Day 209 - A Walk Around Madrid

Took the first full day in Madrid just walking around to get a bearing on the city layout. The hostel receptionist told me that most of the sights are walking distance around the city center, so I made my way around the western side of the city.

I first stopped at the arcaded Plaza Mayor, which was built in the 17th century. In the center was a statue of Felipe III (I have no idea who he is...) There was a Christmas crafts village in the middle of the plaza where vendors sold random festive ornaments. I can't even believe that Christmas is less than 10 days away. I have looked over so many holidays while traveling since dates are less important when I don't have specific things to do each day.

Afterwards, I headed to the Catedral de Nuestra Senora de la Almudena (what a mouthful), which was one of the more modern churches I've visited. I particularly liked the stained art pieces, where sort of had an art nouveau style to them. My lonely planet guide says the city isn't too fond of this church compared to others in the city, but I think it's definitely worth a visit. Next to the church was the Palacio Real, which was Madrid's 18th century Royal Palace. I took pictures outside the gates, but you had to pay to get inside.

The weather was windy and chilly by the afternoon, definitely a lot colder than last night. It reminded me of the cold last days in Prague. I stopped by the Jardines de Sabatini, which are gardens close to the Royal Palace, before heading to the Templo de Debod, which was an Egyptian Temple that was transported to Spain. It was a gift from Egypt because of Spain's help in protecting the country's monuments from rising waters from the Aswan Dam. Each brick was transported from Egypt and made its way to Madrid!

The last stop for the day was the Ermita de San Antonio de la Florida, which was a little farther away from the city center than the other sites. In the chapel lies the grave of Francisco Goya and contains some of the art he painted on the walls and dome. Pictures weren't allowed, but I snapped a quick one when no one was in the room.

That's it for sightseeing for the day. I spent the rest of the night browsing the shops in Madrid. The prices were surprisingly cheap for Euro and European standards. I might just have to get a thing or two, maybe for NYE...

Catedral de la Almudena

Royal Palace

Francisco Goya's Ermita de San Antonio de la Florida

 Templo de Debod

Day 185 - Day Trip to Torino (Turin)

Torino was one of the "highlights" of Italy according to Loney Planet, so I decided to make a day trip out of it since it was close to Milan. Also, I had to rearrange my entire Italian leg of the trip since I would be meeting one of my friends from back home in early December in Rome. Initially, I wanted to tour all of Italy from the north in Venice all the way down to Sicily, but I decided I would spend more time focusing on the Northern Half of Italy over the next couple of weeks.

Torino is known for its Fiat car factories, along with its baroque and renaissance architecture. I arrived before noon from a train from Milan and took a tourist map from the tourist office along with me to explore whatever there was to see here. The main Plazas were called Piazza Castello and Piazza San Carlo, both easily reached by heading directly north from the train station. It'd be hard to miss. There were palaces and museums and churches around both plazas, with huge open space for people to congregate.

Visiting the two most popular plazas only took about 15 minutes, and I headed further north to see what else I could run into. The next stop was the Duomo di San Giovanni Battista, which is considered to be Torino's main catherdral. Here, they say that the church houses the linen cloth that was used to wrap Christ when he was crucified. Adjacent to it was the Royal Palace along with the palace park grounds which were open to the public. It still looked like autumn in Torino where the leaves were still slowly falling to the ground, and turning from green to brown.

The last stop on my Torino tour was the Mole Antonelliana, which houses the Museo Nazionale del Cinema. The Mole Antonelliana is a huge architectural masterpiece that towers over the city at 167m, and is on the 2 cent Italian Euro piece. I took a lift to the top where I saw some views of an overcast city.

The Cinema museum was the highlight I must say. It was an interactive museum that first showed the initial development of the uses of light to create different scenes (shadow puppets) to the development of illusions with light and lenses, to the creation of early film and animation (Zoetropes), and all the way to what we have now with all the technological advancements in movie-making magic. You could easily spend hours just going through each of the rooms and learning about the evolution of cinema. I would highly recommend it to anyone going to this city.

By the time I got back to Milano, Giulio was ready to cook us some dinner! I decided I would help make some dessert - an Argentinian Pancake dessert that I tried when I was in Istanbul. The dinner was excellent, some chicken breasts with a wine and mushroom sauce and bread. The dessert....was burnt and almost inedible...I really have to learn how to cook better. One word of advice for anyone who is going to start couchsurfing....LEARN TO COOK! At least learn one simple recipe from your own culture so you have something to share with others around the world!

View from the top of the Mole Antonelliana

Piazza San Carlo

Cathedral di San Giovanni Battista

Royal Palace Parkgrounds

Mole Antonelliana

Museo Nazionale del Cinema

Scrumptious Dinner

Destroyed Dessert

Day 99 - Touring Malacca/Melaka

I spent the majority of the day taking a walking tour of the city since my bus ride to Penang was at 10pm. Most of the major attractions were all situated in a small part of the city, including many museums about the history of the city and its inhabitants.

I visited the Stadhuys (Ethnography) Museum, the Literature Museum, the Governor's Museum, St. Paul's Church, the Melaka Sultanate Palace, and the Kite Museum. The things that interested me most were the bits and pieces about the blending of cultures between all the people that lived in the city in the past, including Malay, Chinese, Indian, and Portuguese. It was interesting to see the changes in wardrobe, customs, and food between Malay and/or Chinese, compared to Nyonya (a mix of Malay and Chinese) because you could see the influences from both cultures.

I headed back to Jonker Street in the evening to see if I could find some more goodies to try. I had the chicken rice balls again, and decided that I would try some durian fruit since it is ever so popular in this country, despite it smelling like stinky feet. I tried Durian Cendal, which is a popular shaved ice dessert in the country. It was edible, but I wasn't a fan of the taste of the fruit. I gave it another shot by trying some durian egg roll pastries, but again, it didn't do anything for me. I ate dessert, but the aftertaste in my mouth was as if I had just had some sort of savory dinner instead of something sweet...

St. Paul's Church

Sultanate Palace

Different royal headwear was on display at the Sultanate Palace, distinguished by the different folds.

The mannequins on display at all the museums had hilarious facial expressions. I spy Michael Jackson?

Kite Museum

Various Durian Desserts

Day 54 - National Museum and Kouang Si Waterfalls

The National Museum/Royal Palace Museum was closed yesterday when I visited because it was during lunch hours, so I headed there early in the morning to catch a visit before heading to one of the famous waterfalls on the outskirts of the city.

The Royal Palace was the main residence of King Sisavang Vong in the early 20th century before being converted to a museum. You could catch a glimpse of the living arrangements of the Royal Family, including the bedrooms of the King and Queen as well as the childrens' rooms. One of the rooms near the front of the palace was painted with various scenes of city life in Luang Prabang, each highlighted at different times of the day by the sunlight shining through the windows. I wish I could provide pictures, but no cameras were allowed inside the Palace.

At the back of the museum grounds was a photo exhibition called "The Floating Buddha" which housed a collection of photographs of novice monks at a retreat learning about the practice of meditation. The retreat was created because meditation was often neglected or less important and they were trying to revive it, or at least teach these monks how to do it. There was a quote used at the introduction to the exhibit of what of the Buddhist teachings:

Sabbe dhamma nalam abhinivesaya - nothing whatsoever should be clung to

I could see why such a saying is fundamental to successful meditation, because you really have to let go of everything to clear your mind and transform yourself into another state of consciousness. Is there compassion and connection if you don't cling onto anything though? What about love?

Afterwards, we took a minivan to the Kouang Si waterfalls, about 30 km from town. At the start of the trek up the waterfall was a bear enclosure with bears that were taken from the wild and kept safe from poachers. It's sad to think that we have to capture these animals and create an artificial habitat for them to live in, just to protect them.

The entire waterfall is multi-tiered, and it took a while to get to the top, but along the way, you could stop and take a dip in the cold waters. It was different than other waterfalls that I have seen because the falls were not too high but more like powerful streams, except for the main waterfall at the top. It started to really pour by the time we got to the top and we found ourselves trapped seeking shelter at the restaurant at the top, waiting for the opportunity to trek down when the rain stopped. That opportunity never came and we had to get back to the minivan by a certain time, so we ran down, getting soaked from the pouring rain.

Back at the city center, Agoes left for Thailand, and I decided to stay for a couple more days. I visited the local Red Cross because someone recommended their massages and herbal sauna room. The sauna room was nowhere as hot as the sauna in Vientiene, but was nice nonetheless. I decided near the end of the night to book an Elephant Mahout Training for 2 days and 1 night starting tomorrow. Can't wait to see the elephants tomorrow!

Kouang Si Waterfall

Wat Ho Pha Bang

Photo Exhibit at the National Museum

Wat Ho Pha Bang

Bear Enclosure

Kouang Si Waterfall

Day 48 - Cycling Tour Around Vientiene

We would tour the capital city of Laos on our own time by renting bikes and following our Lonely Planet guides. The guide offered a 7km bicycle tour around the city's landmarks and we would get a chance to share the roads with the Laotians.

The traffic in the capital was not bad at all. Not at anytime in the day was there any serious traffic and it was relatively easy to make our way through the streets without feeling in danger. We searched the streets for some authentic Laotian food and found a small food stall that offered sticky rice and a melon dish to accompany the rice. I think it was authentic...

After brunch, we headed to the Presidential Palace, originally built for the French colonial governor before it was taken over by the Laotians. It was gated, so we went on to the next stop, which was the French Embassy and a Catholic Church...I swear, some of these stops recommended by the guidebook seem like filler recommendations...

The weather was unbearably hot (again in SE Asia), so we took a break and visited the Talat Khua Din - which was an open air market, hoping to cool off in the shade, but it was even hotter walking through the shaded stalls! Heading back out, we set out to see Patuxai, which is a gate/landmark/arc, also known as the Asian "Arc de Triomphe." It is dedicated to those who fought the battle to gain independence from France, and provides great aerial views of the entire city.

Continuing on the tour, we stopped by the U.S. embassy and That Dam, which is a giant stupa in the middle of a turnabout. Since we were already at the U.S. embassy, I decided to get additional visa pages here, hoping that it wouldn't take forever to get processed. Since no one was there, I got it done in 20 minutes! Since I was an American, we were led to an A/C'd room with comfortable seats to get all the processing done. In the room were pictures of Obama, Biden, and Clinton. Outside of the A/C'd room were the lines for foreigners, with fans and benches for them to sit on. We couldn't have provided the same amenities to non-Americans?

Afterwards, we headed to the Lao National Museum to learn a little more about the history of the country, much of which I don't really remember unfortunately...and I couldn't take pictures to remind myself... Before Dinner, we went to one of the temples, Wat In Paeng, which had really intricate and color pictures and doors to the temple.  At the end of the day, we went to a famous Herbal Sauna. It was the hottest sauna I had ever been in, and it was tough just trying to breathe inside, but my skin felt a lot cleaner after I sweated all the toxins and dirt off.

Taking in the nightlife, we met with our new CS friend, who took us to a couple of the popping clubs in Laos. We met some of his French friends who were in Laos for internships and schooling. The Laotians party hard with their BeerLao and Johnny Walker Black Label Whiskey until 4am in the morning...

Patuxai

Brunch - Some sort of Melon dish

Presidential Palace

What Lonely Planet calls the "towering Catholic Church"

City Views on the Top of the Patuxai

That Dam

Wat In Paeng

Inside Wat In Paeng

The Laotian Beer of Choice

Marina Club

After Hours Hotel Club