicious and fishy and worse, he actually did not serve our dessert and walked off to some other shop when we enquired bout it. Hey, that was my yoghurt okie. Maybe he bluffed us from the start. There was NO yoghurt dessert at all. No wonder the place was so empty. Wahaha! The breakfast at Auto Hogar was not that yummy, but it was good enough for a free first meal of the day. I liked the ham & cheese and brownies. Keke. Remember we will always buy a bottle of mineral water (euro $1) from the vending machine at the landing whenever we go out. Hee. Jw says can't really trust their tap water. Right. Barcelona was the start of a roller coaster ride for us. Whhheeeeeeeeeee.....

We had a wonderful first day here, visting the L'aquarium and having a nice dinner nearby. L'aquarium was fun! Sort of like our Underwater World. I always enjoy finding out more about animals, and jw will always be there to explain more about each of them to me, esp when it comes to marine animals (oh yeah, he loves fishing). We took alot of pictures of the funny-looking fish, like the dragon lookalike sea horse, some wormy fish, giant octopuses, giant fishes, and oh there's a tunnel where you can see all the sharks and fishes swimming around and above you. Woho. I like that. I also learnt how to tell the difference between a female and a male shark. Keke. That's easyyy. (hint: it has something to do with the male organ. Male sharks have not one, but two!! Called claspers) Hey we did take a pic here! & I still have it. Waha. Thanks to the money sucking photography services at all these tourist attractions, because without it, I won't even have this pic. Wahaha. For dinner, jw had seafood pasta (which was delicious) and I had lasagne (which was green in colour). We also shared a jug of sangria, which I personally liked alot. Hee. It was one of the best dinners we had in Europe. We had a peaceful first nite too. Lalala. All ready for the 2nd day!!

SAGRADA FAMILIA. Right. If you haven't been here, you haven't been to Barcelona. This is the most famous building designed by the all famous Gaudi, who's responsible for so many of the architecture we see in Barcelona. & what's fascinating is that this building is unfinished, and there are people who are helping Gaudi to carry on his life's work and they estimated that the date of completion would be 2026. Jw was quite fascinated and puzzled by the idea that tourists from all over the world flock here just to admire the building and the design of it all. A buidling that's not yet done. Keke. Maybe that's where the beauty of it lies. I must say the workmanship is so delicate, and every inch of the building and the towers are skilfully constructed with precise measurements. Was really amazed by how Gaudi tests the weight/characteristics of all types of granite and building materials before locating the right one. See pic on left. How smart. =)

Heeding to my request, we queued up to take the lift to the top of one of the towers. Hee. Taking the lift cost each of us Euro$2!! Fwah. But being the nice guy that he is, jw took it with me even though he thought there wasn't much to see from the top. Keke. The catch is, you can take the lift up, but there's only one way down. The stairs. It's not just tens of them, we must have walked hundreds of stairs here, along the narrow spiral stairway. Woo. We took alot of pics here too, like we can see the giant fake 'strawberry' (jw's fav fruit) from the windows. Somehow, some of the towers had fruits on them. Had some kind of symbolism which I can't remember now. We also took some 'spiderman' poses pics, or 'prisoner' pics where we hid behind bars or squeezed onto the small space near the ledge. Yeah yeah. You can say we are childish. I don't deny that. Woohoo. At age 24 and 28, we still will behave like kids sometimes. But, I like it this way. Hehe. Kids are the ones who know how to appreciate and love life most. =) So, sometimes I do wish I feel and act like a kid. Hee. Happy happy!!


We saw many of such statues at the entrance. & well, as always, we started to play with our cameras and took turns doing the exact poses as the statues. Hee. The Sad Man was jw's and he did quite a good job imitating that. For the couple pic you see here, well, that was fun!! Haha. Because we tried to do it time and again, because either one of us will end up giggling or not looking serious. & we will retake again. I had to put my left hand on his right face, and well, THAT gave me the giggles somehow. Kaoz. We were doing this right at the entrance of Sagrada, so that we can have the statues exactly at the background and us in the foreground. Woohoo. The other tourists probably thought we are nuts, or sua ku Chinese, and weirdo Asians. Wahaha. But, who cares?? Not us. =) Life is too short to care bout what others think of you all the time.

Moving on, guess what we saw near Sagrada? Wooohooo. No more Quick, No more McDonald's. Make way for KKKFFFFCCCCCC!! My fav fastfood chain. Haha. Cos i loveee fried chicken, esp the skin! (yeah yeah, fatty and high cholestrol, but it's YUMMY!) Was really delighted to see KFC, and we decided we would eat here for our dinner after we visited Sagrada. Keke. & maybe after dinner we will visit Park Guell or check out the clubbing places cos' we heard that it's happening and hey we read quite a few brochures that introduced the popular clubs here. Lalala. Yes. That was THE PLAN. But don't they tell us that things in life doesn't always happen the way you wish they'd?

Yay. So there was I, happily taking pics of my food. (in case you are wondering, yes, I do that at every single meal without fail). Both of us enjoyed every bit of the dinner, cos' we were starving and the chicken tasted abit different from what we eat in S'pore. Yummy-licious. I was the first to finish my plate, and when I was telling jw I wanna take a look at the camera, he looked beside him on the empty chair, then turned to look at me saying, "Bag LEY?" Fwah. I will never forget those two words. Wahaha. I tot he must be joking, didn't I just hand the bag over to him and he put it beside his lap? What does he mean by "Bag Ley?" UH OH. See the invisible sweat trickling down our foreheads. Without even washing our hands, we dashed around KFC and dashed out onto the roads in search of my black Puffy sling bag. But it was gone. Too late. Sometimes, you really realise some things when it's TOO late.

Do you believe in fate? I do. It was fated that we so happened to change bag that morning, from the usual orange backpack to the sling bag. It was fated that every day I would hang my brand new Canon camera around my neck with my pink lanyard, but that day I just felt like my neck was aching and I decided to pass the camera to jw to store in the bag. It was fated that everyday jw would keep our passports in his Ah Peh Kor (aka khakis), but that day he wore a 3 quarts with small pockets that cannot contain our passports and for the first time, he kept them in our bag. How can it be so qiao?? Which is why I said there's something called fate. Haha. So that's it. Gone. My brand new Adidas pink & grey jacket from Tokyo, my shades, my brand new Canon Ixus 75 which cost nearly $600, our very cool LIME video camera that jw bought for me as a gift from this year's IT fair, our backup Samsung camera, two 2BG and one 1GB SD cards, a Lonely Planet's guide on Barcelona, our newly bought magnet and my earrings, our chen pi (preserved mandarin orange peel), our passports, my brand new Sony Ericsson K610i that's a few weeks old, some tissue paper and plasters. Say byebye to 2000 pics of precious moments during our Europe trip and 300 invaluable videos we captured.

Luckily jw still had his phone and some money and his credit cards. Picking ourselves from the shock, we made our way to the police station which was not very easy to locate. Well. I thought I would bawl like a baby soon. But I didn't. Too shocked, maybe. Waha. We spent hours at the station, filing the report, and getting our statements taken down. The policeman said the thieves strike everyday and are so professional that they can't be tracked. Damn. How encouraging. We were quite certain that the family at the table beside us were the accomplices, because they did a few suspicious acts like leaving their bag on the table and walking away. But it was too late. We didn't expect them to pull a stunt on us. & still asked us to rummage through the rubbish bins. Which we really did. 40? 50? I dunnoe. I lost count. We spent the wee hours of the nite lifting up garbage container lids, peeking into the dark and smelly containers, searching through each and every bin we saw near the crime scene. & also kept calling my phone, with the faint hope of hearing the ringtone (yeah the funny thief didn't shut my phone, maybe he doesn't even know how to unlock it lor). But well, all hopes were diminished time after time. We didn't wanna give up, but we had to. I asked jw to keep praying to lao tian ye, and hope that he gives us back just the passports and SD cards. We also sent smses to my phone saying we were willing to exchange Euro$1000 for the above items. But ehhh, who will be so dumb to reply and not be afraid that we'll collaborate with the police to ambush them. Well. Still. A little hope is better than no hope at all.

I couldn't sleep at all that nite. Watched my dragonball cartoon (in Spanish!!) and a few other programs. Turned off the TV and tried to get to bed. Tossed and turned and ended up sitting up on the bed, with dear jw sleeping soundly beside me. Just CAN'T sleep. Was sad over the loss of all my memories. Oh did i mentioned we walked at least an hour plus just to reach home? Haha. If not for jw, I wonder how I could have survived the ordeal. Maybe it's really a guys and gals thing, because he could get over it quite easily and was more concerned bout the loss of passports than anything else. Me, I know without passports it'll be troublesome, but was certain the embassy could help, so my concern was the photos and videos. See. Guys are logical and gals are sentimental. Guess that's so true. Of cos he wished we didn't lose the cameras too lar. But he was ever so positive throughout this incident and said that as long as we don't lose each other, we will one day regain what we've lost, or gain something even better. & when I said I lost all my treasures, he said I didn't, because my treasure is still standing in front of me. Yeah I know I said this before, but the memory is so vivid that I must repeat it here. Wahaha. I think his words really knocked some sense into me. & that was how I started realising the fact that some things are left better unsaid and unseen, but just keep them close to you at the bottom of your heart for eternity. The memories, all we did, all we saw, all we heard, all we said, yesh i definitely can't remember them all, but I will always recall how happy I was. =) How happy we both were.

On the 3rd day, we had lunch at a Chinese food restaurant at La Rambla. & I almost lost my cap too because I left it in the restaurant and walked off before dashing back for it. Phew. How many more things can I lose man... Then jw bought a new camera for me. Hee. Canon Ixus 900Ti, which cost more than Euros$350. Wow. That's expensive. But I reckoned it's worth it and it definitely helped to bring back the smile on my face once I started taking pics again. keke. Like a young little gal who lost her candy but found a lollipop. =p With the little time we had left, we dashed all around to the famous places in Barcelona. Including Sagrada Familia (yar, again!), Columbus statue (oh yesh we did come here too!), Park Guell, Casa Batillo, the beach, Hard Rock etc.

There was this beautiful fountain where we took some nice piggyback pics too. Wahaha. Soon it was our last nite in Barcelona. We decided to go up to Montjuic, but alas, firstly we missed the last tram up to Montjuic, and secondly when we tried to walk, this guy told us that it's very very far and we should take the metro and alight at another station instead. Well. After some thought, we decided to abandon the idea. And guess wad we did? Haha. We brought back our beer and wine to our hotel room and played dice and card games. Keke. We played bluff, Texas Holdem, Tai Tee, Spade, Pair etc. & me wif my silly idea that the loser had to imitate an animal's sound and do its action. Keke. Kaoz. At first I kept losing. =( Giraffe, snake, pony, scorpion, even T-Rex, I did them all. It was actually so fun!! Jw laughed till he couldn't stop because he said my actions were one and all the same for the different animals. Liar Liar. Where got. I got variety one okie, just that the ending is always my animal will end up crushing on him. It was fun when he lost too, becos he's more knowledgeable and professional and started teaching me all about animals. Wahaha. Like how polar bears catch their prey by pouncing and breaking the thick layer of ice, and how antelopes (male ones) fight with each other using their horns etc. That was interesting. Oh for our game, of cos', the loser must also drink. Keke. How can we miss the drinking part. =p Hey by the way the wine was only like euro$3, bout the same as soft drinks. Wahaha. =)

So that was the end of Barcelona for us. Our travel docs managed to arrive on time from Paris and we managed to fly to Venice the next day. Actually, I think the last nite in Barcelona was one of the best nites I had in Europe. Maybe even the best of the best. Becos' there was so much joy and laughter and love in the air. Perhaps even more so after the theft happened, and we started appreciating what we have even more.

So, sometimes when bad things happen, maybe, just maybe, there's a reason to it all. We can't help bad things from happening can we? Neh. Life is not perfect. If life is too perfect, we will also take everything we have for granted. No no. That's not right. So well. I stopped blaming lao tian ye for what happened, and started to turn my grudge into gratitude. Thanks to jw, for helping me to flip the coin and see things from the other side.

Next up.. My last country.. Venice.. Wei ni si de lei.. That's what we always sing in our videos whenever we mentioned Venice.. But hor, we only know those 5 words and we stopped abruptly after that.. cuckoos.. nitey!!!